The Business of Video Games (an homage to Ragnarok)...

Pentagoon

MORE DISCLAIMER THAN NECESSARY: I have a L115 5/5 Rag and spent ~$40 to up his red 2 to 5 about 2 months ago, disposable income well spent as a life-long gamer. I earned all 5 of his greens through loss of sleep, a dash of token luck, calculated HP hoarding, and an outright addiction to this amazing, albeit frustrating at times, game. I generated hundreds of thousands of ISO from him, and finished top 10 dozens of times, he will be sorely missed. I am not associated with D3 or Demiurge but I love to guess a lot. I also tend to be arrogant, I hate accountants, and I abuse comma splices (and parenthetical asides) overtly.

Short version:
In my humble opinion, the Ragnarok nerf was a decision based on $, not player delight. Everyone just calm down, blame the publisher to make yourself feel good, and remind yourself that video games are a business. This was echoed by several others already, but I have a different theory on the motivation behind it, FWIW.

Long version: -- because I actually care about this game - despite its issues - and the game industry
As a Producer for a video game company, I'll let you in on the dirty secret. This nerfing almost certainly came directly from the business guys that fund development, not the guys that care if you have a good experience as a gamer or not. Decisions at any Agile software business are driven not by a desire to "keep everyone happy" but by "keeping the revenue stream flowing and growing intelligently, forever" -- with Bandai Namco Games Inc. (owner of D3Publisher) at the top of this particular foodchain. There are jobs on the line if this game stops being profitable, but you know who's jobs are really on the line? Not the publisher (D3), it's the development house (Demiurge). If funding gets cut, they're the first to go. Don't EVER expect to get "developer" interactions directly out of the guys at Demiurge here (actually it's Software Engineers, QAAs, Testers, Sysadmins, Artists, Sound Engineers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Release Managers, and a special nod to administrative assistants...) in regards to something as sensitive as this, they are definitely not calling those shots. This is for the same reason the forums are hosted on the d3pforums.com domain, not Demiurge's. My embroidered Ragnarok hat goes off to the hardworking folks at all ranks at D3 for putting up with boneheaded nerfing decisions that are guaranteed to piss off those with the highest degree of emotional investment in the game. I bet the only ones at D3 that feel the pain of nerfing decisions like this are customer service and technical support. Guys like Yoji Takenaka (CEO, D3) and Peter Andrew (VP of Product Dev, D3) don't give 2 **** about how you "feel" about your investment, they've already spent your $100 and my paltry $65 total investment (gotta get those character slots!) on their development partnership with Demiurge. They are probably still in the hole to Bandai/Namco for Marvel licensing fees until next Christmas - their question is will the game be profitable in 2014.

My theory = new players (certainly the largest percentage of the game base) need to buy HP for character slots to compete - that's the biggest cash cow users, not the whales that pay to max level their characters. We in the forums (the ones who care enough to be here, BEGGING for a response... please do not hold your breath...) are clearly the minority here folks, wake up. If we were the majority, the publisher and Product Managers would participate here, gathering requirements to feed to the developer, maybe even conducting a POLL (gasp!). The business model appeals to the mute masses that sign up and start buying character slots (without even knowing these forums exist) with dreams of (yeah, we know they're useless so far) 4 star characters twinkling in their eyes. You know who hears those players? Accounting.

I consider the guys at D3 brilliant - the business model is no doubt amazing, when coupled with the hook of randomized prizes and enough licensed content and storytelling to keep it interesting enough for us to lose sleep over. However, the vacuous threats of even a hundred power users invested in one character quitting add up to squat when you have thousands of new users monthly purchasing HP for slots. Their beancounters (yeah, you non-gaming accounting tripe can all please go die in a fire) just gave their end-of-year powerpoints to HQ and now have probably over-promised their 2014-Q1 quarterly profit projections above what their current Mobile business model is capable of. Great work guys, applause all around for arrows pointing up into the unknown ether. Your financial prognostication affects us on the ground because it influences the likes of Albert Reed (CEO, Demiurge) and Josh Glavine (Game Designer, Demiurge) in their decision-making against balancing what's "good for the players" and "what's good for the publisher". To you accounting guys & gals, I honestly hope someone keys your BMW 5 Series tonight in that parking lot in LA, it would be me if I weren't 2000 miles away, sober.

A Product Management thought leader told me once, "Give your users what they need, not what they want, and certainly don't let them tell you the questions to ask." If you had asked me going into the Hulk tournament how I "felt" about having to face level 240 characters without my Ragnarok, I would have puked a little in my mouth, but the result and reality was I had to beef up my other characters (primarily Thor) to compete [my buddies and I saw that as a big fat upcoming nerfing flag at the time]. Give the highest percentage of your financial base (the newbies buying HP for character slots) a chance by nerfing their biggest threat to actually staying with the game to buy more character slots - we are that threat. On beancounter spreadsheets, if those upper eschelon of players drop off the map, myself included..... GOOD! They're blocking the newbs from buying more slots. I will not be scared off, but I'm not spending another dime and I will crush newbs with more glee than ever from now on. Accountants aren't gamers, so they don't give a **** if you're whining about it or not - they are detached from the emotional experience of investing in the characters, but their pivot tables only show a small portion of the story, we tell the rest here and I for one are not going anywhere. I'm Demiurge's b**** at this point, and will continue to evangelize the game, but when the cuts are this deep to player pockets, it hurts the larger MPQ community and the reputation Demiurge, not D3.

Bad reviews will come and go, but I doubt any of use that are involved at a competitive level in this game will regret the experience this game delivers. Now... off to earn some Spidey blues, light a pyre in Ragnarok's honor (some of us are actually going through the 5 stages of grief here), and hold my breath waiting for a personal response from D3 executive management while they look up my account details and real name...

--Pentagoon

\m/ \(*_*)/ \m/

Unknown

Pentagoon wrote:

I consider the guys at D3 brilliant - the business model is no doubt amazing, when coupled with the hook of randomized prizes and enough licensed content and storytelling to keep it interesting enough for us to lose sleep over.

It's a carbon copy of the Puzzle and Dragons model, they've won quite a few awards for it.

Unknown

Best post all day.

Unknown

Pentagoon wrote:

MORE DISCLAIMER THAN NECESSARY: I have a L115 5/5 Rag and spent ~$40 to up his red 2 to 5 about 2 months ago, disposable income well spent as a life-long gamer. I earned all 5 of his greens through loss of sleep, a dash of token luck, calculated HP hoarding, and an outright addiction to this amazing, albeit frustrating at times, game. I generated hundreds of thousands of ISO from him, and finished top 10 dozens of times, he will be sorely missed. I am not associated with D3 or Demiurge but I love to guess a lot. I also tend to be arrogant, I hate accountants, and I abuse comma splices (and parenthetical asides) overtly.

Short version:
In my humble opinion, the Ragnarok nerf was a decision based on $, not player delight. Everyone just calm down, blame the publisher to make yourself feel good, and remind yourself that video games are a business. This was echoed by several others already, but I have a different theory on the motivation behind it, FWIW.

Long version: -- because I actually care about this game - despite its issues - and the game industry
As a Producer for a video game company, I'll let you in on the dirty secret. This nerfing almost certainly came directly from the business guys that fund development, not the guys that care if you have a good experience as a gamer or not. Decisions at any Agile software business are driven not by a desire to "keep everyone happy" but by "keeping the revenue stream flowing and growing intelligently, forever" -- with Bandai Namco Games Inc. (owner of D3Publisher) at the top of this particular foodchain. There are jobs on the line if this game stops being profitable, but you know who's jobs are really on the line? Not the publisher (D3), it's the development house (Demiurge). If funding gets cut, they're the first to go. Don't EVER expect to get "developer" interactions directly out of the guys at Demiurge here (actually it's Software Engineers, QAAs, Testers, Sysadmins, Artists, Sound Engineers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Release Managers, and a special nod to administrative assistants...) in regards to something as sensitive as this, they are definitely not calling those shots. This is for the same reason the forums are hosted on the d3pforums.com domain, not Demiurge's. My embroidered Ragnarok hat goes off to the hardworking folks at all ranks at D3 for putting up with boneheaded nerfing decisions that are guaranteed to piss off those with the highest degree of emotional investment in the game. I bet the only ones at D3 that feel the pain of nerfing decisions like this are customer service and technical support. Guys like Yoji Takenaka (CEO, D3) and Peter Andrew (VP of Product Dev, D3) don't give 2 **** about how you "feel" about your investment, they've already spent your $100 and my paltry $65 total investment (gotta get those character slots!) on their development partnership with Demiurge. They are probably still in the hole to Bandai/Namco for Marvel licensing fees until next Christmas - their question is will the game be profitable in 2014.

My theory = new players (certainly the largest percentage of the game base) need to buy HP for character slots to compete - that's the biggest cash cow users, not the whales that pay to max level their characters. We in the forums (the ones who care enough to be here, BEGGING for a response... please do not hold your breath...) are clearly the minority here folks, wake up. If we were the majority, the publisher and Product Managers would participate here, gathering requirements to feed to the developer, maybe even conducting a POLL (gasp!). The business model appeals to the mute masses that sign up and start buying character slots (without even knowing these forums exist) with dreams of (yeah, we know they're useless so far) 4 star characters twinkling in their eyes. You know who hears those players? Accounting.

I consider the guys at D3 brilliant - the business model is no doubt amazing, when coupled with the hook of randomized prizes and enough licensed content and storytelling to keep it interesting enough for us to lose sleep over. However, the vacuous threats of even a hundred power users invested in one character quitting add up to squat when you have thousands of new users monthly purchasing HP for slots. Their beancounters (yeah, you non-gaming accounting tripe can all please go die in a fire) just gave their end-of-year powerpoints to HQ and now have probably over-promised their 2014-Q1 quarterly profit projections above what their current Mobile business model is capable of. Great work guys, applause all around for arrows pointing up into the unknown ether. Your financial prognostication affects us on the ground because it influences the likes of Albert Reed (CEO, Demiurge) and Josh Glavine (Game Designer, Demiurge) in their decision-making against balancing what's "good for the players" and "what's good for the publisher". To you accounting guys & gals, I honestly hope someone keys your BMW 5 Series tonight in that parking lot in LA, it would be me if I weren't 2000 miles away, sober.

A Product Management thought leader told me once, "Give your users what they need, not what they want, and certainly don't let them tell you the questions to ask." If you had asked me going into the Hulk tournament how I "felt" about having to face level 240 characters without my Ragnarok, I would have puked a little in my mouth, but the result and reality was I had to beef up my other characters (primarily Thor) to compete [my buddies and I saw that as a big fat upcoming nerfing flag at the time]. Give the highest percentage of your financial base (the newbies buying HP for character slots) a chance by nerfing their biggest threat to actually staying with the game to buy more character slots - we are that threat. On beancounter spreadsheets, if those upper eschelon of players drop off the map, myself included..... GOOD! They're blocking the newbs from buying more slots. I will not be scared off, but I'm not spending another dime and I will crush newbs with more glee than ever from now on. Accountants aren't gamers, so they don't give a **** if you're whining about it or not - they are detached from the emotional experience of investing in the characters, but their pivot tables only show a small portion of the story, we tell the rest here and I for one are not going anywhere. I'm Demiurge's b**** at this point, and will continue to evangelize the game, but when the cuts are this deep to player pockets, it hurts the larger MPQ community and the reputation Demiurge, not D3.

Bad reviews will come and go, but I doubt any of use that are involved at a competitive level in this game will regret the experience this game delivers. Now... off to earn some Spidey blues, light a pyre in Ragnarok's honor (some of us are actually going through the 5 stages of grief here), and hold my breath waiting for a personal response from D3 executive management while they look up my account details and real name...

--Pentagoon

\m/ \(*_*)/ \m/

Very well put and exactly correct

Ir0nF1sh

This was a brilliant and very honest post. Thanks for the insight

Unknown

No type of game is safe anymore. Whether it be on disk DLC, games that are released unpolished and buggy, micro transactions cropping up in $60 games every step you take, F2P games becoming P2W in the blink of an eye, open beta games costing full price months before release, developers blocking negative YouTube reviews... the gaming industry is headed towards a dark and stormy path.

Ahh, I've exceeded my hyperbole limits for the night. See you gals and guys tomorrow.

Unknown

Pentagoon wrote:

A Product Management thought leader told me once, "Give your users what they need, not what they want, and certainly don't let them tell you the questions to ask."

Brilliant!

CFacto

Thanks Pentagoon for a well written and interesting topic.

Unknown

Thank you. That's the best thing I read all day.

Unknown

Very insightful post. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

Unknown

Most probably right. On the other hand, studios that keep a tight relation to their leaders of the gaming pack make their games stay in the market for a longer period of time and have much much better reviews and c2c referrals. We even took the time to think about a sensitive nerf in these very forums. But long-term strategical decisions aren't that popular with the US accounting standards in place. But hey, let's not dive into economic theory, I tend to get money for that. Still considering quitting the thing because I don't like the feeling of being pushed around at will.

Eddiemon

I agree with the general premise, but I reckon it wasn't the threat of high level players having rag that was the issue as much as new players finding there was a 1 to 2 turn kill combo with rag and grey widow and that they might have to drop a couple of hundred if they wanted a piece of that action.

Any free to play where there I that power disparity makes me feel ripped off as a new player and I don't get invested and you don't get my money. MPQ hasn't given me that impression to date, and as a newbie I got plenty of free rewards and development. D3 would likely prefer to expand their player base than sit in stasis because of a poor design decision.

Eddiemon

f3nfire wrote:

Most probably right. On the other hand, studios that keep a tight relation to their leaders of the gaming pack make their games stay in the market for a longer period of time and have much much better reviews and c2c referrals. We even took the time to think about a sensitive nerf in these very forums. But long-term strategical decisions aren't that popular with the US accounting standards in place. But hey, let's not dive into economic theory, I tend to get money for that. Still considering quitting the thing because I don't like the feeling of being pushed around at will.

I think world of Warcraft is probably the most successful game ever, their forums are full of players demanding buffs, nerfs, complaining about nerfs and complaining that nobody listens to them. It's why I think this rag thing will blow over, because whole groups of players were always quitting to teach Blizzard a lesson. Never did notice them actually leave.

Unknown

You are dead wrong. Been into worlds top 25 raids for a long time.we had a GM with us when we encountered the four horsemen. He knew his **** and watched us try, had a look into the mechanics and two weeks later, **** was balanced. With every desperate reach out to the casuals, Blizzard lost top players and theory crafters. Until the point where WOW became a paradise for 13 year olds and housewives. Game lost its appeal an the subscriptions dropped like crazy. This game mainly consists of PvP and people hate being crushed, but they all want to be part of the big guys party. So they grind their teeth and man up, get their stuff and lots of satisfaction along the way with every milestone. In the meantime thez discover new goals to reach out for. That's the nature of competition and it nets you a frenetic and sometimes fanatic player base.

Unknown

Elementalor wrote:

Pentagoon wrote:

I consider the guys at D3 brilliant - the business model is no doubt amazing, when coupled with the hook of randomized prizes and enough licensed content and storytelling to keep it interesting enough for us to lose sleep over.

It's a carbon copy of the Puzzle and Dragons model, they've won quite a few awards for it.

You couldn't be more wrong.

PAD is a non-competitive (actually cooperative game) that has 100's of more characters, more strategies and a TON more content. Sadly, much better art also.

Also, they are far more generous in giving away in-game currency and have much better communication with their fanbase. People spend money on PAD and don't feel like they got **** in the process.

Unknown

Great post and exactly what's happening.

Let me just drop this here from a thread about the cost of heroic tokens going up. There were similar discussions for cover slots, health packs, and then heroic tokens:

IceIX wrote:

forgrim wrote:

i do have to wonder why it was raised to 300 hp. is it because with tokens, there's just an abundance of covers going out? there has to be some arbitrary reason, even if its to make more money (more hp as prizes, from random things?)

Currently waiting to board a large metal tube and hurtle through the sky. Until then, I'll field that one. Similar to cover slot pricing, we're testing price ceilings. We think we know what the game will bear without losing sales over it and go from there. For example with the Cover Slots, we monitored transactions post patch for a while. After the initial dip from users that were (rightfully) annoyed at the change, they went right back up to what they were before compared to our number of users. Retention of users didn't dip. No other alarm bells. To put it basically in the Middle School econ lesson I had way back in the mists of time, we were selling our pens at too low a price. Sure, people were fine with that price, but they were, as a whole, just as fine with the same product at a higher one.

Unknown

Okay - I'll take the bait. It's wonderful to see fellow game-industry folks on this forum, thanks for posting.

The design decisions are made at Demiurge by the front-line designers at Demiurge in the interest of making the game great. Our publishing partners at D3Publisher have always supported us, trusted us to make the right decisions and encouraged our team to take the long-view. Ultimately, we believe our success comes from engaged players and we think that the best way to create that engagement is by having a balanced game with no single dominant character. We know that it incurs pain for some of our players and we genuinely feel bad about that.

We certainly could stand to improve our communication to everyone about upcoming balance changes. We're working on that and you'll see some improvements in the future.

<back to lurking>

Cheers,
Al

Unknown

Pentagoon is officially the pied piper and my favorite person.

Unknown

Demiurge_Al wrote:

Ultimately, we believe our success comes from engaged players and we think that the best way to create that engagement is by having a balanced game with no single dominant character.

But not until we suck out tons of real money from people paying to upgrade that single dominant character.

This still doesn't explain why a small nerf wasn't used (4AP) rather than completely destroying that character so that people are compelled to pay more money for the next single dominant character (spidey blue)

Unknown

If the statistics thread is to believed, the majority of the upgrade money actually comes from upgrading 1-stars (yes, 1) and 2-stars.

If assuming that Rags players are actually a minority, it's quite hard to believe this nerf was entirely motivated by $$$$.

In fact, you could argue that this nerf actually hurts profits. Majority don't have Rags so they have to buy a ton of packs and gamble. Knowing Rags is now weak, there's no incentive for players to buy packs. Although this was prolly a non-issue, if they saw that the Punisher and Hulk packs were much more profitable.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

... assuming that Rags players are actually a minority, it's quite hard to believe this nerf was entirely motivated by $$$$.

In fact, you could argue that this nerf actually hurts profits. Majority don't have Rags so they have to buy a ton of packs and gamble. Knowing Rags is now weak, there's no incentive for players to buy packs. Although this was prolly a non-issue, if they saw that the Punisher and Hulk packs were much more profitable.

Exactly, the nerf wasn't motivated by $$$$ but waiting for two months before nerfing him was.