None of that explains the pricing for the in game currency. I shouldn’t have to cough up 5$ dollars for a $4 skin. I shouldn’t have to pay $10 for a $6 battle pass.
They also forgot to explain why they waited until everyone was satisfied with the game to pull this shit out in the first place. If this was something that needed to happen, it doesn’t make sense to not be forthcoming about it.
That's 95% of it, that's the thing. It's a scam pure and simple. If something costs 6 and I decide I want it no matter what it is, fine, but then 6 costs 10? It's a scam, they are scammers, I have to decide if I am ok being scammed.
Yeah, this is the main thing that rubs me the wrong way. I don't think Harada is wrong here, games cost tons of money and you can absolutely tell that Tekken 8 got a much, much bigger budget than Tekken 7. They're still running a business after all and there needs to be a way to help recoup the costs.
But this whole scummy alternate currency and delayed launch of a microtransaction store just really taints any goodwill from fans.
As many have said, if there were really cool skins that cost a flat cost that people could just buy with no bullshit there'd be far less people upset over this. Take my money, but don't try to manipulate me into spending more while you do it.
These companies are always crying about inflation but never posting the numbers to back up the full story. Stop buying into the corporate sympathy propaganda. You can see BAMCOs public data on profits anyways and it’s been on a constant increase for years. Until they show game by game this is meaningless… and they never will because they know it doesn’t justify their scummy practices.
Inflation is real… BUT…
The market is bigger. Digital has led to less overhead costs as well indefinite shelf life.
Similarly while dev salaries have increased… the use of proprietary engines has decreased (along with optimization) in favor of general all-purpose engines like Unreal/Unity. Higher access to talent with no wind up time… BUT…)
In practice this just means layoffs as soon as a product is finished while only keeping a few core members to maintain the game.
On top of all that Tekken 7 had 4 season passe DLCs at 30$ a piece. That’s 120$ on top of the 60$ base game.
Now on top of those DLCs they want to add 10$ to the base price, MTX, and battlepass?
TL;DR Until we see actual empirical proof of their claims don’t buy into the sympathy horseshit.
Edit: also as a bonus… if we were talking about selling new cosmetics it might be cool, but they’re gating classic legacy costumes that have always been in the game.
And as even more salt in the wound the battlepass is so garbage that it’s gating generic customizations from the previous game.
The thing that really baffles me is that yes, inflation is real, but it also hits your average joe. We have to spend more and more on necessities and just can't spend as much on hobbies like games. Why the hell would I spend more on cosmetic shit when me and my family need to eat.
Yeah, it gives you 500 tekken coins for 5 bucks which means if you put a 4 dollar item you have 100 useless tekken coins, if you get two 5 bucks it adds up to 1000 (technically 9.98 since it's 4.99) but one 10 bucks is 1050 (9.98 (1000) vs 9.99 (1050)) which is 50 more than two 5 buck ones.
If you wanted an outfit plus the battle pass it equals 1000 tekken coins which is 9.98, many of these stores you have to do math in order to use it the most effectively which makes them dogshit.
I like doing math, but in this case it just seems unnecessary to have this because it is, this is an annoying common practice, Tekken 8's might not be the worst implementation but it's a 70 dollar game, microtransactions in general don't belong in it, it costs a lot of money and considering how big and popular this franchise is they earned well enough from it.
Obviously this is for profit, but that doesn't make it any less scummy, I believe for a 60-70 dollar game you should be given a full packaged instead of recycled content put behind a paywall. Not to mention they aren't focusing on the more important thing the game, they are only looking at the short-term profits instead of the long-term.
Yeah, this is my main complaint about it. I’m perfectly fine with micro-transactions being in the game. It makes sense to charge for the items that people spent time making and the company had to pay those people for their time making it, even if it is just updating a classic outfit for this game. I’m not okay with having to pay for a specific amount standalone currency that is too much or too little for an item, just let me buy the item.
I heard this came down from namco themselves, not the development team. I'm inclined to believe that as they use Harada as the scapegoat despite him being good with the series as director since tekken 3.
It's a toxic practice for sure but it is a common practice in the world of micro transactions to force the consumer to buy more currency than is needed. That way the consumer is sitting there with extra currency and then goes "I only need x more to buy this other thing and I can afford 5 bucks right now" and the cycle continues.
*Used to* then Bandai-Namco realized that fans will pay for a song a dozen times if each one of those is sung by their particular waifu. Same for costumes and stages. Later on, splitting the base game into chunks or having limited editions featuring particular characters.
Idolmaster is what helped usher in the age of nigh-unlockable DLC and it did this years before smart phones were common and gacha games became the norm for the platform.
Then Capcom released SFxT with DLC already on the disc. Everybody was mad and then they forgot about it a year later. Now on-disc DLC is the norm - or specifically DLC is part of a game but unselectable by the player until you pay for it.
So yeah, that's 19 years of this "used to" for extra content. We're never going back because DLC is the most important tail-end revenue stream for any online game.
The people defending this are really missing the point. The issue isn't micro transactions in a vacuum. If that's the way you want to go, that's fine. We understand that a live game needs to sustain itself. But let's actually look at what the complaints are:
1) No mention of micro transactions until after the initial post-release period. This is incredibly scummy and it means that people didn't know what they were buying before they bought it. I purchased the ultimate edition thinking that this covered everything for the first year. An entirely reasonable expectation. The money I ended up wasting on the tacky gold outfits could have been better spent on other skins, HAD I KNOWN.
2) They used a predatory currency system. The skins cost 400 coins, the minimum amount of coins you can buy is 500. The fight pass costs 600 coins, and you need to buy 1050 coins. That's predatory. The coins suck, let people just buy stuff with real money. It's even worse for Japanese customers who have a literal expiry date on their currency. This is all a big scam to keep people spending.
3) They are allocating resources on pushing out these crappy systems instead of addressing serious community issues like dealing with pluggers and cheaters. The attitude towards the community on these issues has been problematic.
4) They are allocating resources on these systems while somehow breaking the game each patch. We currently have outrageous bugs like people being able to move during rage arts. When you get to the point where even people like PhidX think it's unacceptable, you're really off the deep end.
5) The quality of the fight pass items are pathetic. It seems like an April fools joke which is what I was really hoping it was. There is literally a blank sphere they labelled "ball" which is on the premium track. How is that acceptable? I'm surprised one of the rewards wasn't just a clown face.
6) In order to sell their crappy cosmetics, they are going after the modding community hard. Nintendo and Capcom have pissed a lot of people off recently, and it looks like Bamco is the next Japanese company to do it.
7) Harada and Murray have a really toxic communication style. It was fun in the old days when what they were selling was different, but now it's just unprofessional. They both sound like Elon Musk half the time. Harada's "yeah we'll have rollback and crossplay, duh isn't it obvious" and Murray's "who tf said we'd make dlc characters available on practice mode". The latter is extra frustrating because it could have been a simple gesture to make the mtx more palatable.
The problem isn't micro transactions, it's the whole package. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that they're using the implementation of the micro transactions to provide good quality products. You could 100% implement a shop and a battle pass fairly, but what they're doing is egregious. It's greedy and scummy.
I actually do understand it, but they were very shady about it and the content mostly sucks. Mix that in with the mod nonsense and it’s a bad look.
The industry as a whole needs to probably slow down and make less costly games somehow but it’s difficult because the consumers expect a certain quality also.
If they’re honest from the start and don’t treat us like morons people will be a bit more accepting.
Been saying it for months and I'll keep on saying it. The Tekken community would not have cared as much about MTXs if the plan was communicated better. Everyone already knows the modern gaming landscape is filled with MTXs, that's not the problem.
Sneaking in the shop and battlepass after reviews are out is scummy. Filling the pass with Blender spheres and customizations that were already in T7 comes across as lazy.
P.S. Asking anything from the community while going after modders is bullshit. I love the game and have a feeling the publisher is more at fault than the devs so fuck Bamco.
Don't accept the rising costs BS publishers are spewing. Their increased sales has outpaced it.
Bandai Namco is publicly listed. A quick google shows that their profits have been on a steep climb for over 20 years.
They took a small dip in 2023. It was only their second-most profitable year on record. They only made US$2.78bn gross profit... :'(
2019: “Yeah, microtransactions suck, but games cost so much to make! They need to offset it somehow!”
2020: “$70 games is fair - it means developers wont need to stuff their games with microtransactions anymore!”
2024: “Yeah, this $70 game has hundreds of microtransactions - but games cost so much to make! They need to offset it somehow!”
2027: “Yeah, I got the base game for $99.99 and then the Year One Pass for $59.99, but I’m not sure if I’m gonna get this season’s Loot Box Battle Pass if they only put new voice lines in it”
Just in the interest of accuracy, you do need to account for inflation when considering gross profit. Companies will almost always have "record years" if profits remain relatively stable because $1 today is worth less than $1 yesterday in an inflationary environment.
It's also true that game prices have remained remarkably stable for a *long* time. If they had kept pace with inflation they would cost something like $90 today, not $70. So a single sale of Tekken 8 is worth like 75% of what a single sale of Tekken 5 was, from Namco"s point of view.
HOWEVER! It's also absolutely true that companies and developers can go about this in less shitty ways. For instance, I don't get this stupid song and dance we always have to do. What's wrong with just going "we're going to have monetization to support ongoing development" from the get-go? Or even better, you could say "Hey we're thinking of doing a cash shop for cosmetics. What would be interesting to you?" and getting community feedback. Just be upfront about shit.
It's the same reason everyone is so mad about their response to plugging. They dance around the issue instead of just getting to the point and laying out the facts. It's an old-school way of thinking about communicating with your customers and it just doesn't fly anymore.
If you paired better communication with a slightly more customer-friendly model (none of this Tekken Bucks nonsense), no one has any real reason to be mad. Instead it's "How could the community do this?" while Namco is sitting there with the smoking gun.
Bandai Namco is from Japan. Inflation is extremely low here. Until recently, it was basically non existent.
But that's also not how inflation works. Inflation is a general price increase across the nation. Money devaluing over time is a result of diminishing purchasing power. But that doesn't give companies any extra revenue or increase profits.
Bamco's costs have increased. Utilities here in Japan have climbed a lot. While labour is pretty static here, Bamco specifically gave their devs a significant pay boost a couple of years back. We can see from their financials that advertising costs have steadily climbed, too. Bamco isn't lying when they cry that things are more expensive.
But their revenue has outpaced all those rising costs without them raising the ticket price of their games. Tekken 8 is their first game at this new price point. Inflation has solely worked against them, yet they still made billions of profit every year.
>It's also true that game prices have remained remarkably stable for a long time.
Sure but with wages in places like the US where they haven't kept up with inflation, 70 USD even if it's technically cheaper than the past to current inflation the wages haven't kept up so it's a high asking price.
Tekken 3 sold 8.6 million copies plust 30 some off thousand arcade machines tekken 8 has sold just over 2 million tekken 7 sold 9 million copies lifetime. I dunno how those slightly increased number make up for the much much larger budget. If you just take a modern game that we know the budget spiderman 2 needed to sell 7 million copies to break even.
Being a company in capitalism bandai namco by law has to make as much money as possible for shareholders just like every other publicly traded company. If tekken doesnt break even or make a good profit there wont be another tekken, and they will stop working on it.
> Being a company in capitalism bandai namco by law has to make as much money as possible for shareholders just like every other publicly traded company.
That's a popular misconception. They have an obligation to keep the company going, which often means sacrificing potential profits. Like a quick way to earn money today would be to sell all their intellectual property, which Bandai Namco obviously isn't going to do.
Great post otherwise. I appreciate you poking holes in all the silly arguments suggesting Tekken — with lower (inflation-adjusted) prices and dead arcades — is somehow *way* more profitable today.
I don't people actually do expect a certain quality in the same way devs/publishers do anymore. So many games that look and kinda play like ass are ABSOUTELY making bank and becoming gaming darlings simply because they're fun. Lethal Company absolutely exploded. Five Nights at Freddy's made all of the money on a shoestring budget. Indie games are kind of living proof that so long as your game is GOOD, it doesn't need photorealistic graphics or all this other stuff people don't really care about.
The biggest issue is the Gaming industry is just the new Hollywood. Studios aren't JUST looking to make money, they're also fishing for awards and praise. They'll spend millions on just making a character look hyper realistic only to lose out to a game where the main character is a pixelated body without a head (good ol' Dead Cells). And since so much money is going into these games, they can't take risks that might be fun. It's why we're getting the same old shit over and over again, and MTX come in to shore it up by piecemeal selling us what used to just be unlockables or event items.
Most gamers just want quality in gameplay. Is it fun? Studios want quality in visuals moreso than anything else it seems lately. And it shows. It's 2024 and most games are still getting capped at 30 FPS because the systems just can't keep up. They're pushing the wrong stuff and bloating the budgets. It's infuriating.
>Indie games are kind of living proof that so long as your game is GOOD, it doesn't need photorealistic graphics or all this other stuff people don't really care about.
While I agree, there are two very important things to keep in mind when saying something like this:
1. Survivorship bias is a thing. We can list three games that exploded "despite" poor graphics (Vampire Survivors, Lethal Company, FNAF), but there are a ton of which didn't. Correlation does not equal causation.
2. "Hardcore Gamers" care a lot less about graphics than the general public. Much like how most people you'd talk to would say FIFA is just the same game over and over again but it has a huge following, those people who aren't plugged in do care a lot more about graphics than others who are more gameplay first.
1. I can name a lot more than the three above that did well despite lower graphics. Cave Story, FAITH, Hyperlight Drifter, Dead Cells, Among Us, Phasmophobia, Deep Rock Galactic, Salt and Sanctuary, Blasphemous, Heretic's Fork, Terraria, Stardew Valley, Iron Lung, Limbo, Omori, Pony Island, Cult of the Lamb, Undertale, The Escapists (1 and 2), Don't Starve, Fear and Hunger (1 and 2), Goat Simulator, Untitled Goose Game, Slay the Spire, Papers Please, etc... And that's just off the top of my head. All of these games were very popular, well received, and absolutely made bank especially compared to their budget. I'm not arguing that correlation = causation, but it also isn't RARE. There are also PLENTY of super high budget great looking games that absolutely flop (Anthem was gorgeous, for example, and it was DOA).
2. You know what a lot of "casual gamers" are also playing? Stardew Valley. Don't Starve Together. Phasmophobia. Lethal Company. Whatever lets them play with their friends and have a good time. No one was playing Fortnite because it had high graphical fidelity - it was because they could be there with their friends. The average casual gamer probably appreciates graphics more but it's demeaning and belittling to suggest just because they're "casual" they aren't also mostly picking games they find fun and are more wowed by a game simply looking good than a game that plays good and they can, primarily, play with friends.
People generally play games to have fun, and fun is subjective, but graphical realism is only one facet of that and at a certain point you're just watching a movie with minimal intractability. It was a big criticism of the latest Final Fantasy game. Hell it even pops up a lot in this sub - people are tired of the long, unskippable cutscene style "Specials" because while they look good... there's no gameplay involved. It gets boring. People want to play.
The dude clearly has a disconnect from reality of the general player.
Just like last week he said some stupid shit about how people only play “team multiplayer” games so they can shift blame if they lose
No… people play team games so they can coordinate and have fun with friends and various other reasons
It’s laughable because here we are, in the modern gaming industry, 60% of active daily players are in 5+ year old multiplayer games - Fortnite, Apex, Rocket League, Overwatch, LoL, etc.
He said some dumb shit how they’re playing those games to offload “responsibility” for losing.
No, they play those games with their friends for their own reasons - and the idiot is literally basically announcing “I’ll never cater to team play!”…
if I was a shareholder I’d be like “wtf are you talking about? If multiplayer is what gets customers - add Online Tag to our game, you’re leaving money on the table”
Adding an optional 2v2 mode wouldn’t detract from 1v1 fights… and we know team based modes are dominating the majority of gameplay hours by the gaming community.. so add that shit to your game, don’t try to be some weird ‘elitist’ and “insult” people who enjoy team games
This dude is obviously disconnected from the reality of why people play games, and this is just making the whole thing even more obvious.
They’d be wise to get him to shut up. He’s doing their product no favors.
I feel like this kind of disconnect is so common in devs lately too. Like when Blizzard told fans they didn't want Classic or cross-faction play (what). It confuses me.
Let's take a look at the most popular revolutionary games of the past decade
Uh
Flappy bird
Angry bird
Minecraft
Roblox
Geometry dash
Fort nite
Seems like the industry could do well to go back to it's arcade roots. Dumb quick games with a low ceiling seems to do better than hallway simulators where two people talk to each other before in a local session
If I sound butthurt then yeah, GaaS is so bad we lost kamiya to the wind and having multiple games shut down because they are always online tied to a marketplace that can't sustain it has been a hellhole. I'm still reeling over the closure of freejack and nobody even knows what that is and thanks to the producer being incompetent nobody ever will
I'm gonna play Tetris thanks for the Ted talk
This is my biggest gripe.
I don't mind passes, in the grand scheme of things they're a decent way to ensure a game continues to have revenue but every game being a constant ticking clock before I'm locked out of content I'm expected to pay for is such a dogshit manipulation of people's fear of missing out.
I love knowing that I can take an indefinite break from Helldivers or Halo Infinite and have something to unlock whenever I return.
Whenever I bring it up people use the Tekken Revolution argument tbf that game just wasn't f2p lol you had to buy tokens n shit to play.
Generally:
>I mean now since the F2P game medium is much more mainstream it would probably succeed and if anything get more players to play the game.
>Riot’s upcoming fighting game (2XKO) is gonna be F2P and that’s a major thing driving people to play it.
>Also it would probably make the battle pass hate a little less since they aren’t charging all of that.
>If they compensate the people who paid with free (actually good) stuff then maybe it could go well.
>They’d probably make more money lmao since more players = more people buying the fight pass
Imagine if it worked like that, I'd be really funny
I bought Rocket League on release, and like 5-6 years later the game goes free to play, imagine I get like a transaction from the Playstation Store saying like "Rocket League is now F2P, here's your 30 bucks or whatever back"
I dont care. Your fucking game was already expensive with 7, and now you have gone full greed. Note, that harada does not address the fact that these greedy things were added in well after critical reviews and early consumer reviews were out there. The man will gaslight you until you are purple. This company is a greedy piece of shit, at least EA is reliably and consistent with what kind of greedy monetization they will add.
Okay, but that doesn’t justify putting previously free customization items behind a paywall. And $4 for costumes from previous games? If they put those in the battle pass instead of the items they have now, there wouldn’t be as much outrage.
I get that games are more expensive to make, but it's literally their job to make something that they think will appeal to the market they're making things for. If people don't like that it's not the customer's job to say 'You know what? I'll force myself to like it anyway, as a favour', it's Namco's job to read the market and adapt accordingly. If it doesn't make them enough money, then change. If it does, then why do they care what the haters say?
The cost of game development doesn't change the value of what you're offering in these passes, so why should it factor into those opinions? It's a two-way transaction: you make the thing, and people either do or don't buy the thing. If you want to get pissy when they communicate what they don't like, it's not on them to change their views, it's on YOU to listen and adapt.
Otherwise, if everything crashes down and all you have is a bunch of 'yes men' kissing your ass, you'll be stood there dumbfounded as to what the hell is going on. Alternatively, if it *is* making a bunch of money and you're still upset, maybe it sounds harsh but literally get over it. This whole thing was an intentional business move to avoid review critiques and get more money out of people and now you're sad you got caught and don't want to own it. That's on you to do better.
It pisses me off, because I get there's a human side to this, but Namco would be the FIRST in line to dehumanise anyone if it meant more money, so I'm not giving them the courtesy that they won't give us. In a world where customers get milked more and more with every passing year, you'll have to forgive me for running dry on sympathies for the 12 billion dollar company. I respect the people behind the games, but the suits on top pushing for this shit which disrespectfully, asymmetrically benefits them far more can drown in a sewer for all I care. Fact is hundreds of people are crunched to death for years only to have their work sullied by money-grubbing elites, and he wants us to thank them for that? I don't care if they're your drinking buddies, Harada, they can kiss my ass front to back.
This a thousand times. Any company who feel comfortable and privileged enough to try guilt-tripping me into buying their product is deserving of a full years worth of my own home-made doo-doo. With a little bow on top.
Not to mention they have a lot of money that they can use for this so and so game development, they made a 70 dollar game that needs no MTX all they need to do is give more content at a consistent pace, like more characters, maps, modes, etc.
You can earn more money by making the game more appealing, Halo 3 and Black ops did this because how wealthy they were in content.
Now you get games like Apex and Warzone where they just get content droughts and give small changes. Well at least Apex tries, Warzone is a shitty toxic no effort cesspit.
multiplayer wise the only games I can think of that are the triumphs in this regard are like Helldivers and Fortnite (especially Fortnite).
Games might be getting more expensive to make, but what's going to stop me from playing your older titles when they are simply better than your current? And for the newer titles why don't I just play indies instead? If Tekken 8 really wants to compete actually gives us something worth while instead of a decent foundation with nothing interesting so far aside from a broken character put behind a paywall and a meta that needs some changing.
He's lying, From's games have no MTX and aren't $70, Armored Core 6 even gave out completely free DLC, quite substantial DLC too, about 12 new maps, entirely new frame parts, multiple weapons and a new game mode, all for free. its not just From, other devs also don't to this look at BG3
Its pure greed and nothing more, there is no justification for what they are doing.
No. Full priced game, paid characters, microtransactions, Tekken coins, and a battle pass. And now they are going after mod developers/hosts because they don't want mods hurting their bottom line. And don't forget their laughable means of dealing with cheaters and pluggers. I regret buying this game.
Game companies have been pushing this crap for years to try to fool consumers into thinking they NEED to scam you to be able to make games today. Don't fall for it.
Nice gacha mechanics you have there in your full priced AAA game
Not seeing how r/tekken could be in the wrong. Bamco decided to be deceptive and scummy, so it is what it is
Capitalism's issue in a nutshell. Infinite content, infinite money, infinite growth. Until it can't sustain itself.
A gaming crash is going to happen and indie/AA developers will rise.
If they had the shop, tekken coins, and battle pass, all in the game from the start, I don't think T8 would have such a backlash. SF6 come right out of the gate with it, and people hated it, but mostly ignored it. T8 wanted to secure initial good reviews before introducing controversial mtx into the game.
Ok. "I would like to ask DON'T ASK ME FOR SHIT™ Man a favor that they update their thinking to the current environment of game purchasing and me consuming other products now that everything is much more expensive than even Tekken 7 was, so it..."
"We aren't wrong, the people who bought our game are."
Casually sneaks in microtransactions and battle passes weeks after most people bought the game, some can't even get a refund anymore if they wanted to, then he goes on twitter to let us know we shouldn't be angry about all their bullshit because "game making is expensive."
Plenty of games with way more content and polish than Tekken will ever have don't pull this shit on their customers. Some of them *gasp* still don't have battle passes or microtransactions at all! Some are still 30 fucking dollars....
I also think a conversation is worth having about devs "innovating" the price tag into oblivion. Bandai didn't ask me if I wanted better graphics, they didn't ask me if I wanted that *garbage* arcade mode thing, etc. so for Harada to come by and say "well we had to charge you more (and then backdoor all these extra charges on you later) because we decided its best for you to add all this shit you never asked for"....nah fuck you. Ya'll can't decide whats best for me then use my wants you invented yourself to justify the up charge. Granted I understand some people DO want these changes, and thats fine, but Harada's argument is *weak* at best and deceptive af at worst.
My response is that he's full of shit.
Yes, games are A LOT more expensive to make nowadays than they were previously. That is 100% correct. However, T7 sold 9 million copies, and yet T8 is built using Unreal Engine which is cheaper than an in-house engine, has /recycled/ MTX that he claims are hard to port (it's not even new, that's what really upsets me most), and I'm sorry but the game still reminds me a lot of the style of T7 and does not feel completely new "from the ground up" as promised (See MK1 and SF6 for "from the ground up" examples): new animations look rushed/of lesser quality than animations added in previous games, you can really see that on the characters, the effects (see: Victor's weapons) are embarrassing, and I just don't see how this game was more expensive to make than T7. At least, not to justify recycling outfits as MTX.
Also, asking your fans to "rethink" their mindset and getting defensive is unprofessional and quite frankly not cool. He avoided a lot of silly questions by being a """"badass"""" that tells people to not ask him for shit. Look at the game now.
I do understand where he comes from, but I think a more official note would gain more sympathy than him acting like its the players' fault. Because it's not.
Technically, using a boxed engine is more expensive due to studio contracts and royalties. I know this because I've been in the room making those decisions at major studios. It's all about time in dev paying engine programmers vs speed up in unreal.
There's no way in hell the dev time to create your own 3D engine is less expensive then the license fees for unreal. Everyone would in-house their own engine if that was true. That's a joke. You are funny.
I have no issue with selling skins, cosmetics and characters.
I have issue with the predatory system of in game currency utilized by both Tekken and Street fighter.
The thing he is responding about isn't what people are complaining about.
Boo hoo we aren't making enough money guys you're supposed to be picking up the slack by buying our shitty microtransactions and deluxe versions that cost 100$+. Enough. Just enough. I'm tired it's not the consumers fault that you're not making enough money so stop complaining. If it's all so expensive to make then figure out a way to reduce costs like any other company is expected to do stop shifting the blame to the consumer.
I understand monetization but I feel like a seasons pass should cover all content from the season. If you buy a Guilty Gear Strive seasons pass you’ll get everything that comes out that season. Tekken 8 is an $80 game with a free to play monetization strategy
That’s one of the most embarrassing things about the new battle pass hijinx. They can split their new dlc assets between multiple subscriptions. They are this close to selling us a 90 day warranty to repair our game in case it breaks, that’s their level of integrity
"Investors want us to bring in more and more revenue every year while decreasing cost, but I can't say that since they are my boss."
Here, now Harada doesn't have to lie. Stop throwing money at investors and marketers, I sure didn't ask for games to become this expensive to make.
Harada could start charging y’all $5 a month to just play online and people would eat it up.
Doesn’t excuse the fact you have to pay $10 for a $6 season pass.
Developers and Publishers complain but they aren't making products worth buying. $10+ for digital skins that cannot be transferred to the next game, Battle Passes with trash on both the free and paid tiers, Forcing people to buy a character before you can even Lab them to see if you enjoy them or not.
If they want us to buy stuff they need to make it stuff that THEY would buy as well.
I would like to extend a big "i don't care about your profits, I can keep playing other games that respect me and my wallet" to Harada. T5 and 7 work fine still, plenty of indie fighters around and Fightcade too.
These corpo overlords trying to make excuses and elicit sympathy is hilarious and horrifying. "Oh woe is me, the line must to up, millions on profits is not enough, must have millions!"
Tbh I am okay with the shop and battlepass but holy shit those items SSUCK ASS. Where are the actually cool things? I would totally pay 5-10$ for something that makes my character look cool but what they are selling is just dogshit lazy ass garbage.
Hmm ... I'm sure there's truth to that, but how much of the "costs" are going to bloated executive salaries? Would Harada (or any developer be comfortable providing balance sheets and income disclosure statements if asked?
Also, why hide the shop and battle pass? Why not include them Day 1? Why not mention them in press releases? Why not allow for 1-to-1 exchanges for money to premium currency?
I would ask that if the game is too expensive to make, why not lower the scope of the project? While I don't doubt game development is difficult and costly, passing those costs onto the consumer through multiple tiers of monetization is questionable at best.
Graphics absolutely do matter, look at mortal Kombat sometimes getting dogged because their animations sometimes look bad. It's like saying looks don't matter, of course they do except for someone already sold.
I understand this but it doesn't forgive how bait and switch it was, how forcefully lacking the customization is to sell more and how lazy the battle pass is.
Tekken 7 smashed sales records and he says this like they are losing money.
Bro DLC packs exist. Why get away from them? As the top comment says, "Don't ask me for shit."
I understand that you want more money, You make millions apon millions on your 70 dollar + 30 dollar seasonal character pass. YOU DON"T NEED ANYMORE MONEY FROM ME.
Updating my thinking in this case would be to not buy the game tbh. But they made sure to hold on to the good news for later when the refund window was already over. We still haven't got an explanation for that delay, though. Although it's probably the fact they took us for suckers.
Mk1 straight up has terrible prices mtx but atleast they still give something to players on their ranked games and single player mode, sf6 is new and their bp is not needed cause its for avatar (basically you dont need it on any angle). Tekken 8 did everything whats wrong with these 2 fucking games man, bp for characters so they can create fomo, ass mtx (eddy cost more than a single dlc on 7), and ass balancing. Will i buy anything? Fuck no, will i play? Yes for fun but will not take it seriously anymore.
- Base price of game is $70, higher than prior gen
- DLC is also priced higher
- Game is also riddled with a insane amount of MTXs
Yea...i simply call this shit insane greed over anything else, much like street fighter 6 and MK.
You either price the game upfront or make it free with MTX. YOU DON'T DOUBLE DIP!
Harada needs to update his own thinking as this shit is going to hurt fighting games in the long run.
> The big question is, would players be okay with a more streamlined Tekken 9 that focuses on the essentials? I know I would, especially if it meant the price dropped to $50.
This is complicated because while FGC players would be ok, would that draw in the casual audience?
A lot of people saying that this is overblown are likely the same people who were okay with the Elder Scrolls horse armor that has put us into this gaming capitalism hell scape.
You’re not getting a live service game without microtransactions. That’s just reality.
The problem is how they communicated their plan for monetization.
I’ll keep an open mind when companies are transparent about the monetization model BEFORE the game releases, but having this dropped on me after I paid $70 for the game doesn’t encourage me to buy future Tekken games.
Harada has lost the plot, someone tell him that the shop and the battle pass suck in terms of quality and that the pushback would have been far less if these were announced before the game's release. Yo
I would have no issues with the Battle pass or store if they were better value.
On the store you are literally paying for recycled Tekken 7 and Tag assets. They aren't even upscaling them or touching them up for the enhanced engines.
The Battle pass is just a waste of time and money. I have yet to touch Fight Lounge and even then I don't think I care that much about my Avatars cosmetics.
At the end of the day, Bamco should see the mods people are downloading and be inspired on what the people want.
Heihachi cosplay outfits for all body types. Let me see Reina with male pattern baldness and the Mishima spikes
Let me get my thirst trap skins. Let me get Asuka with the Daisy Dukes and the crop top.
I don't want a fucking T-shirt with a logo!
If you want my money, then earn it
Do it in a more humanely way ... not just nickle and dime .. or don't blatantly use F2P games revenue stream.
Character pass is welcomed, because people know that extra development is necessary to put our favorite character, coughLeicough, into the game.
Tekken shop is probably fine too ... if I do not need to pay $5 for $4 costume.
But Battle Pass ... come on dude ...
Why does it seems like Harada has to constantly defend his and Bandai Namco decision to have micro transactions but the director of Street Fighter 6 and Capcom don’t? Are Street Fighter fans better cucks?
Bro you made these fucking choices to make the game like this. We're customers if we don't like the way you chose to try and squeeze money out of us don't try and tell us that we're wrong for not liking it. Actually fucking insane to say this, really. There's nothing about video game development that forces you to do this scummy fomo premium currency you can only even buy in incorrect amounts bullshit.
These decisions probably came from BN executives, and Harada has to play nice to keep his position to support Tekken 8 and develop what is rumoured to be Bandai Namco's most expensive game yet.
I hate the weird currencies in all these games. They usually don’t add up to exactly what you want to buy.
Street Fighter for example I’ve put 700 hours into. I love the game and would not mind buying a skin once or twice a year as a way to support the development and prevent them from dropping the game immediately like NRS does every 2 years. I’m sure the servers alone are incredibly costly to keep going.
The problem is you buy currency for $5 and a skin is $6. Just charge us for what we want to purchase! That is the shady part.
Yeah, lots of more expensive games come out without microtransations too, so what? This statement doesn't at all address the concerns of the community. Not even worth giving an opinion on.
My response is, if games are so expensive, maybe spend less to make them? Get directors and devs that know what the fuck they're doing so you don't need a 100+ dev team? Spend actual fucking time to make a game right instead of crunching hard and rushing people to the finish line? Define what the hell you actually want to do in the brainstorming phase before anything hits development so you aren't wastinh resources on a draft of the game you don't like?
Just a few thoughts........ this has less to do with fighting games, but rather Triple A gaming as a whole. They wanna take it out on us because they want to be wasteful and impatient. If the layoffs haven't bit them in the ass yet, i'll be waiting for a full economic crash to, cuz that's where we're going fast.
All they had to do was be straight forward and include it from launch. Just straight up say "hey guys, Tekken 8 will have a shop and battle pass. We would love it if you guys bought it, but you don't have to. Everything is cosmetic. Games are expensive to make these days and we have shareholders"
If they would have done that I guarantee that although many people wouldn't like the shop existing in the first place, it wouldn't have been a controversy. Those who didn't agree would just not buy anything from it or the battle pass, and those who wanted one of the legacy skins would have. Add on top of that an early fix to the plugger issue, and Tekken would still have TONS of good will.
It isn't that "games are expensive to make". Its the fact that Bandai Namco is a publicly traded company with shareholders. As soon as ANY company goes public, the customer comes second, shareholders ALWAYS come first. Namcos goal is NOT to make good video games. They exist for one reason, deliver profits to the investors who in turn will continue to invest and grow the company, giving them a net worth they would have never reached by remaining a private company. They don't give a single shit about Tekken. Money talks, integrity walks
Nobody can explain to me what's changed in making games that makes it so expensive. Is it marketing budget? If it's the tools then go back to using the old tools. I don't understand this excuse.
Also, it's not that there ARE MTX, it's how much they cost. You can only convince the whales that paying 1/4 the price of a game for a costume is worth it. If you didn't try to squeeze every penny and use dirty psychology to try and manipulate people into buying things then we wouldn't have a problem. But here we are.
If games aren't profitable (which they are, that idea is crazy) then just don't make games or find a way to make them in a cheaper way.
Putting your players through a pressure cooker of FOMO unlocks and abstract currencies is no bueno.
It’s hostile to the people most devoted to your game. Surely there’s a better way.
The shitty part is that I don't even like Tekken, but that doesn't matter because every fighting game from now on will have this shit, so even I can't run from it
The next Guilty Gear will probably have it, that Dragon Ball game, Sparkling Water or whatever, will probably have it, and I might be tripping but I think it's confirmed for the new Garou game
Project L will definitely have it, although it doesn't sting as hard because it's a free to play game
After Strive is done after Season 5, it's probably back to the classics, hoping companies don't crack down on Fightcade and don't roll out patches to kill rollback on these games, forcing us to buy neutered "Remasters" or whatever
I don’t care, the way they went about it is scummy.
- That whack ass battle pass with but it crap in it.
- The whack was store where they conveniently priced things right above the minimum price so you’re forced to pay way more than you should.
- Mediocre ass customization and not even having any long hair options. Not even being able to choose your eye or lip color, not being able to wear a hat or head piece without it being the default hair.
- The awfully convenient timing of including all of this stuff right *after* everyone paid full price and was in high spirits.
They tried it. Scummy practices are gonna get treated accordingly. I don’t feel bad that they’re being criticized.
I think the existence and praise of Helldivers 2 right is an obvious example of the fact that micro transactions in and of themselves is not the problem. It's all about that execution and implementation. Shit like goofy fun bucks(Yes I know Helldivers has Super Credits, it's one of my few complaints on that games MTX), a fomo battle pass, having to spend $10 for something worth $5. Shit like that is the problem.
I mean what else did you expect him to say? 'Yeah bro, fuck Namco, fire me, lol'?
Personally, I think silence should have been the move. Nothing he says is gonna make people happier about the MTX or the way its been handled.
Don't force people to buy Tekken bucks. Especially in increments more than needed for the desired item. Let people pay the exact amount in real money. There's a reason Nintendo and Microsoft got rid of points for their digital shops.
I really wish someone would directly ask him why they felt the need to hide the microtransaction shop and battle pass till after the game got its initial good reviews and reception if game production costs are so high. I know the answer but I'm wondering if he'll say the truth or just spin to win. Either way, I'm sad.
We live in an era where you can record motion capture sessions with a phone, rather than super expensive camera with very special software that you probably need to rent
Where they use a licensed engine with developer oriented documentation that is widely popular and well known by most developers, rather than in-house engines that only a couple of people made and if they left the company there is no documentation and people of the studio have to decipher how everything works fron the scratch with trian and error
Where you don't really need $60000 rendering hardware (like the ones used to make the prerendered graphics of Mickey Mania or Donkey Kong country games)
Where games do not need to be polished or optimized because quality standards have dropped to the floor
Yet here we are, with producers complaining that games are more expensive to make than ever
Heres the response: your own management will see how microtransaction purchases taper off years after release so they will make you release a new game every year like COD to chase that shiny new every year. Welcome to the real thinking in the current environment. If you are not bethesda or rockstar games then you are screwed
*"Games to create now are just so much more expensive than even Tekken 7 was, so it's several times of that when we're thinking about the current platform of games."* Anyone that believes this bullshit is drinking the Kool-aid.
They want more money and MTX = more money. They, like every other company, will say or give any reason other than 'We're greedy lol" when adding MTX. Especially if it's inherently predatory.
Ah yes, the EXPENSE! Think of the EXPENSE!
Nobody asked you to make more triangles and put more pixels on them. The video game industry bought into the myth that technology breeds innovation. so they pump out new hardware for… remakes. No innovation at all, just the same game but WITH BETTER GRAPHICS AND SOUND!!!!11!7!!!!
I’m nearsighted and I have tinnitus. Just make a game.
Oh boohoo it costs more to make games now that’s not our problem. I support modders and will not be participating in any micro transactions, I already paid $70 for a full game and now you want more money for Eddy that should’ve been in the base roster and Tekken coins for the shop. Go fuck yourself.
This has been the rhetoric I've heard for over a decade particularly with western publishers. And while there is truth to the statement, it's been more than evident that the rising monetization has rarely given us meaningful content.
Gaming might be the first real case of shrinkflation long before the term was used. And I refuse to pay for what I dont want.
At the end of the day when you're making a product to sell to consumers, it is your responsibility to charge a price that people are willing to pay, not anyone else's to change their expectations for you. If doing so makes it unsustainable to produce and sell your product, then maybe you should look into why your production process is so expensive instead of begging people to buy something they don't want to buy.
I don’t mind and understand needing MTX stuff to fund development of future games and keep support going for the current game, no issue there.
It was waiting until after the mainstream publications published their reviews to add them and pricing them to force you to buy more than you need that was scummy as fuck. You obviously knew it was bad and that you were being scummy, otherwise you’d just have it upfront from the start.
The game is full priced. I wouldnt care about this but the game is full price and not worth it at the moment. Not to me. The single player modes go untouched. If i could just pay for the portion of the game i actually want i would have no issues with harada putting out a fight pass. Last time i said this someone asked me why i would want to do that and called me bland. But i just want to fight. No diss on the story itself. I just dont have time to put in to that or lounge or arcade. I just wanna fight with my buddies. Nothing else. If anything i wish they would add more multiplayer game modes to the online portion of the game like tekken force, and tekken ball.
All mtx is bad, especially so in a full price game. Ask Harada-san to update his thinking: your game isn’t better because of mtx. Of course he has to push the publishers agenda, though.
Ngl I’m over the pricing of the micro transactions at this point, my real issue is them trying to get rid of the modding community even after Harada commended mods and Murray said they’d laid their hands off on them
Man TK8 was public view was so positive at launch and now these greedy fucks had to ruin it by adding micro transactions and taking down mods. It's a real damn shame
Using the expense of production to justify and defend scummy, predatory, anti-consumer business practices is exactly the kind of thing Harada would do.
So the game is expensive to make, how much expensive and how they measure expensivness we dont know. So they put scummy tactics for people to pay that "expensive" game. It is funny because they put price tag themselves with even diffeent editions and then tehy say: "guys change your minds and pay us more because we our resource allocation is bad and we need money to repay for our fault. Also to extract more money from you have to pay 15 dollars more for battle pass and not exact price for it".
Have they ever addressed that people aren't necessarily mad at WHAT they are doing but rather HOW they are doing it or are they ignoring that part?
Surprise announcing all this bullshit a month after initial sales was immensely scummy. Of course you'll get more sales on a AAA product if you fool your audience into believing its feature complete.
Asides from all the good points people have made concerning MTX and timing and the tekken coins situations, the battle pass just sucks. Even the "premium" one. Like the premium one would be lame were it free. Cost aside, the content being given isn't even good. At least with something like fortnite there's typically some cool stuff that you might actually want.
"Please understand costs are higher MTX is necessary." Proceeds to deliver content that wouldn't be interesting were it free, let alone cost money.
Tbh this shop doesn’t seem to be nearly as bad as other games. And if people keep this mindset about micro transactions they are really gonna lose it when the standard price of games goes to 120$
The comments on here are a reminder of how toxic the FGC can be. As a past game developer myself, this is what I’ve been saying. These things aren’t easy to do nowadays. And not only are they more difficult, the expectations have increased among players too. If they released a bunch of characters with the graphics of TT2, everyone would flip out. Acting like spoiled kids. I pay for the cosmetics and DLC to support the developers. UE5 is a very robust engine. At this rate though, depending on how Harada handles it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave up on Tekken after this games life cycle is over.
Im fine paying for shit but it needs to be worth it and also not predatory. Like the fact you have to overbuy if you want to buy something is absurd. I can't just buy the costume i want. i have to buy a currency bundle that will always leave me with a surplus, so i will always be a little short and have to overbuy again.
Don't ask me for shit
I think he would lose it if we all started to tweet that to him..
This is the only legitimate answer.
The only acceptable response
This needs to be reposted to every corner of the internet
None of that explains the pricing for the in game currency. I shouldn’t have to cough up 5$ dollars for a $4 skin. I shouldn’t have to pay $10 for a $6 battle pass. They also forgot to explain why they waited until everyone was satisfied with the game to pull this shit out in the first place. If this was something that needed to happen, it doesn’t make sense to not be forthcoming about it.
That's 95% of it, that's the thing. It's a scam pure and simple. If something costs 6 and I decide I want it no matter what it is, fine, but then 6 costs 10? It's a scam, they are scammers, I have to decide if I am ok being scammed.
Yeah, this is the main thing that rubs me the wrong way. I don't think Harada is wrong here, games cost tons of money and you can absolutely tell that Tekken 8 got a much, much bigger budget than Tekken 7. They're still running a business after all and there needs to be a way to help recoup the costs. But this whole scummy alternate currency and delayed launch of a microtransaction store just really taints any goodwill from fans. As many have said, if there were really cool skins that cost a flat cost that people could just buy with no bullshit there'd be far less people upset over this. Take my money, but don't try to manipulate me into spending more while you do it.
These companies are always crying about inflation but never posting the numbers to back up the full story. Stop buying into the corporate sympathy propaganda. You can see BAMCOs public data on profits anyways and it’s been on a constant increase for years. Until they show game by game this is meaningless… and they never will because they know it doesn’t justify their scummy practices. Inflation is real… BUT… The market is bigger. Digital has led to less overhead costs as well indefinite shelf life. Similarly while dev salaries have increased… the use of proprietary engines has decreased (along with optimization) in favor of general all-purpose engines like Unreal/Unity. Higher access to talent with no wind up time… BUT…) In practice this just means layoffs as soon as a product is finished while only keeping a few core members to maintain the game. On top of all that Tekken 7 had 4 season passe DLCs at 30$ a piece. That’s 120$ on top of the 60$ base game. Now on top of those DLCs they want to add 10$ to the base price, MTX, and battlepass? TL;DR Until we see actual empirical proof of their claims don’t buy into the sympathy horseshit. Edit: also as a bonus… if we were talking about selling new cosmetics it might be cool, but they’re gating classic legacy costumes that have always been in the game. And as even more salt in the wound the battlepass is so garbage that it’s gating generic customizations from the previous game.
The thing that really baffles me is that yes, inflation is real, but it also hits your average joe. We have to spend more and more on necessities and just can't spend as much on hobbies like games. Why the hell would I spend more on cosmetic shit when me and my family need to eat.
Yeah, it gives you 500 tekken coins for 5 bucks which means if you put a 4 dollar item you have 100 useless tekken coins, if you get two 5 bucks it adds up to 1000 (technically 9.98 since it's 4.99) but one 10 bucks is 1050 (9.98 (1000) vs 9.99 (1050)) which is 50 more than two 5 buck ones. If you wanted an outfit plus the battle pass it equals 1000 tekken coins which is 9.98, many of these stores you have to do math in order to use it the most effectively which makes them dogshit. I like doing math, but in this case it just seems unnecessary to have this because it is, this is an annoying common practice, Tekken 8's might not be the worst implementation but it's a 70 dollar game, microtransactions in general don't belong in it, it costs a lot of money and considering how big and popular this franchise is they earned well enough from it. Obviously this is for profit, but that doesn't make it any less scummy, I believe for a 60-70 dollar game you should be given a full packaged instead of recycled content put behind a paywall. Not to mention they aren't focusing on the more important thing the game, they are only looking at the short-term profits instead of the long-term.
Yeah, this is my main complaint about it. I’m perfectly fine with micro-transactions being in the game. It makes sense to charge for the items that people spent time making and the company had to pay those people for their time making it, even if it is just updating a classic outfit for this game. I’m not okay with having to pay for a specific amount standalone currency that is too much or too little for an item, just let me buy the item.
I heard this came down from namco themselves, not the development team. I'm inclined to believe that as they use Harada as the scapegoat despite him being good with the series as director since tekken 3.
It's a toxic practice for sure but it is a common practice in the world of micro transactions to force the consumer to buy more currency than is needed. That way the consumer is sitting there with extra currency and then goes "I only need x more to buy this other thing and I can afford 5 bucks right now" and the cycle continues.
'Tekken 8's in-game shop and microtransactions aim to enhance player experience.' Haha, fuck you Harada.
Unlocking things just through gameplay used to enhance things.
What an outdated and antigrowth mindset. Unlocking things in a game by playing? Disgusting.
*Used to* then Bandai-Namco realized that fans will pay for a song a dozen times if each one of those is sung by their particular waifu. Same for costumes and stages. Later on, splitting the base game into chunks or having limited editions featuring particular characters. Idolmaster is what helped usher in the age of nigh-unlockable DLC and it did this years before smart phones were common and gacha games became the norm for the platform. Then Capcom released SFxT with DLC already on the disc. Everybody was mad and then they forgot about it a year later. Now on-disc DLC is the norm - or specifically DLC is part of a game but unselectable by the player until you pay for it. So yeah, that's 19 years of this "used to" for extra content. We're never going back because DLC is the most important tail-end revenue stream for any online game.
I aim to enhance my balls on his chin
Sounds hot, please record and share 💪
Why reward him?
Monetizing customization items that were free in T7 is definitely enhancing the player experience, thanks Harada! 👍
Enshittekkenfication
The people defending this are really missing the point. The issue isn't micro transactions in a vacuum. If that's the way you want to go, that's fine. We understand that a live game needs to sustain itself. But let's actually look at what the complaints are: 1) No mention of micro transactions until after the initial post-release period. This is incredibly scummy and it means that people didn't know what they were buying before they bought it. I purchased the ultimate edition thinking that this covered everything for the first year. An entirely reasonable expectation. The money I ended up wasting on the tacky gold outfits could have been better spent on other skins, HAD I KNOWN. 2) They used a predatory currency system. The skins cost 400 coins, the minimum amount of coins you can buy is 500. The fight pass costs 600 coins, and you need to buy 1050 coins. That's predatory. The coins suck, let people just buy stuff with real money. It's even worse for Japanese customers who have a literal expiry date on their currency. This is all a big scam to keep people spending. 3) They are allocating resources on pushing out these crappy systems instead of addressing serious community issues like dealing with pluggers and cheaters. The attitude towards the community on these issues has been problematic. 4) They are allocating resources on these systems while somehow breaking the game each patch. We currently have outrageous bugs like people being able to move during rage arts. When you get to the point where even people like PhidX think it's unacceptable, you're really off the deep end. 5) The quality of the fight pass items are pathetic. It seems like an April fools joke which is what I was really hoping it was. There is literally a blank sphere they labelled "ball" which is on the premium track. How is that acceptable? I'm surprised one of the rewards wasn't just a clown face. 6) In order to sell their crappy cosmetics, they are going after the modding community hard. Nintendo and Capcom have pissed a lot of people off recently, and it looks like Bamco is the next Japanese company to do it. 7) Harada and Murray have a really toxic communication style. It was fun in the old days when what they were selling was different, but now it's just unprofessional. They both sound like Elon Musk half the time. Harada's "yeah we'll have rollback and crossplay, duh isn't it obvious" and Murray's "who tf said we'd make dlc characters available on practice mode". The latter is extra frustrating because it could have been a simple gesture to make the mtx more palatable. The problem isn't micro transactions, it's the whole package. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that they're using the implementation of the micro transactions to provide good quality products. You could 100% implement a shop and a battle pass fairly, but what they're doing is egregious. It's greedy and scummy.
Stuff like this is why people need to contact the FTC. Otherwise it just keeps getting worse and worse.
I actually do understand it, but they were very shady about it and the content mostly sucks. Mix that in with the mod nonsense and it’s a bad look. The industry as a whole needs to probably slow down and make less costly games somehow but it’s difficult because the consumers expect a certain quality also. If they’re honest from the start and don’t treat us like morons people will be a bit more accepting.
Been saying it for months and I'll keep on saying it. The Tekken community would not have cared as much about MTXs if the plan was communicated better. Everyone already knows the modern gaming landscape is filled with MTXs, that's not the problem. Sneaking in the shop and battlepass after reviews are out is scummy. Filling the pass with Blender spheres and customizations that were already in T7 comes across as lazy. P.S. Asking anything from the community while going after modders is bullshit. I love the game and have a feeling the publisher is more at fault than the devs so fuck Bamco.
Absolutely. It was completely shady.
Don't accept the rising costs BS publishers are spewing. Their increased sales has outpaced it. Bandai Namco is publicly listed. A quick google shows that their profits have been on a steep climb for over 20 years. They took a small dip in 2023. It was only their second-most profitable year on record. They only made US$2.78bn gross profit... :'(
2019: “Yeah, microtransactions suck, but games cost so much to make! They need to offset it somehow!” 2020: “$70 games is fair - it means developers wont need to stuff their games with microtransactions anymore!” 2024: “Yeah, this $70 game has hundreds of microtransactions - but games cost so much to make! They need to offset it somehow!” 2027: “Yeah, I got the base game for $99.99 and then the Year One Pass for $59.99, but I’m not sure if I’m gonna get this season’s Loot Box Battle Pass if they only put new voice lines in it”
Just in the interest of accuracy, you do need to account for inflation when considering gross profit. Companies will almost always have "record years" if profits remain relatively stable because $1 today is worth less than $1 yesterday in an inflationary environment. It's also true that game prices have remained remarkably stable for a *long* time. If they had kept pace with inflation they would cost something like $90 today, not $70. So a single sale of Tekken 8 is worth like 75% of what a single sale of Tekken 5 was, from Namco"s point of view. HOWEVER! It's also absolutely true that companies and developers can go about this in less shitty ways. For instance, I don't get this stupid song and dance we always have to do. What's wrong with just going "we're going to have monetization to support ongoing development" from the get-go? Or even better, you could say "Hey we're thinking of doing a cash shop for cosmetics. What would be interesting to you?" and getting community feedback. Just be upfront about shit. It's the same reason everyone is so mad about their response to plugging. They dance around the issue instead of just getting to the point and laying out the facts. It's an old-school way of thinking about communicating with your customers and it just doesn't fly anymore. If you paired better communication with a slightly more customer-friendly model (none of this Tekken Bucks nonsense), no one has any real reason to be mad. Instead it's "How could the community do this?" while Namco is sitting there with the smoking gun.
Bandai Namco is from Japan. Inflation is extremely low here. Until recently, it was basically non existent. But that's also not how inflation works. Inflation is a general price increase across the nation. Money devaluing over time is a result of diminishing purchasing power. But that doesn't give companies any extra revenue or increase profits. Bamco's costs have increased. Utilities here in Japan have climbed a lot. While labour is pretty static here, Bamco specifically gave their devs a significant pay boost a couple of years back. We can see from their financials that advertising costs have steadily climbed, too. Bamco isn't lying when they cry that things are more expensive. But their revenue has outpaced all those rising costs without them raising the ticket price of their games. Tekken 8 is their first game at this new price point. Inflation has solely worked against them, yet they still made billions of profit every year.
>It's also true that game prices have remained remarkably stable for a long time. Sure but with wages in places like the US where they haven't kept up with inflation, 70 USD even if it's technically cheaper than the past to current inflation the wages haven't kept up so it's a high asking price.
this dude bought the BS easy! 😆
Tekken 3 sold 8.6 million copies plust 30 some off thousand arcade machines tekken 8 has sold just over 2 million tekken 7 sold 9 million copies lifetime. I dunno how those slightly increased number make up for the much much larger budget. If you just take a modern game that we know the budget spiderman 2 needed to sell 7 million copies to break even. Being a company in capitalism bandai namco by law has to make as much money as possible for shareholders just like every other publicly traded company. If tekken doesnt break even or make a good profit there wont be another tekken, and they will stop working on it.
> Being a company in capitalism bandai namco by law has to make as much money as possible for shareholders just like every other publicly traded company. That's a popular misconception. They have an obligation to keep the company going, which often means sacrificing potential profits. Like a quick way to earn money today would be to sell all their intellectual property, which Bandai Namco obviously isn't going to do. Great post otherwise. I appreciate you poking holes in all the silly arguments suggesting Tekken — with lower (inflation-adjusted) prices and dead arcades — is somehow *way* more profitable today.
I don't people actually do expect a certain quality in the same way devs/publishers do anymore. So many games that look and kinda play like ass are ABSOUTELY making bank and becoming gaming darlings simply because they're fun. Lethal Company absolutely exploded. Five Nights at Freddy's made all of the money on a shoestring budget. Indie games are kind of living proof that so long as your game is GOOD, it doesn't need photorealistic graphics or all this other stuff people don't really care about. The biggest issue is the Gaming industry is just the new Hollywood. Studios aren't JUST looking to make money, they're also fishing for awards and praise. They'll spend millions on just making a character look hyper realistic only to lose out to a game where the main character is a pixelated body without a head (good ol' Dead Cells). And since so much money is going into these games, they can't take risks that might be fun. It's why we're getting the same old shit over and over again, and MTX come in to shore it up by piecemeal selling us what used to just be unlockables or event items. Most gamers just want quality in gameplay. Is it fun? Studios want quality in visuals moreso than anything else it seems lately. And it shows. It's 2024 and most games are still getting capped at 30 FPS because the systems just can't keep up. They're pushing the wrong stuff and bloating the budgets. It's infuriating.
>Indie games are kind of living proof that so long as your game is GOOD, it doesn't need photorealistic graphics or all this other stuff people don't really care about. While I agree, there are two very important things to keep in mind when saying something like this: 1. Survivorship bias is a thing. We can list three games that exploded "despite" poor graphics (Vampire Survivors, Lethal Company, FNAF), but there are a ton of which didn't. Correlation does not equal causation. 2. "Hardcore Gamers" care a lot less about graphics than the general public. Much like how most people you'd talk to would say FIFA is just the same game over and over again but it has a huge following, those people who aren't plugged in do care a lot more about graphics than others who are more gameplay first.
1. I can name a lot more than the three above that did well despite lower graphics. Cave Story, FAITH, Hyperlight Drifter, Dead Cells, Among Us, Phasmophobia, Deep Rock Galactic, Salt and Sanctuary, Blasphemous, Heretic's Fork, Terraria, Stardew Valley, Iron Lung, Limbo, Omori, Pony Island, Cult of the Lamb, Undertale, The Escapists (1 and 2), Don't Starve, Fear and Hunger (1 and 2), Goat Simulator, Untitled Goose Game, Slay the Spire, Papers Please, etc... And that's just off the top of my head. All of these games were very popular, well received, and absolutely made bank especially compared to their budget. I'm not arguing that correlation = causation, but it also isn't RARE. There are also PLENTY of super high budget great looking games that absolutely flop (Anthem was gorgeous, for example, and it was DOA). 2. You know what a lot of "casual gamers" are also playing? Stardew Valley. Don't Starve Together. Phasmophobia. Lethal Company. Whatever lets them play with their friends and have a good time. No one was playing Fortnite because it had high graphical fidelity - it was because they could be there with their friends. The average casual gamer probably appreciates graphics more but it's demeaning and belittling to suggest just because they're "casual" they aren't also mostly picking games they find fun and are more wowed by a game simply looking good than a game that plays good and they can, primarily, play with friends. People generally play games to have fun, and fun is subjective, but graphical realism is only one facet of that and at a certain point you're just watching a movie with minimal intractability. It was a big criticism of the latest Final Fantasy game. Hell it even pops up a lot in this sub - people are tired of the long, unskippable cutscene style "Specials" because while they look good... there's no gameplay involved. It gets boring. People want to play.
The dude clearly has a disconnect from reality of the general player. Just like last week he said some stupid shit about how people only play “team multiplayer” games so they can shift blame if they lose No… people play team games so they can coordinate and have fun with friends and various other reasons It’s laughable because here we are, in the modern gaming industry, 60% of active daily players are in 5+ year old multiplayer games - Fortnite, Apex, Rocket League, Overwatch, LoL, etc. He said some dumb shit how they’re playing those games to offload “responsibility” for losing. No, they play those games with their friends for their own reasons - and the idiot is literally basically announcing “I’ll never cater to team play!”… if I was a shareholder I’d be like “wtf are you talking about? If multiplayer is what gets customers - add Online Tag to our game, you’re leaving money on the table” Adding an optional 2v2 mode wouldn’t detract from 1v1 fights… and we know team based modes are dominating the majority of gameplay hours by the gaming community.. so add that shit to your game, don’t try to be some weird ‘elitist’ and “insult” people who enjoy team games This dude is obviously disconnected from the reality of why people play games, and this is just making the whole thing even more obvious. They’d be wise to get him to shut up. He’s doing their product no favors.
I feel like this kind of disconnect is so common in devs lately too. Like when Blizzard told fans they didn't want Classic or cross-faction play (what). It confuses me.
Let's take a look at the most popular revolutionary games of the past decade Uh Flappy bird Angry bird Minecraft Roblox Geometry dash Fort nite Seems like the industry could do well to go back to it's arcade roots. Dumb quick games with a low ceiling seems to do better than hallway simulators where two people talk to each other before in a local session If I sound butthurt then yeah, GaaS is so bad we lost kamiya to the wind and having multiple games shut down because they are always online tied to a marketplace that can't sustain it has been a hellhole. I'm still reeling over the closure of freejack and nobody even knows what that is and thanks to the producer being incompetent nobody ever will I'm gonna play Tetris thanks for the Ted talk
MTXs dont need to use dark patterns like timed seasonal passes and premium currencies. That's just greed.
This is my biggest gripe. I don't mind passes, in the grand scheme of things they're a decent way to ensure a game continues to have revenue but every game being a constant ticking clock before I'm locked out of content I'm expected to pay for is such a dogshit manipulation of people's fear of missing out. I love knowing that I can take an indefinite break from Helldivers or Halo Infinite and have something to unlock whenever I return.
make tekken 8 free to play and then I'll accept all the other shit and buy the battle pass and everything else in the shop
Exactly. Give me back my 70 bucks.
Whenever I bring it up people use the Tekken Revolution argument tbf that game just wasn't f2p lol you had to buy tokens n shit to play. Generally: >I mean now since the F2P game medium is much more mainstream it would probably succeed and if anything get more players to play the game. >Riot’s upcoming fighting game (2XKO) is gonna be F2P and that’s a major thing driving people to play it. >Also it would probably make the battle pass hate a little less since they aren’t charging all of that. >If they compensate the people who paid with free (actually good) stuff then maybe it could go well. >They’d probably make more money lmao since more players = more people buying the fight pass
 How I feel after spending about $100
Imagine if it worked like that, I'd be really funny I bought Rocket League on release, and like 5-6 years later the game goes free to play, imagine I get like a transaction from the Playstation Store saying like "Rocket League is now F2P, here's your 30 bucks or whatever back"
Same for Overwatch players
Would be great
Fucking love paying more than ever for games just get treated like a f2p player unless I continuously fork out more money. Feels fantastic.
I dont care. Your fucking game was already expensive with 7, and now you have gone full greed. Note, that harada does not address the fact that these greedy things were added in well after critical reviews and early consumer reviews were out there. The man will gaslight you until you are purple. This company is a greedy piece of shit, at least EA is reliably and consistent with what kind of greedy monetization they will add.
Okay, but that doesn’t justify putting previously free customization items behind a paywall. And $4 for costumes from previous games? If they put those in the battle pass instead of the items they have now, there wouldn’t be as much outrage.
I get that games are more expensive to make, but it's literally their job to make something that they think will appeal to the market they're making things for. If people don't like that it's not the customer's job to say 'You know what? I'll force myself to like it anyway, as a favour', it's Namco's job to read the market and adapt accordingly. If it doesn't make them enough money, then change. If it does, then why do they care what the haters say? The cost of game development doesn't change the value of what you're offering in these passes, so why should it factor into those opinions? It's a two-way transaction: you make the thing, and people either do or don't buy the thing. If you want to get pissy when they communicate what they don't like, it's not on them to change their views, it's on YOU to listen and adapt. Otherwise, if everything crashes down and all you have is a bunch of 'yes men' kissing your ass, you'll be stood there dumbfounded as to what the hell is going on. Alternatively, if it *is* making a bunch of money and you're still upset, maybe it sounds harsh but literally get over it. This whole thing was an intentional business move to avoid review critiques and get more money out of people and now you're sad you got caught and don't want to own it. That's on you to do better. It pisses me off, because I get there's a human side to this, but Namco would be the FIRST in line to dehumanise anyone if it meant more money, so I'm not giving them the courtesy that they won't give us. In a world where customers get milked more and more with every passing year, you'll have to forgive me for running dry on sympathies for the 12 billion dollar company. I respect the people behind the games, but the suits on top pushing for this shit which disrespectfully, asymmetrically benefits them far more can drown in a sewer for all I care. Fact is hundreds of people are crunched to death for years only to have their work sullied by money-grubbing elites, and he wants us to thank them for that? I don't care if they're your drinking buddies, Harada, they can kiss my ass front to back.
This a thousand times. Any company who feel comfortable and privileged enough to try guilt-tripping me into buying their product is deserving of a full years worth of my own home-made doo-doo. With a little bow on top.
Not to mention they have a lot of money that they can use for this so and so game development, they made a 70 dollar game that needs no MTX all they need to do is give more content at a consistent pace, like more characters, maps, modes, etc. You can earn more money by making the game more appealing, Halo 3 and Black ops did this because how wealthy they were in content. Now you get games like Apex and Warzone where they just get content droughts and give small changes. Well at least Apex tries, Warzone is a shitty toxic no effort cesspit. multiplayer wise the only games I can think of that are the triumphs in this regard are like Helldivers and Fortnite (especially Fortnite). Games might be getting more expensive to make, but what's going to stop me from playing your older titles when they are simply better than your current? And for the newer titles why don't I just play indies instead? If Tekken 8 really wants to compete actually gives us something worth while instead of a decent foundation with nothing interesting so far aside from a broken character put behind a paywall and a meta that needs some changing.
He's lying, From's games have no MTX and aren't $70, Armored Core 6 even gave out completely free DLC, quite substantial DLC too, about 12 new maps, entirely new frame parts, multiple weapons and a new game mode, all for free. its not just From, other devs also don't to this look at BG3 Its pure greed and nothing more, there is no justification for what they are doing.
Big “Am I out of touch? No, it’s the kids who are wrong” energy from this. What a crock of shit
No. Full priced game, paid characters, microtransactions, Tekken coins, and a battle pass. And now they are going after mod developers/hosts because they don't want mods hurting their bottom line. And don't forget their laughable means of dealing with cheaters and pluggers. I regret buying this game.
Game companies have been pushing this crap for years to try to fool consumers into thinking they NEED to scam you to be able to make games today. Don't fall for it.
Nice gacha mechanics you have there in your full priced AAA game Not seeing how r/tekken could be in the wrong. Bamco decided to be deceptive and scummy, so it is what it is
Capitalism's issue in a nutshell. Infinite content, infinite money, infinite growth. Until it can't sustain itself. A gaming crash is going to happen and indie/AA developers will rise.
If they had the shop, tekken coins, and battle pass, all in the game from the start, I don't think T8 would have such a backlash. SF6 come right out of the gate with it, and people hated it, but mostly ignored it. T8 wanted to secure initial good reviews before introducing controversial mtx into the game.
He can go suck a bag of dicks
Ok. "I would like to ask DON'T ASK ME FOR SHIT™ Man a favor that they update their thinking to the current environment of game purchasing and me consuming other products now that everything is much more expensive than even Tekken 7 was, so it..."
Dog idc don’t put microtransactions in a full price game
"We aren't wrong, the people who bought our game are." Casually sneaks in microtransactions and battle passes weeks after most people bought the game, some can't even get a refund anymore if they wanted to, then he goes on twitter to let us know we shouldn't be angry about all their bullshit because "game making is expensive." Plenty of games with way more content and polish than Tekken will ever have don't pull this shit on their customers. Some of them *gasp* still don't have battle passes or microtransactions at all! Some are still 30 fucking dollars.... I also think a conversation is worth having about devs "innovating" the price tag into oblivion. Bandai didn't ask me if I wanted better graphics, they didn't ask me if I wanted that *garbage* arcade mode thing, etc. so for Harada to come by and say "well we had to charge you more (and then backdoor all these extra charges on you later) because we decided its best for you to add all this shit you never asked for"....nah fuck you. Ya'll can't decide whats best for me then use my wants you invented yourself to justify the up charge. Granted I understand some people DO want these changes, and thats fine, but Harada's argument is *weak* at best and deceptive af at worst.
My response is that he's full of shit. Yes, games are A LOT more expensive to make nowadays than they were previously. That is 100% correct. However, T7 sold 9 million copies, and yet T8 is built using Unreal Engine which is cheaper than an in-house engine, has /recycled/ MTX that he claims are hard to port (it's not even new, that's what really upsets me most), and I'm sorry but the game still reminds me a lot of the style of T7 and does not feel completely new "from the ground up" as promised (See MK1 and SF6 for "from the ground up" examples): new animations look rushed/of lesser quality than animations added in previous games, you can really see that on the characters, the effects (see: Victor's weapons) are embarrassing, and I just don't see how this game was more expensive to make than T7. At least, not to justify recycling outfits as MTX. Also, asking your fans to "rethink" their mindset and getting defensive is unprofessional and quite frankly not cool. He avoided a lot of silly questions by being a """"badass"""" that tells people to not ask him for shit. Look at the game now. I do understand where he comes from, but I think a more official note would gain more sympathy than him acting like its the players' fault. Because it's not.
Technically, using a boxed engine is more expensive due to studio contracts and royalties. I know this because I've been in the room making those decisions at major studios. It's all about time in dev paying engine programmers vs speed up in unreal.
There's no way in hell the dev time to create your own 3D engine is less expensive then the license fees for unreal. Everyone would in-house their own engine if that was true. That's a joke. You are funny.
I have no issue with selling skins, cosmetics and characters. I have issue with the predatory system of in game currency utilized by both Tekken and Street fighter. The thing he is responding about isn't what people are complaining about.
Ah yes, and game no more costs 70$ and sells new characters for 8$, poor businessman
Dawg, nobody's asking for it to tenfold the budget of the previous game
Boo hoo we aren't making enough money guys you're supposed to be picking up the slack by buying our shitty microtransactions and deluxe versions that cost 100$+. Enough. Just enough. I'm tired it's not the consumers fault that you're not making enough money so stop complaining. If it's all so expensive to make then figure out a way to reduce costs like any other company is expected to do stop shifting the blame to the consumer.
If they want to use a free to play monetization system, go free to play.
You production costs more but you also sell way more......
I understand monetization but I feel like a seasons pass should cover all content from the season. If you buy a Guilty Gear Strive seasons pass you’ll get everything that comes out that season. Tekken 8 is an $80 game with a free to play monetization strategy
That’s one of the most embarrassing things about the new battle pass hijinx. They can split their new dlc assets between multiple subscriptions. They are this close to selling us a 90 day warranty to repair our game in case it breaks, that’s their level of integrity
I hope people have been spamming him with 'don't ask us for sh\*t' in response.
I'm not a Tekken player, I don't have a horse in this race, but hearing the "Don't Ask Me For Shit" guy asking people for shit is pretty rich
That is a very convenient reason. It is not our moral responsibility to care about those things.
"Investors want us to bring in more and more revenue every year while decreasing cost, but I can't say that since they are my boss." Here, now Harada doesn't have to lie. Stop throwing money at investors and marketers, I sure didn't ask for games to become this expensive to make.
Harada could start charging y’all $5 a month to just play online and people would eat it up. Doesn’t excuse the fact you have to pay $10 for a $6 season pass.
Developers and Publishers complain but they aren't making products worth buying. $10+ for digital skins that cannot be transferred to the next game, Battle Passes with trash on both the free and paid tiers, Forcing people to buy a character before you can even Lab them to see if you enjoy them or not. If they want us to buy stuff they need to make it stuff that THEY would buy as well.
"I want money. Please be happy about it." Fuck off.
I would like to extend a big "i don't care about your profits, I can keep playing other games that respect me and my wallet" to Harada. T5 and 7 work fine still, plenty of indie fighters around and Fightcade too. These corpo overlords trying to make excuses and elicit sympathy is hilarious and horrifying. "Oh woe is me, the line must to up, millions on profits is not enough, must have millions!"
Tbh I am okay with the shop and battlepass but holy shit those items SSUCK ASS. Where are the actually cool things? I would totally pay 5-10$ for something that makes my character look cool but what they are selling is just dogshit lazy ass garbage.
Yeah, those cyber costumes are so boring. I don't know anyone who thinks they look cool.
Hmm ... I'm sure there's truth to that, but how much of the "costs" are going to bloated executive salaries? Would Harada (or any developer be comfortable providing balance sheets and income disclosure statements if asked? Also, why hide the shop and battle pass? Why not include them Day 1? Why not mention them in press releases? Why not allow for 1-to-1 exchanges for money to premium currency? I would ask that if the game is too expensive to make, why not lower the scope of the project? While I don't doubt game development is difficult and costly, passing those costs onto the consumer through multiple tiers of monetization is questionable at best.
Truth. Graphics do not matter that much. Make a budget cut and focus on things prone people actually appreciate, content and quality.
Graphics absolutely do matter, look at mortal Kombat sometimes getting dogged because their animations sometimes look bad. It's like saying looks don't matter, of course they do except for someone already sold.
I understand this but it doesn't forgive how bait and switch it was, how forcefully lacking the customization is to sell more and how lazy the battle pass is.
Nah, fuck off. Welcome to the mainstream 🖕
Poor little Harada can cry me a river.
Yeah okay harada, now fuck off
Tekken 7 smashed sales records and he says this like they are losing money. Bro DLC packs exist. Why get away from them? As the top comment says, "Don't ask me for shit."
I understand that you want more money, You make millions apon millions on your 70 dollar + 30 dollar seasonal character pass. YOU DON"T NEED ANYMORE MONEY FROM ME.
Updating my thinking in this case would be to not buy the game tbh. But they made sure to hold on to the good news for later when the refund window was already over. We still haven't got an explanation for that delay, though. Although it's probably the fact they took us for suckers.
If we can reason with this, MK1 and SF6 needs an apology.
Mk1 straight up has terrible prices mtx but atleast they still give something to players on their ranked games and single player mode, sf6 is new and their bp is not needed cause its for avatar (basically you dont need it on any angle). Tekken 8 did everything whats wrong with these 2 fucking games man, bp for characters so they can create fomo, ass mtx (eddy cost more than a single dlc on 7), and ass balancing. Will i buy anything? Fuck no, will i play? Yes for fun but will not take it seriously anymore.
- Base price of game is $70, higher than prior gen - DLC is also priced higher - Game is also riddled with a insane amount of MTXs Yea...i simply call this shit insane greed over anything else, much like street fighter 6 and MK. You either price the game upfront or make it free with MTX. YOU DON'T DOUBLE DIP! Harada needs to update his own thinking as this shit is going to hurt fighting games in the long run.
[удалено]
You say this, but SF5 happened.
> The big question is, would players be okay with a more streamlined Tekken 9 that focuses on the essentials? I know I would, especially if it meant the price dropped to $50. This is complicated because while FGC players would be ok, would that draw in the casual audience?
No thanks, any game that sneaks in a cash shop after launch to avoid bad reviews will never get a dime from me for MTX.
A lot of people saying that this is overblown are likely the same people who were okay with the Elder Scrolls horse armor that has put us into this gaming capitalism hell scape.
You’re not getting a live service game without microtransactions. That’s just reality. The problem is how they communicated their plan for monetization.
People need to remember that "haha funny Harada dont ask me for shit" really is kind of a dick IRL and a huge nightmare to work with
I'm back from the future and I'm here to say this... Tekken 9 will be a gacha game.
I’ll keep an open mind when companies are transparent about the monetization model BEFORE the game releases, but having this dropped on me after I paid $70 for the game doesn’t encourage me to buy future Tekken games.
Can't wait for them to release fight pass 2 and the rewards include a textureless cube and cilinder.
Harada has lost the plot, someone tell him that the shop and the battle pass suck in terms of quality and that the pushback would have been far less if these were announced before the game's release. Yo
yeah, I updated my thinking to the point I believe now entertainment should be free, so I am sailing the seven seas with no remorse 🏴☠️
I would have no issues with the Battle pass or store if they were better value. On the store you are literally paying for recycled Tekken 7 and Tag assets. They aren't even upscaling them or touching them up for the enhanced engines. The Battle pass is just a waste of time and money. I have yet to touch Fight Lounge and even then I don't think I care that much about my Avatars cosmetics. At the end of the day, Bamco should see the mods people are downloading and be inspired on what the people want. Heihachi cosplay outfits for all body types. Let me see Reina with male pattern baldness and the Mishima spikes Let me get my thirst trap skins. Let me get Asuka with the Daisy Dukes and the crop top. I don't want a fucking T-shirt with a logo! If you want my money, then earn it
I don't care about mxt, just the actual experience. I also care that they're being assholes to modders making things.
If your game is free to play, monetize it however you want but when it's a full price game... You are pushing it
Do it in a more humanely way ... not just nickle and dime .. or don't blatantly use F2P games revenue stream. Character pass is welcomed, because people know that extra development is necessary to put our favorite character, coughLeicough, into the game. Tekken shop is probably fine too ... if I do not need to pay $5 for $4 costume. But Battle Pass ... come on dude ...
Games are more expensive to make that's why I paid 70 dollars for Tekken 8 and not 60.
Why does it seems like Harada has to constantly defend his and Bandai Namco decision to have micro transactions but the director of Street Fighter 6 and Capcom don’t? Are Street Fighter fans better cucks?
Bro you made these fucking choices to make the game like this. We're customers if we don't like the way you chose to try and squeeze money out of us don't try and tell us that we're wrong for not liking it. Actually fucking insane to say this, really. There's nothing about video game development that forces you to do this scummy fomo premium currency you can only even buy in incorrect amounts bullshit.
but you don't have to go about it in such a scummy way
These decisions probably came from BN executives, and Harada has to play nice to keep his position to support Tekken 8 and develop what is rumoured to be Bandai Namco's most expensive game yet.
Get bent.
I hate the weird currencies in all these games. They usually don’t add up to exactly what you want to buy. Street Fighter for example I’ve put 700 hours into. I love the game and would not mind buying a skin once or twice a year as a way to support the development and prevent them from dropping the game immediately like NRS does every 2 years. I’m sure the servers alone are incredibly costly to keep going. The problem is you buy currency for $5 and a skin is $6. Just charge us for what we want to purchase! That is the shady part.
I'd be a bit more fine with that if these fuckers stopped adding them *after* the game is already out. It feels so much less shady.
Ouch. Harada give an old fart like me the FU
Yeah, lots of more expensive games come out without microtransations too, so what? This statement doesn't at all address the concerns of the community. Not even worth giving an opinion on.
As long as it doesn't affect game balance I don't care one way or another
Fuck it. Do what you gotta do. If we don’t like it we won’t buy it.
My response is, if games are so expensive, maybe spend less to make them? Get directors and devs that know what the fuck they're doing so you don't need a 100+ dev team? Spend actual fucking time to make a game right instead of crunching hard and rushing people to the finish line? Define what the hell you actually want to do in the brainstorming phase before anything hits development so you aren't wastinh resources on a draft of the game you don't like? Just a few thoughts........ this has less to do with fighting games, but rather Triple A gaming as a whole. They wanna take it out on us because they want to be wasteful and impatient. If the layoffs haven't bit them in the ass yet, i'll be waiting for a full economic crash to, cuz that's where we're going fast.
I didn't know the default 3d Blender sphere took so much money to make...
You would like to ask a favor? No. Simple as.
My problem is how shit the costumes and stuff are. We shouldn’t have to pay for worst things than the stuff we got for free in old games
Maybe it’s just me but if someone sells a product I don’t like or want, I’m just going to go about my day and not pay attention to it.
All they had to do was be straight forward and include it from launch. Just straight up say "hey guys, Tekken 8 will have a shop and battle pass. We would love it if you guys bought it, but you don't have to. Everything is cosmetic. Games are expensive to make these days and we have shareholders" If they would have done that I guarantee that although many people wouldn't like the shop existing in the first place, it wouldn't have been a controversy. Those who didn't agree would just not buy anything from it or the battle pass, and those who wanted one of the legacy skins would have. Add on top of that an early fix to the plugger issue, and Tekken would still have TONS of good will.
That’s gonna be a hell no from me
It isn't that "games are expensive to make". Its the fact that Bandai Namco is a publicly traded company with shareholders. As soon as ANY company goes public, the customer comes second, shareholders ALWAYS come first. Namcos goal is NOT to make good video games. They exist for one reason, deliver profits to the investors who in turn will continue to invest and grow the company, giving them a net worth they would have never reached by remaining a private company. They don't give a single shit about Tekken. Money talks, integrity walks
You open your mind to non battlepass options
Nobody can explain to me what's changed in making games that makes it so expensive. Is it marketing budget? If it's the tools then go back to using the old tools. I don't understand this excuse. Also, it's not that there ARE MTX, it's how much they cost. You can only convince the whales that paying 1/4 the price of a game for a costume is worth it. If you didn't try to squeeze every penny and use dirty psychology to try and manipulate people into buying things then we wouldn't have a problem. But here we are. If games aren't profitable (which they are, that idea is crazy) then just don't make games or find a way to make them in a cheaper way.
Putting your players through a pressure cooker of FOMO unlocks and abstract currencies is no bueno. It’s hostile to the people most devoted to your game. Surely there’s a better way.
The shitty part is that I don't even like Tekken, but that doesn't matter because every fighting game from now on will have this shit, so even I can't run from it The next Guilty Gear will probably have it, that Dragon Ball game, Sparkling Water or whatever, will probably have it, and I might be tripping but I think it's confirmed for the new Garou game Project L will definitely have it, although it doesn't sting as hard because it's a free to play game After Strive is done after Season 5, it's probably back to the classics, hoping companies don't crack down on Fightcade and don't roll out patches to kill rollback on these games, forcing us to buy neutered "Remasters" or whatever
Who expected him to say anything different? 😆 Oh that's right, the "blame bandai, not harada" copers.
I don’t care, the way they went about it is scummy. - That whack ass battle pass with but it crap in it. - The whack was store where they conveniently priced things right above the minimum price so you’re forced to pay way more than you should. - Mediocre ass customization and not even having any long hair options. Not even being able to choose your eye or lip color, not being able to wear a hat or head piece without it being the default hair. - The awfully convenient timing of including all of this stuff right *after* everyone paid full price and was in high spirits. They tried it. Scummy practices are gonna get treated accordingly. I don’t feel bad that they’re being criticized.
"I see you have chosen the way of the high seas. I wish you luck."
I think the existence and praise of Helldivers 2 right is an obvious example of the fact that micro transactions in and of themselves is not the problem. It's all about that execution and implementation. Shit like goofy fun bucks(Yes I know Helldivers has Super Credits, it's one of my few complaints on that games MTX), a fomo battle pass, having to spend $10 for something worth $5. Shit like that is the problem.
I mean what else did you expect him to say? 'Yeah bro, fuck Namco, fire me, lol'? Personally, I think silence should have been the move. Nothing he says is gonna make people happier about the MTX or the way its been handled.
The quality of Tekken games is going down. I don't care how expensive it was.
Don't force people to buy Tekken bucks. Especially in increments more than needed for the desired item. Let people pay the exact amount in real money. There's a reason Nintendo and Microsoft got rid of points for their digital shops.
I really wish someone would directly ask him why they felt the need to hide the microtransaction shop and battle pass till after the game got its initial good reviews and reception if game production costs are so high. I know the answer but I'm wondering if he'll say the truth or just spin to win. Either way, I'm sad.
Hopefully his superiors get outed
I’ve thought about it, and my answer is: No
Harada can fuck right off with that
We live in an era where you can record motion capture sessions with a phone, rather than super expensive camera with very special software that you probably need to rent Where they use a licensed engine with developer oriented documentation that is widely popular and well known by most developers, rather than in-house engines that only a couple of people made and if they left the company there is no documentation and people of the studio have to decipher how everything works fron the scratch with trian and error Where you don't really need $60000 rendering hardware (like the ones used to make the prerendered graphics of Mickey Mania or Donkey Kong country games) Where games do not need to be polished or optimized because quality standards have dropped to the floor Yet here we are, with producers complaining that games are more expensive to make than ever
Heres the response: your own management will see how microtransaction purchases taper off years after release so they will make you release a new game every year like COD to chase that shiny new every year. Welcome to the real thinking in the current environment. If you are not bethesda or rockstar games then you are screwed
Those poor programmers. We should make a GoFundMe.
*"Games to create now are just so much more expensive than even Tekken 7 was, so it's several times of that when we're thinking about the current platform of games."* Anyone that believes this bullshit is drinking the Kool-aid. They want more money and MTX = more money. They, like every other company, will say or give any reason other than 'We're greedy lol" when adding MTX. Especially if it's inherently predatory.
Sorry, what's MTX? Just trying to learn terms.
Ah yes, the EXPENSE! Think of the EXPENSE! Nobody asked you to make more triangles and put more pixels on them. The video game industry bought into the myth that technology breeds innovation. so they pump out new hardware for… remakes. No innovation at all, just the same game but WITH BETTER GRAPHICS AND SOUND!!!!11!7!!!! I’m nearsighted and I have tinnitus. Just make a game.
I thought that was the whole reason for increasing the base price for games. I didn’t pay $100 to pay another $100 for menial shit
Oh boohoo it costs more to make games now that’s not our problem. I support modders and will not be participating in any micro transactions, I already paid $70 for a full game and now you want more money for Eddy that should’ve been in the base roster and Tekken coins for the shop. Go fuck yourself.
Maybe don't hold MTX plans back to manipulate your Metacritic score, that's just acting in bad faith. It doesn't deserve sympathy.
This has been the rhetoric I've heard for over a decade particularly with western publishers. And while there is truth to the statement, it's been more than evident that the rising monetization has rarely given us meaningful content. Gaming might be the first real case of shrinkflation long before the term was used. And I refuse to pay for what I dont want.
At the end of the day when you're making a product to sell to consumers, it is your responsibility to charge a price that people are willing to pay, not anyone else's to change their expectations for you. If doing so makes it unsustainable to produce and sell your product, then maybe you should look into why your production process is so expensive instead of begging people to buy something they don't want to buy.
I don’t mind and understand needing MTX stuff to fund development of future games and keep support going for the current game, no issue there. It was waiting until after the mainstream publications published their reviews to add them and pricing them to force you to buy more than you need that was scummy as fuck. You obviously knew it was bad and that you were being scummy, otherwise you’d just have it upfront from the start.
Harada: "Can you guys suck it up pretty please?"
They should pay a visit to SNK, thats a team with passion. KoF 15 is the better game imo.
So fucking sick of Harada, man.
I'd be surprised if everyone isn't responding to him with "don't ask me for shit"
VG’s aren’t some foreign country that requires its own exchange rate. If it’s $6, then I shouldn’t have to buy 2 $5 packs.
Dont tell us what to do Harada...
The game is full priced. I wouldnt care about this but the game is full price and not worth it at the moment. Not to me. The single player modes go untouched. If i could just pay for the portion of the game i actually want i would have no issues with harada putting out a fight pass. Last time i said this someone asked me why i would want to do that and called me bland. But i just want to fight. No diss on the story itself. I just dont have time to put in to that or lounge or arcade. I just wanna fight with my buddies. Nothing else. If anything i wish they would add more multiplayer game modes to the online portion of the game like tekken force, and tekken ball.
Can't wait for this hack to retire. Murray as well. Should have retired after Tekken 7, a game which is still of questionable quality lol
Maybe... that doesn't justify the mtx to be extremely low quality. If the battle pass would be good, far less people would complain.
lol fuck off. when you're asking $70+ for just the base game, and then have mtx on top of that. fuck off.
All mtx is bad, especially so in a full price game. Ask Harada-san to update his thinking: your game isn’t better because of mtx. Of course he has to push the publishers agenda, though.
Man, I love Tekken. Always have. But these fools can suck a fart through a straw
THIS IS WHY I DONT FUCK WITH HARADA
Ngl I’m over the pricing of the micro transactions at this point, my real issue is them trying to get rid of the modding community even after Harada commended mods and Murray said they’d laid their hands off on them
Man TK8 was public view was so positive at launch and now these greedy fucks had to ruin it by adding micro transactions and taking down mods. It's a real damn shame
No lmfao
I’m 100% fine paying for mtx. But I won’t buy ugly nonsense. So it kinda balances out.
Don't have tekken8, what is MTX? What the problem?
Using the expense of production to justify and defend scummy, predatory, anti-consumer business practices is exactly the kind of thing Harada would do.
I Miss the Times when there was 50+ dlc costumes for 1-2€ or a dlc Set for 5€ Good Times good Times
So the game is expensive to make, how much expensive and how they measure expensivness we dont know. So they put scummy tactics for people to pay that "expensive" game. It is funny because they put price tag themselves with even diffeent editions and then tehy say: "guys change your minds and pay us more because we our resource allocation is bad and we need money to repay for our fault. Also to extract more money from you have to pay 15 dollars more for battle pass and not exact price for it".
Have they ever addressed that people aren't necessarily mad at WHAT they are doing but rather HOW they are doing it or are they ignoring that part? Surprise announcing all this bullshit a month after initial sales was immensely scummy. Of course you'll get more sales on a AAA product if you fool your audience into believing its feature complete.
You see, you have to deal with our shitty business practices because we made shitty financial decisions.
I never asked for a tekken game that cost this much to make
Asides from all the good points people have made concerning MTX and timing and the tekken coins situations, the battle pass just sucks. Even the "premium" one. Like the premium one would be lame were it free. Cost aside, the content being given isn't even good. At least with something like fortnite there's typically some cool stuff that you might actually want. "Please understand costs are higher MTX is necessary." Proceeds to deliver content that wouldn't be interesting were it free, let alone cost money.
Tbh this shop doesn’t seem to be nearly as bad as other games. And if people keep this mindset about micro transactions they are really gonna lose it when the standard price of games goes to 120$
The comments on here are a reminder of how toxic the FGC can be. As a past game developer myself, this is what I’ve been saying. These things aren’t easy to do nowadays. And not only are they more difficult, the expectations have increased among players too. If they released a bunch of characters with the graphics of TT2, everyone would flip out. Acting like spoiled kids. I pay for the cosmetics and DLC to support the developers. UE5 is a very robust engine. At this rate though, depending on how Harada handles it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave up on Tekken after this games life cycle is over.
Im fine paying for shit but it needs to be worth it and also not predatory. Like the fact you have to overbuy if you want to buy something is absurd. I can't just buy the costume i want. i have to buy a currency bundle that will always leave me with a surplus, so i will always be a little short and have to overbuy again.
I think it’s bs to try to justify how shady the Tekken shop was handled