DLC Wars: Tekken Tag 2 Vs Skullgirls

Before we start, let me direct your attention to an old post of mine

http://identitygaming.blogspot.se/2013/08/skullgirls-dlc-is-disgusting.html

If you don't want to read it then it's basically a rant I made about how stupid the Skullgirls palette swap DLC is.  Basically, you have to may money for the artist to use the fucking fill tool in paint, it's stupid.

Anyway, today I was talking to my friend and he brought up an instance of DLC in a fighting game that didn't make me want to kick someone in the head.  If you own a copy of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 then there is a bunch of DLC you can get for that game completely free, including new characters of all fucking things!

I don't own a copy of Tekken Tag 2 (I will do soon though) so I had to go do some googling to find out what the deal is.  Turns out that the producer, Katsuhiro Harada thinks that modern day DLC is a load of horse shit so he's trying to right the ills of the world by providing a load of awesome shit for free.

THIS, people, is a good developer right here.  He's no small fry in Namco Bandai, he's a guy who works as the producer for the fucking Tekken franchise, I'm pretty sure he's under quite a bit of pressure for his games to make some fucking money, probably more so than any indie developer is.  Yet despite this, he's providing all this shit for free, absolutely NO MONEY.  Costumes, characters, multi account usage, stages and god knows what else for £0, $0, ¥0!

Then you turn your head the other way and see Skullgirls charging for the use of the fucking fill tool, it's disgusting.  If you're going to charge people for something, fucking put some goddamn effort into it.  Hell, as long as it wasn't on disc, I'd be willing to pay for a new character or a new stage, some guy somewhere drew that shit, rendered it in 3D, made it work and all that jazz, some credit for the effort is deserved and yet Tekken just GIVES that shit away.  In this day and age of almost every company using DLC to just wring money out of you, this is a breath of fresh air.

Skullgirls looks like a good game, I'm willing to support it, but they can take their palette swap DLC and go shove it up their arse.  Finally, Katsuhiro Harada is a fucking beast and it's a shame that more developers don't follow in his footsteps.  Capcom could learn a thing or two here.....

Game Centre: Serious Business

So despite having a cold (again) I went down to the game centre today and while I usually play rhythm games and top down shooters, I decided to play something I haven't touched in a long time, Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

I played a lot of Tekken 6 at university, hell, I even played a lot of Tekken 6 back in Japanese arcades in 2010.  Me and my buddies would do both pretty well online and we would even do pretty good at the game centre from time to time.

Back when I first arrived in Japan I had a few goes of Tekken Tag 2, and my local places are usually pretty quiet mid week so I spent most of my time against the computer but occasionally I'd get a game against another person and I'd do OK.  Didn't win them all but I held my own out there.

So I sat down at a packed out bank of Tekken machines today, put my 100 yen in and was instantly paired up with the guy on the other side.  Of course, the huge lack of Tekken in my life led to me getting destroyed so completely that the whole thing felt embarrassing, despite no one really giving a flying fuck.  This guy beat me down so hard that the 2 rounds I did get on him felt like cause enough to celebrate.

But this is true for pretty much every game in the game centres here (by here I mean places like Nagoya, Tokyo etc.).  If you're gonna go there you better bring your A game if you want to have any chance of winning because if not you're going to lose that 100 yen so fast that you may as well just be pouring change down the gutter.

I think with my next pay cheque I'm gonna grab a copy of Tekken Tag on the PS3 and exact some revenge on the Nagoya arcade goers.  This shit is serious!