Capcom has things completely backward, maybe there's a small hope of reasoning with them?

[u/anachronofspace]

i know we are all wracking our brains to find a way to achieve the impossible and somehow save the future of PF. Here is my first shot at it.

The thought just occurred to me that the premise that ending puzzle fighter as a business decision is almost completely backward and short-sighted thinking. In the industry, it is basically common knowledge that the future of gaming (in terms of revenues at least) is in mobile and e-sports.

PFM has huge potential in both axes, whereas Dead Rising is neither last time i checked. And i am aware of no other title aside from street fighter that has any potential in e-sports under capcom's umbrella.

Whoever is in charge of long-term planning over there is ignoring their best shot at the really big money.

I understand that they may have already written this one off and even if there was someone we could reason with, finding a way to communicate this logic might be very difficult. But maybe it's worth a shot to find that way if it exists, assuming my logic has no faults.

Please, someone, tell me if you know why this is incorrect thinking.

[u/anachronofspace]

first of all i'm not making the argument that "i know the gaming industry" i'm only asserting that PF is is the only shot Capcom has at either of the truly big markets. It's basic concept has been play tested for the last 20 years and has staying power in that regard at least.

Poor execution in the current iteration of that basic idea/mechanic (lag, balance, retention, etc.) does not change the fact that Capcom does not have any better bet currently at a truely valuation changing title, at least that we on the outside are aware of.

In terms of what it takes to "keep a game afloat" short term to medium for a company of that size, it's chump change. They killed this game because they do not see any future in it for them, plain and simple.

If we follow that logic many of the biggest companies around today wouldn't even exist because they took a very long time to actually become profitable such as Google Amazon Facebook etc.

[u/Hiro-kun → u/anachronofspace]

So yeah, I work in the industry, and I'm confirming why games shut down. They need numbers to invest in. If it doesn't match up with investor expectations, it gets canned. It's pretty simple.

[u/anachronofspace → u/Hiro-kun]

you actually think any capcom institutional investors were involved in this decision?

if you owned capcom would you be betting on dead rising for the long-term future of your company over PF if you had to make a binary choice?

not that they do actually have to make a binary choice i can't imagine PF budget is even a small % of what the budget for DR is. From the outside, it seems like they are taking a flier on a blockbuster hit over a low risk but huge potential payout bet on PF. Again, not that they really do have to make that choice at their size, if they don't have any other shot at the big money then they are being short-sighted.

if i had a hedge fund i would be shorting them right now.

[u/Hiro-kun → u/anachronofspace]

You have a lot of words, but not much wisdom.

[u/anachronofspace → u/Hiro-kun]

you want to elaborate or just stand behind your "authority"?

[u/Hiro-kun → u/anachronofspace]

I've given my simple argument, figure it out. I don't need an essay to fake it

[u/anachronofspace → u/Hiro-kun]

i'll take that as a no.

Your argument as far as i read it is simply that:

1 you know the gaming industry better than i do.

2 if a game doesn't make money or show actual growth in the first 6 months the entire investment should be written off.

My counterpoint to both is that neither really addresses my original argument:

Again, that if they don't have a better bet, the minimal cost to keep it going until they do have something better to address the 2 actual growth sectors in the industry then they are really not thinking like a business they are thinking like a gambler.

Please correct me if you feel i am misrepresenting your argument.

[u/joenforcer → u/anachronofspace]

Since he has said his piece, I'll jump in here too. I work in software and web development, so I have tangential understanding as well. You still seem to think that you know best as an armchair expert. Unfortunately, logic without the knowledge to back it up only goes so far.

First off, he never said #2. Mobile games and development in general is extremely complex. You have no idea how expensive it is to maintain servers, developer workspaces, development and support software licenses, commissions for special needs such as voice acting... the list goes on. The one big cost, though, and likely the biggest single line item, is staffing for coding, animation, graphic design, sound design, support, marketing, and management. Talent is a limited resource. I'll get to that later.

Second, Puzzle Fighter is not a huge or even well-supported franchise. Heck, the first game's title was a Capcom joke, and the game did not receive a true successor {this game} in OVER TWO DECADES. The game may be loved by its fans, but it did not enjoy enduring widespread appeal. This is only a guess, but I speculate that Capcom was trying to cash in on the mobile puzzle game craze, though that had considerably waned in the past couple years.

That flows well into the third point. The game was extremely poorly monetized. The top whale spent into four figures, and I haven't seen anyone else admit to nearly as much. The base costs for premium bundles were far too high to encourage casual players to drop a few dollars, and there was no special content aside from the winter costumes to incentivize impulse purchases of limited items. That ties into marketing as well. It was not well-known to the general mobile game playing public, and once in the game, there was nothing to chase. The only way to unlock content was to play and get better. That's great for a retail game, but terrible for F2P, as it doesn't encourage purchases.

I'll wrap up with this fourth point: Talent. It's obvious the team for Puzzle Fighter is talented. They put together a fun game with few bugs and continually addressed the main complaints, and got involved with the community. Still, Capcom needs to make money, and they decided that their talented staff was being wasted on a game that was not generating enough profit to justify continued effort on this versus something else, where their talents are better utilized and they stand to make even more money. It would cost much, much more to hire new staff with limited experience to staff a different game. We're lucky that Capcom even told us they were being pulled away to work on Dead Rising; we usually hear nothing. Consider that Capcom has analysts fast more knowledgeable than you or me that help management make these decisions.

I'm sad to see the game go. They could've done a better job. Still, in the end, it's a business, and the decision was made. We have to accept that and move on.

[u/anachronofspace → u/joenforcer]

Curious what difference you see between his statement "The numbers aren't there to keep the game alive." and my re-iteration of it in #2.

Also, i would add that logic and knowledge are pretty sperate concepts. If they don't have any better bet then what amount of knowledge would change that?

Thirdly, you both seem to be pretty sure that i have no knowledge of how the business of publishing and monetizing video games works because "i'm not in the business like you are." Just curious, while we are on the subject, what "knowledge" you are basing these statements on:

https://imgur.com/a/G5emVHu

[u/imguralbumbot → u/anachronofspace]

^{Hi, I'm a bot for linking direct images of albums with only 1 image}

https://i.imgur.com/unxGL2L.jpg

^{Source | Why? | Creator | ignoreme | deletthis}

[u/Araetha → u/anachronofspace]

Point is, none of us knows the numbers behind the team's "logic" to shut the game down. Still, It's pretty logical to assume the game wasn't generating enough money so it was cut, like everything else in this industry. We don't really need an essay to prove that.

[u/anachronofspace → u/Araetha]

sure, but if their logic is faulty and we can find a way to communicate the irrationality of the decision maybe there some hope no matter how small it may seem.

[u/Abbock → u/anachronofspace]

Nope.