Capcom rejects Versus mode complaints

By Tom Bramwell Published 17 March, 2009

Says Resi add-on was budget separately.

Capcom's Christian Svensson has rejected suggestions that the premium Versus mode for Resident Evil 5 is a scam.

"Whenever we do PDLC, that content exists with its own budgets, its own profit and loss analysis with its own forecasts. If it didn't, that extra content wouldn't have been put into production, because it did not fit within the production budget of the base product," Svensson, who is a biz-dev vice president for the US arm of the company, wrote on the Capcom-Unity forum (thanks Kotaku).

Earlier in the post he described the negative response to the Versus announcement as "BS". "RE5 is well worth every penny of USD 60. A huge game, with tons of replay value, loads of unlockables, new weapons, co-op, mercenaries mode, etc. If any game warrants its price point, it's RE5," he wrote.

"Prior to the announcement of the Versus mode, no one complained they weren't getting their money's worth with the initial release because it packs TONS of value because it is an amazing game.

"So if people were already satisfied with what the package had, when we offer MORE, why is it people feel they've been somehow cheated? If you don't find value in our secondary offerings, the choice is simple, don't purchase it. If you do find it valuable (and we hope you do) please do buy it and enjoy it."

Svensson also said that the Versus mode is not finished and waiting somewhere on the disc to be unlocked as some had speculated.

The Versus pack is due out on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network in the next few weeks, and includes two competitive modes - Slayer's Rule, where you take out zombies for points, and Survivor's Rule, where you take each other out. Both modes support up to four players, and will cost 400 Microsoft Points (GBP 3.40 / EUR 4.80) on Live and GBP 3.99 / EUR 4.99 on PSN.

Take a look at the screenshots for a better diea of how it looks, and don't forget to check out our Resident Evil 5 review if you haven't already.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (44) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • HuggyAtHome #1 3 years ago

    New modes, same poor controls

  • menage #2 3 years ago

    I reject your game:D

  • bad09 #3 3 years ago

    Yeah, whatever mate. It's just like "extra" costumes on SF4. you are whoring yourselves EA style Capcom.

    Sad pathetic thing is I cracked on the costumes but these little cracks heal up stronger each time games industry so resistance is getting stronger, do the right thing and let us unlock things not buy 'em.

    I understand the temptations for DLC, the reasons and the opportunity for profit it's just...gaming has become so soulless thanks to you all ripping the old unlocking stuff fun out for profit TBH......

  • DFawkes #4 3 years ago

    People feel cheated because it's the type of game mode almost any other game would have built in. It's not unusual for Versus modes to be in games, but it is unusual to see it not in, but added this quickly after release.

    Plus all his statement is seems to be "We want to make money" padded in marketing talk. I appreciate that, but not like this. Even packing it in with the Collectors Edition would've been a passable solution.

  • DoctorZoidberg #5 3 years ago

    for a better diea of how it looks

    Diea
    1. Hard Spanking, 2. Bondage Style Spanking

    Source, Urban Dictionary.

    -----------

    He has a point though, if its something extra, no one is forcing you to buy it.

  • trancers #6 3 years ago

    none is forcing you to buy so you can show what you think about it when you buy or not

  • Ryze #7 3 years ago

    That costs fuck all, and is a VERY good method of reducing or preventing trade-ins once the main story has been burned through.

    So many people just obliterate a game in the first few days, then move on. It happened to Devil May Cry 4, so I reckon that this is an excellent idea. Cheap, too!

    I'd like for them to release a paid for (cheap) patch that lets us walk slowly while shooting as well. I hate being stuck to one spot, then running away and turning around. Only annoyance (apart from AI Sheva) in this game.

    Also - there's blatantly been content changes in this game re the whole 'racism' debacle. This is obvious.

  • bad09 #8 3 years ago

    "Also - there's blatantly been content changes in this game re the whole 'racism' debacle. This is obvious. "

    Funny I thought that, seems a lot more mixed in Africa now from early RE5...

  • Gnort #9 3 years ago

    He can hardly say "Yes, we are trying to fleece our customers in every additional way possible", can he?

    I agree with DFawkes - most games of this type would have an adversarial multi-player mode built in. And even if something had it's own budget and coding team, you probably shouldn't be releasing it a week after the game came out, because it will look like it has been deliberately withheld (yes, I am aware of how far before release coding on a game stops, but that is the impression it creates).

    And I don't like the "Resi 5 is worth USD60 without versus mode" argument, it sounds like they're trying to offer the bare minimum and then pad their earnings with anything extra. Would Gears 2 have been worth USD60 without horde mode? Yes, but thankfully Epic didn't decide to charge 10 bucks extra for that.

  • jim1975 #10 3 years ago

    its amazing the uproar ?4 can cause.

  • kangarootoo #11 3 years ago

    Um. He is right though isn't he.

    ""So if people were already satisfied with what the package had, when we offer MORE, why is it people feel they've been somehow cheated? If you don't find value in our secondary offerings, the choice is simple, don't purchase it. If you do find it valuable (and we hope you do) please do buy it and enjoy it.""

    What part of that is a problem. If you thought Res5 was good value, and you bought it, and after playing it you felt happy with your investment. BE HAPPY.

    If you then view this DLC and don't think it represents good value, DON'T BUY IT. Go back to the original Res5 content, which you were happy with (you do remember being happy wit, right?) and play that instead.


    !RocketScience

  • Ranger101 #12 3 years ago

    Way to bitch against your customer.

  • kangarootoo #13 3 years ago

    @Gnort

    "And I don't like the "Resi 5 is worth USD60 without versus mode" argument, it sounds like they're trying to offer the bare minimum and then pad their earnings with anything extra"

    But it doesn't really matter what they say if you don't agree with it, surely? And if you bought the game and you DID feel it was good value for USD60, who gives a rats ass what they say about it, or indeed if they are "padding their earnings" or not? If you are happy with the game you bought in the shop, what does any of that matter?

    I mean, it is literally as if people would enjoy the game less (a game they may otherwise be delighted with) if they knew that somewhere a Capcom exec was buying a new pool for his back garden with the profits.

  • Ranger101 #14 3 years ago

    The timing though Mr Kangarootoo, it's the timing. It makes you feel like you own a devalued, incomplete experience only just after having purchased the game. More than likely your mental faculties might be going:

    "hmmm.. if I waited a few months and bought Res5 on the cheap, I could also have bought the DLC within the same price I already paid for the "full" thing right now".

    I don't have res5, but I do have sf4 and that thought did run through my mind. If they waited a bit longer after the release, I wouldn't have felt a slight twinge of buyers remorse, because I could've said:

    "Hey! I enjoyed a solid couple of months worth of this game - and look capcom have been so kind to extend this experience for me".

    Also, we have been rightly spoiled by Burnout Paradise.

  • mcmonkeyplc #15 3 years ago

    It's ?4 and people are going nuts? Horse armour anyone?

    If you dont like dont buy it. Looks shit anyway. I'll stick to the actual game.

  • nickthegun #16 3 years ago

    Im going to go out on a limb and say the VS pack download will be 124kb.

  • schnide #17 3 years ago

    I think part of the issue here is that if the Versus mode is that good in the first place then they would have budgeted it into the main game, unless they knew they could charge more than it's worth outside of the box and a later date and cash in.

    DLC probably is the future, but I'm not sure that it'll look like this when everything's smoothed out.

  • klem578 #18 3 years ago

    Gnort

    Would Gears 2 have been worth USD60 without horde mode? Yes, but thankfully Epic didn't decide to charge 10 bucks extra for that.

    You are absolutely right, that's why only 20-something days after the game was released they gave us for free the Combustible map-pack... - Oh, wait, it was 800 ms points, way to go Epic indeed...

    Also, most games of this type would have an adversarial multi-player mode built in.

    What games mate?What type? Surely you understand that Resi5 isn't a "shooter", right? COD & Halo this is not...

    Ryze is spot on, it costs feck all, if you like it get it, if you don't...

    In other news, all Capcom games cost a tenner less than all the other releases, would you have preferred it if this game was released at 40 pounds (including the VS mode) - say - in April/May?

    It's the same thing , get the game now for a cheap(er) price and IF you like, you can get the DLC too- in fact it's even better because no one 's forcing you the "extra" price like it would if it had been included in the retail game...

  • Gnort #19 3 years ago

    To be fair, a 400 MSP mode I don't plan to buy makes very little difference to me, I'm just hoping the consumer backlash gives Capcom a little pause before they try and price other add-ons that I do actually want.

    I'm still smarting at Capcom charging 1000 MSP for the secondary outfits in SF4, a feature which is unlockable through game play in pretty much every other fighting game ever made. That is content which I want, but at that price I'm voting with my wallet.

  • Irien #20 3 years ago

    I rather liked the DLC approach for Last Remnant recently (and I think Lost Odyssey before that, but my memory is poor) where they give away about 2/3 of the DLC, but put a small charge on a few bits. That way, you feel like you're getting extra value, and you feel more favorable towards the paid-for DLC.

  • kinky_mong #21 3 years ago

    Sad pathetic thing is I cracked on the costumes

    Yes that is sad and pathetic, considering you're bitching about paying less than ?4 for new multiplayer modes when you spent money on purely cosmetic changes to a game.

  • Ryze #22 3 years ago

    @bad09

    They changed they guy who drags the blonde into the hut screaming into a white guy, etc. My question is: will we see any context to her being there in the first place - or was it just a reason to show a black (now white) zombie dragging away a blonde and infecting her.

    Decent game, however. There wasn't an issue in the first place with the zombies being black in itself.

  • kangarootoo #23 3 years ago

    @Ranger101

    "The timing though Mr Kangarootoo, it's the timing. It makes you feel like you own a devalued, incomplete experience only just after having purchased the game."

    I completely agree that the timing is likely to create ill feelings in the minds of some gamers, but on that basis surely the worst we can accuse Capcom of is bad marketing?


    "Also, we have been rightly spoiled by Burnout Paradise"

    Absolutely. Again, bad marketing and PR on Capcom's part. But that is (should be) a seperate issue.

  • Linkified #24 3 years ago

    How about they realise if your going to add a online mp to a game without an online community whats the point. Surely they should of had at least a basic Versus mode on the disk so that they could build up the community and add to the content.

    Apart from Dark Void. which there just publishing I' aint buying anymore capcom games. No SF4 no RE5, etc.

  • skillian #25 3 years ago

    Good for games companies, bad for gamers.

    Pick your side. (dun dun dun)

  • optimusprym8 #26 3 years ago

    Co-op was in the demo and aside from the "demo may not represent finished product" protective legal spiel, should be in the full retail release really. But I reject the game solely on the out-dated control method as argued elsewhere.

  • kangarootoo #27 3 years ago

    Reasoned analysis of the full details of the situation vs tabloid over-simplification and outrage.

    Pick your side. (dun dun dun)

  • bad09 #28 3 years ago

    "Yes that is sad and pathetic, considering you're bitching about paying less than ?4 for new multiplayer modes when you spent money on purely cosmetic changes to a game."

    God there is always one isn't there "it's only ?4, are you poor or something?". I'm a gamer. I buy LOTS of games those ?4 pounds here there and everywhere add up you know!

    Besides is there some law that if you buy you can't show you unhappiness at it? My point was anyway about the the costumes is Capcom won't burn me again with stuff so clearly ripped out of the full game for DLC to raise revenue at launch.

    1600 points was expensive but I think Rockstar need to educate Capcom and many others on DLC....

  • Darren #29 3 years ago

    Well if Capcom weren't such tools and waited a few weeks after the game's release BEFORE announcing the Versus modes then perhaps the reaction wouldn't have been so negative. I personally think it's stupid to announce DLC when the game had just been released in the US and hadn't even been released in Europe. It tends to look like the publishers have withheld content from the game to sell as DLC even if that isn't the case. No doubt that is exactly why people are complaining about it. Stupid Capcom! ;)

    I've nothing against paying for extra content for games some time after its release but I'm always suspicious when content comes out only a few weeks after a game is released. That definitely puts me off buying it to be honest as it looks like the publisher is being greedy when they could have delayed the game a short while and included it on the disc.

  • tnomad #30 3 years ago

    "God there is always one isn't there "it's only ?4, are you poor or something?". I'm a gamer. I buy LOTS of games those ?4 pounds here there and everywhere add up you know!"

    "1600 points was expensive but I think Rockstar need to educate Capcom and many others on DLC.... "

    Strangely enough there's always at least 10 who use points rather than actual pound prices to make their arguments sound less ludicrous.

  • mkreku #31 3 years ago

    "RE5 is well worth every penny of USD 60. A huge game..."

    10 hour main story is considered huge now?

    Do you refer to your 10 cm penis (4 inches) as huge too, Christian Svensson?

  • skillian #32 3 years ago

    People like you paying for such trivial crap in the first place is part of the reason they think they can get away with this stuff.

    They don't think they can get away with it, they do get away with it.

    I'm a little disappointed with bad09 (:p) for buying it, but the fact remains there are thousands of people who buy this stuff, so you have to think of it from the games companies' point of view. If they can make hundreds of thousands of pounds selling this stuff, why would they go back to including it in the game in the first place or giving it away for free?

    We've passed the point of no return. It's only gonna get worse I'm afraid :(

  • bad09 #33 3 years ago

    @ skillian

    Yeah I know I let the side down but it is SF!

    Problem with me is every couple of months I put points on Live to spend and more often than not find sweet FA I'm remotely interested in lately so end up buying crap :(

    / Bows head in shame

  • monkeywithnoeyes #34 3 years ago

    Had capcom been smart enough and not announced (and shown) this dlc before the actual retail release of the full game then people wouldnt have the problem with it.. and it would be more acceptable a month after release.

    Instead, they showed it in its complete, working, form before the retail release of RE5.. leaving us all in no doubt that theres no plausable reason other than milking more money from us that it shouldnt of been included on the disc. Which means at the end of the day all those who paid upto ?45rrp for RE5 got less on the disc than they should of... again, had we not known..well, ignorance is bliss.

    Do NOT support this practice of dlc... dlc is a good thing if it extends your gameplay, but not if that gameplay was ripped out of the disc to begin with and sold to you as extra. Its bad enough we pay to an additional price to unlock the multiplayer on xbox live, and now to also pay sperate for the multiplayer a week after release? It sets a bad president.

    Hopefully nobody was stupid enough to also buy into the additional costumes of SF4 that were sold as dlc in the same week of the games release - something that last gen would of been an unlockable reward for completeing the game on the disc.

    But then again people are generally stupid.. they see the cheap pricepoint and think they're getting a deal.. when really they're paying more than they originally would of should of had it been still on the disc. And at the end of the day, though dlc is a choice, none of us benefit..as we all end up paying more for less.

  • skillian #35 3 years ago

    @bad09: Hey, even the best of us let our principles slide every now and again. :p

    I vowed never to spend money on a Games for Windows Live game, but I just could not bear to miss out on Dawn of War II. Instead I will bitch about GfWL even harder in the next EG comments thread to make up for my moral bankruptcy.
    Edited by 1 at 17/03/09 @ 18:05

  • skillian #36 3 years ago

    And at the end of the day, though dlc is a choice, none of us benefit..as we all end up paying more for less.

    I had to put that in bold, because it deserved it. It is the problem with the "don't like, don't buy it" argument.

  • djed #37 3 years ago

    If you believe you are ever fed anything other than marketing from a Company, you are wrong.

  • kwesleyb #38 3 years ago

    Still i see people moaning about the controls for the game.

    Its how the game plays, and its how it will always play...
    RE6 might be different but until then, if you dont like the controls, stop whining and forget about the game.

    Gee.

  • 3william56 #39 3 years ago

    @kwesleyb "Its how the game plays, and its how it will always play... "

    Like the original resi "tank" controls?

    The reason why people (inc me) are (still) upset with the controls is that for most of us, we can see how much more fun Resi5 would be with a better control scheme, and how lame the "makes extra suspense" argument is. B*tching about it on the net, whist nominally pointless, sometimes does work, as with the original Resi system. I've passed up R5 because I couldn't get to terms with the demo, and hope that the b*tching convinces Capcom to at least have modern 3PS controls as an option in the next one.

    Though with the sales figures, that hope is fading fast...

  • muscleblade #40 3 years ago

    They should have waited like Darren says. If they released it in september for 400 points people would have praised the fact that its only 400 points. To release dlc a few weeks after the game has been shipped makes people feel cheated.

  • muscleblade #41 3 years ago

    And about the controls. I hated them in the demo. But after playing the retail game for a few hours it was all forgotten and i enjoyed the game in the same way i enjoyed RE4. This is among the top games this generation.

  • kangarootoo #42 3 years ago

    "Its how the game plays, and its how it will always play"

    Head, meet sand.

  • Lamb #43 3 years ago

    Well DLC seriously has to depend on what it is as the consoles become more PC like then expansion packs ala Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind maybe even GTA IV make sense.

    Horse Armor, change of costume, additional modes, generic expansion not for moi.

    Does DLC significantly add to the experience or is it so trivial that it gives you a rash while reaching for your wallet? Thats the threshold and its always better to not look than to be tempted especially when pressed for time.
    Edited by 1 at 18/03/09 @ 21:21

  • HazySpy #44 3 years ago

    Such an overrated game anyway.
    Possible candidate for most overrated of 09?