Games come with full rosters still even, and then they released new characters with title updates. It's the same shit in a new package. You don't have to like what's happening now, but it's the same.

Those are title updates. It's easy to be nostalgia blinded. Play alpha 3 if that's what you like, but accept that this is the way it's been. Maybe it'll be better in the future, but to think it's changed is naive

Being obtuse is a choice.

The game did not launch with all of the content. It changed and evolved with subsequent title updates that needed to be purchased on different platforms, none of which contained all of the content.

The sf5 characters? What are you even talking about?

That also had subsequent re-releases on various platforms with balance changes and new characters that required . There are games that launch with large rosters still (kof15 being a recent example), but that's still an outlier

What games are being released with 40 characters out of the box? Like you are right, it's not a necessity, but it drives interest in the game, makes them money so they can continue to patch the game. There is bad fg dlc (see sf6 avatar costumes, mk1), but they aren't all equal

Also, the entire problem started because there was no way to update a disc or game files. If there weren't dlc characters (free or paid) and patches, we would just end up with title updates being the norm again.

You may be fine with that, but we'd likely see the death of the genre if it was drip fed even more so

I mean, I hear you. Melty Blood got a lot of goodwill having all additional characters be free(which is great, but not the norm). But the alternative is just not getting new characters until a new entry for most games.

Because they were added post launch. DLC can definitely be egregious, but this just isn't. It also beats the old days of title updates that split the player base