I'm kind of surprised there's not a thread about this yet here. From Capcom's recent presentation on the game:

Highlights:

- There will only be one version of Street Fighter V that fans will ever need to own. They'll no longer be splitting the community with updates.

- All new characters released as DLC will be purchasable with an in-game currency called "fight money," which can be earned though playing the game.

- For those who want new content immediately--along with access to what I'm sure will be hundreds of cosmetic DLC options--a separate, more powerful currency called "Zenny" will be available and purchasable with real money. Players only need to purchase or earn the content that interests them.

- The game will launch with 16 fighters, 4 of which are brand new to the series. These characters will be available to everyone. Only DLC characters will need to be unlocked with in-game currency.

So it seems Street Fighter is going free to play, but only with it's DLC, which will help keep the community together. I have to say, I think this is for the best, but it will be interesting to see how much gameplay will be required to earn each new character.

While I hope it's not too excessive, this will still be a new option that wasn't available in Street Fighter IV.

Your thoughts?

Everything about this sounds fucking awesome. My only worry is that the amount of fight money required to unlock a character, but they seem to have their heads on straight so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the dedicated fans who play hours on end everyday are essentially guaranteed to get all of the content for free.

I was kinda sorta not really that excited before just because I'm not a huge Street Fighter fan, but now I'm fucking pumped. I don't even Capcom though. They're gonna get nonstop character requests for the next few years, but at least they have an easier way to add them.

Hmm that actually sounds pretty ok to me. I mean it may end up being like an 8 hour investment to earn enough to unlock a character but at least the option is there.

My fight moneyyyyyyy

@citizencoffeecake: 8 hours is a huge undershot, probably 25-100+ Especially considering people will have played a lot of the game already.

I think because of parries Ryu is probably the most Technical character in the game right now; he might be super mcbalance middle of the chart in theory but that one mechanic makes him nigh impossible to master.

Sounds like a great deal to me. Unfortunately doesn't help that I will need to drop lots of money for a PS4 arcade stick.

Sound's like a cool idea, you want new stuff?. Keep playing...

Capcom games have always been about the Zenny man

Seriously though, a lot of this sounds very promising. I really like the idea of a unified community

This would be great if I didn't totally suck

@bradbrains: Unless Capcom is inordinately stupid about it I don't think skill level will impact this much.

I suspect you'll get more fight money for winning than losing so it will determine how fast you can buy new characters most likely, but unlike League you won't be reliant on 4 other people so that'll hopefully keep the raging down. Also hopeful that the rewards for losing are still good enough to minimize rage quitting.

If it's not some insanely high amount this is amazing. Capcom has actually been impressing me for once!

Fantastic! Hopefully they don't go back on it.

I can get behind this. This should be the new standard.

It will probably be like how you unlock champions in League of Legends. Which is really cool, unless they make it take forever, like Heroes of the Storm where you have to play an insane amount to get enough points.

Either way, I think 16 characters are way too few as it is to launch with at 60 dollars, despite this.

This is probably the best option they could have gone through. Gives the players who spend a lot of time in the game an incentive to continue spending the time.

@westernwizard: In Japan I believe you get 100 for winning and 50 for losing in arcades, which is fine, problem arises if it's 100 to 5 or something.

Sixteen fighters seem totally fine to me. If you look at the initial release (not updates ala super/ultra/etc.) of previous entries in the franchise, I'm pretty sure only SFIV has initially launched with more (25). I'd say that a smaller, diverse, and well balanced initial offering is probably preferable to having some extremely similar or poorly balanced characters. Also, steadily releasing new characters will help keep things fresh rather than having some characters get lost in the shuffle and never given any attention.

@chaser324: Well they're going to have to release like 5 shotos in a row at some point.

I hope we went to the same place

Doesn't seem too bad. As long as you don't need to spend days grinding just to afford one character, I'm fine with the microtransactions.

Wow! That actually sounds AMAZING! I love the idea! Though the one thing that worries me is how the fight money works. If its standard style IE you get fight money for playing, and a least a minimum amount even if you lose then great! If you dont get a minimum and lose points for each loss like they do with the SF4 ranking system that could suck. I tried playing some USF4 on PC, and dear god...Being out of practice prob didnt help, but 80% of the people still playing are really good. I would lose prob 70% of my fights. I would hope SF5 pulls in a crowd and that wouldnt be the case with more mid tier players getting into the game again, but watching my fight money drop to zero over and over would really ruin the system for me.

If i can earn everything in game then that's cool, if it's only a few things then that still sucks.

I'm saving my praise until I see how it's implemented. This is exactly the sort of thing that people shit themselves over when it's announced, then they see they have to grind and grind and grind to even get anything of worth. Or they find out they have to buy costumes and then get pissed that they can't get them in game.

This is basically just the same kind of system you would find in League of Legends or something. Shouldn't take long at all.

The bigger problem is that people constantly bitched about Capcom putting out on-disc DLC before, but now that they are giving you a "free" way to unlock it (despite having to still pay $60 for the game), everything is hunky-dory? It's such an ass-backwards way of thinking IMO.

Nonetheless, at least you can get the DLC without having to spend extra money? Yay?

I believe they've confirmed that the only characters that will need to be purchased are those who are created as post-release DLC. There's no on-disc DLC this time.

It might be like PES 2015 where you're maximising XP bonus conditions to make the most of things but you've got to think the guys that are into Street Fighter will rack the numbers up no problem. The incentive to buy might come from guys wanting to practice with the full roster from the get-go.

Well at that point they're more like unlockable characters, rather than fuck you pay me characters.

I really wonder how this "free to play after purchase model" will affect the support, and content of the game. If the money keeps coming in, it could be really amazing. Its felt like capcom shoved PS/PC versions out the door without proper net code, and then took forever to get it fixed...Did they ever fix it properly? I personally dont pay for free to play content, least very little, but I know they can be cash cows. It will be interesting to see how involved this keeps them in development after the game launches. Will also be interesting to see how many new character they shove out the door, and under what kinda of time frame. Hopefully they will be quality characters, and not here is a new one cash grab.

Either way I have to say they really seem to be doing everything right. I love Street Fighter, but I didnt expect SF5 to grab me the way it has! Im a little to optimistic on how this will all pan out! Dont screw it up guys!

Calling the in-game currency "fight money" is the greatest thing Capcom has done in the last 5 years.

Of course it'll take days. Hell, it'll probably take, e.g. if they do monthly character releases, at least half a month to earn enough fight money to buy the next month's character. Otherwise, how will anybody ever be in a situation where they have to think about spending money on new content?

Hm, it seems like they really want to go f2p, but want to quell dissent their most vocal fans. Giving them all the DLC free of charge for just spending thousands of hours playing (which they'd do anyway, unless the game sucks) seems smart.

At the panel someone asked about betting Fight Money on matches and Matt Dahlgren gave a PR answer that sounded like a maybe. I asked about lab monsters earning Fight Money and Mike Evans said no literally putting me in a "My Fight Money!!!" situation.

Because people love cosmetic DLC too, like fuck I'm not even good at SFIV but I love it so much I bought every costume DLC pack twice.

I'm very optimistic about this game. I like what I hear and read as time passes.

My immediate reaction is to think that they are going to increase the cost of characters dramatically, then argue it's fine because you can get them for free by playing. Of course it will probably also take tens of hours of game time to get a character, so only the most dedicated players will be able to get them that way and everyone else will end up paying more if they want the characters. Basically, there has to be some hook where this can potentially make them more money than just selling the characters.