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While Japan has been fine paying to view larger Street Fighter tournaments in the past, Capcom made a mistake when they announced a worldwide pay-per-view system for the championship matches at Capcom Cup 12.
The backlash was so strong earlier this year that Capcom announced updated, lower prices, attempting to appease the already angry FGC. The new rate was $10 for a single ticket, which isn’t horrible, but is a lot more than zero. And this wasn’t lost on the Street Fighter 6 community, which continued to voice frustration with Capcom’s “greed.”
I can agree to a certain extent that this isn’t the right community to charge. The FGC is notorious for being broke, with Super Smash Bros. prize pools often barely reaching a few thousand bucks. It’s not exactly the most lucrative community to milk for money. It’s more of a passion-fueled community. And a lot of that passion was lost when Capcom implemented pay-per-view.
However, the ongoing complaining has gotten to me.
The FGC Is Somehow Shocked There’s No Co-Streaming For a PPV Event
Recently, Capcom revealed co-streaming rules for the Capcom Cup 12, which is taking place this weekend. In the tweet outlining the new rules, Capcom explained that co-streamers can freely stream the qualifiers on March 13th, but cannot stream the championship on March 14th without Capcom’s permission. Same goes for the Street Fighter League: World Championship 2025 falling on the same weekend.
“Streams, posts, and other exploitation of the footage made in violation of our rules not only constitute copyright infringement but also undermine the trust of other customers who have purchased our paid content,” Capcom stated. “Accordingly, we will take appropriate measures, including but not limited to requesting removal.”
I mean, it’s not really much of a surprise. If the Capcom Cup 12 is pay-per-view, it seems like a no-brainer that there wouldn’t be free co-streams to watch during that time. Capcom added that streamers can share footage after its been made public following the paid-for event — this was an admittedly crazy one week after.
Despite it being very obvious this was the case, the FGC responded with outrage. The responses were largely fighting game fans that expressed they wouldn’t be watching the Capcom Cup 12 and that they’d lost all interest in the event. Others asked Capcom why they wanted to lose viewership and interest. It generally felt like Capcom wasn’t willing to work with the community — or grow it.
Added one player: “Disappointing. You know this is a terrible idea, and I hope this nonsense starts and ends with this Capcom Cup. You need to stop the greed, and work in more meaningful in-game content if you want your community to support you with money.”
However, there were some in the FGC that felt the pay-per-view format was justified. They pointed out that Street Fighter 6’s esports scene can’t really grow if fans don’t let Capcom make money off it. The FGC has a lot less money than other scenes, including smaller prize pools and smaller viewership.
Said the opposing side: “Streamers hiding behind ‘this hurts community growth’ really just mean ‘I can’t farm react content.’ You want SF6 to be a Tier 1 sport, but expect free broadcast rights? You can’t walk into the Super Bowl, stream it, and pocket the ad money. The Battle Hub IS the stadium.”
Where do I stand in this debate, you don’t ask? Well, I’ll tell you anyway. I’m in the middle. I can see the benefits and drawbacks of making the Capcom Cup 12 a pay-per-view event. It’ll definitely hurt the viewership, however. Either way, I think the FGC is being far too precious about the situation at this point. Being outraged that there won’t be co-streaming for a private, paid event seems pretty obvious and I figured this was well-known for months based on context.
If you are too cheap to pay for Capcom Cup 12 (as am I), there are ways to watch it for free — although the viewership experience will not be as top-notch.
The first way is to watch the matches within the game itself. Street Fighter 6 has a Battle Hub with a new Live Streaming feature. This stream, however, will have no commentary or any way to interact with the broadcast. You may also experience interruptions.
You can also watch the Capcom Cup 12 with a VPN. One fan shared information on a mobile app that will allow players to watch the event for free if you have a VPN on your device. However, this will be entirely in Mandarin. Check out their account throughout the week to get the link.
As a journalist, it’s definitely a bummer not to have access to the Capcom Cup while it’s happening. I expect coverage will not be as heavy this time around, though some publications may cover pay-per-view costs for their journalists. I’ll wait around after the tournament to see what stories pop up.
