Exclusive to the PS4, Street Fighter 5 the next entry in a one of, if not the most, recognizable fighting game series known to man started out with a troubled beta last July. Since then Capcom and PlayStation have remained tightlipped on when the postponed beta continues, but we can assume the responsible teams are hard at work to build upon the lessons learned from the first beta period.

I believed Gamescom 2015 would be an excellent time for Capcom and Sony to relaunch the beta but the show came and went without any noticeable news on the SF5 beta test.

Evidence of their continued work surfaced today, when I turned on my PlayStation 4 and found a notification that an update file for the Street Fighter 5 beta app/game/service had been downloaded (again what should we call these things in the landscape of today’s game industry).

Should beta’s access be behind a paywall

The Street Fighter 5 beta testing started out as planned on the PS4. Depending on where you live gamers eager to play/test SF5 could “secure” a place in the beta by preordering via selected retailers or PSN. “Europeans and the rest of the world” could sign-up via PSN for a chance at being selected to participate in the Beta program.

Beta problems

Capcom, PlayStation and these retailers were banking on the amount of people who wanted to play the beta so bad that they would preorder. Sadly, preordering isn’t done under unified terms. What I mean by that is: that depending on where one placed their preorder, one would pay a different price and the roll out for the beta would be handled differently. Gamers had to put down an amount ranging from $5 to the full retail price of SF5. Also enough people who preordered from PSN couldn’t find the game in their download list so they couldn’t start downloading the beta client.

Of course the problems didn’t stop there. Thirty minutes in the Street Fighter 5 beta had to be taken offline. Matchmaking issues, players not being able to get beyond the game’s loading screen etc. The one thing that was good about this whole ordeal is how Capcom continuously kept us in the loop through Twitter. But when the beta was taken offline for all regions but North America, gamers around the globe raised up (bad pun, I know).

On the official Capcom-Unity blog page Combofiend took pen to paper and wrote the following regarding the issue:

“To all of the European and Asian players that felt like they were missing out on the beta since we limited it to North America on Friday and Saturday, we apologize for the inconvenience. Due to the state of the server issues, we had to limit the numbers to a smaller pool in order to identify issues and potential solutions. Either way, we will still be providing these players with an incentive as well, as all territories were inconvenienced.”

I fully understand Capcom’s actions in trying to save the beta experience and Combofiend’s words couldn’t be clearer:

“This first beta test attempt will not count toward our previously announced beta test allotments.  There will still be at least three full beta tests prior to the game’s launch.  So for those in the Americas that feel disappointed that they were not able to experience their pre-order incentive, there will be plenty of opportunities prior to launch to experience the game”.

But this doesn’t make any of that which transpired less problematic, I feel it harms the Street Fighter brand more than anything else. My online experience with Street Fighter 4 on PS3 and more recently on PS4 hasn’t been the best. I feel like Capcom isn’t totally prepared to deliver a great online experience and this past Street Fighter 5 beta only strengthened that believe.

Furthermore the problems around the Street Fighter 5 Beta got me thinking “paying for beta access isn’t the greatest thing”. First of all: of course Capcom and PlayStation are allowed to offer any product (although nowadays games are more services than anything else) for whichever price and on whatever terms as they see fit. It is to us as consumers to agree or disagree with said terms.

Secondly, any beta test is going to have problems due to the very nature of what the goal of the beta is. This is exactly my problem with paying or asking people to pay for guaranteed beta access. If I buy a product I expect it to work, if it doesn’t I go to the respected retailer, service provider etc. I expect them to either repair the product, replace it or if that isn’t an option I prefer to get my money back (note I reside in Europe and your country’s laws may be very different than those in mine).

I would feel much better if the beta was freely accessible to all but with a limited pool of users from the get go. Capcom could determine the number users allowed beta access in the different regions so that test servers wouldn’t be beaten to dead by requests from the millions of PSN users. If  the Street Fighter 5 beta would have to go offline or simply wouldn’t work, just like it did now, nobody could rightfully complain about paying for something that doesn’t properly work.

The above are my thoughts and opinion’s not necessarily Wololo’s or yours. But I am interested in what your opinion is and I believe others might also be. So feel free to discuss the above or show your anticipation/lack of interest for Street Fighter 5, but keep in mind that your point come across much stronger if you engage me or others without the use of curse words.Thanks for reading my thoughts on the Street Fighter 5 Beta access, you can always comment in the comment section or tweet me on @italkgame.