Stefan's weekly rant

Anybody who's been visiting my site for the last 6+ years knows that I hate Capcom at least as much as I love them. They've created some of the greatest games and characters, but they've also F***ed their loyal fans over and over and over again for many years. Why do they fight against the fans?!

The most memorable incident with me is the time I tested games for Capcom, and one of the Capcom guys from Japan actually told me Cammy from SF2 wasn't being used anymore because she was too popular... Ken, Ryu, and Chun Li were supposed to be the focus of the series. And obviously they've done everything they could to shove them down the fans' throats. If they actually had a big plan for those lame characters, fine, but they haven't done squat with 'em since then! Hey, here's an idea... why not give the fans (customers) what they want! Don't you think that might be good for business? Well lemme tell you, business for Capcom has been going very bad lately, so whatever they're going doesn't seem to be working!

And speaking of bad business at Capcom, Okamoto is leaving. Here on the 15th anniversary of Street Fighter, the co-creator is leaving. The other co-creator, I forget his name, left a few years ago and created Arika (makers of SFEX). For details on this topic, check this out from GameForms & GameFront...

Yoshiki Okamoto, creator of such gaming milestones as Street Fighter and Final Fight, has left Capcom to form his own company.

According to the German gaming site, Gamefront, Okamoto was at odds with the direction Capcom was going and decided to stake out on his own.

Anyhow, Capcom's newest sin is the fake character popularity poll they have for Street Fighter's 15th anniversary (a Japanese-only site). Chun Li is at top by a mile. Within a few days, she had more than 20 times as many votes as anybody else. Thanks mainly to Capcom's never-ending hype, I'll (grudgingly) agree that she's the most popular character. But, she's not THAT popular... she has almost as many votes as the next 80 characters combined!! Ryu is #2 with only about 25% of Chun Li's total. I guarantee you that Japanese fans don't care about Ryu... you almost never see cosplay, fanart, comics, or any kind of support for him. For almost 10 years I've followed the fan scene in Japan VERY closely, so I'm sure I know what's been going on. And this poll is going against almost everything that I've seen from fans in Japan, but it happens to fits in perfectly with what Capcom's vision of what the fans should be like.

Anyhow, I've been following this poll every day for a few weeks. I've voted Cammy every day, I've sent out tons of e-mail to known Cammy fans in Japan, and I've posted on many Japanese message boards so that I could drum up support for Cammy. It worked, because Cammy steadily jumped way up in the polls, and then all of a sudden about 20% of her votes were suddenly taken away. Yes, I'm 100% sure... not 99.9%... 100% sure! I've been taking notes to see how things have been progressing. There was no sudden spike in votes that would indicate cheating for Cammy, so that wasn't the reason for votes being taken away. Nobody else has dropped... just Cammy when she started to threaten Capcom's favorite characters (except Chun Li, who supposedly got twice as many votes in the first few days as anybody else could get in a whole month). Is it just another amazing coincidence, or is Capcom cheating?

I am NOT one to cry conspiracy even though it sure seems like it. In fact, I'll usually do anything to avoid sounding like another conspiracy nut. To be honest, although I'm sure Cammy has been held back, I really doubt there is some kind of anti-Cammy policy at Capcom... the chances of that are nearly impossible. I'd believe it was a very unlucky glitch in the voting system before that. But what the hell else are we supposed to think when Capcom has this track record? What the F*** is going on?! What the Hell is Capcom up to now? I don't know, but there's obviously something fishy going on (yet again). Is it a wonder that me and so many other fans don't trust Capcom anymore?

I don't wanna come off as some disgruntled fanboy because Cammy's not #1. I AM NOT A RAVING LUNATIC... ARRGGGHHHHH!!!!!! ^_^ I know that she hasn't been #1 in a long time. All I ever said was that with all bias aside (mine, yours, and theirs), if you grade all characters on all points (style, personality, storyline, etc.), Cammy should be #1, and that maybe she's pound for pound the most popular. I suspected that this poll was totally bogus from the start, but when Cammy suddenly lost 20% of her votes and fell way back down the rankings, it was the last straw. Obviously fans have an influence, but I'm quite sure that somebody at Capcom is making the numbers end up the way they want 'em to end up. Why am I so sure? Because I've been watching Capcom pull stunts like this over and over again for many years.

You know, as much as I absolutely hate what Capcom has been doing, I hate having to hate Capcom even more. I do not enjoy bashing Capcom! I really want to like and respect them like I used to, but they just make it impossible. Sigh... for years I've seen them spiral downward, and can't believe they're still going down! I think the only way Capcom will ever change is if they go bankrupt (which is very likely from what I hear). Is Okamoto the first 'rat' to flee the sinking ship? Bankruptcy will force them to clean house and start over again. I think that's the only way we'll ever be able to expect great things from Capcom again.

UPDATE - It's July 3, four days after I first wrote this rant, and Cammy has lost 15 votes since I last checked earlier in the day! Again, I'm 100% sure because I've been taking careful notes. And again, no other characters have been losing votes as far as I know...

UPDATE - It's July 7, one week after I wrote the this rant, and Cammy has lost another big chunk of points. Again, it was only Cammy. Every time she moves up near the top, she somehow loses points. As far as I know, she's lost votes 3 times, the amount has been different every time, but it's always been enough to knock her all the back to 12th place...

UPDATE - It's July 21, and Cammy has continued to lose random numbers of votes at random times. Fans moved her all the way back up to 6th place, but she's lost votes on at least 3 occasions since July 7. This time, however, she's only falling back in small amounts (instead of huge chunks knocking her back 5 or more spots). Nevertheless, it's still having an effect. From what I've personally recorded, if she hadn't lost those votes, she'd be close to 2nd place...