Fighting game YouTuber offers $10,000 bounty for upgraded netcode in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

It’s no secret that arcade fighters reward absurd precision and reaction times, and that means you need robust netcode if you want to play these games online and have a good time. While rollback netcode has recently become the standard for big name fighters, the communities behind older games are understandably eager to see it come to the classics—so much so in one case that there’s a big pile of cash in it for capable modders.

FGC streamer and YouTuber Maximillian Christiansen (known online as Maximilian Dood) is prepared to make it raaaain for anyone who can “solve the issue of making rollback netcode work in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3,” which is on Steam but uses less responsive delay-based netcode. If you’re not sure he’s good for it, just take a look at the Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite mod he’d put nearly $30,000 into as of 2024.

It’s hard to overstate how transformative the tech can be for a fighting game—it’s so prized that players will drown out its announcement with cheers and applause. Where delay-based netcode won’t honor your button mashing until both players receive the input data, rollback netcode predicts what will come next and will quickly, you know, roll things back if it was wrong. It’s as good a solution as has been cooked up for a genre where every frame of information matters, and it feels much better than the sluggish stretches that characterize a bad match played with delay-based netcode.

Christiansen reposted a stream highlight on X sharing his announcement. “I want to do something special,” he said. “We’ve done a lot for the modding scene of Marvel vs. Capcom, I just am willing to put my money where my mouth is. Maybe just maybe we can move beyond this Parsec era of Ultimate Marvel 3 online.”

Parsec is a third-party application that allows players to remotely use local play features through streaming, not unlike Steam’s Remote Play Together. While it can be an improvement over delay-based netcode if all parties have a strong internet connection, Christiansen wants more for the venerable fighting game.

“The Smash Melee community did it, man. They did it in a freaking emulator wrapper. Somehow, they made matchmaking, they had rollback netcode,” he said. “I’d be willing to put my money towards it to help support this community, and to help support this game for the long run.”