Capcom recently prompted a backlash from fighting game fans when it revealed plans to place its official Street Fighter 6 finals behind a paywall — but fresh comments from Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada perhaps shed a little light on why the publisher's going down that road.
The answer is money, obviously, but in an interview with The Game Business, Harada is quick to explain that pro tournaments simply don't make money for the fighting games that they're built around.
"Lots of big companies are coming in and putting money into advertisements for these events, and a lot of influencers are making big money off of their streams," he says.
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"But the revenue for our games doesn't reflect any of this stuff."
So why would fighting game developers and publishers bother to get involved in such events if there's no real money to be made? Well, historically, it's all been about promotion.
If your fighting game makes a splash at a public tournament, then it's essentially free advertising, which, in theory, leads to sales of said game. The same is true when a community springs up around specific titles; positive word of mouth and healthy competition have always counted for so much when it comes to a fighter's long term success.
But again, Harada suggests that there's no noticeable impact on a game's revenue — even if it ends up being one of the biggest names at Evo, or any other well-known event.
"It's quite interesting to see how that might change," he admits, before mentioning Capcom's latest strategy: "Occasionally, you're seeing certain events that pop up where they're charging pay-per-view, or something like that. Seeing how the money side of this changes, that's something I'm quite interested in."
Many a Tekken fan will be seriously questioning Harada's wording here, but we'll just have to wait and see whether Capcom's pay-per-view plans actually, er, pay off before jumping the gun.
Still, this makes for an intriguing topic, especially since fighting games have experienced a dramatic boost in popularity over the last decade or so. There's clearly a lot of money to be made in the wider world of esports, but it remains to be seen whether fighting games can tap into that same kind of appeal.
What's your take on this? Should fighting game companies be trying to monetise tournaments and events to begin with? Shell out for the latest season pass in the comments section below.