Less than a month after its launch and Street Fighter Duel is already facing controversy due to international publisher Crunchyroll Games’ monetization plans with the game’s recently launched Monster Hunter Collaboration.

In this new collaboration, fans have a chance to roll for a new character: Gore Magala Ken in his own banner. In the monetization for the Chinese version of Street Fighter Duel, you were guaranteed to get Ken after 10 pulls, a feat that is already tricky since you have to kill the event boss multiple times to gain the currency needed for the pulls. The international version however only guarantees Ken with 60 pulls. This makes it more or less impossible to get Gore Magala Ken without paying real-world money for him.

It should also be noted that a big part of Street Fighter Duel is buffing your character by fusing duplicate units together in a system called ‘awakening’. In the Chinese version, Gore Magala Ken was a ‘legendary unit’ meaning he was strong enough that you didn’t need duplicates to awaken him but the international version was changed to a standard ‘infernal class’. This means multiple Ken pulls are required to make him viable against tougher opponents. Needless to say, fans are upset that the game seems to be “pay-to-win” in order to pull and buff Ken.

Crunchyroll’s response

Crunchyroll has further responded to the controversy over the games Discord. Crunchyroll Community Mod Dino (via Reddit user Ruyn) replied to the issues of the differing monetization.

This has been interpreted by players as the Street Fighter Duel banners being made primarily for those that are willing to pay for the new unit and not free-to-play users with this first event being the only (somewhat) exception. The response has been deeply unpopular with the community including both the Street Fighter Duel Discord and Reddit, many are even asking for refunds.

Despite this, the Discord mod has also said that they have heard the complaints and that the developers are looking for a solution to the issue.

Rigged Rates

Many players have also found that the event gacha might actually be rigged. Youtuber Hayzink made a video showing that players are guaranteed to get Ken within at least the first 5 multi-pulls.

While this may sound good at first, giving the players an easy Gore Magala Ken despite the increased monetization, the issue is that the scripted pulls are not disclosed. A lot of fans are seeing this as essentially a way to lure players into rolling more. By giving people some easy pulls, it can convince them that it’ll be easier to get more which in turn gets them to spend more to get more rolls. Remember, players will need to pull Ken multiple times in order to buff his stats higher.

This might not be the first time Street Fighter Duel has used scripted draws either. At launch, they were selling the character Fashion Sakura for $120 but allowed players to cut the price down to $60 via a lucky draw between 10, 30, and 50 percent off. Allegedly, the draw was rigged to make the player always get 50, which has been seen as a way of making the price seem more of a deal than it really is.