Hiya!

It’s a tale as old as time. Well, as long as Street Fighter 6 had been out, anyways. As the months have passed, more and more fans have been complaining to Capcom with the lack of new DLC for the game. Well, that’s not exactly true as well. This is because Capcom has consistently been adding stuff to Street Fighter 6 on a monthly basis. The problem is the DLC they’ve been pumping out aren’t things like new costumes and cosmetic changes for the regular roster, which is what you would expect.

What they’ve been developing, much to the chagrin of the hardcore Street Fighter fanbase, is for the “other” modes, such as new outfits for the avatars, chat emotes and whatnot. In other words, the stuff you wouldn’t see in your typical one-on-one online match and the Fighting Ground but for the World Tour and Battle Hub modes.

While I do understand the hardcore base’s lamentation of the lack of costumes and DLC they would love, I guess I have to sort of defend Capcom’s decision to focus more on the Avatar stuff again. Instead of talking about development time for the costumes and stuff like that, I am going to talk about why it’s also important to have the kind of DLC Capcom has been putting out consistently for Street Fighter 6.

Street Fighter 6 is a great game. There’s no doubt about that. However, that’s more of a side effect of Capcom trying to make a game that sells well and make money. They learned their lesson from Street Fighter 5 wherein they put out a half-hearted game only targeting the hardcore audience. This meant no arcade ladder and no single player content. This basically alienated probably one of the more important but least talked about audience: the casual fighting game fan.

The casual fighting game fan isn’t really all that interested in going online and getting all their characters up to Master Rank. They don’t want to join tournaments and try to win Capcom Cup or anything like that. They just want to play Street Fighter 6 and have a good time. Guess what? Capcom realized this and they made modes where you can just chill out and have fun playing some Street Fighter 6. Those modes are, you guessed it, World Tour and Battle Hub.

I know a lot of the hardcore base have not touched World Tour mode as this isn’t the “core” Street Fighter 6 game. This isn’t a competitive scene. Rather, World Tour mode is just your character, your Avatar, running around the world of Street Fighter and getting into random fights and learning moves for the Street Fighter 6 roster. Honestly, it’s a great place to learn how to play fighting games, especially if you’re new to fighting games in general as it does try to teach you fundamentals in a safe but engaging environment.

It may be shocking to those who think World Tour is silly but, if you do stroll through the Battle Hub, you will notice a lot of Avatars have reached Level 100 and you can only do that by playing through World Tour extensively for more than just a couple of days. What you’ll also notice about these Level 100 Avatars is they’re usually decked out with some crazy gear. A lot of them were earned through playing World Tour but there’s also a good number of them who are wearing all of the monthly DLC made for Avatars. So, yeah. There is an audience for this.

One thing Capcom wants casual players to do is to play Street Fighter 6 as often as possible. So, they would have Daily, Weekly and Monthly challenges for them to meet. These tasks aren’t all that arduous as they would be things like playing a single match in the Battle Hub or playing a total of 3 Extreme Battle matches there. The Rewards for accomplishing these tasks are miniscule as they usually just give Kudos and the rare package of Drive Tickets.

Once a month, however, Capcom will put out the Fighting Pass, which is what the hardcore audience is complaining about as this isn’t content made for the “main” game. What they’re overlooking is these Fighting Pass bundles helps Street Fighter 6 remain relevant as it’s a big part of what keeps the casual player coming back. They want to earn those little cosmetic changes for their Avatar and, maybe once in a while, they’ll actually throw Capcom a few bucks when they see an outfit they really like. This is important to Capcom as, as long as players are giving them money consistently, the more they’ll be inclined to keep supporting the game.

You could say Capcom could make a whole lot more money by pumping out costumes for Street Fighter 6’s actual roster and not for the Avatars. They could but there would be a trade-off eventually as it does look like development team put a lot of work into the costumes!

You might try to compare the official costumes to some of the ones modders are making but they’re not really the same as you expect a lot more from the ones Capcom actually make. With what modders put together, you’d be okay with some jank like clothes clipping through body parts or textures which don’t look so good. If you see that kind of jank with official outfits, you can be sure they’ll be a lot of outrage with the shoddy work! You want high quality drip for the main characters so that’s what Capcom is doing. They’re taking the time to make sure they look fine!

However, when it comes to putting stuff onto an Avatar, you don’t really mind all that much if there are some problems with them. That’s because you don’t expect them to be super good. You don’t expect fancy things like light reflections of glasses or to be able to see dynamic cloth movement on the sleeves of a shirt. So, they don’t. They just look fine and, for the casual audience, that’s alright with them and they’re more than okay to take the time to grind out enough Drive Tickets to earn them or even pay real money to get their avatar in that sweet outfit. That’s money for Capcom and, as I said, that’s what they do care about.

While I do want a little more content for the hardcore audience as I would love to see more costumes for Street Fighter 6’s roster, I don’t really think we should be hating on what Capcom has been putting out. Sure, it’s for the casual crowd but aren’t they also a part of the fighting game community? Aren’t they the ones who went out and bought Street Fighter 6 and made it a money maker for Capcom in the first place? Aren’t they the ones dropping the cash to keep Capcom in the green so you don’t have to pay for anything while you enjoy the game? So, I say let them have their fun.

Besides you know when Capcom finally reveals the new costumes… and how much they cost, we’ll all be bitching about how expensive they are!

I won’t be defending that!

On a totally unrelated note, even though I’m not in the United States, I am aware of the devastation affecting California. So, if you’ve been saving some cash for the new costumes Capcom hasn’t put out yet, you may want to use that money to help those affected out. You can visit the California Fire Foundation donation page to help out. This isn’t a sponsored post but I just want to let you know that, if you want to help out with a donation to them, you can.

Byee!

What is your stance on Capcom’s continuing plan for Battle Passes and the lack of costumes for Street Fighter 6’s roster? Let me know in the comments section below!