They have lots to say, but no speeches

Yeah... Gamers are a demographic well known for holding their opinions to themselves.../s

The whole point of running an event like this in the first place is that's an enormous ad for the video game that they sell. Putting up a paywall in front of it just seems counter productive.

This isn‘t some huge event with mainstream appeal.

It is in Japan, but the whole idea is archaic anyway. Reeks of old, greedy executive BS. So short-sighted in terms of both profitability and goodwill.

I watch a lot of fgc creators and the general consensus is the game is simply so much bigger in Japan then the rest of the world and the Japanese will pay to watch it. Japanese SF6 content creators have better viewership numbers than the biggest fgc content creators like Max and Sajam. Japanese only tournaments are almost as big viewership wise as some worldwide tournaments like evo. So essentially it comes down to the majority of the audience is in Japan and because of that they can actually expect to convert a lot of that audience to pay per view because of japanese consumers habits. They already did it for street fighter league japan as well. I would assume to test the waters for this. It doesn't bode well for them internationally but a lot of Japanese companies dont really care about international audiences. Unless the international audience is too big to ignore which for street fighter 6 doesnt appear to be the case.

Eh....

They've been making a lot of effort to expand the "old" FGC (so basically Street Fighter) outside of Japan for a few years now. It hasn't really taken hold (and I am going to pretend it is because everyone is like me and gets off on watching Guilty Gear!) and we see more and more Saudi money being pumped into "Western" FGC events.

So I can see an argument for doubling down on their core audience to lock that in.

And.... PPVs ARE kind of making a comeback in The West. People are increasingly annoyed by "needing so many streaming services". And, at least in pro wrestling, AEW have kind of been cleaning up with their 4-6 PPVs a year. The HBO Max deal helps a lot for people to watch the weekly show but... it is fricking HBO Max and a lot of folk are still taking the route of "I skip Dynamite and just watch the PPVs". And the human trafficking front known as WWE are starting to shift back that way as a result of, among other things, their ESPN deal. Companies have been desperate for more and more "event television" as streaming takes over (hence why AEW and WWE can get such lucrative tv contracts) and nothing is more "event" than paying 30-70 bucks to sit around the TV on a Saturday night.

So I think it is less "a few greedy execs want to burn away the goodwill" and more... the overall industry trends.

yup. gimme marvel vs capcom 2 quality any day over sf3 etc.

darkstalkers is legit too.

How would that have changed this situation?

This is something that used to be free and now costs about $40. Outside of Japan, a lot of people won't pay it and will just not watch the finals.

New Lemmy pasta?

Wait until you hear about regular sports people.

Nintendo always sucked ass.

Capcom was one of the few old greats that still had some goodwill left.

Now it's clear their analysts are using that goodwill to increase next quarter's profits.

We only have "they're a business and they need to make money!" rhetoric to blame.

You too? Who else is doing this in the e-sports space?

Solid advice.
But what does it have to do with this topic?

Yo, open world RPG folks, stay home on this, it's all button mashing nonsense to your "elevated" brain anyway 😂 We got this.

Just maybe read the article first next time.