Players are accusing the company of greed and question how it makes sense to charge to watch an event that effectively serves as advertising for Street Fighter.
The Street Fighter 6 community has been thrown into uproar following Capcom’s decision to make paid streams mandatory for two major fighting tournaments — the Capcom Cup and the SFL World Championship.
In response to an X (formerly Twitter) user asking how “the esports division and the development team could be so disconnected” by making that pricing choice, Street Fighter 6 game director Takeyuki Nakayama explained that the departments have different targets.
This may sound odd, but yes — the teams are indeed fragmented. Revenue targets and assigned objectives differ substantially between departments, which creates these kinds of gaps.
Nakayama stressed that the Street Fighter 6 development team was genuinely surprised by the announcement and offered apologies to the players.
We in the development team were taken aback by this decision (at least Matsumoto and I were shocked). We apologize for any worry this may have caused.
Capcom recently revealed the dates for the prestigious events: Capcom Cup 12 is scheduled for March 14, 2026, with the SFL: World Championship the following day on March 15. Fans and players were angered by the announcement that access to the live streams would be behind a paywall. A single-event stream is priced at ¥4,000 (about $27), while a package covering both events is ¥6,000 (around $40).
Source: iXBT.games