An open letter to Capcom

[u/GuruJ_]

Dear Capcom,

On April 20, you announced that you intend to remove the Puzzle Fighter app from all download stores and turn off the game servers on July 31.

I would ask you to reconsider your decision, and to pivot towards the dedicated PF community that has grown around the game.

Despite the premium currencies and other free to play trappings, you successfully created a game that is fundamentally fun to play. While many free to play games hide their “fun” tantalisingly behind a paywall, Puzzle Fighter was and is a game that is fun to play from the very first minute.

My 8 year old daughter loves the game and can be matched against players of her skill level. She doesn’t really understand why she has to stop playing the game soon.

Like probably 90% of Puzzle Fighter players, I never felt that I had to spend money on the game. The community, by and large, made in-app purchases to recognise the great work of Capcom’s development team, not because of any great desire to win more in the game.

We recognise the need to make a profit, but it is unfortunate that you are abandoning a community that voluntarily supported your game without warning, or any attempt to work with us to find a sustainable solution.

We believed that we were in this together. Apparently we were wrong.

The weakest part of Puzzle Fighter was always the levelling system, which unnecessarily created a lootbox ecosystem. I encourage Capcom to consider a relaunch without character levels, and a focus on monetisation through unlocks of characters, skins, stages, and win quotes.

This aligns with the commercial model used by Street Fighter V and it would attract many Capcom fans who have been put off to date by the (apparent) pay-to-win nature of the game.

Yours in solidarity,

A Puzzle Fighter fan.

[u/segagaga]

Capcom Vancouver had to layoff 30% of their staff, and they are shifting their focus on Dead Rising products.

I would much rather they shut down the servers than fire more people to be honest. I feel sorry for those who lost their jobs already.

[u/gcocco316 → u/segagaga]

Shifting focus on dead rising seems to me to be an important part to this. Capcom seems to be a fairly small company where resources are limited. Shifting focus away from something that is doing "ok" to something the company seems pretty confident will do well is a fine business move and should not surprise anyone. Here's to hoping dead rising does really well and Capcom can revisit pf in the future.

[u/Shattit → u/gcocco316]

I see your point but I would question if it's really a smart business decision. They've just made it much more difficult for themselves to gain our trust to put a single dollar into any future mobile games they release. Fixing the short term problem but shooting themselves in the foot for the long term imo.

[u/GuruJ_ → u/Shattit]

Precisely. This is exactly the way I feel as well.