2XKO Saved the Gaming Industry

I think 2XKO saved the gaming industry. And I'm dead serious. I think 2XKO saved the game industry. I know that this is a bold take. I know that many people would disagree that 2XKO did not save the game industry, but it's okay because I'm gonna highlight and explain how 2XKO saved the game industry from a content perspective. Let's jump right in.

I am back with a back-to-back 2XKO post, because the first thing that a lot of people are going to say is that 2XKO did not save the game industry, but Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls will. In a way, yes, Marvel Tokon's announcement during State of Play definetely brought the Marvel fighting game foundation back into the limelight. But not as a free-to-play title, but as a successor to the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise to become the new heart of the FGC set to release in 2026.

See, we don't consider one-time purchases as a form of microtransactions. But there is one thing that is a form of microtransactions, which is a gacha mechanic. Mario Kart Tour is an obvious example of being microtransactions-fueled. The game was criticized for having a gacha mechanic, Spotlight Pipes. It's like lootboxes, but uses pipes to give you a random item. Its $4.99 Gold Pass subscription is on there. Not so much of microtransactions, but definetely not well thought out.

A young boy assisted by his father sued Nintendo for implementing the gacha mechanic. It became a controversial piece to undermine player enjoyment and pressured players to pay money for Rubies, so Nintendo has removed it and replaced it with a normal shop that contains new and old content, especially the ones players' missed out, and made Spotlight Pipes earnable for free, thus making monetization duller to attract existing and new players.

As long as microtransactions are fair and less predatory and the free currency is kept, players can be able to enjoy their games smoothly and not be often pressured to pay money for premium currency to unlock low-tier items. It is possible to remove elements that involve gacha elements, pay-to-win scenarios and exploitative ways that encourage monetization over player enjoyment and that became easy to do. The thing is, you have to develop a game that undermines monetization and encourages player enjoyment. How do you do that? By making a free-to-play game that caters enjoyment and doesn't get in the way of the players' experience. But one AAA company, like Ubisoft, believed that microtransactions make their paid games fun. But I argue that they don't, especially when they are predatory.

That's why devs need freedom so that they can introduce innovations and make their games reasonably priced with the least amount of greed as possible. They can do that by spinning off from a AAA company to become an indie developer. AAA gaming became unfavorable because of microtransactions, live service elements and overpriced games. The three monetization practices became a continuous point of contention among the AAA game industry, especially to Nintendo, who seems to be facing a worldwide boycott over the Switch 2 and its accessories being overpriced because of tariffs. For the record, they SHOULD NOT be used as an excuse for Nintendo or any other big company to raise prices because of the fact that it banked on greed. To use tariffs as an excuse to raise prices makes no sense.

That's exactly why players are favoring indie devs because their games are reasonably priced and they are generally immune to tariffs, have innovations and they have the freedom to develop their games however they want and they don't face mass layoffs to be downsized to being a support team. These developers among the indie game industry have no shackles from AAA publishers. If you're quietly supporting AAA, then you're starting at a disadvantage and that money can go to waste. Each AAA company has revenues and they want to push the boundaries on monetization and greed so that they can make money, not appeasing players. That's why the indie and AA game industries hold no place for greed. This resulted in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 being a reasonably priced critically acclaimed turn-based RPG that sold over 5 million units in five months since release, as well as other titles.

It's important to fight both the poor side of the player base that say free content and reasonable prices are the best things ever and nothing can ever put a pay wall behind them or raise prices to put the boundaries on greed to the rich side of the player base that would be delighted to pay money. Grabbing the interests of both sides of the player base is an extremely difficult practice. And sadly, there is a company that took a crack of developing their free-to-play fighting game, but landed in a very awkward spot.

After the release of Smash Ultimate, Warner Bros. developed their free-to-play platform fighter with characters from their IPs, MultiVersus. Things have gone well with Open Beta. Throughout the phase, it was generally met with acclaim, with critics praising the combat, team-oriented gameplay, presentation and faithfulness to the represented franchises and the player base became decent that it won Best Fighting Game at the Game Awards 2022 despite that one form of off-putting microtransactions, pressuring players to pay money for Gleamium to gain extra lives in a game mode. Not to buy epic skins. And the game was showcased at EVO 2022 to have a side tournament outside of the main lineup and became esports worthy.

However, as soon as the game has entered full release after hibernation, things have took a turn for the worse and have gone to crap. The player base did not come close to the renowned Open Beta did. Warner Bros. struggled to maintain a renowned player base from the Open Beta and wasn't esports worthy like it was in Open Beta and tried to become a lead company of the crossover platform fighter, by beating 89 characters Smash Ultimate has, in which the first Keef skit about MultiVersus applied to. Back in November, the game underperformed significantly, suffering a $100 million loss. That led to the decision to sunset the game and all of its entirety of support after a year since launch, stopping at 35 characters, the same number of characters that Brawl has.

How the game failed miserably is one possible explanation. And it's not shifting to Unreal Engine 5, releasing characters we didn't wish for like the Banana Guard or renaming Beetlejuice "Betelgeuse". No, the real source of MultiVersus' faiure and alienating a LOT of players is microtransactions.

When it comes to grinding, when MultiVersus relaunched, microtransactions were implemented when they removed Gold, the game's free currency that is used to unlock characters, palettes and perks, to pressure players to pay money for Gleamium to unlock characters, palettes, lives and uncommon and rare time-limited skins like a Friday the 13th mask, a shark head, possession with dark energy from Trigon, summer outfits, being imbued with the cosmic energy and more. The Fighter and Perk currencies, none of them can unlock palettes or uncommon and rare time-limited skins or earnable through grinding daily and weekly missions or finishing matches. This is defined as microtransactions.

When Season 4 of MultiVersus came out, the Fighter currency was removed in favor of Fighter Road to involve grinding enough XP to unlock characters. However, Fighter Road XP is not earnable through grinding daily and weekly missions. This practice exposed why Warner Bros. had to sunset the game after five Seasons and how it became a commercial failure. During the game's full release, Player First Games has completely dropped the ball by taking microtransactions too far. That ball is the game's success in Open Beta. 

I find it ironic that Mightykeef, a black comedian, would make an emotional skit to cover that, with Nintendo reacting to MultiVersus shutting down and to be honest, I expected that to drop because of the Harry Potter part and the "I'm gonna need you to never do that **** again, my boy" line. Boy howdy, that one just... came out of left field just like what I saw in the Simpsons. But Harry Potter is not in the game and he never will be along with other characters I wished for like Godzilla, Daffy Duck, Furiosa and even Barbie, because since Warner Bros. is shifting their business to bringing their collaborations to Fortnite, generally meaning that the characters from their IPs are gonna be used as skins, including new Scooby-Doo! skins that came to Fortnitemares this year, and Player First Games is shut down, MultiVersus will never again see the light of day and these characters I wished for will be used as skins in Fortnite and other games.

Even with microtransactions during full release, the game was not universally hated. Nevercake has posted an ad for the game. The decision to end all further support on the game was met with widespread disappointment and sadness, especially when they purchased the the third tier of the Founder's Pack that offers a number of character tickets that is overkill. In fact, for a lot of people, that was their favorite game and they made a petition to convince Warner Bros. to continue support on the game, but bring Gold back and phase out the Perk and Fighter currencies. You can't put the game into the Beta phase and remove the game's free currency at launch to put monetization to the predatory level to alienate a lot of players.

I like to point out that removing the game's free currency and pressuring players to pay real money for premium currency to unlock things that none of the currencies that were introduced at launch can unlock like palettes and uncommon and rare time-limited skins is a form of microtransactions and putting the aggression on monetization. That has ruined what could've been a phenomenal crossover platform fighter like it was in Open Beta, especially when it's being multi-platform outside the Nintendo line of consoles and having rollback netcode. Gold being the free currency is what made MultiVersus so phenomenal in the Beta.

When it comes to making a free-to-play fighting game, how do you develop a free-to-play fighting game that caters the best experience while also not alienating players? Well, let's take 2XKO as an example on how it learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure.

2XKO is essentially a free-to-play League of Legends fighting game. Tag-oriented, duo play and SEGA vs. Capcom-style gameplay. In fact, it is arguably one of the games that I felt comfortable playing anytime soon on both PC and console and it's easy to recommend it to Deen and Noid for their Father and Son Beatdown now that the game is open for everyone to download. Well, during Early Access. The game is technically available for everyone, but they are looking at Seasons, ranked, content and competitive scenes and they're focusing on the work that takes to shift from the Alpha Lab playtests to a full-featured game on console before fully launching it.

It's so much fun to play that kids would stay home from school to play this game and the matches are fun to spectate, whether it's intro dialogues between certain characters in a team, experiencing people disrespecting those who use pulse combos, a planned cadence of releasing five new Champs per year, finisher cosmetics, Teemo and Warwick being in the mix, Ultimate finishes, making quips about characters, Jinx's theme fitting well with the action, listening to Yasuo's theme, creating the synergy from Vi teaming up with her childhood sister Jinx after making her debut, courtesy of Arcane and whatever the heck Ahri said about Darius during the intro dialogue between them.

Not only the game's development has turned out well, but also hit a problem back in 2020 when they tested out early tag gameplay that they had to go back to the drawing board and update the game's art design, making characters veer from their MOBA counterparts to blend in well in a fighting game environment and produce fast-paced gameplay. Here's one thing that you didn't know. Did you know that Darius has no wrapping around his arms, Ahri's legs are thin, wears a purple rope around her waist and a necklace, and Ekko has dreads in their updated art style? I think the reasoning for the art style update is because the original art style based on League of Legends first seen in 2019 when 2XKO was Project L became slow-paced in a fighting game. That explains why Katarina had to be cut from the game undergoing design updates to make her blend well in a fighting game environment. But she's gonna make her debut in Season 1.

They have been working on the game for six years since 2019. Their first demo at EVO turned out to be a hit with feedback from players kicking in back in 2023. It pretty much went well with Alpha Lab 1, the first invite-only at home playtest. Then Alpha Lab 2 came along to have drastic gameplay changes based on player feedback. While a smaller playtest, feedback was given to the team. Playtesting was then taken to the next level with Closed Beta being the final invite-only play window before the game is fully released with a focus on leaving the servers online for the foreseeable future in a way to warm things up. Invites were automatically sent to those who played in any of their Alpha Lab playtests.

After Closed Beta, the game is publicly available in Early Access on PC. It marks the game being available for everyone to download, breaking the invite-only barrier. Now, this is where you might say, "Come on, you already got an invite to Closed Beta. Why did you care about Early Access in the first place?". Well, to answer your question, Closed Beta was considered just a warmup. All of our progress we made during Closed Beta had to be reset in Early Access. It breaks the invite-only barrier so that the game would be available for everyone with things that are introduced to be looked at. Also, after the announcement of Early Access, gameplay trailers and moveset showcase videos are also released. They are for the first four characters who never received one in the first place.

But how did 2XKO succeed you ask? Well, the developers have seemingly learned from MultiVersus' untapped potential. How they did it was they were laser-focused in on what they learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure and what made the invite-only betas so appealing. They taken that full potential and success from invite-only playtests and amplified and multiplied it in Early Access and beyond, not breaking it by implementing microtransactions. New ways and improvements to earn Credits were introduced to take that full potential from the invite-only betas and made it shine throughout the game's development.

What I said above stated that Riot has laser-focused in on what they learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure during full release and what made the invite-only playtests so perfect and appealing. And instead of fragmenting and borderline taking microtransactions too far, they polished and multiplied what made 2XKO so appealing to a larger audience. New ways to earn Credits like combo trials would make it shine throughout the game's development cycle, so currency-wise, they honored the invite-only trilogy and improved the foundation with one butt to kick at Early Access and will continue that full potential when the game officially launches. However, Player First Games has alienated a lot of players when they implemented microtransactions at launch by removing Gold and pressuring players to pay money for Gleamium to unlock characters, palettes, lives and low tier skins. But this is where the story comes in to fix that.

If you don't know what Credits is, I'll explain what it is. Credits is 2XKO's free currency that is used to unlock Champions, chromas, stages and avatar cosmetics and has all ways to earn them for free, like finishing matches in Casual and Ranked lobbies, completing the lessons in Tutorial and grinding daily and weekly missions and the Battle Pass. Riot has thought about microtransactions Player First Games has implemented to alienate a lot of players during the game's full release and went the extra mile to improve how Credits are earned by adding new ways to earn them like completing combo trials.

Credits being the game's free currency is what made the invite-only betas so appealing. Without it, we would be often pressured to pay real money for premium currency, KO Coins, to unlock characters, chromas, stages and avatar cosmetics, which is the prime definition of microtransactions. The player base will be alienated and they would sunset the game prematurely. That's how MultiVersus became a commercial failure and why Warner Bros. had to sunset it prematurely. It lives up to the idea of, "Hey, we learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure. We must leave our free currency alone and not implement microtransactions so that players can be able to purchase characters, stages and other items with them".

Plus, to give you a small insight on how new Champions become available to purchase with Credits, starting in Season 1 when the game is fully launched, new Champions become available to unlock with 10,000 Credits once the first three weeks of each new Season is up. This tells us that Riot has learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure by simply leaving the Credits alone and adding new ways to earn them so that when 2XKO is fully released, we can be able to unlock characters with them, not through microtransactions. Grinding weekly and daily missions and finishing combo trials and tutorials to earn Credits would speed up the process of unlocking every character without ever being pressured to pay real money for KO Coins before a new Season launches, as well as new ways like a daily login bonus, which is not yet in the game.

Not only Riot has learned from MultiVersus' commercial failure, but they also embraced the trope that has been used a lot and the concept of the game's full potential so much that it became a core backbone of the FGC. They even went as far as supporting online and offline tournaments dedicated to 2XKO esports for the rest of 2025 through the First Impact program, planning a patch that resolves stability issues, bringing Arcane skins to characters that are featured in Netflix's hit show to honor it and making the game a good influence to Teamfight Tactics to have a 2XKO Coliseum.

However, despite Early Access breaking the invite-only barrier to make the game available to download for free, 2XKO's Metacritic score remains a mystery because it is not yet officially released. But MultiVersus, on the other hand, did receive a Metacritic score of 75 out of 100, which is seemingly decent, but met with mixed reviews with those praising the combat and representation of Warner Bros.' IPs battling each other for supremacy and criticizing microtransactions, especially during full release.

With everything said and done, here's the main point I would like to make. Warner Bros. made their free-to-play fighting game that is a platform fighter with their IPs battling each other. It became a success and achieved its full potential in Open Beta. However, when the game is fully released, that full potential from the Open Beta was broken because Gold, MultiVersus' free currency used to unlock characters, palettes and perks, was removed to put the encouragement on microtransactions and they had to make a decision to shut down their game after Season 5 and shift their business to bringing their characters to Fortnite as skins. But Riot has learned from this enigma.

They created a free-to-play fighting game that continued its full potential from the invite-only play windows by still having a free currency during launch to keep microtransactions light and less predatory and make the grind easier, meaning that the game became phenomenal and wouldn't shift their business to bringing their characters to Fortnite as skins that have the same art style 2XKO uses.

Development and content choices for future free-to-play fighting games, meaning if and when other companies in the game industry plan to take a crack at developing a new free-to-play fighting game or if Riot plans another free-to-play fighting game that is tag-oriented or a platform fighter, they know how to learn from MultiVersus' commercial failure and untapped potential and make a successful free-to-play fighting game. They can simply implement the free currency in the game from the get-go of the game's development to unlock characters, stages and palettes and leave it alone. The game's free currency is what makes it so appealing, especially to unlock characters, palettes and even time-limited uncommon and rare cosmetics. They can use 2XKO as a perfect example of a commercially successful free-to-play live service fighting game and develop a free-to-play live service fighting game that does not have forms of aggressive monetization practices.

In conclusion, 2XKO has literally saved the gaming industry, by being a free-to-play live service fighting game that has the free currency at launch. MultiVersus' commercial failure because of aggressive monetization practices became a lesson learned by the other companies of the game industry and the first company that learned from it is Riot with the entry of 2XKO being a commercial success. But does that mean the game is perfect? No, it doesn't because the game doesn't have to be perfect, even when the game is fully released as long as game succeeds and that's what matters.

While all of this sounds great, there is a bit of a silver-lining to all this. If Player First Games left the Gold currency alone and added new ways to earn Gold like grinding daily and weekly missions instead of taking microtransactions too far, then MultiVersus wouldn't be sunset prematurely, because again, removing Gold to pressure players into paying real money for Gleamium to unlock characters, palettes and uncommon and rare skins is defined as a form of microtransactions and the source of the game's failure and alienating a lot of players. It's something that Riot didn't do when developing 2XKO.

Also, I would like to point out that starting in 2027, we should see each new Season launching two new Champions. The first Champ of the Season gets available to unlock with 1,000 KO Points, 1 Champion Token, by redeeming Battle Pass XP or purchasing the Ultra tier until the first five weeks of a Season is up and that first Champion of the Season becomes available to unlock with 10,000 Credits and the second Champion of the Season gets launched with the same algorithm; unlocked with 1,000 KO Points, redeeming Battle Pass XP during the Recruitment Event or purchasing the Ultra tier and with 10,000 Credits when the Season is over, thus following MultiVersus' footsteps and giving us ten new Champions in 2027 and beyond to expand the roster faster, but minus the microtransactions.