Street Fighter 6 Director Also “Shocked” About Capcom Charging To Watch Upcoming Tournament

Specifically, Brian_F asked, “Doesn’t it seem strange that the esports division and dev team seem so entirely disconnected? Perhaps different monetization strategies could have resulted with collaboration, rather than just charging such a high price for streaming Capcom Cup[?]”

Nakayama responded, “It may sound strange, but it’s true. Revenue targets and assigned tasks differ fundamentally by department. Even the development team was surprised by this announcement (At least Matsumoto and I were shocked at the venue)[.] That said, since this matter occurred within the same company, we are currently discussing it. We apologize for any concern this may have caused.” Below, he also wrote, “If I get scolded at work, I will delete the above comment😅.”

For those out of the loop, last week, Capcom announced that the Capcom Cup 12 Finals and the SFL: 2025 World Championship will both be pay-per-view events. While free replays will be available a week later for both, anyone who has ever been into sports or e-sports knows that it can be very difficult to avoid spoilers about who won the event for even a few hours, let alone an entire week.

Capcom Cup is Street Fighter 6’s official competitive circuit, and it’s made up of dozens of qualifying tournaments that eventually produce 48 players from around the world. The winner gets a million dollars, so it’s very much a big deal. Meanwhile, SFL (Street Fighter League) is a team tournament with a $150K prize pool.

As for pricing for the streams, it will cost 4,000 yen individually for the Capcom Cup 12 Final or SFL: World Championship, and 6,000 yen for a bundle with both. In USD, that’s about $27 and $40, respectively. You can currently purchase the base edition of Street Fighter 6 for less than both ($20). Weirdly enough, Capcom is only charging for the finals of Capcom Cup, the top 16 of the bracket, but perhaps this is by design—you’d be much more likely to spend the $27 if you’d already spent hours and hours watching qualifying events and the Capcom Cup itself before realizing you need to begrudingly fork up to watch its conclusion.

The fighting game community (FGC) has not taken kindly to the news, causing many of the biggest voices in the scene to call out Capcom for the ridiculous move (this March, Capcom reported record profits for the eighth consecutive year). Frankly, e-sports can be a fragile thing that flare out of existence on a dime, and while the Capcom Cup probably isn’t going anywhere in the immediate future, given that it’s backed by a big publisher with an incentive for sticking around, moves like this will likely not only affect Capcom Cup viewership but also the viewership of dozens of smaller tournaments that are connected to it. It seems like a terrible move, and while it’s unclear if Capcom will back down at this point, hopefully, they will learn their lesson from this mishap.