After receiving tons of flak for implementing a premium hair scheme that requires gamers to pay $1 for every hair color change on the PS4 version of Dead or Alive 6, Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja have issued an announcement on March 6th, 2020 stating that they will address the issue to help “mitigate” said circumstances.
The news was issued via a tweet from the official Dead or Alive Twitter account.
#DEADORALIVE6 #DOA6 pic.twitter.com/a6IvwCHRe2
— Official DEAD OR ALIVE Fighting Game (@DOATEC_OFFICIAL) March 7, 2020
If you’re unable to read the message in the image, it states…
“Dear fans,
“We hear and acknowledge your disappointment behind our roll out of the new hair color feature for DOA6. We greatly appreciate your feedback, and are working towards a solution that helps to mitigate this issue and will share our plans in the coming days.
“We apologize for our misstep, and are working hard to resolve this situation. We thank you in advance for your patience and hope you continue to enjoy DOA6.”
The issue cropped up during update 1.20 that included the Gust DLC crossover costumes for the Dead or Alive 6 cast of characters.
As pointed out in the video by YellowFlash 2, PS4 gamers were greeted with the option to change the characters’ hair color… for a price.
After the brouhaha led to a lot of pushback, forum spats, and calls for more boycotts (as if they didn’t have enough of that already), Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja decided to step up and address the community consternation by issuing the above statement.
Koei was basically forced to issue said statement because even some fanboys typically slurping at the tip of the shekel-schlong dangling out of the pants of Koei Tecmo were warning people away from buying the premium tickets to change the hair color, as evident with ZakkuRye’s video.
Koei Tecmo is now between a rock and a hard place, because they’re desperate to keep monetizing Dead or Alive 6, and since it doesn’t contain the kind of fan-service hook as DMM’s Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation, they’re trying to grift gamers on a feature that’s free in every other fighting game out there that sports customization.
However, if fans give Koei Tecmo any leeway on this matter whatsoever, expect other publishers to follow suit, charging money for making changes to characters and costumes in games. I can already see EA eyeing this feature for the EA Sports UFC series, or 2K Games implementing a similar feature for the WWE 2K franchise.
Stay vigilant.
(Thanks for the news tip FlutterDash)