Opposing Forces: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3!
Capcom recently announced Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, a title that promises to add new characters, stages, and balance tweaks to their popular fighter. However, there’s been a storm of controversy over this decision, as fans who’ve already shelled out $60 for the original Marvel vs. Capcom 3 feel like they may have gotten the raw end of the deal.
Two of our writers here at Cheat Code Central have drastically different opinions on this issue, so we thought it would be best to let them battle it out with their words before it became a fist fight. Angelo M. D’Argenio is here to explain why we should be thankful for this new version of UMvC3, while Shelby Reiches stands up for those who may feel ripped off by it.
How do you feel about UMvC3? Let us know in the comments.
Angelo “Capcom Love” D’Argenio:
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is coming out soon, and a lot of people are whining about what a shameless cash-in the game is. You know what I have to say to those people? What an ungrateful bunch of entitled and spoiled brats you all are!
Let’s start with some simple math. Let’s say Capcom released all the new characters as DLC. Shuma and Jill from MvC3 were five bucks each. UMvC3 has twelve new characters. Twelve characters times five bucks each comes out to $60. Had these come out as DLC, you could be paying sixty bucks for characters alone, and you wouldn’t get the extra costumes, stages, rebalance patches, spectator mode, or any of the other improvements that are coming with UMvC3. However, the price of UMvC3 is only $40. Capcom is essentially giving you a discount and bonus content, and you are spitting in their face.
Some of you might claim you’d only buy one or two characters out of the twelve, thus saving money. But no one ever just buys one DLC character. Some people buy none, and that’s fine. You can go ahead and keep your original MvC3; no one will complain. But no one buys just one character in a fighting game. The reason: You can never know how a character plays until you try it, and you can’t try it unless you buy it.
Maybe you’re a big fan of Strider, but he turns out to be low-tier. Maybe you like Ghost Rider, but he’s too slow for your taste. Or maybe you can’t wait for Phoenix Wright to be in the game, but he turns out to be almost unplayable. If you bought the character as DLC, you’d be judging a book by its cover. UMvC3 is giving you all of this at a reduced price so you don’t have to guess which DLC characters will be good.
Capcom made Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the budget they had in the time frame they were given. Spending more time on it to include things such as more characters, stages, or even more balance testing would take both time and money. This means that MvC3 would have been delayed to, well, the date UMVC3 is coming out—almost a whole year later. When does development stop? Someone will always have another character idea. Do you delay it a year to add twelve characters? Do you delay it two years and add twenty four? When does it end? When is the “right time” to release a fighting game?
Capcom makes its money from fans buying its games, and it then uses that money to have its programmers and artists and composers and so on make more games. Every minute of development is a minute that Capcom has to pay for. So UMvC3 can’t be free. If it was, where would Capcom get the money to pay the developers that worked on it? If they delayed the game and spent more money on it during development, then they would have to charge more or sell more to make up for the extra time they put into the project. That’s economics 101. And frankly, I am more apt to spend $60 once and another $40 later than $100 all at once. Do you think anyone would have bought MVC3 if it was a 100-dollar game, even if it had 100 characters?
And Capcom is giving you bonuses. It’s giving pre-order costumes. It’s giving some bonus if you have the original MvC3 that hasn’t been announced. Heck, it’s adding totally new modes that we haven’t even seen before. You can even go on Amazon and sell your copy of MVC3 right now for 20-30 bucks, reducing the cost of UMVC3 to 10-20 dollars. Does that sound better?
Finally, and I didn’t want to play this card, but Capcom said its original DLC plans for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 were derailed when the Tsunami hit Japan. I can believe that. People were just making sure they survived at that point, and afterward, everyone was just trying to get their business back on track. So instead of suddenly coming out with DLC after a nearly six month waiting period due to financial complications arising from the disaster, Capcom decided to renew hype for the game (and its new content) with a totally new iteration that gives fans everything they have been asking for, from spectator mode to a fifty character roster.
What possible counterargument do you have against one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit Japan? How heartless do you have to be to think that Japanese programmers at Capcom weren’t affected by this?
To make a long story short, Capcom doesn’t owe you crap. They try to make the best decisions for the development of every one of their games, because that’s good business and that makes them money. They just can’t spontaneously create UMvC3 from wishes and pixie dust. If you really think this is a waste of money, feel free to not buy the game. There’s no better way to tell Capcom you disapprove than to not purchase the thing you disapprove of. But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that you’ll complain and complain and complain, and on launch day you’ll be on line like the rest of us for your brand new shiny copy of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, complete with a now-fair Phoenix.
- Pro
- Anti