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At EVO 2015, Capcom made some announcements regarding Street Fighter V, some of which are fairly surprising to hear. They announced some big changes from the way they handled Street Fighter IV, and even the way they handled earlier Street Fighter titles that had multiple releases. It was all pretty unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome.

Most notably, this game will only receive a single version. There won't be multiple releases of Ultra this or Super that to deal with. That doesn't mean the major balance and system adjustments will simply be paid updates though. Instead, these updates will be entirely free. If that wasn't already a nice enough change, they dropped a very surprising bit of news:

All DLC will be available to be unlocked in-game for free. It doesn't matter if the content is available at release or is developed months after. You will not have to spend any actual money on any of the Street Fighter V DLC if you don't want to, whether it's new characters or anything else.

The way they'll manage this is with an in-game currency system used to "purchase" new content that is split into two parts:

Fight Money: This is earned in-game as you play.
Zenny: This is the microtransaction equivalent that can be purchased for real money in place of earning Fight Money.

Essentially, you use this currency to purchase all post-launch content. There is the potential for the system not to work out brilliantly depending on cost and how easily Fight Money is earned, but they hope to balance out the system in later beta phases. Undeniably, this is a very consumer friendly model for handling DLC.

All of this is a huge change from the way Street Fighter has been for decades now, and all of it seems perfectly geared towards improving the biggest flaws the series has accumulated.

Source: PS Blog

You can see the original slide pictures captured from EVO 2015 below. There's no specific source for them, but they were all available very shortly before the PS Blog announcement and reflect the same information with a couple extras:

Spoiler: EVO 2015 Presentation Slides

 

[ShonenJump]

Holy shit is this real!? I mean it was a dream of mine to only release one version of SFV and it came true!

 

[Clydefrosch]

Well, knowing capcom, fight money will work something like: 5$ dlc or 15 hour ingame grinding. not online, of course. fight money is only for single player

 

[The Catboy]

Inb4theycancelit.
This way too good to be true, I feel like something horrible is lurking the depth.

 

[Nathan Drake]

I think this is actually a brilliant system. Microtransactions are a goldmine. They work thanks to the impatient and the casual. I wouldn't be surprised if this system for Zenny actually ends up being more profitable than their SFIV ventures, regardless of the existence of a free option.

 

[mightymuffy]

Before bowing in awe at Capcom we've gotta realise, well, this is Capcom we're talking about - let's see just what figures they're talking about here: like Clydefrosch says it could be unreasonable hours per dlc...
No Super or Ultra though = good news! (I think! It'd be like a Mario game without mushrooms! )

Perhaps they're apologizing for that shambles that is PS4 Ultra SFIV....

 

[LuckySteves]

I love the idea, and I'm all in favour of it, but I hate the separate currency between real money and "earned" money. League of Legends (and I'm sure many others, that's just the one I'm most familiar with) pulls the same system and it feels like the earned money is so undervalued. It costs ~5 thousand earned money to buy the same thing as ~750 bought money. I feel like I'm being cheated. Maybe they just need to change how much is given per game to make the two more equal.

If everything used the same currency they might not make as much money, but it suddenly feels fair; if you want this thing, you're putting in the same work whether it's paid for or played for.

 

[Nathan Drake]

I love the idea, and I'm all in favour of it, but I hate the separate currency between real money and "earned" money. League of Legends (and I'm sure many others, that's just the one I'm most familiar with) pulls the same system and it feels like the earned money is so undervalued. It costs ~5 thousand earned money to buy the same thing as ~750 bought money. I feel like I'm being cheated. Maybe they just need to change how much is given per game to make the two more equal.

If everything used the same currency they might not make as much money, but it suddenly feels fair; if you want this thing, you're putting in the same work whether it's paid for or played for.

The thing is, the system doesn't work if the two things are valued the same. There needs to be a discrepancy to maintain the free system. In the end, it costs money to develop new content, and there needs to be a system that guarantees that they'll at the least make back the development costs. They need to make it so as many as people as possible see the paid option as more convenient for themselves, whether it's due to their impatience or just that they don't feel they have the time to earn the content as quickly as they want to. This type of system is ultimately built on the idea that the free won't seem fair compared to the paid, when in the long run, the fact that free is being offered at all is far more fair than you get with other games.

 

[Clydefrosch]

I think this is actually a brilliant system. Microtransactions are a goldmine. They work thanks to the impatient and the casual. I wouldn't be surprised if this system for Zenny actually ends up being more profitable than their SFIV ventures, regardless of the existence of a free option.

actually, microtransaction work mainly because of a very, very very small number of high investors. just like low income gambling. most people never use microtransaction, another almost as big number of people spend like 5, maybe 10 bucks. and the fraction thats left shovels hundreds and thousands of dollars at it.

 

[CathyRina]

I think people who thought that Capcom would rereleases it 10 times but this time also on XBO need to reconsider.

 

[Foxi4]

I like this approach towards DLC. People who don't have the time or patience can just unlock everything with a credit card, others can unlock it in due time and not miss out on anything. Good stuff, well done, Capcom.

 

[Varia]

Oh boy, this is obviously a trap, it's fucking Capcom we're talking about.
They will probably overcharge the DLC, and grinding for coins will take countless hours...

 

[CathyRina]

I'd rather grind for a few hours to unlock a DLC than purchase it for a overcharged price like in Smash 4.

 

[WiiCube_2013]

I like this approach towards DLC. People who don't have the time or patience can just unlock everything with a credit card, others can unlock it in due time and not miss out on anything. Good stuff, well done, Capcom.

Reminds me of the days when I could use a cheat code to unlock everything and didn't had to pay a cent. Times change and so, I'll rather unlock it myself.

 

[tbb043]

Only one version of 5? Guess that means instead of Super 5, they'll just put out 5-2 or some shit.

 

[Selim873]

Nice!! Looks like Capcom knows how DLC was meant to be, and all they did was start the trend on Monster Hunter! DLC for free, but you have to earn it! I love it!

 

[Monado_III]

how much Zenny will you earn though? what if every dlc cost 'x' zenny but each fight only gave you 'x'/1000 zenny?

 

[Nathan Drake]

New character reveal, Necalli, from EVO 2015:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=57&v=m9ci3LlyAeE

Source

 

[T-hug]

I'm in the beta for this and if there's no NDA we should have some coverage this week!

 

[Maximilious]

Free would insinuate just that - No time or money needed for said DLC. But Time IS Money, and businesses know this.