VentureBeat article: How MPQ is making its money

Unknown

Interesting read. It's an eight-part article from Demiurge CEO that talks about MPQ's revenue and free-to-play mechanics.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/08/marvel-puzzle-quests-road-to-the-mythical-1-arpdau-part-1/

Here's the pie chart of how players have spent HP over the last two weeks:

Unknown

Wow, I would not have guessed cover packs being so high. Guess we have lots of slot machine junkies who play

Nonce Equitaur 2

Must be old data, since Alliance slots aren't listed.

MarvelMan

Three things that struck me a strange:
I would have guessed that Roster Slots would have been higher given the recent release rate
After putting the percentage button there, Cover Packs would have been lower
Why werent Shields a better generator?

Unknown

Unless roster slots also covers alliance slots.

I'm kind of surprised - as someone who has never bought a cover pack, and can't imagine a situation in which I would, I figured the spending was more like mine - mostly roster slots, plus some shields.

NorthernPolarity

I think this just goes to show you the power of the unseen masses. Us forumgoers represent a very small portion of the population, and since its common knowledge that spending HP on cover packs is not too efficient, we can conclude that most of the purchases probably come from outside our little bubble. Them non-forumgoers...

Unknown

Guess that's why they changed the 10-cover packs to increased chance of featured hero instead of guaranteed.

Nemek

Wow you're quick, Al just tweeted this like 20 minutes ago!

The data likely is a little bit 'old', anyway. We haven't had an event buy-in opportunity for awhile now and it probably took while to write the entire thing and get it ready for posting.

I'm fairly surprised by just how open Al/Demiurge is about their practices, that's really cool to see. Super looking forward to the next few pieces of the article.

Unknown

i can see the cover packs being most appealing to the mass audience, but at almost $20 a pop, i could never justify the spend. i've spent a little here and there for roster spots, but have a hard time justifying spending upwards of $50 for a mobile game.

Unknown

The right cover packs are a good deal for someone who doesn't have a strong roster. If you're trying to get a cover that you do not have period, there's really no better way to go about it. Some cover packs, like Shield of Justice, is actually not a bad deal since all the 'bad' heroes are eliminated from the 3* pool.

scottee

You forget an event 10-token cover pack costs more than a dozen 24-hour shields. And I try to only spend 75 or sometimes 150 hp on shields for a given tourney.

Unknown

Speedy0307 wrote:

i can see the cover packs being most appealing to the mass audience, but at almost $20 a pop, i could never justify the spend. i've spent a little here and there for roster spots, but have a hard time justifying spending upwards of $50 for a mobile game.

Yea I shake my head in disbelief every time I shell out money for this game (which is more often than I expected) because I've never spent a dime on any other Free-to-Play game, and the one game I do it's one of the more expensive ones.

But at the same time I can say that I, along with many other forum goers I see, are around the 150 days mark in playing this game every day. That's FIVE months. Obviously we're invested in playing the game so contributing financial support to keep Demiurge doing what they doing is arguably worth it.

NorthernPolarity

scottee wrote:

You forget an event 10-token cover pack costs more than a dozen 24-hour shields. And I try to only spend 75 or sometimes 150 hp on shields for a given tourney.

The people spending money on these packs likely can't place in the top 10 of a PvP tournament because their roster isn't developed enough. If you were a new player trying to do well in unstable-iso for instance, spending money on the cap pack was the best way to get a cap for the essential nodes.

TheHueyFreeman

As a fan, former programmer, and former business major, this interests me greatly. I think I'll be reading all of the parts as they come out.

Unknown

Assuming (just because it makes sense to me and I want to) that most cover purchases are done through an event 10-pack, that means buying ONE cover pack outpaces the HP spent on 10 (or even more?) roster slots. I can easily imagine a lot of non-collectors who throw away their "disliked" covers rather than expanding their roster more than a few slots, leaving them a lot of HP to spend on cover packs.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The right cover packs are a good deal for someone who doesn't have a strong roster. If you're trying to get a cover that you do not have period, there's really no better way to go about it. Some cover packs, like Shield of Justice, is actually not a bad deal since all the 'bad' heroes are eliminated from the 3* pool.

I can actually see the value if you're starting out and want to skip a few steps, but once you hit a certain point, it's just cheaper to buy the covers. The only covers I don't have any of at all are one each from LazyThor and Human Torch and two of X-Force Wolverine's, both of which I'll presumably be getting as daily rewards over the next 29 days (Got my first yesterday). Unless I'm really desperate for those last two 3* covers, there is literally no reason for me to buy cover packs, when buying covers directly guarantees me 3 needed 3*s for the same number of HP.

scottee

NorthernPolarity wrote:

scottee wrote:

You forget an event 10-token cover pack costs more than a dozen 24-hour shields. And I try to only spend 75 or sometimes 150 hp on shields for a given tourney.

The people spending money on these packs likely can't place in the top 10 of a PvP tournament because their roster isn't developed enough. If you were a new player trying to do well in unstable-iso for instance, spending money on the cap pack was the best way to get a cap for the essential nodes.

Oh, I agree. I think it easily explains why cover packs are by far the biggest sell. The casual player thinks covers are the end all and go for those, instead of trying to expand roster slots, place in tourneys, and progress slowly.

NorthernPolarity

Ben Grimm wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The right cover packs are a good deal for someone who doesn't have a strong roster. If you're trying to get a cover that you do not have period, there's really no better way to go about it. Some cover packs, like Shield of Justice, is actually not a bad deal since all the 'bad' heroes are eliminated from the 3* pool.

I can actually see the value if you're starting out and want to skip a few steps, but once you hit a certain point, it's just cheaper to buy the covers. The only covers I don't have any of at all are one each from LazyThor and Human Torch and two of X-Force Wolverine's, both of which I'll presumably be getting as daily rewards over the next 29 days (Got my first yesterday). Unless I'm really desperate for those last two 3* covers, there is literally no reason for me to buy cover packs, when buying covers directly guarantees me 3 needed 3*s for the same number of HP.

Again, these packs were meant for people who don't have a single cover in the first place, so they can't buy covers.

Unknown

Maybe they can hire some more people now ..

Unknown

Keep in mind that certain heroes aren't offered as rewards, either intended or simply due to chance (there are a lot of 3* out now so some hero has to be the unlucky one). Has there been a tournament that offered Spiderman as a guaranteed reward in the last 2 months? If not, that means you've no way to guaranteed to have Spiderman if you started two months ago no matter how awesome you are. Your best bet would be courageous tokens but suppose you're not quite so awesome to win those without having one of the key characters needed to succeed, then you're pretty much stuck with buying courageous tokens or even the courageous pack for the 1 guaranteeed Spiderman.

Unknown

I wonder how many people bought the "extra iso" 1* pack they had that one time