Collection of Mainstream Articles Destroying Koei Tecmo's 'Hair Rental Service'

Free Step Dodge commits itself first to the players of Dead or Alive, and since the controversial launch of version 1.20 we have made it a top priority to let Koei Tecmo know that these 'hair rental' & DLC business practices are unacceptable and that enough is enough. The mainstream press is hearing the community and responding to KT with questions and concerns of their own! Keep in mind that Free Step Dodge will still cover the offline players that make DOA what it is today and our latest post supports the efforts made by the community at Reversal in Philadelphia.

It's sort of hysterical that the mainstream media is covering this as most of them are not fighting game fans, certainly not players of the often times underrated Dead or Alive franchise, but this hair rental controversy is a rare exception outside of new games & character DLCs. All of this started with our articles here at FSD, but then the dispute slowly trickled into other big news sources. Top Tier almost immediately questioned Koei Tecmo's business practices, and because of community complaints more and more started focusing directly on the hair rental itself.

Polygon noted our article and labeled it as a scathing news piece to complement and prove their own arguments. Because of Polygon's effect on video game journalism more and more different mediums started to notice and responded with voices of their own. Probably the most notable YouTube video was released by Jim Sterling, a famous video game critic, who outright defended supporters of the game and verbally destroyed and humiliated KT for their efforts to milk their own dedicated players dry with this radical update.

As of the second of March game news conglomerates Kotaku & Gamespot have joined the fight against KT with woven story pieces of their own. A lot of these news outlets have mentioned our articles at FSD plenty of times, but Gamespot really seems to be behind our community and mentioned our desires to change the future of this game at several points in the course of their news story. Eurogamer's story backed Emery Reigns as a reference with his onslaught of KT on his successful YouTube channel.

Moments after I initially wrote this article YongYea released a justifiable rant that lasted over 13 minutes. Shortly after 1.20 was released nearly the entire community came out to Facebook or Twitter to chant this topical YouTuber's name to come to their rescue. This well-crafted video doesn't just bury KT for their hair rental service, but also takes time to mention their two thousand dollars worth of DOA6 DLC & expensive season passes.

Siliconera & Event Hubs are two news outlets that report for Dead or Alive consistently and have also taken shots at KT recently and have received no response from them despite their efforts for the series while also encouraging players to try DOA6 out. Many fighters are at this point where they wonder how much information and evidence KT needs to admit that this was not a good idea.

To further prove the point we are trying to make we created a Twitter poll which shows an overwhelmingly negative response to the hair rental service. With over 500 votes only 17 percent of Dead or Alive's active player base is not bothered by these despicable transactions:

 
Last edited:
Wasn't sure about exactly where to post this, but this is the first site I've seen post a follow up article due to the response from DOA's twitter.


The article reads like TN/KT is just going to do something to make hair colour change LESS exploitative than it currently is as the minimum attempt to appease fans. Its a bit early for them to report the issue I think. Better to wait until we actually see what they do.
 
The article reads like TN/KT is just going to do something to make hair colour change LESS exploitative than it currently is as the minimum attempt to appease fans. Its a bit early for them to report the issue I think. Better to wait until we actually see what they do.

Yeah, I was thinking it wasn't worth a news article yet too. Better to see what their actions will be first. I got siliconera to post about the issue the first time, but not this time. Still, at least it's good to see they're keeping on top of any developments. After all, they alway report on every SP and any other DOA updates (just the details and facts, no opinions or snarky comments, which I appreciate), so it's really no surprise I guess.

I don't see this response getting as much attention by gaming media like the initial controversy. The actual changes they come up with is what should really bring the attention back.
 
If KT's amends are actually significant enough I am sure media will report. They will want to claim a victory. Any halfhearted attempt (like owning a color after buying it once or you being able to buy the full set of 16 colors for 16 bucks) is not worthy of any news and any forgiveness. It's still a shitty and outrageously expensive scam.
If KT was actually remorseful and sincere they would make the hair colors free on every system and they would let us unlock them with coins. This would actually be perfect to still make some sense of those, because every longtime player has hundreds of thousands of them and they don't know what to do with them.
 
Destructoid updated their article on the "apology" as well:

1583592732736.png
 
A coverage on the upcoming update:

However, it doesn’t note if the price of unlocking hair colors will still be one Premium Ticket, or if that will change since you now unlock all 16 colors for a hairstyle when you make a purchase.

Hmm. If they were to sell the colors for 10 tickets/hairstyle it would be hilarious.
 
Okay,

I just want to show how KT is pushing TN to release careless content. This is the reputation they need to have now so they can improve.
I would like to collect some poor quality DLC pictures to actually show "why some Westerners (and I) don't pay enough money" for this game.

I only have examples for Helena unfortunately :
- Helena's bath time (DOA5) > looks like her towel was ripping in teishitsu stance (never fixed)
- Helena's wedding hairstyle (DOA6) > the flower in her hair being glued 5 cm away from it (never fixed)
- Helena's revival ninja costume (DOA6) > the hair was glitchy as hell on release (it was fixed because it looked so bad)
- Helena's revival hot summer (DOA6) > you can't remove the jacket and the price is (I think) more expensive (never fixed)

Do you have more example and pictures from other fighters ? We could collect all of that and send it to journalists ?

ERsD0SgXkAAqNCj
EE5Y2QXVUAk37r5
 
Last edited:

Yong's still getting the total price of the DLC wrong but I appreciate his follow-up.

True. Great video in the sense that it's a mainstream followup whether you like Yong or not. We're going to have to release our version update article a little early.
 

Yong's still getting the total price of the DLC wrong but I appreciate his follow-up.

Is it confirmed that the hair colour option will cost 1-2 tickets per hair style? I'm actually expecting they would charge even MORE.
 
ANOTHER coverage:

I'm curious to see if TN will respond further on this or just leave it be thinking making the colour change permanent will be enough.
 
ALL DOA6 DOA5 DOA4 DOA3 DOA2U DOAD
Top