VentureBeat article: How MPQ is making its money

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

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

I get that, but I'm surprised that's half their sales - it never even occurred to me to put that much money in the game that quickly, since I didn't want to spend that much on something before I knew whether I'd enjoy it. That implies half the money is coming from people just starting out - and maybe that's to be expected. I figured veterans were a bigger piece of the pie.

Unknown

Shows lotsa lazy ppl pay their way in.
And your able to.
But with patience,
you can also earn your roster.
Though luck does matter...

scottee

Ben Grimm wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

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

I get that, but I'm surprised that's half their sales - it never even occurred to me to put that much money in the game that quickly, since I didn't want to spend that much on something before I knew whether I'd enjoy it. That implies half the money is coming from people just starting out - and maybe that's to be expected. I figured veterans were a bigger piece of the pie.

I actually think it's also a lot of people trying to transition from 2* to 3*. It gives a good shot at 3* covers you need, especially for characters you lack for events, and worse case, it bolsters your 2* roster. Day veterans obviously don't need it, but those trying to catch probably think they do.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

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?.

The other trick they do: is introduce a new character, give you a few opportunities to win a handful of covers (maybe 4-7 at most) then pull it away from the prize ring completely. Compelling people to spend 1150 per cover to get them up to fighting shape (like many have done with Lazy Thor and Black Panther).

In comparison, when they introduced IM40, Hulk and Punisher (and DD to a lesser degree) it was quite easy to get them in the 7-10+ cover range a few weeks after introduction.

NorthernPolarity

Toxicadam wrote:

Phantron wrote:

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?.

The other trick they do: is introduce a new character, give you a few opportunities to win a handful of covers (maybe 4-7 at most) then pull it away from the prize ring completely. Compelling people to spend 1150 per cover to get them up to fighting shape (like many have done with Lazy Thor and Black Panther).

In comparison, when they introduced IM40, Hulk and Punisher (and DD to a lesser degree) it was quite easy to get them in the 7-10+ cover range a few weeks after introduction.

I actually like this change, even if it means having to sit on a not-max covered character for many weeks (i'm lookin at you LazyThor). For the Patch event in particular, it was way too trivial to max him out if you were a top player (I must have earned enough Patch covers off of sub rewards for 2 maxed out Patches). Slowing the drip of new covers has me waiting and excited for tournaments that offer them as rewards weeks after their release. The current GSBW tourney, for example, will finally let me get a 4/5/4 Psylocke that I've been waiting for a while to get to max covers. As long as they don't slow the drip to the point where it takes 2+ months to max out a character, I'm okay with keeping the current rate of releasing new covers.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

The other trick they do: is introduce a new character, give you a few opportunities to win a handful of covers (maybe 4-7 at most) then pull it away from the prize ring completely. Compelling people to spend 1150 per cover to get them up to fighting shape (like many have done with Lazy Thor and Black Panther).

In comparison, when they introduced IM40, Hulk and Punisher (and DD to a lesser degree) it was quite easy to get them in the 7-10+ cover range a few weeks after introduction.

There are just more heroes period now too that no matter what they did someone is going to be the rare hero. If lazy Thor and lazy Captain are constantly offered as reward, then that means someone else isn't offered (like Spiderman). GWBS is still a very rare hero even though she's hardly on anyone's list of overpowered characters, so it's not like they're trying to keep her covers away to make more $.

Unknown

thenoblegamer wrote:

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

Like I said in another thread; it was likely a way to maximize their sales.

What better way to increase sales than to take away the featured hero in the purchase packs and instead leave it up to chance (a 14% chance!) ?!

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I actually like this change, even if it means having to sit on a not-max covered character for many weeks (i'm lookin at you LazyThor). For the Patch event in particular, it was way too trivial to max him out if you were a top player (I must have earned enough Patch covers off of sub rewards for 2 maxed out Patches). Slowing the drip of new covers has me waiting and excited for tournaments that offer them as rewards weeks after their release. The current GSBW tourney, for example, will finally let me get a 4/5/4 Psylocke that I've been waiting for a while to get to max covers. As long as they don't slow the drip to the point where it takes 2+ months to max out a character, I'm okay with keeping the current rate of releasing new covers.

I think that's just because TaT is way too generous with its sub rewards. 3 3* covers for finishing first in a sub bracket pretty much blows away any sub bracket prize, even the 500 HP from one of the iteration of The Hunt. It sure is not easy to max out Patch if you didn't do so during TaT.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I actually like this change, even if it means having to sit on a not-max covered character for many weeks (i'm lookin at you LazyThor). For the Patch event in particular, it was way too trivial to max him out if you were a top player (I must have earned enough Patch covers off of sub rewards for 2 maxed out Patches). Slowing the drip of new covers has me waiting and excited for tournaments that offer them as rewards weeks after their release. The current GSBW tourney, for example, will finally let me get a 4/5/4 Psylocke that I've been waiting for a while to get to max covers. As long as they don't slow the drip to the point where it takes 2+ months to max out a character, I'm okay with keeping the current rate of releasing new covers.

I think that's just because TaT is way too generous with its sub rewards. 3 3* covers for finishing first in a sub bracket pretty much blows away any sub bracket prize, even the 500 HP from one of the iteration of The Hunt. It sure is not easy to max out Patch if you didn't do so during TaT.

Hm... you may be right. I could have sworn that there were more characters that were easy to cover up right after release, but going down the list, we have:
Hulk - 1 set from the release PvE event, 2 sets from PvP tournament placement awards, 4 covers from PvP prog rewards that were actually obtainable due to shield introduction.

and then Psylocke/BP/LT, which are at the current level of difficulty to cover up. I must have been biased with the Patch/Hulk release. Don't quite remember what happened with Punisher and before then: might be interesting to get some data points from older players to see if the current cover acquisition rate is the same as it was pre-Punisher.

IceIX

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

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

Not very old really. It's still largely the same. Alliance slots were a large blip when introduced and are a very tiny amount of our daily Hero Point spends.

kalex716

I bet most of the cover slot HP expenditure doesn't really represent revenue (because experienced players use HP from events to expand roster space, not cash), while the cover packs almost undoubtedly correlate more strongly to actual dollars being spent.

Unknown

kalex716 wrote:

I bet most of the cover slot HP expenditure doesn't really represent revenue (because experienced players use HP from events to expand roster space, not cash), while the cover packs almost undoubtedly correlate more strongly to actual dollars being spent.

In the article, directly after the pie chart, he goes on to say:

"Keep in mind that within Marvel Puzzle Quest, we’re fairly generous with Hero Points so this doesn’t map to actual spending habits of our players. All of our players buy items like Roster Slots, while people who spent money on IAPs are tend to be ones who buy Boosts."

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

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...

With the change in sell prices on covers, paying 100 hp for a heroic per day is no longer a bad investment. At worst, you are getting the equivalent ISO in exchange for the 100 HP, according to the shop values. At best, you get a cover you need that is not a 1* vendor trash. I would imagine with the daily deal and the sale amount changed, they more than likely saw cover pack purchases rise because you aren't really on the losing end anymore.

Once you reach 30 slots, you can always stand to drop a character if needed, so slots while still of some value, aren't offering as much value anymore as compared to when you were at 10 slots.

mischiefmaker

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Hm... you may be right. I could have sworn that there were more characters that were easy to cover up right after release, but going down the list, we have:
Hulk - 1 set from the release PvE event, 2 sets from PvP tournament placement awards, 4 covers from PvP prog rewards that were actually obtainable due to shield introduction.

and then Psylocke/BP/LT, which are at the current level of difficulty to cover up. I must have been biased with the Patch/Hulk release. Don't quite remember what happened with Punisher and before then: might be interesting to get some data points from older players to see if the current cover acquisition rate is the same as it was pre-Punisher.

You may be remembering Ares, who was also fairly easy to get max covers for during the Hunt:Ares event, as three covers were available in each of 12 subevents.

Also don't forget that Hulk ran twice back-to-back and had 2 free green covers as part of the event, plus there's a green cover in the daily rewards at day 90. For veteran players who started in the October timeframe, they would have gotten that cover almost right after Hulk was released.

Before Hulk/Punisher, it used to be much easier to cover up a character because villains were almost never placement rewards due to being available in the LRs, so there were only three 3* heros (Spidey, IM40, BWGS) to choose from as placement rewards. I seem to recall some players had maxed IM40 even before the first Double Shot tournament, for example, and they've run that at least 3 more times since.

Unknown

the reason the covers packs has a larger piece of the pie is because it cost more. the chart is how much HP was spent, not how many people spent HP for example if theyar pooling 10 people and 2 spent 3800 on cover packs and the other 8 spent a total of 7600 on the other items you would show 50% being spent on cover packs when in reality on 20% are spending on cover packs

Unknown

Skyedyne wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

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...

With the change in sell prices on covers, paying 100 hp for a heroic per day is no longer a bad investment. At worst, you are getting the equivalent ISO in exchange for the 100 HP, according to the shop values. At best, you get a cover you need that is not a 1* vendor trash. I would imagine with the daily deal and the sale amount changed, they more than likely saw cover pack purchases rise because you aren't really on the losing end anymore.

Once you reach 30 slots, you can always stand to drop a character if needed, so slots while still of some value, aren't offering as much value anymore as compared to when you were at 10 slots.

You are assuming that the shop values are accurate with respect to relative value, which they are not. They are not even close. 100hp is far more valuable than 250 iso. I can get 250 iso easily, in 5 minutes, any day a lightning round is running. If I want to extend a mediocre effort, I can get thousands from said lightning round. It is 70/140 + 30 per fight. For reference, I am sitting on 80,000 iso at the moment, and 1,075 HP. 80,000 iso would translate at shop values to 32,000 hp. Not only would I do that trade in a second, I would probably do it for 1/4 that, without even really thinking about it. ISO is VASTLY overpriced vs. HP in the shop.

Unknown

Skyedyne wrote:

, paying 100 hp for a heroic per day is no longer a bad investment..

I disagree. 12 heroic tokens are not better than buying one targeted cover of a character you know is useful ( one that is in your roster and currently cover capped).


For instance, one purchase of CMags red, BP's black, LT's yellow, GSBW green, Spidey's blue, Hulk's black, etc is going to go a lot further for you then 12 random heroic tokens. With the sheer amount of 3 * heros available, you're odds of picking a cover you can utilize immediately is (usually) less than 1 percent.

Even if you are a mid-tier player, there is such a large amount of 2 star drek, that the chances of you getting decent covers that you will actually utilize is fairly light also. In fact, I would much rather spend 500 HP on an OBW black than take 5 random pulls at heroics.

Puritas

Health Packs: Modeled after “lives” in Candy Crush Saga,

Oh god shouldn't have said that
King lawsuit inc

Unknown

For the heroic tokens, there's roughly a 15% chance to get a 3* so it works out that 600 HP (6 daily deals) gets you a random 3*. That's usually not a good deal unless you're very lacking in 3*.

For the event tokens, it works out 1200 HP for the featured 3*. Depending on who it is, it might not be a bad idea. For Shield of Justice, this is a very good deal for anyone missing Captain's covers, and even if you have all his covers, it's roughly the same. Now, I don't like to gamble, so I'd rather just save up 1250 HP, but there's nothing wrong with taking a chance when the odds are fair.

IceIX

kevind722 wrote:

the reason the covers packs has a larger piece of the pie is because it cost more. the chart is how much HP was spent, not how many people spent HP for example if theyar pooling 10 people and 2 spent 3800 on cover packs and the other 8 spent a total of 7600 on the other items you would show 50% being spent on cover packs when in reality on 20% are spending on cover packs

Nope, these are represented by discrete events, not currency spend.