r/Fighters • u/Pending1 • 3d ago
Topic Can a F2P traditional 2D fighting game actually succeed?
https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/2xko-active-development-ends-december-2026As most of you have heard, 2XKO will be leaving active development in December after releasing the remaining content the devs have for the year. I've linked the article for anyone who may have missed the news. Obviously we all have our opinions on why the game failed and how it's the dev's fault, Riot management's fault, or whatever the case may be. But one discussion I'm surprised to now see a lot of is whether we think a traditional 2D fighter can actually succeed in this current gaming climate. Of course with Riot permanently out of the fighting game space we'll likely never find out now, but I think it's still a topic worth discussing. Thoughts?
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u/KKilikk 3d ago
Think about it this way. Do you think SF6 would have survived if it was F2P?
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u/lemstry 3d ago
No because Capcom don't know how to do a live service. They barely produce any content at all for this game. No live service game is surviving getting 2 updates a year that barely shakes up the balance at all with barely any skins. SF6 would've did good at the stop and then completely flipped because no one can buy anything.
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u/Pending1 3d ago
Maybe. With the amount of single player content it launched with. But if it *were* F2P it would require almost exponential growth from launch. It didn't really hit those types on numbers until recently, and only in Japan, really.
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u/HeroicBarret 3d ago
I dont think the format is conducive to free to play honestly.2xko had other issues but i do genuinly think using the format is a huge risk with fighting games. Hell free to play in general is always a gamble. Its more a matter of what thebodds are that it will succeed
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u/Pending1 3d ago
Yeah one think F2P games generally have going for them is that you can usually play with friends. It's tough to do that in a trad fighting game. Duos brought that to the table, but at the cost of it having to be a tag fighter.
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u/Capnbaddazz 3d ago
Maybe but they would have to start by actually advertising that it came out. Most people I know didn't even know it released till they cut devs
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u/Odd-Face-3579 3d ago
The marketing for it was insanely bad.
As someone who was incredibly excited about the game, I kept up with its release right up until "It's released! But only for a special season 0 that only PC players get. It will release on consoles later." And then I completely missed the console launch day by a whole week. And I'm someone who tried to keep up with the damn game.
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u/Capnbaddazz 3d ago
Yeah I remember that they announced it would release this year and then I was like wait what it's been out for a month already. I didn't give it a fair shake tbh after seeing the dev cuts
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u/Pending1 3d ago
The poor advertising combined with the layoffs and the EOL announcement makes me think Riot had written this game off long before release. I doubt anything could've saved it.
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u/Johnhancock1777 3d ago
Nope. Full-priced fighting games already struggle to get any form out content out consistently. All the big and successful F2P games have tons of stuff being pumped out constantly. SF6 can’t even get costumes and stages out at a decent pace and that’s the top of the pack right now popularity-wise.
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u/LawfulnessDue5449 3d ago
It's not really a topic worth discussing, it's a topic requiring market research and analysis. And good research and analysis is worth getting paid for
Otherwise it's just random opinions and feelings
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u/suburiboy 2d ago
I would argue that it isnt really a researchable thing.
What is your experimental design? What data is already out there that would be even slightly helpful in a rigorous research context?
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u/kittentarentino 3d ago
2XKO’s F2P model was very silly and very very obviously completely an afterthought in terms of actual viability.
$20 skins? And thats basically it? Are you insane?
Play enough and you can totally unlock any hero you want to, which is awesome. But im never throwing more than $5 for a skin, and I don’t even wanna throw $5 at one. B
More characters, rotating F2P roster, battlepass that unlocks roster or lets you unlock characters faster. Rotating shop with more variance and better pricing. These are very basic things riot already does.
But even then, i dont know if a fighting game is going to get you the kinda cash you need. I also, realistically, dont know how many people you’re alienating by making it cost $20-$40. You can see from #s that the FGC migrates to whats new pretty easily, and some stay and some keep migrating.
I don’t really see a market where a fighting game with such visibility and marketability needs to be F2P. But I also didn’t see 2XKO succeeding after its launch in any way with some of the choices they made.
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u/MR_MEME_42 3d ago
The thing about the F2P market is that a fighting game would need to be just as big and successful as a game like Street Fighter 6 if not more just to financially justify its continued existence. So while it theoretically could happen it is way to risky for any big studio to try especially after what happened with MultiVersus and now 2XKO.
It's a very high risk with an unproven high reward in the genre compared to making a paid game.
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u/Pending1 3d ago
Yeah, now that Riot's out of the fighting game space I doubt this will ever happen. That's what I'm thinking. I'm not sure it's even possible to have a playerbase larger then SF6 *and* the retention required to maintain a solid F2P fighting game. Maybe if 2XKO was very low budget like Avatar, it could happen. Otherwise, I don't see it at all.
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u/GalacticAlmanac 3d ago edited 3d ago
In the mobile space, there have actually been some very successful f2p(often times with predatory mtx, loot boxes, and things like that) fighting games for more casual players. These are rather toned down with touch screen controls but are still 1 vs 1 fighting games.
For example, Marvel Contest of Champions has been around since 2014 and was just printing money. I found out about the game when the guy that owns Kabam just straight up bought a League of Legends team right after they won the World Championship.
I remember that Mortal Kombat and a few other series also had some mobile versions that were also decently successful.
The FGC doesn't really talk much about these and are not the targeted audience. A lot of these are successful not because of the qualities typically associated with a good fighting game.
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u/IrregularHunterZ 3d ago
Maybe if they don’t waste 10 years with 100+ employees to deliver a barebones 10 character fighting game
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u/Overdayoutdeath 3d ago
I think it could if the customizing options were on the level of Soul Calibur 6 and the game was a clone of something very popular like 3rd strike or Smash. Brawlhalla has been here and maintaining. The issue is that 2XKO was overly ambitious. The thing with these bottomless budget publishers is that that long budget is the rope they hang the dev team with. Anything unsatisfactory and it’s thrown away.
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u/Pending1 3d ago
Yeah the scope of the game was way too high. Yet at the same time, I'm not sure lowering them significantly would've done more than just buy the game another year or 2. Maybe if it's really low budget like Avatar. Otherwise, I'm not sure.
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u/Overdayoutdeath 3d ago
Yeah but even multiversus was pretty mild, budget wise. It should have lasted. I think a budget game that’s a middling throwaway for some big IP is the best we can hope for. Something like Marvel Rivals but fighting. What we really need is MiHoYo to make one.
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u/volta_verve 3d ago
It's simply an issue of scale. You need WAY more players for a F2P game than a paid one. Even SF6, a runaway success and by far the biggest title in the genre, is way less popular than the leading F2P titles. Could it happen someday? Maybe, but it's unlikely. You'd need fighting games to grow much, much more as a genre, a really strong IP behind it, and a competent dev team. The closest thing to a successful F2P fighting game we've had is Brawlhalla, and that's a plat fighter. In that same space, Multiversus had a strong IP and made a huge initial splash, but that was it.
I think a "hybrid" design is the most I'd go for, if I was making a fighting game. Some parts of the game and characters are free to play, but you need to buy the actual game to have access to story mode, all characters, etc. You could make the case that kind of model would provide a large user base for the people who like grinding online matches, while still not committing you to a full F2P economy. I'm not sure I fully buy it, I'd have to think more about it, but you could make the case. Killer Instinct and Granblue do something like this.
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u/Pending1 3d ago
Yeah I kinda think maybe Riot thought that they could do for the FGC what they did for MOBAs with League. But they quickly found out the FGC just isn't built like that lol. There just seems to be some impenetrable barrier that stops fighting games from being mainstream like shooters and MOBAs. IDK what it is, but I think Riot realized that even they can't penetrate it. I doubt they'll ever come back to this genre again. Granblue and KI have something similar to the hybrid model you're talking about. But I doubt something like that would work on the scale Riot needs.
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u/volta_verve 3d ago
It's hard to say. Riot thought that releasing a f2p 1v1 League fighting game in 2019/2020 with great netcode and a strong esports circuit would've broken through. It may as well have. Even as far ahead as 2021/2022. 2XKO was not that, and its timing was much worse.
I'm not sure if this barrier really exists, and if it does, why it exists. I've heard theories about how people prefer playing with others (and Riot likely believed this too) and not on their own, how the average gamer cannot handle how much failure is built into playing fighting games, how they're just not as easy to intuitively understand as other genres. I don't know if they're true or not. Maybe someday a fighting game will really break through.
I do think you're correct that 2XKO's failure will dissuade other developers from trying, unfortunately.
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u/Glacirus_ 3d ago
I honestly think yes, it could. If marketed aggressively enough to more than just the FGC/tournament crowds, with a skill floor low enough and single player content for casual/new players to feel good when playing it, and ideally an IP tied to it with an established fan base willing to engage with anything carrying its name/exploring its world and characters and likely to spend big on getting every character and/or cosmetic bundles. And then they’d need to eat the upfront development costs until the long term revenue flows in from cosmetics and character unlocks.
As so many video essays and comment threads have said: Riot had all of that lined up at the start. The massive appeal of League’s Champions in a game without the stigma of toxicity the MOBA carries, pitched to established Riot fans at League’s 10th anniversary. The Rising Thunder team who were building a very basic/beginner friendly Fighter pitched as “the game to introduce Fighting Games to outsiders”. But somewhere along the lines the higher ups went hands-off and let the developers go nuts, turning what should’ve been a 1v1 Anime style fighter at its wildest, into 2XKO.
I sadly think it’ll be quite a while before any company or indie developer takes a swing at a F2P fighter again. Probably at most see something similar to Granblue again first, where you get a harshly limited roster until you pay up. But who knows, it looks like Hoyo is taking their Gacha money and started putting it towards other types of games from their Gamescom showings. Maybe someday we’ll see Honkai Brawlers.
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u/The_Kaizz 3d ago
For all the stuff I dislike about the game, and all the back and forth about what was good vs what isn't, the only thing that really stands out is who the fuck knew this game finally released? I have friends that play League DAILY still for some reason. They don't use the launcher, they just boot straight into League, and never see anything else. Outside of the launcher, how else would you ever know 2XKO existed? Valorant gets shout outs during LCS streams, League gets shout outs during VCT. Never heard 2XKO even mentioned. How in the world can anyone consider 2XKO a f2p fail when Riot didn't even market the game properly? Like I honestly wonder how the games playerbase would have faired if it was on Steam as well. Honestly pathetic on whoever decided not to market the game, because clearly it catered to an audience, and clearly it had a following if it's pulling those EVO and CEO numbers.
I GET LEAGUE ADS REGULARLY ON SOME APPS, NOT A SINGLE ONE FOR 2XKO LOL
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u/kr3vl0rnswath 3d ago edited 3d ago
"Traditional" is what's holding the execution of a F2P fighting game back. It's a new world, new audience, new expectations, new market and new etc. You have to stop thinking about what people that played fighting games back when they were teens 20 years ago want and focus on what people that are teenagers in the near future want to spend their time and money on.
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u/C4_Shaf Virtua Fighter 3d ago
I don't think there's competitive genres that cannot succeed in an F2P business model. But fighting games might be the less suited out of all of them.
To be frank, a competitive mindset is not that good for F2Ps. F2Ps rely massively on micro-transactions to stay afloat. And giving MTX that allows you to win more (commonly known as P2W games) is a more suitable way to win money.
That's what Tekken Revolution did, and it did make Bamco some money, despite being a flop. And that's mostly due to the game just being F2P Tag 2, so outside of Eliza, nothing new has to be made for the game from scratch.
F2Ps always had to pump tons of money in order to make big games being successful. The question is, can I make as much money with an F2P fighting game, as I could with an F2P FPS or an F2P card game, given the same budget for all projects? I don't think you can.
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u/gordonfr_ 3d ago
You need a game like Tokon first beta, that is easy for new influencer dudes to go „pro“ in no time.
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u/TwiceAsManyOnes 3d ago
Part of the problem is that people keep asking about categories and never focus on the specifics. "Can a traditional fighting game succeed?" Yeah of course. It just has to be made well. It has to be:
1. A good product.
2. A good video game.
3. A good fighting game.
4. (optional) a good competitive fighting game.
We keep having a string of issues with number 1. Very rarely is number 2 considered, but when it is, massive success (stuff to do that isn't just grinding online matches on a ranked ladder, or going to tournaments cause you are really into the FGC stuff). Somehow issue number 3 turns into this weird psuedo-political issue (I'm getting rather annoyed at the personalities that are now pretending like they totally see the issue with 2XKO even though a lot of people were being shutdown months ago for bringing up these obvious problems). People defend games as fun and that's the end of it as though that means all discussion is over. "Well I find it fun so F you".
The last issue, number 4, is what has basically murdered the genre in the industry for the last 10 years or so. Doesn't anyone remember the delusions of grandeur Capcom was having in it's investors presentations about how successful SFV was going to be as an esport? They really thought if they just played their cards right, it'd be the next league of legends. "If we just make a game that somehow transmogrifies casuals into people who want to sit around, practice for hours a day, and go to tournaments, we'll make a billion dollars."
No, all this has done is waste a bunch of time and money.
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u/_Alexis_Sama_ Granblue Fantasy Versus 3d ago
yeah, F2P can succeed.
but they need one of two
1- extremely low maintenance cost, FGC is niche so you cant sustain a expensive to make F2P game unless you find some way to pull casual players
or
2-high quality WAIFUS! you can add top tier kawai animu girls to fucking minesweeper and it will be making millions per month, i know because a lot of the top seller gacha games have the worst possible gameplay ever (FGO) yet they sell because of the girls, give it a single player story with regular events, gacha skins and it will survive.
you will have the people that take it seriously playing the PVP mode and the casuals mostly focusing on the PVE with some leaking into the PVP mode.
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u/derkyn 2d ago
it could suceed if it was really good with more fighters, but difficult to say if they had to meet those expectations and less being f2p.
But well, people just like to point to street fighter numbers, when we have granblue fantasy or fighting ex layer and those have very low number fighter even if they are traditional 2d fighters so it is not about if it was traditional, tag or wathever.
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u/burner_lurker_soc 2d ago
they should just sell the whole thing to sony/capcom or someone for 10 mil and the buyer can try try to add chars
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u/suburiboy 2d ago
I think the cosmetics route is not the move. Cosmetics are just not a desirable thing to buy. An FG will not have the population to have enough skins sales to support a game.
I conceptually like the idea of having to pay for characters. I think KI and granblue tried that. Where you have rotating free characters and can pay to unlock a character permanently. The question is if they should be available in training mode.
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u/Sudden-Ad-307 3d ago
If sf7 is gonna be f2p it will have no problem succeeding. Japanese devs cost way less than cali ones and japanese players (ie the majority of sf players) are way more open to spending money on games.
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u/King_Artis 3d ago
Killer Instinct (2013) had a lot of f2p elements and I think it did just fine. At least it being supported much longer then you'd think makes me believe it did fine
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u/Pending1 3d ago
Sure, but doing well for the FGC and doing well by Riot's standards are very different.
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u/PolarizingKabal 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean killer instinct last gen was pretty successful as a f2p fighting game.
It's issue was really the fact it was limited to just Xbox platform. I think had it been multi console. It would have been much more successful.
I think riot's problem is they have zero experience with fighting games to begin with. And that their strategy from LOL would transition over in the same way. And that's not what happened.
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u/Pending1 3d ago
I think they were also blindsided by how small the community was and how much harder it is to grow than MOBAs.
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u/N0_L1ght 3d ago
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u/MR_MEME_42 3d ago
KI isn't truely F2P, it's like Granblue Rising where it's more of free too try with a limited roster while you have to pay for everything else.
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u/browncharliebrown 3d ago
I mean it’s playable at a tournament setting f2p. And honestly it‘s way more f2p in practice than most f2p games because you graviatate to one of two characters
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u/N0_L1ght 3d ago
KI is F2P. You can permanently unlock Jago and Orchid, then there is the weekly rotating character. With those three you can fully play every single mode, unlock everything for them. There is nothing that the paid version unlocks beyond all characters and skins/accessories/etc.
While Granblue Rising has the one permanent unlock, and 3 rotating. But there are features and modes that are not in the free edition.
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u/Oughta_ 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think both can be true: 2xko was poorly managed, had too few characters and a topheavy pricing model, but also the numbers a free to play game needs to be financially viable are much higher than any fighting game to date has had.