It will no longer be as punishing as character restrictions are lifted for offline play, although challenge room efforts and unlocks remain unsaved if not connected.
”…many folks ignored the goodness therein and zeroed in on the implementation of the offline mode and its limitations,” said Christian Svensson, talking about his recent blog post detailing the PC-specific designs that Capcom brought to PC SSFIV: Arcade Edition.
”This in turn gave rise to threads on our boards and others, which in turn spawned stories at several web outlets lamenting our approach for protecting the content.” One such DRM measure for offline play was limited character selection to just 15 of 39.
”The argument that legitimate users would have a worse experience than pirates was the loudest and most convincing. We certainly don’t want that to be the case and that was never our intention,” continued Svensson. Actions speak louder than blog posts…
”Shortly after launch (it might even be at launch, but we’ll see how submission timing and approval goes) we will roll out a small title update that will completely remove the character limitations for offline mode.”
”That is to say, once you’ve updated, you will be able to use all 39 characters when not connected to the Internet to practice your combo timings, have some fun with a friend on a laptop, or whatever while offline.”
Other features still required to be logged in, obviously the online services in particular.
”With that hurdle hopefully now cleared, I hope that we can make Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition the most successful fighting game ever on PC. I’d certainly like to continue to grow our audience on the largest platform in the world,” he added.
This heavy handed DRM approach came about as Capcom bemoaned that PC Street Fighter IV was one of the most pirated PC titles there ever was and vowed to steer clear of desktops unless they could be sure to severely limit software piracy.
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition releases on Xbox 360 and PS3 June 28th, and on PC later in the year. Has Capcom stepped over the line with this level of DRM?
