Banning Gems in Street Fighter X Tekken
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 5:44PM I feel like I must be missing some facts about this issue, because the correct course of action seems clear (ban gems or ban the game in tournaments), yet there is debate about it. I may very well be missing facts, so sorry if I'm stating anything incorrectly. It appears that the upcoming fighting game Street Figher x Tekken allows you to customize your character with "gems." Ok that's fine, I have no objection to such an idea. It further appears that you must grind to unlock these gems, and/or buy them, and that some are "pre-order" only. Further, even if all gems were available, actually selecting them is believed to be too time consuming to do match after match at a tournament.
This article on SRK muses about these issues.
As competitive gamers, we should reject games (or parts of games) that violate the concept of fair competition. Those games can still be played "for fun," but not like real tournament games. The reason this question about SFxT seems so clear (if I understand right!) is that "pre-order only" should automatically cause us to ban. That's not an acceptable concept in a competitive game, therefore it must be rejected. We need only figure out what to reject. The choices are: a) those gems, b) all gems, c) the entire game. It is possible that these pre-order-only gems are cosmetic only, or strictly inferior to other gems (that you must buy? that you must grind for?), but we don't know yet.
Grinding to unlock is also unacceptable in a competitive game. It's antithetical to the nature of fair competition, not to mention a major hassle to event-runners. Anything that materially affects gameplay should be available to any would-be competitor right away. This actually means DLC characers are potentially fine. You buy them and they are immediately available. If all gems were possible to buy, then there is no "crime" against competition, we'd just have to see if the game cost $500 or something, ha.
Anything locked away behind some grind is not acceptable though. That's a barrier between the player and the game that we as competitive gamers don't want. We want each other to have access to the real game right away. More and more of this has crept into fighting games, and we've all kind of let it slide, but an entire system based on forced grind (if that's what this is...is it??) should be roundly rejected out-of-hand. Is that what you'd like to become standard? I know I don't. I subtract 1 point out of 10 in each version of Soul Calibur that doesn't let me pick Cervantes the moment I buy it. (Looking at you Soul Calibur 3.)
Yes I'm aware that League of Legends has a forced grind in order to unlock materially important aspects of gameplay. That means it, too, violates the minimum standard of what competitive gamers should accept. (Sorry League of Legends, just make a way to buy a full character, full level, full mastery immediately and you're off the hook.) If we applied this kind of reasoning to Starcraft, it would just be ridiculous. Imagine if you had to grind to unlock the Lurker in Starcraft3, and that Reavers were pre-order only. I used to use that same joke with Street Fighter. "Imagine if you had to grind to unlock Chun Li and that Zangief was pre-order only." But now the joke is getting pretty real. It's scary to think competitive gamers might accept that, which will encourage game companies to go more and more in that direction. Leage of Legends has millions of dollars worth of reasons to coninue doing what it's doing because those gamers *do* accept the idea that it's ok to lock gameplay-affecting things behind a grind and still call it a competitive game. Will that be the future in fighting games as well?
If there really are pre-order only gems that affect gameplay, and if there really is a forced grind to get these hundreds of gems, the competitive community is best served by sending a message that such things aren't acceptable. I personally think the idea of customization in a fighting game is pretty interesting, though. You too might be interested in the gameplay these gems could create. I think the best way to get that is to make sure game developers (not just Capcom, but any fighting game developers at all) see that players won't accept things that violate the spirit of fairness in their tournaments. If Capcom could try again another game that incorporates customization in an acceptable way, that would be nice, and maybe we could use that customization in tournaments. Just keep in mind that other fighting game developers are out there too, and they'll be looking at this situation to see if they should do nonsense like pre-order only Mitsurugi and grind-to-unlock a +5 sword for Mitsurugi. They can absolutely make that game, I just wouldn't want to have to play it at a tournament, and especially not at Evolution. On the other hand, when stuff like this is an optional mode that I can mess around with and turn off for competitive play, that's no problem at all. In fact, it sounds fun. Well not the pre-order only part.
Finally, there's the issue of selecting the gems before each match. I think this one is somehow solvable with good UI or something, but I don't happen to know how off the top of my head. If each player really has to select several gems from a list of hundreds before each match, that's actually not feasible in a tournament. Button config already takes a huge amount of time in tournaments, too much really. Picking gems out of a list of hundreds might be reason enough to disallow them in tournaments, just for time-reasons. If you haven't been to a tournament (or watched a stream) you might very well underestimate the importance of this. Once you are waiting for hundreds (or thousands!) of players to select gems before each match, you will see how big of a time-sink it becomes and how hard it becomes to run an event Again, I think this one is solvable...somehow. We just don't know if SFxT will do a good job of solving it yet. Maybe?
Customization sounds fun and interesting. But remember that your "vote" counts as a competitive player. If we accept more and more unfairness in supposedly competitive games, then game companies will give us more and more grind-to-unlock Lurkers and pre-order-only Reavers.
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TLDR version: we have no real choice but to ban SFxT gems in competitive play, or ban the whole game. Either way, make sure your vote is heard on this issue, becuase it will affect more and more fighting games in the future.
Reader Comments (72)
Sirlin: I feel that your characterization of Magic as a rip-off is bit too severe. Rip off implies a deception. Buying a booster pack is not the same as getting a knock off when you think you're buying Rolex. Perhaps newer players don't have a good grasp of how much money the game can cost, but many people who have been playing for years still buy new cards, fully cognizant of what it takes to assemble competitive deck.
I believe, and I think you share the belief, that Magic is too expensive. But that is my individual evaluation and I wouldn't assume that it was right for everyone. By saying that Magic is a rip-off, you are indirectly implying Magic players are a bunch of rubes who can't see that Wizards is stealing their money. The reality is, however, that they know what they are getting and accept the cost.
I don't agree with your point about League of Legends, which I've spent a good bit of time with.
In that game, it takes much (much) longer to "grind" your actual skill at the game to the top level than it does to unlock the runes that are considered tournament-viable. At each step along the way, you are matched with people who are at pretty much the same stage with these unlocks, and any small differences are negligible compared to differences in player skill.
PvP games with a "grind to unlock" system should not automatically be excluded from being considered worthy of top level competitive play, IF they are tuned well (like League of Legends is). The fact that Street Figher x Tekken is not even released yet means you really can not judge yet. It will be apparent very quickly after release how smartly designed the unlock system is, just like with other aspects of the design that you evaluate to see whether it is a "top tier" PvP game, e.g. balance/variety/skill ceiling etc
I think the argument in favor of the LoL model is that anyone who would be playing competitively would already have unlocked all the runes, masteries and champions they need to be successful. Before I started playing LoL I found the system offensive, but once I got into it, I found that there is something nice about having a build up to ranked play. You literally can't do ranked games until you've hit level 30, which is something like 200-300 games or so (depending on your win rate.) In a way, it's forced training.
If I were presented with every rune, mastery and champion at level 1, I would have been completely overwhelmed. But the gradual unlocking of new runes and champions encourages some thought. You have enough IP for a new rune, so you read up on what good options would be. You buy a new champion, so you dedicate more time to practicing that champion. LoL is extraordinarily complex, even if you're experienced with the genre. There is a massive amount of stuff to internalize and forcing players to earn new stuff piece by piece works surprisingly well as a teaching mechanic.
It's an extremely rough analogy, but I guess imagine if you started a fighting game with no special moves, just basic attacks, throws and blocking. And if you play online, everyone at your level only has that same stuff. So, given that your options are limited, you practice those basics over and over. Then, as you play more matches, you unlock special moves one at a time. You practice each one as you get them. Then, you get into kara throws, focus cancels, link combos, whatever. By the time you've unlocked everything you've had the chance to use every mechanic extensively, and at no point have you been matched against people with more options than you.
This is the same way RTS games do it, though they only apply it to single player. You start with a limited selection of units and unlock more throughout the campaign. As you get new tech paths and unit types you're presented with challenges that can only be beaten with that new knowledge. It's a great way of doing things. In an ideal world, Riot would have their current system plus a way of jumping into competitive play with everything unlocked, as with RTSes. However, since MOBAs/Dotalikes are multiplayer-only, the options are either having a grind in casual and competitive play, or no grind at all... which translates to revenue, or no revenue.
Heroes of Newerth is an example of a game that tried it the way you wanted first. You paid $30 for the game and that was it. All heroes available. However, it didn't work financially. HoN started getting into microtransactions for cosmetic items very quickly. They then made the game free to play and essentially just copied LoL's model, minus the rune/mastery system. This is despite HoN having a more thriving competitive scene than LoL thanks to replays, spectator mode, pausing, etc.
I continue to reject the apologist stance that "if you are competitive that you would have grinded to max anyway." Quite the contrary because if you were competitive, you would avoid such an insult to begin with. At least I would. It is not acceptable to be locked out of the real game for more than 0 seconds when you're willing to pay for that game. Now, it is would be acceptable to have a grindy 1p mode, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the multiplayer mode of a supposedly competitive game. It saddens me that some of you think it's ok to lock gameplay-affecting stuff behind a grind. It would be a joke in Starcraft, it would be a joke in Street Fighter and it is a joke in any game that does that considers itself a real competitive game. Possibly what's happening is you just like the game, so you're putting yourself in a position where you apologize for a terrible concept expressed in that game. You should like your game and also wish that all-comers have immediate access to the real game (assuming they are willing to pay for it.)
Stesefactor: Yes, I claim that deception is involved when I use the term ripoff. Why does MTG not just directly sell type 2 decks for $300 - $500? If they did, they would be making a lot more money by taking the profits from secondary sellers that are selling decks for that much. So if they could, it would be a good business move. The reason they don't is that they can't. It would be immediately rejected as absurd by like everyone. But the current actual model does create decks that expensive in a tricky way that the common man doesn't realize. That is the whole danger of the concept of rares in random packs. That it creates an illusion of being cheap when in fact it's super mega expensive.
I have experienced the other end of this deception in my own business. By offering Yomi at a much lower price than MTG with a $100 set giving you 10 decks and 2 playmats that are each at least $13 msrp when sold at even smaller sizes by WotC...it seen as "expensive." That's because I didn't use a trick, I just straightforwardly gave a low price on a bundle. I more deceptive approach would have been to sell the game in booster packs of that are only $3 each. If I did that and if each deck ended up costing $100 to assemble (so $1000 for 10 decks) it would be seen as cheaper, even though I would be charging ridiculously more in reality. I choose not to take part in the deception. Frankly, I'm amazed I have to point out that the concept of selling you random packs of things is a ripoff. This is self evident. If you don't agree, then the next time you need a hammer, I have a bag of tools to sell you that may or may not contain a hammer.
Well, you need to consider that a Dotalike such as LoL is not directly comparable to fighting games or even RTS games. There's a reason why people say these games have the absolute worst communities: you're forced to play with four other people on your team and even the smallest of mistakes can jeopardize the entire game. Compounding this, Dotalikes have a ridiculous burden of knowledge. This is a major problem with the genre that I won't apologize for. There are usually at least 60+ champions, each with completely unique abilities and effects, along with a similar number of items.
Factoring in runes/masteries (the stuff you grind for) and higher level stuff like champion combinations, it is probably conservative to say you need to play for at least 200-300 hours to even understand the "basics" of the game. This is not factoring in actual skill, simply the time tax of memorization ("What does that champion do again? How long does that stun last? What's the cooldown on it?") Worth mentioning that none of this stuff applies to other Dotalikes. If you switch from LoL to HoN, or Dota2 to Rise of Immortals or whatever, you have to start all over with the memorization. It's stupid, but millions of people are willing to do it.
Anyway, I'm saying all this because it explains why there is a real need for a serious, strict, forced education/training system for this kind of game. LoL is known for having the most gentle learning curve of any game in the genre, and I think that's a major contributing factor to its continuing success. Free to play is a part of that too, but HoN is also free to play (with a much steeper learning curve), and it's also not doing nearly as well.
Again, I agree that in an ideal world, players would be able to jump in to competitive multiplayer with everything unlocked. But I wouldn't want them to do that before completing a lot of training, due to the aforementioned burden of knowledge that is a requirement to playing competitively. It just so happens that in LoL, the amount of time it takes to internalize all the important stuff corresponds to the amount of time it takes to grind all the stuff you would need to be competitive.
Here's the question I want to pose to you, with all this in mind. Would you support a system where people could jump right into competitive play without being forced to go through that memorization process, and just let matchmaking sort it out?
This is the same way RTS games do it, though they only apply it to single player.
Blizzard realized with SC2 that this approach didn't actually work all that well for preparing anyone for multiplayer. Which is why we now have the campaign with over-the-top crazy broken units, and separate challenge modes and some MP achievements to teach/guide you towards different concepts. But anyway, it's not necessary to have this gradual unlocking span the entire game - it seems this would be best suited for a tutorial mode, separate from the multiplayer. If you tack on a storyline and call it the "campaign", cool, whatever.
Now, it is would be acceptable to have a grindy 1p mode, but that's not what we're talking about.
Would it? I would reject grind not only on the basis of unfairness, but also because its purpose is to waste the most important resource you have: the amount of time left until you die. So "grind", specifically, is unacceptable no matter what. Having parts of the gameplay open up as you go through it, however, can work just fine for gradually introducing complexity to the player.
Re: Yomi's pricepoint, it's actually interesting how the high price tag already gets it labelled as "expensive", when 2-packs for Summoner Wars cost the same, they don't offer a slightly cheaper bundled option, but they escape that criticism. Now, my point here isn't that their business model is deceptive, but that 5 x $25 is actually perceived as cheaper than 1 x $100 by most people.
You are correct Sirlin. League of Legends, whilst a fun game, is not likely to become big in the competitive scene.
When are company uses "anti-fun" as a reason to balance heroes, you know something is wrong.
The reason why DotA is infinitely more successful than LoL on the competitive circuit is that because Icefrog rigorously balances heroes for top-level play, not to cater to the demands of the larger population.
Whilst LoL's model has earnt them a loyal fanbase of relatively low-skill, 'family nice guy' type players, I know which game I will play when DotA2 comes out.
Just this point I specifically want to address:
"Why does MTG not just directly sell type 2 decks for $300 - $500? If they did, they would be making a lot more money by taking the profits from secondary sellers that are selling decks for that much. So if they could, it would be a good business move."
No it wouldn't. The metagame constantly changes over the course of a season and through many different formats (generally the larger the cardpool in the format, the more diverse the competitive ecosystem becomes), plus Wizards themselves don't know what decks will be dominant, the players themselves discover that. And even decks of the same feather get tuned differently from player to player, the winning decks may not necessarily be the "best", they might just suit the playing style of a really good pilot. In extreme cases (like some Vintage decks), changing something like 4 cards in a shell could totally change how the deck plays. They will crunch the hell out of something like whether to include 2 islands or 3 islands. It seems like it defies probability, but it happens (and I can explain, but no one will care ;) ).
They used to print decks of World Championship top 8s (16?) on different backings and they didn't sell them for $300, they were sold for $10 or $20. They were never that popular and Wizards stopped doing it more than a decade ago. I suspect that players didn't like the idea of buying what were decks of essentially proxies, and plus, deck building is half the fun. There are players that've become legendary over their strategic and deck building prowess (Zvi Mowshowitz) as opposed to sheer playing skill (Finkel, Budde).
They could go the Warhammer route, and just straight up sell you singles priced at power. There are problems with that too that I don't feel like elaborating but I'm not convinced it'll end up any cheaper. There's less deception involved, I guess.
While a lot of people are obviously happy to play MTC despite its high cost, it doesn't change the fact that WotC are charging absurd prices and using an absurd system for selling cards. I find it disheartening that people actually accept this bullshit scheme instead of demanding a better system or replacing MTC with another game. Free markets are great, but they work best when consumers don't let companies get away with retarded business practices. It feels like the whole debate about SF3:OE again. Nobody is telling you to not enjoy MTG, but rather telling you that you should and could be demanding more from the company selling the product you enjoy. Use your power as a consumer and demand better products instead of defending this crap.
Sirlin, while I usually agree with you to a quite surprising extent in different matters, this one seems like you have a semi-emotional investment in "banning" this game. Let me say why:
1) "I just wouldn't want to have to play it at a tournament, and especially not at Evolution"
You do not HAVE TO play it on EVO. Why? Are you forced to sign up for the tournament for every game every year at EVO?
I think that this is an important issue, because simply there IS a large enough market to sustain games like LOL (with the "entry barrier" which is not even a real entry barrier: by the time you need to have put into the game to be considered even decent in the game, you will unlock whatever you want, and you will use that account in the championships, so...?) and pure games like "everything is unlocked" SSFIV:AE.
But: we should not, even for a single moment, pretend that SFIV or MVC or whatever game does not have an "entry barrier" already built into the game. Sure, if you did not even have the game at home, you can sign up for this. But will you be able to know all the matchups, the shaningans, the mixups, the setups, the timings? Nope. You will NOT. And that is a fact. No one is a robot who has a real shot in winning SSFIV without putting serious time and practice into it. What is that if not a barrier? Just a different one, right. Which brings me to my next point:
2) "Therefore you can have a tournament rule that just disallows picking gems (just like you can have a tournament rule that disallows picking ST Akuma). Good luck practicing online though, that would suck."
That would not suck at all. No serious competitive player ever learned a matchup through SCII Laddering or through SSFIV ranked games. You do not get to control what players you play against, you do not get to decide what matchup and what style you want to play against - you need friends and other dedicated practice partners for that. And the same can be achieved within SFxT: practice with people who does not use gems either, and you will stomp the random gemmed dudes online nevertheless, if you are that serious. Just because StarCraft II ladder does not have the same map pool that tournaments do, that does not mean the game is not competitive because of that. Yeah, this is stretching it a bit, but you get my point. And finally:
3) "..if each player really has to select several gems from a list of hundreds before each match, that's actually not feasible in a tournament. Button config already takes a huge amount of time in tournaments, too much really."
Nope. This one is not even a factor, I think. Simply because in the last EVO at SSFIV, they already made it so there is two setups, one with players currently playing, one with players setting up their button configs. Now add a few more seconds with an intelligent Gem System (one button: color selection - one more button within with some sliding: gem selection) - or they can make it so you config them while on the loading screen (and only finish loading once both players confirmed their choices, this for offline) , but I would not expect Capcom to be that flexible.
Anyway, direct comparisons can hurt, imho. This is not DLC Chun Li, and not DLC Reaper. Developers know what they can do - and publishers are not that suicidal either. These gems should be (DLC gems) cosmetic upgrades to the built-in ones anyway, but we will see what it is. But no, the banning of the game when there is still the option of not choosing any gems would be a HEAVY overreaction - one that I do not know how one can rally even before we have got the chance to play with the final game. That is bias, true and pure bias :(
Pre-order only functional powers (or characters) are bad.
Other than that, I'd say that the gems structure is not really a problem - if there is a problem, it's the total cost ceiling (maximum cost) required to become a pro.
Yes, some people will buy more gems than others - some people will also explore more of the feature space in games where everything comes together. That's not an issue - total cost is the issue.
We all agree that games should not have a high ceiling to enter and not have a high ceiling to become a pro. The actual cost structure of this, whether people can pay for individual parts or everyone is forced under a single model of buying everything bundled together, is not actually an issue, provided the total cost doesn't exceed our threshold.
Gamers don't always choose the lowest cost ceiling. Even balance being equal, they sometimes opt for the higher cost, higher barrier to entry option. Other things than lowest barrier to entry matter - presentation also matters, for one, and novelty, and being on a platform where others games are that they want to play.
SFxT, to me, looks like it may exceed the acceptable cost ceiling for a game of its "generation". That's the issue, not the precise cost structure. A free to play where the buy in cost is low, but all the money is made from something like gems, provided it does not exceed in total cost the cost of a normal game, would be OK.
I think there is a very gamer thing here where people don't like the idea of making poor choices and end up having to pay more to get higher tier options that people who lucked out and just bought the higher tier option in the first place have. But actually that's not a big deal from a competitiveness perspective - from the perspective of competititiveness, all that matters is maximum cost ceiling to competitive play.
I don't see a problem with the gem system. If, as one person said, you can quickly select with a joystick and button combo then it won't take any time for gem select at a tourney.
The system is brand new. People are going to have to adjust to it, so it makes sense to only have a handful of gems at the start. Play through the game and you'll have time to find some of the benefits of the released gems when you play through it again.
Once you've unlocked all of the gems you'll surely know the benefits and drawbacks of a good many available and you might better appreciate some of the more obscure ones. Could be that "fast tag out" is the most important gem in the game, but, if every single gem is released at once you'd never know. Play the system a few hundred times and you might understand the advantage of it once it is released.
On a tourney level, I think it increases the footsies exponentially. Instead of just using sagat - you can go for extra damage with a tax on speed or extra speed with reduced damage. Both could be devastating depending on your style. It could also potentially reduce the advantage of one character over another. I suspect Capcom is putting some RPS mechanic thought into the gems to balance every character.
Maybe Sean is a real contender given the right gem combination.
Capcom has only made steps forward, and on a game as important as this I'm not sure why we're doubting them now.
Fil, there are a number of problems there. First, the pre-constructed Worlds decks, while totally awesome, are completely irrelevant to this point and there is no reason to mention them.
Second, that Wizards doesn't know which decks will be the best is ALSO not relevant to the point. They could sell any old decks that were close to good (for $300) and/or sell singles at the high prices that secondary market uses. In either of those cases, they'd be reaping all that profit from the secondary market for themselves. It *doesn't matter* if they know the top decks or not because players would still assemble whatever decks they wanted, it's just that in this hypethetical world, the cards are coming from Wizards at a high price instead of Wizards -> secondary market at high price.
Third and by far the most damning is that I happened to talk to one of the most senior WotC people there is just now about this exact issues. He sheds two pieces of light on the issue. One, they absolutely definitely do want to sell either $300 decks and/or high priced singles to cut out the secondary market. Why? It's obvious. Imagine the profits of the secondary market, then imagine that money in WotC's pockets. That's why. So I am completely correct on this point. He says I was not correct on the other point though. My next claim was that the REASON they cannot do this is because if pulled away the veil of deception of random packs with rares and exposed it for what it truly is ($300 for 60 pieces of cardboard) that no one would fall for it anymore. He claims that people WOULD still buy it just the same. I actually still think he wrong on that, but whatever. The actual reason they do not do this plan ISN'T that they don't want to and ISN'T that they think it's not truckloads more money. The reason is they think that it would turn the vast network of retail stores against them and they already rely on those stores to hold events that promote their game.
Anyway, I'm frankly tired of dialogue about apologizing for rip-off schemes. If you "like" them, then continue to throw your money at them. But if you don't, I strongly urge you vote with your dollar against them, and incidentally, against anti-competitive "competitive games" with pre-order only gameplay-affecting items or forced grinding.
g'damn Sirlin. You make me want to pull Critical Hit back from the grave just to get you, Izzy, and Morello (now lead champion designer for LoL) back on a round table. =P
Hm... I'm going to make a fighting game eventually, so I've been reading all your stuff, since you seem to know it way better than the actual game devs do! I'm kind of in the middle of a casual player (I play Smash Bros with items all turned on) and a competitive player, which is actually a great place to be as a developer since I see both sides of things.
Hearing what a serious player like you thinks about a mechanic is completely different from hearing what a casual player thinks about it, even though I agree with the points that both groups make. Being denied access to the "full competitive game" when you buy it does seem like a horrible design decision and I'll make sure to keep it in mind for when I make something competitive.
Although, the casual side of me thinks unlockables are really fun, and getting a new character just has this mystical sense of wonder that I think the super-serious tournament players have stopped understanding, hehe. Maybe I should make "unlocking" a character just tell you a button combo to use on the selection screen, so casual players enjoy unlocking it but tournament players will always have access to it anyway?
In short: I think you're a bit extreme on the issue, but I very much agree.
On a related note, I believe you've also talked about complex button combos being an obstacle for new players, that they don't get the "full game" without needing to memorize button inputs and learn timings (something I also agree with). Does that fall into the same category here?
If you can't figure out how to play the full game once you have it, that is a totally different thing than not having it in the first place.
I don't think it's extreme at all to say that a real competitive game offers all the characters without an artificial grinding wall added. Quite the opposite, it would crazy to say such a thing is acceptable. It just makes no sense to intentionally block people from SELECTING a thing in competitive play. None. Zero. Also, this stance is still compatible with "liking unlocking things and having that magical feeling." You can unlock things all day in single player games or modes, and who cares. It's the multiplayer competitive mode we're talking about here.
One point no one here has brought up about just banning gems for tournaments is that Ono has stated the gems are an "essential" part of the game's balance, which is why they're not providing an option to disable them. How are they essential? Only Ono knows, and frankly I think he's talking out of his ass to make sure people actually buy the things, but it's still worth noting when the game's director says something like that.
Really I think this kind of thing just goes to show that Capcom is making their games with the competitive community less and less in mind. Sure, we're great exposure for them, but ultimately even if everyone who's ever been to a tournament refused to buy the game, they'd still turn a healthy profit between the actual game and the DLC.
Regardless of all that, it's probably still going to be picked up for tournaments. SFxT is going to be announced for Evolution 2012 (between Capcom's sponsorship and Evo's desire to capture the casual audience, this seems almost a given), and all the smaller tournaments will follow suit because they'll feel like they don't have a choice. I'd love to be wrong about this, but I wouldn't be typing it if I didn't think it was right.
Azure touched on it a little, but the "compromise" with casuals and unlocks isn't a compromise at all. To me, as a primarily casual player, I don't like unlocking music, character art, etc... it's worthless. It doesn't affect the game at all. And really that's the core issue, isn't it? There's no sense of progress in a game where everything is unlocked from the beginning. Casuals get bored if there's no progression markers. Playing online match after online match can feel like a grind. Practice mode feels like a grind. Playing Arcade mode to unlock a new fighter? That feels like an accomplishment. That feels like progress.
In this sense I do feel like the Soul Calibur series got it fairly right. They unlock everything for the "competitive" mode initially (usually?) and their single player experiences are large, sprawling and feel like true progression. Although my favorite of the group has already been reviled by you (SC3), I thought the epic psuedo-Strategy mode was pretty amazing.
To skip to the point, Gems bring a new meta game into SF (Deck-building). I agree with you about all the major points (All players need access, no exclusive content, etc) but I feel like a straight up boycott of this game may actually be more attributed to the meta game not many people seem to want, and less to the very real reasons against it. I fear your suggested action will actually hinder innovation and creativity in the fighting game arena. Any boycott will likely tell the developers (or more accurately the publishers) that the gem system itself is a failure, not its delivery method.
Sometimes voting with your dollar puts votes in the wrong ballot.
there's a huge difference between playing a game competitively and presenting a game as a competitive game.
fighting games are competitive in nature, and it is being marketed/presented that way. however, the point is that things like grinding/unlockables/pre-order only are taking away from what a 'competitive game' should be.
you CAN make a game and call it "rock paper scissors" and only allow players to use rock and paper until you play 10000 games and then use scissors. people can play that game for fun, or competitively. however, it's not a "compettive game" out of the box - it's a god damn rpg where you 'level up' for a better tool.
it doesn't make it a competitive game if everyone who WANTS to compete in it will eventually/willingly unlock scissors.. yes, you HAVE to unlock scissors to be competitive, and that is what's wrong with this picture.
fuck that, i'm not spending my money on that piece of shit.
I've played some Soul Calibur games and I think the way they handled it was pretty good - there's normal VS. mode where you have everything unlocked right at the beginning and everyone is on even ground. Then there's single-player where you unlock new weapons and costumes and stuff, and a special VS. mode where you can use all that stuff you unlocked, but it's very clear that it's not meant to be a competitive mode.
I feel this is a really important design issue, and that system works pretty well, so I'll probably adopt that for any competitive games I make.
(On a side note, I think an article about randomness in competitive games would be nice, since it's something that gets misused a lot...)