I really wanted to write something happy and joyful to close out 2018. Sure, there have been some ups and downs this year but December is the holiday season, which is the proverbial season to spread good cheer and love towards your fellow man. So, weeks ago, I wanted to do this by talking about the finals of this year’s Capcom Cup, the culmination of a full year of Street Fighter V tournaments.

It was supposed to be a year of hype and, despite the Top 8 getting off to a rocky start thanks to a 2-hour or something delay and the premature reveal of Season 4’s newest character Kage, it was a good show. I may not be a huge fan of Rashid but I will give congratulations to Gachikun for winning the 2018 Capcom Cup.

But what I and many fans were anticipating were some major announcements for next year’s Season 4 update. What characters would be coming down the pipeline in 2019? Will there be other additional modes or a new story campaign? We didn’t get any of that but what Capcom did announce was troubling and, in all honesty, really stingy to their fans. Instead of acting like Santa Claus and giving us something to look forward to in 2019, Capcom instead went the Ebeneezer Scrooge route and are going to bleed their fans dry in the future.

Even before the actual Capcom Cup Top 32 started, Capcom was already in full gear with its Scrooge-iness. At around December 6, Capcom did the Street Fighter V “Sponsored Content” system which allowed characters to be embossed by ads, most of the time to horrendous and laughably terrible results. If you have the “Sponsored Content” option active, Guile will have removed his iconic American flag tattoo from his shoulder only to replace it with a Capcom Pro Tour logo. Essentially, this means Guile sold out his country to the Capcom Pro Tour!

Why would any person want to do this to their main character? Why, for Fight Money, of course! If you do decide to shill out your character’s dignity,
you’ll get some Fight Money in return for each Ranked or Casual online match you participate in. It would be a good deal but, like I said, it makes you look like a total sellout. But what’s even worse is that Capcom only made it so you get 4 Fight Money!

Oh, you can earn more but you gotta buy the Capcom Pro Tour stages which you can activate ads for as well as grit your teeth through the loading screen ads as well. Even after doing this, you’ll only get 12 Fight Money per match! Considering that the newest character, Kage, costs 100,000 Fight Money, that means you have to endure a minimum of 8,334 online matches to earn enough virtual cash to get him!

Speaking of Kage, like I said earlier, his release was launched right smack dab in the middle of the Capcom Cup Top 8. This was probably due to the aforementioned 2-hour delay but it was definitely a mishap as a lot of the hype that should’ve surrounded him during his official reveal and that he was already available was spoiled. This isn’t a total loss as he does seem like a good addition to the Street Fighter V roster. I know he’s basically Evil Ryu but that’s not a bad thing as he has his own things going for him.

My problem isn’t with Kage nor his spoiler-licious reveal. My issue comes with how much you have to pay to get him. I already said that you can cash out 100,000 Fight Money to play him for free. The problem is Capcom has always been incredibly ungenerous with giving away Fight Money. I know there are weekly challenges you can accomplish but the amount you can earn is a mere pittance compared to all of the other means Capcom entices you to spend it all. Heck, in order to earn some of the costumes, you have to gamble a good chunk of it via the Fighting Chance part of the store!

Anyway, that’s a whole other post altogether. My point is 100,000 Fight Money is hard to come by because Capcom has always been ungenerous with giving out their virtual cash. If you want to get Kage for free, I sure hope you’ve been saving up that Fight Money just for this occasion!

You can buy Kage using real money but you’re going to have to shell out a rather hefty $5.99 to buy him! Now, Capcom has yet to reveal the upcoming characters for Season 4 but, if were going by the previous Seasons, we’re going to have around 6 characters this time around. So, if this is true for this season as well, fans will have to pay around $30 for all Season 4 characters which is around the price for the previous Season Passes. Seems fair, right?

But is that going to be the case? I’m asking this because, while previous seasons of Street Fighter V had Season Passes, Capcom didn’t announce one for Season 4.

That’s a little suspicious in my book and this does lead me to speculate that there may less than 6 new fighters joining this time around. In fact, I don’t think even the people working at Capcom themselves are sure how many characters are going to be made for this season! But this late in Street Fighter V’s life cycle, I don’t see them devoting that many resources to keep the game chugging along. I may love it and still play Street Fighter V but I know there are some that have moved on. Capcom must have achieved maximum saturation with the game’s audience so it’s just poor business to keep on pumping out content for it that frequently.

But that’s just for the casual audiences. What about the loyal and die-hard fanbase? Well, we’re going to be thrown a few scraps here and there. Maybe a character or two this season or maybe a few news stages and costumes (that we’ll have to pay for, of course). But for the most part, Capcom will probably keep content slow and sporadic in Season 4.

If I seem really grim about Street Fighter V’s future, that’s because that’s the way I see things progressing for Season 4. Capcom is poised and read to Scrooge it up for Street Fighter V’s entire Season 4. Hopefully the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future can change their minds.

How do you see Street Fighter V’s Season 4 shaping up? Let me know in the comments section below!