The producer on the game at Microsoft Studios told Eurogamer at an event at E3 last night that the company decided to use this release strategy because when it comes to fighting games, most players only focus on a handful of characters.
"It's really impressive to have a roster of 50 characters, but how many of those characters am I really going to play?" the producer said. "And I have to buy a $60 game in order to play those one or two characters I want to play.
"Fighting games are big and expensive and they can be complicated. It's very hard to get good at a number of characters. You generally gravitate towards one or two or three or four at the most.
"We want players to be able to experience the game that way. Just buy the characters you want or buy them all and we'll give you a discount on that."
Some of the biggest BS I have read in a while. They make it sound like they're doing use a favour with this stategy.
Problems:
1) How am I supposed to decide what character to use if I can only play as one from the start? Im still going to have to buy them to try them and then make a decision.
2) 'Fighting games are big and expensive' I'm going out on a limb here an actually going to say they're pretty cheap to make in the relative circles of big budget AAA titles.
3)"And I have to buy a $60 game in order to play those one or two characters I want to play" Lets say $5 a character, theres a roster of 20 thats $100 if you want the complete game, where as other fighting titles have done perfectly fine with rosters of 10-20 even 30 characters at $60 or even less.
Again: HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHO I WANT TO PLAY AS IF I CAN ONLY PLAY AS ONE PERSON FROM THE START!? A static picture or a small trailer isn't going to tell me how a character works, controls, acts.....I need them in my hands to know how they feel.
Seriously for the sake of gaming as a whole no one should buy into this crap.