I’m very late to the party on this one. Pretty much every videogame journo and Twitterati has ripped Koei-Tecmo to shreds over this pay-to-change-your-character’s-hair-colour debacle but guess what? I can still come along and pick up the scraps…and tear them into even smaller pieces. That’s just how I roll here.
It’s already well-known that Dead or Alive 5 saw Koei-Tecmo turn their famous fighting game into a hybrid fighting game/dress-up experience. Sure, DLC was around on the Xbox 360 in the days of DoA4 but it was the fifth installment that really saw the publisher slip into bed with DLC and flaunt their staggering stamina stat by fucking, non-stop for several years. The resulting offspring was a library of add-ons that allegedly (I haven’t fact-checked) exceeded $1,000.
Many were disappointed that the publisher had sold out to the portion of the fanbase that was more invested in the sexy stuff than the actual gameplay. DoA5 was almost like dressing up a bunch of dolls and playing with them, rather than taking this punching thing seriously.
And, as much as I agree with that, I have also defended the game numerous times. After all, the gameplay was probably the best it had ever been and the graphics were fantastic. I also really enjoyed the ability to customise stages with past music. As for the DLC…well, nobody was forcing you to purchase costumes. If you want it, then buy it. If you disagree that strongly, then boycott – simple. I bought a fair few outfits but only for my favourite characters. Yes, the prices were sometimes heavier than Tina’s in-game bust but, again, you were still able to play the game without buying maid outfits and the yearly batches of Halloween costumes. If it extended the life of the game and kept you playing, then that’s a good thing.
That said, I wasn’t blind.
There’s a balancing act between accepting a DLC structure and being taken advantage of. Arguably, the latter was already happening given that Koei-Tecmo were well aware of how sexually appealing DoA‘s girls are to their consumer base hence the drive to squeeze more and more money from fans by selling increasingly-skimpy bikinis and risque outfits.
As I have already said, I don’t mind cherry-picking the DLC that interests me if it keeps me playing and enjoying a game for longer. BUT there is a tipping point when that aforementioned fine balancing act fails and you – as the customer – must put your foot down and say “no,” if things tip into the realm of the publisher just taking the piss. This is what has happened with Dead or Alive 6.
It must be mentioned – before I continue – that I still haven’t played DoA6 because every time the game is in the news, it rubs me up the wrong way and I’ve yet to read anything to convince me that things have changed. It got off to a bad start when Koei-Tecmo claimed that they were going to be cleaning up the series’ image. I’ve already talked about that at length before but, to quickly re-cap, I am an unashamed fan of the boob physics and revealing outfits. I see it as escapism and harmless fun. It’s DoA‘s USP for crying out loud. The last thing I wanted was the series to bow to the pressures of the Woke generation. Yes, it wasn’t a deal-breaker (as I also made clear in my DoA6 reveal post) but it was disappointing.
So I would have still bought the game but worse was to come. First, there was the really crappy system of unlocking new constumes. Then came the absolute bullshit of western PS4 owners being the only group that couldn’t purchase costumes individually, meaning that you had to buy entire packs or commit to the big-money season passes.
Perhaps these things have been fixed – I don’t know. What I do know is that the balance had well and truly shifted in my view, and even I wasn’t able to defend the janky, money-grabbing execution of DoA6. As much as I still wanted to give it a go, Koei-Tecmo had simply gone too far. At the end of the day, DoA5 was still on my shelf and still everything that I’d ever wanted from the series. Why expose myself to shit that was just going to piss me off and attempt to rape my wallet?
Give us humans enough time, however, and we get over it. DoA6 had been creeping back onto my mental “maybe I’ll finally buy a copy?” list. Then this fucking hair thing happened.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, you can now use Premium Tickets – which are obtained in exchange for actual money – to change the colour of your character’s hair. Paying to dye Kasumi’s hair is pathetic enough, you might think, but this is no normal DLC. In fact, it isn’t even DLC proper. It’s a non-permanent micro-transaction that has to be paid for again if you switch said character’s hair back to the default colour. It only costs one ticket (which is $1.00) but that isn’t the point. The point is that you are effectively renting a hair colour. Koei-Tecmo’s audacity with this is a new low in my opinion. Paying for something so small in the first place is straight-up robbery but, if you have to do so, then it should at least be a permanent option unlocked/added to your game.
Heck, I’d want to go even further. If I’ve got to pay a dollar to swap Kasumi’s hair colour then, without wishing to be too crass, that buck had better also cover a hue change for the bush between her legs. Then again, judging by the fan-made renders and in-game mods of the DoA lasses, they’re all bald down below anyway so that’s my value-for-money notion in the bin.
You know, I thought that Street Fighter V was having a laugh when the game wanted the player to pay for palette swaps but this is something else. Koei-Tecmo has at least responded to the slating on Twitter:
“Dear fans, we hear and acknowledge your disappointment behind our roll out of the new hair color feature for DoA6. We greatly appreciate your feedback, and are working towards a solution that helps to mitigate this issue and will share our plans in the coming days.
We apologize for our misstep, and are working hard to resolve this situation. We thank you in advance for your patience and hope you continue to enjoy DoA6.”
“Misstep”? Bullshit. They knew EXACTLY what they were doing. To me, it seems as if they decided to push the envelope anyway to see if they could get away with it, and if they couldn’t? Well, just pass it off as a glitch or a harmless error of judgment. This isn’t an “issue” or a “situation”; it’s straight-up taking the piss and it isn’t even funny anymore. Previously, we would joke about DoA being a shopping simulator or a dress-up game but I’m not laughing now. The joke isn’t funny.
I’ll be voting with my wallet and continuing to not purchase a copy of Dead or Alive 6.
Shame.
