I can’t believe how angry the Street Fighter community got shortly after the Street Fighter V beta went up. I mean, sure, it’s had a rocky start. The beta had to go down almost as quickly as it went up due to online connectivity issues. At time of writing, it’s actually being taken down again for yet more fixes and, yes, that’s kind of crazy. Finding matches has been rather difficult, many matches have lagged out, and a few fans are even reporting crashes. It’s certainly a mess. I can agree with that.
But the anger that this is eliciting perplexes me. You can’t click through two Street Fighter pages on the internet without people complaining about the Street Fighter V beta being some sort of scam. People are complaining that they bought a PS4 and PS Plus simply to be part of the beta, and now it doesn’t work. People are saying this is nothing more than a publicity stunt. People are saying the game hasn’t changed much since the E3 build and is missing several new characters like Ken and Necali. “Capcom should be ashamed of themselves!” they say, shaking their fists at the game’s broken nature.
Let me make something clear. Yes, the game is broken. It’s a complete absolute mess, and it’s supposed to be!
A beta is, by definition, not a complete game. In fact, the very purpose of a beta is for it to be completely broken. This is where the developers see how the game is completely broken so that the final version isn’t as broken. Gamers are supposed to test the beta, find out where the game has bugs and issues, and report back to the developers. It’s supposed to be, in effect, quality assurance in exchange for being able to play the game early.
But somewhere down the line the gaming community forgot that betas are supposed to be incomplete and broken and now everyone is upset about it. So let’s tackle some of these complaints.
1) If you purchased a PS4 and PS Plus just for the beta, that’s not really Capcom’s fault. A PC beta is coming further down the line, and if you don’t have a good enough PC for that beta, well, that’s also not Capcom’s fault. Capcom isn’t Sony. They don’t’ control PS Plus or the pricing of the PS4. If you think your purchase is a rip-off, that has little to do with the Street Fighter V beta.
2) Yes, betas can sometimes be a publicity stunt, especially when you get access to the beta for doing things like pre-ordering the game. But this in no way guarantees the beta will be good. I mean, this is a publicity stunt you opted in to. You were pre-ordering the game, not the beta. If it’s not to your liking, take back your pre-order. If you can’t, then once again, that’s a problem with the place you purchased the game from, not Capcom.
3) Has the game not changed much from the E3 build? Yeah, it’s barely changed at all. You should have expected that. Ken and Necali are still very new and likely very broken, in ways that might make the game frankly unstable. While it’s fine to give them limited exposure at conventions, sending them out to thousands of people in a beta program is not very useful. Why? Because they wouldn’t get good data on those characters. They aren’t yet finished enough to be considered in a “beta” build. Besides, they weren’t really testing characters in this beta. They were testing netcode, which is exactly what people are finding problems with.
So, no, the Street Fighter V beta is not a scam. In fact, it’s doing exactly what it should be. If anyone scammed the gaming populace, it was their own high hopes, not Capcom.