VentureBeat article: How MPQ is making its money

Puritas

Most events feature a newly released character available in card packs at the start of the event. Like League of Legends, a certain hunk of our monetization comes from excitement about the gameplay and personality offered by that character.

So clearly the most excitement about gameplay and personality can come from releasing characters with no new personality and identical gamplay!

Interesting note on MPQ's ios grossings
Largest spikes were March 28 and Feb 15
i.e. 2 mill download sale and Valentine's day sale

Then overall revenue dropped sharply for a good while after
Sales are bad for growth of the game apparently =/

IceIX

Puritas wrote:

Interesting note on MPQ's ios grossings
Largest spikes were March 28 and Feb 15
i.e. 2 mill download sale and Valentine's day sale

Then overall revenue dropped sharply for a good while after
Sales are bad for growth of the game apparently =/

Sales, you may note, are the subject of part 4.

mischiefmaker

Puritas wrote:

Interesting note on MPQ's ios grossings
Largest spikes were March 28 and Feb 15
i.e. 2 mill download sale and Valentine's day sale

Then overall revenue dropped sharply for a good while after
Sales are bad for growth of the game apparently =/

This is basically the case in most games. When you have a sale, players stock up (it's such a great deal!). But then the guys who maybe would have spent something the next week don't spend, because they bought extra during the sale and still haven't spent it.

Unknown

After the player has maxed out a character (which takes 13 cards), they can use it forever in every event we make.

I wish that was true, yes, I'm looking at you Heroic Venom....

Unknown

Part 4 talks about how they've adjusted cover packs and how sales have driven profits:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/17/marvel-puzzle-quests-road-to-the-mythical-1-arpdau-part-4-card-pack-design-and-currency-sales/

Interesting quotes:

Frequently the desired design of a card pack ends up impacting the design of the event itself. We will add or remove characters from an event to cater to the needs of good card pack structure.

Multipacks eliminate risk: We increase the value of the multipack by promising the player that they’ll get one or more of the most-valuable characters in that pack.

Maybe they should have reflected on this point before they decided to eliminate guaranteed covers....

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

Maybe they should have reflected on this point before they decided to eliminate guaranteed covers....

From the ending paragraph, Part 5 is implied to address that decision, as the article mentions that the next part will cover operational changes in 2014.

I do find it interesting that the article mentions that sales are used there is a perception of a lack of currency in the game's economy. In regard to ISO, this is understandable. If ISO is overly plentiful, then the demand to purchase ISO (or HP for that matter) is diminished. How many people are actually complaining about having a glut of ISO nowadays, despite the clear ramp-up in ISO paid out from numerous sources?

I wonder if this logic was applied to covers as well, deeming that too many people were covering their 3***s faster than anticipated? (I believe IceIX said awhile back that the devs thought so, at least in regard to 2** characters). Would the intentional lack of guaranteed 3*** covers, outside of Versus tournaments, serve to drive cover sales? As a corollary, would orienting the Versus tourneys as the only source of guaranteed 3*** covers (by removing the certainty from Lightning Rounds) be a way to focus players on scoring highly in these tournaments? By narrowing the scope of how to obtain these covers reliably to strictly these tournaments, the game communicates the value proposition of placing well in them? This would possibly drive sales as players would clearly be inclined to purchase what is needed to place well in them as the most effective route to advance their rosters...

Fascinating read, and I look forward to reading about the "tweaks" in Part 5.

Unknown

Yea, I realize that these articles are based on last year's changes and statistics but I still can't help but wonder how removing guaranteed covers from packs would help them improve sales, since A) it would frustrate the buyer if the cover wasn't in there and it's not like it's a cheap $1 or even $5 for these packs. If a player doesn't get the featured cover in his first pack purchase, what's the odds that he/she will drop another $20-$30 to purchase another one? (I'm sure the behind-the-scenes numbers are actually shocking...)

I'd be interested in a binary yes or no response from the devs to see if removing the guaranteed covers has in fact increased their sales.

Nemek

Knock3r wrote:

Yea, I realize that these articles are based on last year's changes and statistics but I still can't help but wonder how removing guaranteed covers from packs would help them improve sales, since A) it would frustrate the buyer if the cover wasn't in there and it's not like it's a cheap $1 or even $5 for these packs. If a player doesn't get the featured cover in his first pack purchase, what's the odds that he/she will drop another $20-$30 to purchase another one? (I'm sure the behind-the-scenes numbers are actually shocking...)

I'd be interested in a binary yes or no response from the devs to see if removing the guaranteed covers has in fact increased their sales.

It's an interesting question, and I'm sure once they've looked at all of the data and see if it's making less money, then they would switch it back. I think the math proved out that the same (or very very similar) amount of overall covers would be given out with both methods.

They'll be able to see what the risk tolerance (now that it's more high risk and high reward) of players are without changing the overall number of covers and can use it to better understand whether or not they are at an optimal price point.

Linkster79

After the player has maxed out a character (which takes 13 cards), they can use it forever in every event we make.

If only this were true, I really resent being forced to play games in a certain way.

kalex716

Linkster79 wrote:

After the player has maxed out a character (which takes 13 cards), they can use it forever in every event we make.

If only this were true, I really resent being forced to play games in a certain way.

Then why do you like games? Every single game ever made has a ruleset and structure or game space we have to exercise our minds inside of. Its at the very nature of play.

You call that "making me play a certain way", and I call that "gaming".

Linkster79

I may have been a bit sparing with my wording.

Imagine a sports team has invested in x numbers of new players and are then told by a governing body that some of those players are now not allowed to be used for no other reason than "because we said so".

Unknown

Linkster79 wrote:

I may have been a bit sparing with my wording.

Imagine a sports team has invested in x numbers of new players and are then told by a governing body that some of those players are now not allowed to be used for no other reason than "because we said so".

Soccer U-20.

Unknown

Part 5 talks about the economy of shields and boosts:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/22/marvel-puzzle-quests-road-to-the-mythical-1-arpdau-part-5-adventures-in-consumables/

Interesting quotes:

Over the past 30 days, shields have been 1.8 percent of the Hero Point economy. At the time of launch, we didn’t have A/B testing functionality, so we did some crude experiments when they were rolled out. In the first four versus tournaments, they were priced at 50/100/200 hero points (with no volume discount Hero Points are $0.01 but they discount down to $0.005 when purchased in bulk), and for the next events we doubled the price of shields to 100/200/400. We sold almost exactly half as many per participant.

I guess they found a happy medium at 75/150/300...

Another theme that we’ve explored in previous posts is the impact tap friction can have on unit volume. Enabling players to purchase 10 times the cards at 10 times the price resulted in a massive increase in how many hero points were spent on covers. In investigating prices of boosts, we also discovered that packs of things that sold for 50 hero points ($0.25 to $0.50, depending on bulk discounts) sold nearly the same unit volume as those sold for 100 hero points with twice the efficacy.

I personally find the new boost system unbelievably annoying. I can't imagine very practical reasons to just use +1 boost colors, so I always stack to use +3 boosts if I do use them. Having to make me purchase multiple stacks so often causes a lot of tap friction. Does anybody just use one +1 boost?

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

I personally find the new boost system unbelievably annoying. I can't imagine very practical reasons to just use +1 boost colors, so I always stack to use +3 boosts if I do use them. Having to make me purchase multiple stacks so often causes a lot of tap friction. Does anybody just use one +1 boost?

I'll use smaller number of boosts depending on what I'm trying to get to. If I'm trying to rush to an ability that takes 8 AP (e.g. Fireball), I'll just use +2 boost.

Dreylin

I agreed that if I'm using +AP boosts, then I'm likely to be using all 3; however for the match damage I vary greatly and almost never use all 5.

Albert Reed wrote:

Our next improvement is going to be default to a full boost stack.

Which is a great way to increase the consumption for those not paying attention...

MarvelMan

Knock3r wrote:

I personally find the new boost system unbelievably annoying. I can't imagine very practical reasons to just use +1 boost colors, so I always stack to use +3 boosts if I do use them. Having to make me purchase multiple stacks so often causes a lot of tap friction. Does anybody just use one +1 boost?

I frequently use just +2. I have a 5B spidey where starting off with +2 blue can make more sense than +3, and sometimes I start with +2 green when using Frank as it means that I only need two 3 matches of green versus three, which can be important against a lvl 240 Daken..... Ive also been known to toss up a +1 B/P when using C.Mag so its three by 3 P matches in case a 4 match isnt available. There are a couple others where Ive done it to ensure I didnt need a match 4 in there just in case, but I dont remember what they are at the moment.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

I personally find the new boost system unbelievably annoying. I can't imagine very practical reasons to just use +1 boost colors, so I always stack to use +3 boosts if I do use them. Having to make me purchase multiple stacks so often causes a lot of tap friction. Does anybody just use one +1 boost?

I've used singles when I had Spiderman at 3 blue covers (thus allowing a single blue match to give me a timely ATU). My +U/P boost is easily my most used, along with +B/G so I'm very frugal in my use of them.

That said, I agree the interface is annoying, but b/c you have to clear it each time. If I'm repeating the same node I just finished, fine, keep the same boosts I just used. But I think I'd prefer it to wipe my boosts after each battle - it's just simpler and cleaner.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

Does anybody just use one +1 boost?

No, I use them in stacks of three. Maybe it is habit from when we had +3 ap boosts but it is probably because if I do less than 3, I will make match threes and end up one short from using a power. Black panther at 11/12 black ap is super lame.

I would like to be able to buy boosts in larger quantities - like 15x instead of 5x. Or just buy them all at once and be able to hoard them instead of going through one match then needing to remember to buy more boosts. Most of the time when I am using boosts it is for the last 30 minutes of a tourney and I get irritated clicking through boost buying screens every other match. Just let me buy the package several times - dont make it so I can only buy them when I am running on empty. That would be fab.

_RiO_

Knock3r wrote:

I personally find the new boost system unbelievably annoying. I can't imagine very practical reasons to just use +1 boost colors, so I always stack to use +3 boosts if I do use them. Having to make me purchase multiple stacks so often causes a lot of tap friction. Does anybody just use one +1 boost?

It's not for your convenience; it's for theirs. Making you buy separate lower cost boosts that are in practice used up in stacked combinations obfuscates total cost of the stack. Actually; iirc someone already did the math on this and it turned out that point for point the new stackable boosts were substantially more expensive than the old ones. It seems then, that this effect of obfuscating cost has already been capitalized upon.

Unknown

You guys make good points. I think the underlying problem for me is comparing the new boost system to the old one. Not only are you paying the same amount for less boosts (5x1 boosts compared to 3x3 boosts), but the new interface requires more taps to get the same efficiency.

It used to require one tap to open the boost window and one tap to add a set of 3 boosts; now you have one tap to open the boost window, one to select the boost, and two more taps to add two boosts. And that's not counting an additional tap to buy more boosts which will always happen if you're using +3 total boosts. So they've doubled their tap friction, which is annoying when you're trying to get in as many matches as possible. I would have rather them raising the cost of 3x3 boosts to 400 ISOs, which would be about the same cost but without the frustrating added taps.