The news that SNK is releasing The King of Fighters XIII: Global Match on Steam should be cause for celebration, but fans have reacted angrily to the announcement—and with good reason.
One of the significant additions in Global Match is the introduction of rollback netcode. In case you weren't aware, this is a feature which reduces lag in online modes by predicting moves and "rolling back" if that prediction is incorrect. It all happens so quickly that it makes online matches feel snappier.
While other publishers have added this much-requested feature to their games in free-of-charge updates, SNK is making existing owners pay for the privilege.
In the past, even SNK has added rollback netcode to its games for free, but not this time. The vanilla version of King of Fighters XIII is already available on Steam (it launched over a decade ago), whereas the Global Match edition—which is based on the PS4 and Switch versions and includes rollback netcode—is being treated as a brand-new release.
SNK is allowing those who already own the original version to upgrade to Global Match for $6.99, but this hasn't been enough to satisfy some fans, who are now review-bombing the original game and leaving negative comments on Steam (thanks, PCGamesN).
Here are some examples:
I love SNK, but I never thought I'd see greedy tactics from them. Who in the world re-releasing a decade-old game with a rollback update that most FG studios provide for free? What a disappointment.
SNK would rather delist this game and re-release it with rollback netcode instead of just updating, very scummy move. I don't care if i get a discount for already having this one on my library, this should be a free update, reminds me of when Namco charged people for a frame data display on Tekken 7, the game industry has become very greedy.
Other fighters like Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 got a free rollback netcode update. Why not this product? Shame on you, greedy SNK!
If you want the rollback update you have to buy the new game. Bravo SNK! What a greedy company!
Insanely comical that console players recently got a good port with rollback netcode meanwhile PC players gets a really bad port with insanely outdated delay-based netcode.
In SNK's defence, the game arrived on Steam back in 2013, when rollback netcode wasn't common. Given the time that has elapsed since its original launch, it might seem a little optimisitc to expect SNK to patch it in.
King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition will be delisted from Steam on Thursday, January 23rd. King of Fighters XIII: Global Match will launch just under a month later on Thursday, February 20th.
[source pcgamesn.com]
Comments 12
> Given the time that has elapsed since its original launch, it might seem a little optimisitc to expect SNK to patch it in.
Valve is still patching their games to this day. Some of those are a lot older than 2013.
Greed, and pretty hilarious greed at that. Paying to get more functional multiplayer, we sure do live in 2025.
I don't full grasp what rollback code is...
@Sketcz - This is the article that helped me understand. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/10/explaining-how-fighting-games-use-delay-based-and-rollback-netcode/
@mariteaux
Valve has a lot incentives to do that because:
1) it's weird private company that doesn't abide to 'normal' rules. Expecting any other companies to be like valve is naive.
2) it's a platform holder. At this point in time, valve makes more money by selling other people's games (and CS2/Dota2 skins I guess) than their own 'legacy' games like half life so of course they can update it till ad infinitum because it's basically more like their passion pet project than an actual product.
@lordlad I don't expect anything--but the fact that they can shows you that it's not some out there idea. There's other examples of companies releasing patches for old games. The platform holder bit is irrelevant--this is a rerelease of the same game from the same codebase. It would take no effort at all to patch the game to include modern networking niceties, because it's already been done. It's been paywalled that's the issue.
I'm torn because while I do think these companies should provide free rollback when they can AND SNK has been one of them before, I also get that doing so ain't cheap.
BUT some of my sympathy evaporates when I remember how so many people 15 years ago begged and pleaded with Capcom, SNK, and ArcSys to PLEASE use rollback netcode like SF2 HD Remix did so well, and all three were like "lol but what if we don't."
@HoyeBoye cheers!
It seems pretty entitled to say a company should give you their product for free...
Not to mention KoF XIII and KoF XIII GM are developed by two different companies...
The last decade's philosophy is "monetize anything if you can" it feels at times. Retro gaming's popularity/reniassance is that it bucks the cold hearted capitalism that the modern games industry willfully embraced and descended into...with some noteable/few exceptions...
Eh, I think it’s fine in this case. It’s not an update but a new version of the game and they’re not taking the older version away from anyway.
I believe Hamster has said for Arcade Archives and Neo Geo games they are going to add online play for people who already own them, for an additional fee for each game.
As long as the fee is small, it seems like a plus to me.
Isn't SNK nowadays like a small company? They need the funds. They shouldn't be compared to something like ArcSys which is backed by Sega.
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