Capcom Says 'RE5' Versus Mode Download Was Legit, Not A Key

Capcom has contradicted an IGN report that claimed the new $5 add-on for "Resident Evil 5" was already on the disc consumers bought for $60.

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Video game publisher Capcom has been offering paid downloadable content for recent games such as "Street Fighter IV" and "Resident Evil 5," but it has been criticized by some gamers who feel the paid content should be free.

That complaint arose again this week when it was discovered that the new $5 download that adds a competitive multiplayer mode to "RE5" was less than 2MB. That led some gamers to assume that the file was too small to house anything other than a digital key that was unlocking content already on the disc they paid for.

Were gamers being asked to pay extra for something they already bought? IGN reported that to be the case: "You are downloading a key that unlocks content already on the RE5 retail disc. The same disc you paid $60 for a month ago."

We've been awaiting comment from Capcom since Tuesday about this matter and IGN's report, but haven't heard back. In that time, the company's vice president of corporate development and strategic planning, Christian Svensson, addressed the topic on Capcom's official message boards.

In a now-locked thread entitled "RE5 DLC 1.8MB EXPLAIN THIS TO US SVEN or whoever can," Svensson wrote: "Keys are 100 [kilobytes] or less. It is not a key. We have said in the past, it uses assets from the disc (like levels, models, audio, etc.) but the code is new and does not exist on the disc."

Svensson's answer would seem to also indirectly address accusations that the PS3 Versus Mode was on the "RE5" disc for that system, as the download size was reported by gaming blog Kotaku to be over 300 KB.

Did IGN get it wrong? Is Svensson not telling the truth?

Hopefully we'll hear from Capcom soon and be able to tell you what's going on. We've also reached out to IGN for their take on the situation.

(Credit to ace Variety reporter Ben Fritz for linking to the Svensson post and bringing this matter more to light.)

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