Mortal Kombat is one of the best fighting games to be released this generation. A deep roster of player favorites on the character select screen, content that’s fun to play with friends or even alone — which is rare in fighting games — and on the PlayStation 3 there’s even a novel 3-D feature for gamers with the necessary hardware. Ars Technica gave the game a “buy” rating and stands by it; this is a title that will impress fans of the franchise as well as newcomers.

From a business perspective, however, Mortal Kombat is one of the first fighting games to fully embrace the digital culture we live in, with content promised pre-release, a for-pay online strategy if you buy used, and post-release downloadable content coming at a regular pace. Heck, if you don’t want to pay for characters one at a time, you can even pre-order the DLC to save some money. This is a game that’s trying to keep us engaged (and paying) for as long as possible.

Retailer exclusives, rolled into a for-pay package

Retailers offered a variety of “exclusive” content to customers in order to get them to buy the game at that location. The annoying issue here is that all the major retailers had different deals, so it was impossible to get all the game’s content at launch without buying multiple copies. For hardcore fans of the series, that’s not optimal.

The content was later released as a $5 DLC package, and in that package you received all the retailer-exclusive content. “Download the Klassic Skins Pack #1 and receive 7 Klassic Character Skins (Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile, Ermac, Kitana, Mileena, Jade) and 3 Klassic Fatalities (Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile),” the description explains. Notice the size of the download? An 108 KB file means that the content is on the disc, and you’re simply downloading the permission to unlock it. This is content that was finished before release, pressed on the disc and then held back for the exclusives and the for-pay downloads.

More characters are coming later, but buy now!

The next aspect of the game that’s interesting is the addition of downloadable characters. So far three have been announced, and the pricing is set at $5 per character. That’s a high price, but Microsoft has a deal for you: if you pre-order all four characters right now, you can get all of them for $15. That’s a savings of five entire dollars!

This deal isn’t just with fighting games, as Rockstar offered a similar deal with the L.A. Noire Rockstar Pass, where you can get access to all the retailer exclusives and upcoming content for $10. This isn’t even a matter of buying content after the game’s release; now publishers are creating incentives to prepay for future content, some of which hasn’t been announced yet. You may not know what exactly you’ll be getting for your money, but you do know that you’re likely to save some money if you assume that you would have bought all future content.

Unlike the outfits and fatalities, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon claimed that the new characters were not included on the disc. Players will also need to download a compatibility pack to play with these new characters, even if they don’t purchase the package, but at least Warner Bros. is including some free classic skins to sweeten that deal.

Online play is free … if you buy new

The game requires a one-use code if you’re going to play online, and of course if you buy the game used and it doesn’t come with the code, you’re going to have to purchase it from the online store. This became an issue when the PlayStation Store was disabled, since gamers weren’t able to play the game online without redeeming or buying the code. In response, the requirement was temporarily suspended.

The one-time use code for online play is becoming the rule rather than the exception for big-budget releases—it’s another tool that can be used to squeeze money out of the game.

This is still the Wild West

Everyone is looking for new ways to monetize games that are created with increasing budgets, sold at a maximum of $60 — unless you bundle in some plastic and call it a special edition — and drop in price quickly. Big-name releases aren’t expected to have a fat first week of sales anymore; now developers must offer incentives to get people to pre-order, sell those incentives and then offer new content to turn the game into a platform for content instead of a single release. Mortal Kombat is a game that’s attempting all of these strategies.

Gamers may complain online when these strategies are used, but that only matters if it translates into a lack of sales.

“While some may complain, I can certainly assure you they represent the vocal minority,” Jesse Divnich, the VP of Capital Research and Communications at EEDAR, told Ars. “What Mortal Kombat is doing, while possibly frustrating to the most core gamer, is the current optimal business strategy for generation revenue in both the physical and digital space. There are many hands than ever in the cookie jar, and each play a major role in driving game publisher’s revenue.”

I contacted Warner Bros. to ask about the sales of the characters and the success of the $15 bundle program, but the company wouldn’t comment on the matter.

According to Divnich, the digital world may always be home to multiple monetization strategies. “The digital space is still a giant experimentation and I don’t believe we have yet found the perfect formula to capitalize in these emerging markets,” he said. “And quite honestly, with the digital environment constantly evolving, I don’t think a ‘one size fits all’ formula will ever be developed.”

What we’re looking at is the future of fighting games. New characters will be dribbled out after launch, you’ll be asked to pre-order content or to buy in bulk for savings, and you’ll always miss out on some content depending on where you buy the game if you’re not willing to pay to unlock it. It’s an understandable strategy from the publishers’ point of view, but gamers are not coming out ahead.