YouAndIAreNothing

So for what it's worth (nothing), here's my quandary and I'll say right up front I can't believe I'm bothering to post this. Anywhoo...

On the one hand, the game did come with a lot of content already and while it stings that there's so much DLC on the disc, I can understand why they did it and, as much as I hate to admit it, I think people are right when they say that if Capcom didn't think they could monetize it they would have stopped at a smaller number of characters.

However, consider that they probably also determine the characters being created/pulled out on a mix of the ones people want, so they don't put ALL the good ones in the "original" game, they pull some top tier ones for the Disc-Locked Content.

Frankly, I'd have been happier with a smaller core of the best characters and no DLC but obviously 1) the "best characters" is highly subjective and 2) different people will value the game/characters differently, and I respect that.

For me, though, I was going to buy this on launch day, then decided I would wait until there was either an "ultimate" edition (yes, I realize they said there wouldn't be) or the original version dropped to ~$40, because $60 is the upper limit of what I've decided I'm comfortable spending on a game.

Similarly, planned on buying Soul Calibur 5 on launch day, then found out about the gimped single-player mode. There was a game I used to love for the care and effort they put into the cinemas on the first couple games. They weren't necessary and the stories were lame, but damn, they looked great and clearly put a lot of effort and resources into them.

Sadly, I think that ship has sailed and gaming suffers as a result of increased monetization (this ruined SSX for me, btw) and the half-assing of some or all of a game's content, particularly single-player. Again, everyone's got different reasons for playing, and that's fine and good.

What bums me out is that when I vote with my wallet, I'm never certain whether the message is, "this game isn't selling as well as it could because of our DLC model or lack of single player content (or whatever)" OR "this game isn't selling as well as it could because people just don't care about fighting games anymore."

Would hate for it to be the latter, because I loved the gold old days of unlocking things with skill and having something to look forward to at the end of a journey, whether it was a lovingly-crafted 30 second CG clip at the end of a fighting game or different endings (cough) at the end of a trilogy like Mass Effect.