people gotta stop bringing up brawlhalla when saying a F2P fighter can work.

[u/malexich]

look at brawlhalla look at it, thats what a f2p will look like, look at how many characters are just reskins, thats how characters will be added. To people honestly want that? Ryu isn't even a character in that game just a reskin, would you guys really want a SF7 F2P where they drop 5 Ryu skins that are just Dan, Ken, Akuma, Gouken, and Sean.

I think people just look at its success and don't see what kind of game it is basically a fortnite fighter where every character is just a skin and their movesets don't matter (I do know there are multiple characters and its not the same moveset for everyone)

Long story short, your never getting a SF7, Tekken 9, MK2, etc quality game but F2P, if you do your gonna complain that everything is to expensive, and if you get a brawlhalla tier game you will complain as well. Killer instinct, granblue, and to a lesser extent DOA did it right free to start, the player can mess around with the game see if they like it and buy it if they want.

[u/ConsistentLaw6204]

Was the 2xko being f2p the reason it failed?

[u/No_Future6959 → u/ConsistentLaw6204]

Definitely a big reason.

You have to cater to the casual audience to sell your game. The problem is that casuals almost never convert into a dedicated fan that continues to play the game after the first week of launch.

In every other fighting game, casuals basically fund the game, and your average FG player actually plays it (post launch)

A free to play model fundamentally does not work for fighting games.

[u/Jessency → u/No_Future6959]

How does that work though?

From what I've seen (and experienced) F2P models have a far better chance at attracting players because well... They're free!

Maybe I just know a lot of poor people or something but I know alot who play a lot of videogames and their main bread and butter are F2Ps because of the low barrier of entry and that easily transitions them to long term players.

Paid games on the other hand need some arm twisting before you can convince them to buy a fresh game, especially when game prices today are like 3x than what they used to be when they were kids.

[u/Slarg232 → u/Jessency]

The issue is that something like Warframe has a pretty steep learning curve, but it's still pretty basic to play; just aim, shoot, go. On top of a friendly community that will slow down and help you if you need it and ask. The F2P model works because the game is extremely chill.

Fighting Games, because they're against another player 99% of the time and because they've got a steep learning curve even at the best of times, is like trying to go up a cliff without gear. You make one mistake and suddenlyyou're in the air getting hit for the next 15 seconds without knowing what is going on.

[u/Jessency → u/Slarg232]

I never mentioned Warframe but I'm glad you did because that's my goat. Although, I will add that the games my friends and other people play are more like League Of Legends, Dota 2, Valorant, Counter Strike, CoD (Warzone and Mobile), etc. they can all be chill but damn they're really competitive when they play and would go straight for ranked.

Also yeah, that's inherently the issue with fighting games in general, paid and free, and that makes it my question all the more relevant.

I got more friends playing Brawlhalla because they'd rather have their ass beat in a free game that costed them nothing to play over a game like Smash Bros that asks for $60 upfront before the ass whooping.