So the Christmas stuff we got for TJ Orchid and Saberwulf we pretty damn awesome. On one of those Q&A things that they did, i asked if we would be getting more of that down the line and my question was chosen and given an answer saying that yes that was planned. My question is where did it go! I’d kill for some cool halloween stuff, like a pumpkin headed spinal.
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got dropped along with everything else.
I’m sure they could sell the existing Christmas accessories to new players for $3.99 and make a killing. But they just don’t seem interested in pursuing cosmetics as a source of revenue for KI.
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One of the biggest mistakes this game has made.
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i agree totally since we are many peoples ready to spend some money to personalize fully ours characters.
Which is odd because it seemed like they were ramping it up, doing Thunder’s new costume and all the color packs… but they just kind of gave up and started handing them all out for free then the whole thing fizzled off. :\
Yeah, I have a theory about that. As always, it’s complete and utter speculation so don’t put any undue weight in it.
If you look at the color packs and especially at the Ultimates it’s clear that at leas to some folks involved in development these were intended to be microtransaction DLC. There’s really no reason to make the Ultimates an optional download otherwise - just build them into the next update. This is the only way the anecdote about Ken Lobb walking into a meeting and saying “Ultimates were free in the original, so they should be free in this game too,” makes any sense. It was at least up for discussion.
Okay, so now you have the most hyped bit of DLC - which has clearly taken the most effort - and it’s a freebie. We all cheered at this, but if the model is to release paid DLC and use those funds to support development of future paid DLC then you have just killed your model. They released the gold skins and charged for them but probably they didn’t bring in much revenue - certainly not enough to support more DLC development. So that’s the end of the story. If any new content is desired it means an investment if money from MS and they are looking at it saying “the existing DLC isn’t generating any revenue, why would we invest in more DLC?” Which is fair. So at that point why not just give it all away to drive more sales if thecore game. And that’s probably fair too.
The kicker though is that, like most things in life, if you go in half assed you aren’t going to get much return. If MS had come in swinging with lots of high quality DLC outfits and skins from the get go they might have been able to build a market for it. Lots of us paid an extra $20 each season to get the retro costumes. Just to support future development. I’m not looking at the number so maybe I’m wrong. But it seems like it could have gone a different direction.
I think your synopsis is probably pretty close to right, except they had opportunities to do DLC way before Ultimates were on the table. They should have been looking into a full DLC catalog of colors, costumes, and announcers back at the start of Season 2, when they chose to do more development past the first season. And like you say, it seems they almost tried to (with holiday DLC and stuff), and then they just abandoned the model entirely. I think this is even more clear with the KI Gold feature, which exists but gives you nothing meaningful to use it on. I still have 18,000 KI gold sitting in my account from when I bought S3 premium, and I don’t play shadow lords and don’t want those ugly mimic/shadow skins.
We’ll never really know the reason why, but I don’t think any explanation they could give would be good enough for me. If there are technical hurdles, you spend what’s needed to overcome them, because DLC will make it all back. If it’s an insistence that DLC doesn’t sell well or didn’t fit the KI model, I would be flabbergasted because there is no data anywhere that suggests anything close to this (every single studio, whether they make fighting games or not, is fully embracing premium DLC). In fact, KI had a really awesome opportunity to release great DLC at a good price point and stand out even more from the SFs and Marvels that are gouging for it. Fighting game characters have zillions of possible costumes, taken from pop culture or inspired by other games, and KI’s unique announcer means they had a super unique opportunity to bring in legacy FG voices, or voices from other games, or hell, even just more voices from their OWN game, like Kan-Ra. The one voice they did pick (Aria), they implemented in a way that nobody enjoys listening to. I wonder if the devs know that Guilty Gear has an option to make any playable character be the announcer for the game. People love that stuff.
The DLC they did end up giving us (gold skins) was just so incredibly underwhelming and garish, compared to actual new designs they could have made (a Ryu-like gi for Jago is such an obvious cash cow, for example, that it’s insulting it doesn’t exist), that if they’re looking at DLC sales and saying “see, nobody wants DLC” then someone needs to sit the decision makers down and have a nice talk with them.
The extra sad part is that they DID release some really cool colors via Ultimate Source exclusives. Pretty much all those colors are super cool and everybody would love to have a set of those for each character. But they decided to tie it to a promotion and merchandise, instead of seeing the hugely positive response to it and making more like it that could be bought for $1 in store. It’s just a huge example of MS not understanding what the customers want, and what every other studio is doing.
Ditto to this. I have pretty much forgotten about KI gold, that’s how useless it is. It’s like having a horde of pre Euro French francs. It used to be money and now it’s just paper.
The only thing keeping me from being more assertive about it is that I hate it when people who don’t know anything tell me how to do my job better. So I don’t want to be that guy. But if there’s a good explanation for why premium costumes are not piling up for KI then I haven’t seen it.
I speculated that the ultimates were a separate download to instill this feeling of gratitude towards the game, as if they were giving out free DLC because you had to download it. As if it was some mind-game because people LOVE the word “free” when its plastered on something cool.
I honestly was shocked though that they started backpedaling and handing out all of the skin packs and post-season characters for free. It started with the Def. edition getting everything retroactively, then the supreme and now out of the blue I have them all unlocked as a seasonal buyer from launch day.
Its almost like they were planning on selling tons of DLC and upping production then they just gave up on it and said “■■■■■ it” and gave it all away for nothing. Which makes me sad, I was more than willing to buy 20+ extra costumes, accessory packs, stage packs, music packs, etc. It doesn’t make sense, we’re a ravenous group of fanboys and girls, we buy everything they produce, why give up after finally giving us what we wanted all along? More DLC…
I think what you suggested seems pretty likely to me. That is, they made holiday costumes (then gave them away for free), then made some pretty weaksauce DLC in other forms, and then concluded “oh I guess nobody likes DLC/wants to pay for it, I guess we shouldn’t bother.” Instead, if they made a steady stream of good content and charged a reasonable price for it, they’d be killing it. And it’s not at all hard to know what “good content” is, because myself and dozens of other people have been suggesting stuff on these forums for years, and you can look at what other studios are doing (ahem costumes that take inspiration from pop culture/other entertainment) and immediately have 100 awesome ideas.
I have no inside information of course, this is all just theory. But we have no choice but to theorize because they haven’t been upfront with information on this.
All I know is that people will pay $50 on keys to open loot crates in Rocket League for a chance at an item that is pink instead of red. It’s unbelievable, and if KI charged money for colors and costumes, and had a better system in place for equipping accessories of multiple colors, people would eat that ■■■■ up.
Honestly, I think the bar for “good” DLC is pretty low. Anything as good or better than Orchid’s holiday outfit I think people would buy for $1 or $1.50.
I think the other thing that has hurt them is the “outsourced” model for the game’s development. There isn’t an artist at a studio who can devote a small percentage of his time to work on a DLC outfit. They have to write up terms and then get someone up to speed on what they want and the performance measures and deliverables etc. That raises the hurdle for introducing new content.
Anyway, for context, I consider myself somewhat “immune” to the allure of cosmetic DLC. I don’t buy loot boxes in any game, and I haven’t bought any costumes or colors for any other fighting game - except some of the NRS “buy this to support our tournaments” skins. But I own every cosmetic DLC for KI through the end of season 3. I didn’t pay for all the gold skins because the value wasn’t there and the quality isn’t stellar. I did buy the terror skins pack which I think is skirting the edge of acceptable in terms of quality for price - but if someone like me who never buys this stuff is willing to do it then surely lots of other people would have been. When it became clear that buying these was not going to have any impact on future DLC development I got tired of supporting something that didn’t seem to want to be supported. They started parceling the content out for free to everyone and that was that.
Yeah it’s a shame really, i’ve paid full price for every single thing they’ve put out, i even paid for eagle before they gave him to me for free just so that i could give them more money. I even own a physical copy of the definitive edition that’s never even been opened. So the money is here they just need to give me something to blow it on as i also own all of the toys.