Never has a lot of character balancing seemed so exciting.
Over at the Capcom-Unity video channel on YouTube, the publisher has released a trailer for their December 13th home and arcade title update for Super Street Fighter IV Arcade. We're talking modifications down to the nitty gritty here for this five month old iteration of the brawler, so expect changes to character timings, attack strength, cancels, etc. going into the free patch. In fact, the update is so extensive, over on the Capcom-Unity blog, they've actually created a 13-page PDF detailing the modifications to each character and how it should potentially affect gameplay. No character seems to go untouched here, resulting in one of the more transparently comprehensive fighting game updates I've seen in a while.
Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition Version 2012 Update Trailer
So, looking over this list of changes, how many converts will Super Street Fighter IV Arcade be getting from players already enmeshed in the Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, or some of the other big holiday titles? I love that Capcom has maintained continue support for this title, but I'm very curious about what the audience looks like for this game almost half a year in. The demand for player attention is intense at this point, and developers, of course, have to be savvy about how much time and attention they pay post-release to a game in order to build its community while balancing that with the need for resources on other projects. With shooters, given that nearly every title has some kind of DLC model, this support can go on for a nice, long while, but in the current console generation, it seems like fighting games typically get a bit of love from developers close to the release date, maybe a few costumes, a nice little tweak here and there three months in, and then it all goes dark.
I guess what I'm saying is, it's cool that this kind of obsessive attention to the fanbase's needs is admirable and maybe we can see more fighting games get this kind of continued fan support if the dev's keep pouring this level of love and attention into their games.
The Super Street Fighter IV Arcade v. 2012 patch will go live on December 13th.
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