Free To Play is becoming a more and more popular business model, it was only a matter of time until console games got into game. Free To Play in general has gone through a variety of stages as developers and publishers try to maximize profit while still making what people would consider “a video game”.

The Fighting Game genre appears to have good parallels to the MOBA genre making the Free To Play model actually seem logical. You could go the League of Legends or DOTA2 model easily. Give some fighters away for free and charge say $5 for fighters and of course charge for a variety of costumes.

Fighting Game developers have already gotten in on the F2P action. Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate from Team Ninja recently released a F2P edition, subtitled Core Fighters, in Japan (coming to North America September 3). Core Fighters comes with four playable characters: Ryu Hayabusa, Hayate, Kasumi, and Ayane, with tutorial,training,arcade and multiplayer free. Additional characters and the Story Mode cost $4 and $15 respectively. Sounds good but this is North America so Core Fighters will have to wait. A new Killer Instinct game was annouced on Monday at the Microsoft press conference at E3. The new KI will be Free To Play on Xbox One, with Jago being the lone free character with all modes unlocked.

A F2P fighter you can play now is Tekken Revolution exclusively on Playstation 3. It is 2 gigs. I have always been more of a 2D fighter but from what I’ve played and from some friends, Tekken Revolution appears to be Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (TTT2) just without the Tag part, which makes sense. The core of this game seems interesting but the Free To Play aspects of it are just getting in the way.

Revolutions starts with 8 characters for free: Kazuya, Asuka, Paul, Law, Lars, Jack-6, King and Lili. Press releases have said you will be able to unlock more characters via Gift Points. I unlocked Alisa Bosconovitch after play like 10 matches. There are other characters locked away in the game right now, in Arcade you have the possibility of facing off with Bryan, Leo, Steve, Heihachi and Ogre as the end boss. These characters will most likely be unlocked over time but after Alisa was unlocked that was the last of the Gift Point Box in Character Select. It is also unknown at this time how much characters will cost to buy or if you will even have to pay real world cash for additional characters.

Each character comes with 4 Critical Arts and one Special Art. Critical Arts give players a chance to land increased damage on critical hits. Special Art moves have invincibility properties. You will be able to see these special moves by the blur and particle effect accompany them. Critical Arts appear to be reddish and Special is blueish.

There is a meta layer over all of this due to level progression. Pick your favorite fighter and stick with it. As you play with him/her you will level up and be able to spend skill points in one of three slots.

• Power - Increase the damage done by your character. I’ve leveled this up to about 20 now and haven’t noticed anything major in damage output. Maybe like 2-5 more points which is a lot with how fast Tekken rounds can go.

• Endurance - More Health. I have touched this but played against people with plenty of points in this area and it’s not that much of a difference again. Going by eye it seems like you can take one more Jab. Nothing game breaking at this point.

• Vigor - Increased critical hit chance or chance to enter rage state. Effect is determined by the difference between you and your opponent.

This leveling system is akin to League of Legend and appears to be an interesting way to create character loyalty.

Like most F2P games there are multiple layers of abstraction. Such as Namco Bandai putting in 4 types of currency!

• Arcade Coins (Up to 2) - Used to play Arcade Mode. 1 Arcade Coin is replenished every 60 minutes.

• Battle Coins (Up to 5) - Used to play Ranked or Player Match Multiplayer games. 1 Battle Coin is replenished every 30 minutes

• Premium Tickets (Up to 999) - Used to play any mode in game. Use to play Arcade Battle or Multiplayer to receive more rewards. If you use it for multiplayer and win a match you will get another ticket. If you use it and lose you get more exp for you character.

• Premium Coins (Up to 999) - Used the same as P. Tickets except you can buy these from the PS Store. 4 coins = ¢.99 10 coins = $1.99 30 coins = $4.99

Yea, that just is needlessly complicated. League of Legends,DOTA2, Tribes and other F2P PC titles don’t put restrictions on how many times you can actually play a game without waiting or buy back in. This is a strategy taken from mobile games, where it makes sense to have the time mechanic. The game even starts with an information screen straight out of Puzzel&Dragons, consecutive daily login bonus included. It makes zero sense to have these time lockouts on a console. Tekken Revolution becomes like a classic arcade game where it’s ¢25 a pop to play a match.

The Battle Coin restriction makes having two types of multiplayer supfurlous. In both cases you need a coin or ticket to play a single match. In single ranked matches that isn’t to bad. In Player lobbies the currency makes less sense. There are no free training areas with this game and free multiplayer matches would of elevated that problem.

Mobile inspired currency options and the lack of a Training Mode has me ready to not play the game any more. At least not in a serious manner. This game could've been a starting point in the Tekken franchise with tons of new players trying things out and getting hooked. With the arcade-esque F2P options the pre existing and well played Tekken players will be able to stay on and acquire Premium Tickets at an easier and faster rate than the noobs Who will either have to wait hours to get coins or buy back in with no real way of getting better beyond fighting in a meat grinder.

@mrmazz: Hey, great blog post. After playing for a while, I'm not really sure what they were thinking with this F2P model – it just doesn't seem like a great business decision. It really is set up just like an arcade – keep winning and you get to keep playing for free, lol. The game is more inviting for newcomers but also punishes their wallet at the same time by making them pay if they keep losing. If their main goal is to grow the userbase this seems like a terrible method.

I like the potential of a F2P model for fighters, but this system probably isn't the way forward.

Its weird man like its a fun game at its core but I dunno. I'll stick with it for awhile and see whats up. Don't know if this will be something I invest in though.

The lack of a training mode really confuses me. As someone who hasn't really played much Tekken going into this game, I just sort of picked a character more or less at random.

I feel there needs to be either a training mode, or the arcade mode should be unlimited, if they wanted to encourage online play, just make it so you don't get any xp from arcade mode.

So far, I agree, it's a lot like an arcade setup, except online. Which is cool in some respects. The timed restrictions on Arcade Battle make no sense, considering that the arcade battles offer a vastly inferior payout over versus matchups, but other than that, I can totally see it as one of those free games you might jump into for half an hour or so, get a few fights in, and that's it. I never play beat-em-ups in huge timeblocks anyway, so I guess the time restrictions (and dare I say Facebookification) don't really affect me because I'll not find myself playing the game for hours at a time anyway.

It's free, and I intend on not sinking any real-world money into it, so I can live with playing my block untill I run out of credits, then moving onto another game while my credits restock.