VentureBeat article: How MPQ is making its money

Unknown

Lately I feel like it’s more, “we’ll make all these changes, piss off the long-time players enough that they stop playing, and eventually, a time will come when all of its newer players won’t have known any better.”

evohero

The first event to feature this new design was a huge success despite having relatively simple content and no new character on sale. We’re not sure why players preferred this system, but we suspect the answer is a simple one: the uncertainty of opening packs is part of what makes them fun! If, in World of Warcraft, the boss was guaranteed to drop the loot you wanted, I suspect the game would be less engaging overall. Theoretically, you could apply the same principle to card battlers.

The only way this analogy works is if you look at "less time spent playing the game" = "real money"

In physical decks of cards for CCG's, the uncertainty of opening packs is exhilarating because there's a chance that you could get the super rare card that you could collect and save for the right time to trade for cold hard cash. This applies to farming in WoW as well, for the record, whether in-game gold or out-of-game cash for selling accounts.

In MPQ the uncertainty of opening packs is exhilarating because there's a chance that you could get the super rare card that you still need to collect 12 more of for an opportunity to maybe (possibly) play the game a little bit less than you were playing it. More essential nodes = less need to grind to get the rewards you want. We saw it with Oscorp Heroic--yeah, people overcame the Points Fiasco of May 2014, but only through pounding away at 3*Daken more than they did before.

Since covers cannot be traded between players or sold for anything other than well below the value of what was spent to earn them (ISOing other characters, spending Hero Points to build powers), there's literally no other reason to be excited when you finally get the first of 3-5 covers for 1 of 3 colors of a given character. You're excited because you can take a little break and not fall off the face of the earth competitively.

I bet there were more than a few people that were burnt by the store because the messaging wasn't clear that they weren't guaranteed a featured hero until after they plopped down the money, and people were plopping down mad bills to deal with the crazy hard PVE scaling.

To be clear, there's nothing fun about spending $20 dollars for a guaranteed specific hero, but at least that had the message of "Free ride's over, pony up a little bit more if you want to continue enjoying and support us, too. It's worth it!" Now it's "Free ride's over, pony up a little bit more and cross your fingers/join a competent alliance. You are continuing your support of us making the game harder and harder for you."

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I'm honestly starting to wonder if those of us on the forums just have nothing in common with the rest of the people playing the game.

If you go by what the forums say every game in existence is on the verge of death, so I'd say that's a pretty accurate assessment.

Unknown

The first event to feature this new design was a huge success despite having relatively simple content and no new character on sale. We’re not sure why players preferred this system, but we suspect the answer is a simple one: the uncertainty of opening packs is part of what makes them fun!

OR, maybe it's because you didn't do the following as successfully as you thought:

In just a few words, you need to communicate the value proposition to the player. This new store layout has much more thoughtfully placed text boxes and actually cuts down on the total amount of text quite a bit.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I'm honestly starting to wonder if those of us on the forums just have nothing in common with the rest of the people playing the game.

If you go by what the forums say every game in existence is on the verge of death, so I'd say that's a pretty accurate assessment.

Well, driving everyone away but your most hardcore players because they have a sunk cost is ONE way to raise your ARPDAU

Unknown

How does a smart consumer think that odds of 100% going down to 6.2% seem like a fair and fun deal?

LordWill

Yea when I read these it just grates at me for some reason. I am not begrudging them making money but on the attitude on how they do it.

You can give your money to the girl scout selling cookies and feel good about giving your money to a worthy cause

OR

You can give your money to the mugger holding you at gunpoint.


I just don't understand why we are treated the way we are.

I think I need a hug

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

How does a smart consumer think that odds of 100% going down to 6.2% seem like a fair and fun deal?

The newer the player, the less likely they know that a guaranteed cover was ever an option.

I've been playing 70+ days and bought guaranteed packs for characters that were new right before I started. Now that there is no guarantee, I will never buy another one again.

People who joined since they made change don't know how it used to be, and won't know the difference.

Spoit

LordWill wrote:

Yea when I read these it just grates at me for some reason. I am not begrudging them making money but on the attitude on how they do it.

You can give your money to the girl scout selling cookies and feel good about giving your money to a worthy cause

OR

You can give your money to the mugger holding you at gunpoint.


I just don't understand why we are treated the way we are.

I think I need a hug

I could give you one, but that'd be $20. And it might be a kick in the kittens instead

LordWill

Spoit wrote:

LordWill wrote:

Yea when I read these it just grates at me for some reason. I am not begrudging them making money but on the attitude on how they do it.

You can give your money to the girl scout selling cookies and feel good about giving your money to a worthy cause

OR

You can give your money to the mugger holding you at gunpoint.


I just don't understand why we are treated the way we are.

I think I need a hug

I could give you one, but that'd be $20. And it might be a kick in the kittens instead

Hahaha

You just made my day. Seriously. lol

Zifna

Given how their takeaway from this was "players care a ton about the visual aspect of this game!" I'm really surprised they haven't tried selling visual upgrades/alternative art.

Linkster79

Creating content that players will be enjoying months after they first start is genuinely challenging.

That seems to be a bit more of a challenge. I really don't get it because there is a really solid match 3 game here, shame all the other **** that is around it isnt up to scratch. Please D3P listen to those on tbe forums, not me as I am nothing more than amalcontent, but those like Nemek, Phantron, Clintman and others as they know this game seemingly better than you do. It is why forums exist, if you didnt want feedback you wouldnt have created them.

Unknown

In reality, the issue here is one on generational perception.

For someone of my generation (Gen X), this type of monetization practice is quite alien and hostile to us. After all, we all grew up on Ataris, NESs, and Genesis. To us, we won't put money into a game unless there is decisively clear and discernible tactical advantage that is clearly in our favor to do so. As such, we are very tight on our wallets.

However, the gaming industry has been slowly trending towards the opposite end of the spectrum during Gen Y. Over time, the industry has encouraged gamers of this generation to accept add-on purchases and DLC instead of finished products. Gen Y members tend to be apprehensive to microtransactions and subscription plans, but are not as outright resistant as Gen X members are.

The current generation, the Millennials, are raised in an environment where there is minimal active knowledge of how the game industry used to function. Always online FPSs and MMOs are the norm, microtransactions are considered to be standard gaming practice, and subscription plans for basic gaming services are not given second thought and considered to be complementary (Xbox Live, PS+, and more soon to come). Members of this generation, right now in the lucratively exploitable age teen to young adult age bracket, have been conditioned to simply consume what is placed in front of them. Continually degrading educational standards are not helping matters either. After all, these offers that keep appearing on the screen have to be there for a reason, right?

When fewer and fewer physical copies of the games being produced finally turn to zero within the next decade and gaming is nothing more than required monthly subscriptions to access your library of game licenses that be revoked at any time by a vendor, all of which have come full circle to be 21st century arcade "quarter munchers" (just in multiple dollar increments), then I will just shake my head and proclaim as a rightfully old geezer, "Get off my lawn".

atomzed

Knock3r wrote:

The final piece of the 8-part series will be sure to not disappoint interested readers. It talks about the changes to the Cover store, the guaranteed covers, and the 40 pack.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/15/marvel-puzzle-quests-road-to-the-mythical-1-arpdau-part-8-card-store-overhaul-redux/

In previous events, our card store featured a pack of 10 cards for about $20 USD that was guaranteed to drop the featured character for the event. That’s unusual for card battlers. Typically, this is the newest, most exciting prize for players. In this latest revision of the store, we removed the guarantee while keeping the expected number of featured characters about the same. For many developers at Demiurge, this was a crazy idea. Many of us figured that the entire value of the 10-packs of cards was that they included a guaranteed character in them, but we were fairly unusual in our design here, so we decided to adjust the system. This change went live prior to the visual overhaul, and the results were phenomenal. The first event to feature this new design was a huge success despite having relatively simple content and no new character on sale. We’re not sure why players preferred this system, but we suspect the answer is a simple one: the uncertainty of opening packs is part of what makes them fun! If, in World of Warcraft, the boss was guaranteed to drop the loot you wanted, I suspect the game would be less engaging overall. Theoretically, you could apply the same principle to card battlers.

Who are these people??? Would you rather pay $20 for a pack that's GUARANTEED to have what you want, or a CHANCE to have what you want? Probably not likely, but what if you did spend $70 on the 40 pack and not pull the feature cover you wanted?

This is the 1 change that boggles me the most. And this is THE change that convinces me NEVER to spend on packs anymore.

I had previously spend a large sum of money buying packs, as it helps to ease the 2* to 3* transition. The guarantee heroes helped, as it allows me to zoom in on specific heroes I want to build. I was able to build my Hulk, Lazy Capt and Punisher largely through the packs.

When I did my calculation, the previous packs (the one which featured one 3* hero only, such as the Falcon pack such that every 3* that you draw is guarantee Falcon) were not exactly great value.

Why do I say that? Let me do the calculation. That type of packs gives a 23% of getting the featured hero, which often translates to 3-5 rare covers.

For 3* heroes, if you pay HP to improve the ability. that's 3x1250 HP = 3750 HP. Each 10 packs costs 3800 HP. Which means that you need to get 4 covers to exceed the value of the invested HP. Often, if you are lacking in that 1 black cover for Hulk, or 1 blue cover for Lazy Capt, you are better off paying the HP for that cover instead of gambling.

Right now, the current packs are virtually worthless to people who has some max 3* and are looking for specific covers to max out their other characters. For example, right now, I am no longer interested in Lazy capt and Punisher covers. I am also not interested in daredevil or Loki covers. I am looking for Patch, Cmag and Lazy Thor.

So why would I spend money on the 10-packs "gambling" for covers that I don't need? It doesn't makes sense.

I hope that D3 breakdown their metrics further to get a clearer picture. Purchases of covers for players with somewhat max roster (e.g. 3x 3* max cover heroes) should have differing expenditure habits from those who are at the beginning of the 3* transition (e.g. 3* heroes are not fully covered). I suspect that the former case will spend more on boosts and shields (to get the covers they want from PVP or PVE), and the latter will spend more on covers.

It is important to clarify the metrics, because if you are looking at the whole population, you are missing out the trends in specific sub-groups in your population. And you based your business decisions on the wrong assumptions.

Right now, I probably will not ever buy any 10-packs. The fact that my season progression reward 10-pack gave me ZERO 3* convinced me that its not worth the risk buying 10-packs anymore.

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

In reality, the issue here is one on generational perception.

For someone of my generation (Gen X), this type of monetization practice is quite alien and hostile to us. After all, we all grew up on Ataris, NESs, and Genesis. To us, we won't put money into a game unless there is decisively clear and discernible tactical advantage that is clearly in our favor to do so. As such, we are very tight on our wallets.

However, the gaming industry has been slowly trending towards the opposite end of the spectrum during Gen Y. Over time, the industry has encouraged gamers of this generation to accept add-on purchases and DLC instead of finished products. Gen Y members tend to be apprehensive to microtransactions and subscription plans, but are not as outright resistant as Gen X members are.

The current generation, the Millennials, are raised in an environment where there is minimal active knowledge of how the game industry used to function. Always online FPSs and MMOs are the norm, microtransactions are considered to be standard gaming practice, and subscription plans for basic gaming services are not given second thought and considered to be complementary (Xbox Live, PS+, and more soon to come). Members of this generation, right now in the lucratively exploitable age teen to young adult age bracket, have been conditioned to simply consume what is placed in front of them. Continually degrading educational standards are not helping matters either. After all, these offers that keep appearing on the screen have to be there for a reason, right?

When fewer and fewer physical copies of the games being produced finally turn to zero within the next decade and gaming is nothing more than required monthly subscriptions to access your library of game licenses that be revoked at any time by a vendor, all of which have come full circle to be 21st century arcade "quarter munchers" (just in multiple dollar increments), then I will just shake my head and proclaim as a rightfully old geezer, "Get off my lawn".

Yeah, I still dislike the microtransaction model, it shifts the development focus from good game desing to lucrative game design. I've been keeping spendings in this game in check to around the price of a full game, and I have very little to show for it in comparison to a full AAA game. I wanted to support the devs because I've been playing the game a lot but this seems a bit naive now.

atomzed

Knock3r wrote:

Part 6 focuses on Alliances and how they're trying to increase its player retention:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/24/marvel-puzzle-quests-road-to-the-mythical-1-arpdau-part-6-alliances/

Interesting quotes:

Because we believe that players who engage with the social mechanics in the game are inherently more valuable to us than those that don’t, we decided our KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for Alliances would be the percent of our active players who are in alliances.

Hence the push for Alliances with Alliance-only rewards and Alliance daily rewards.

This metric is the reason why complaining on the forums that "I getting burned out, but I am only playing because of my alliance" WOULD NOT WORK.

They are measuring the activity level, and they are happy that we are playing, regardless of the reasons.

So short of mass exodus after Season 2 starts, D3 is likely to keep it that way.... (Which scares me because I don't know how to keep up).

mjh

atomzed wrote:

The fact that my season progression reward 10-pack gave me ZERO 3* convinced me that its not worth the risk buying 10-packs anymore.

That's interesting because my friend and I both got that 10-pack progression reward and both pulled THREE 3* covers. We figured that was the standard.

They really need to introduce a 3* token as I have previously mentioned. It's the only way to balance out this game since they took away the guaranteed cover pack. Also his analogy to WoW was completely ****, that monster boss (or whatever, i never played) drops one treasure but getting a guaranteed cover in a 10-pack still leaves 9 surprises

Unknown

HawkeyeSucks wrote:

atomzed wrote:

The fact that my season progression reward 10-pack gave me ZERO 3* convinced me that its not worth the risk buying 10-packs anymore.

That's interesting because my friend and I both got that 10-pack progression reward and both pulled THREE 3* covers. We figured that was the standard.

They really need to introduce a 3* token as I have previously mentioned. It's the only way to balance out this game since they took away the guaranteed cover pack. Also his analogy to WoW was completely tinykitty, that monster boss (or whatever, i never played) drops one treasure but getting a guaranteed cover in a 10-pack still leaves 9 surprises

I feel like I'm in the same boat as atomzed. With my Heroic 10-Pack, I only got 1 3-Star character. And it was DareDevil. discouraged me from spending money on the 10 or higher Packs. I wish they would at least take the event 10-Packs back to a guaranteed "Feature" character.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

So short of mass exodus after Season 2 starts, D3 is likely to keep it that way.... (Which scares me because I don't know how to keep up).

Join the mass of the exodus. With enough mass it has some chance to actually show up on a graph and "gently push" the game into some other direction. (no guarantee it will be better, but still seem a better prospect).

Unknown

There's a general trend of paying more money in gaming for less quality. Compared to most stuff out there in MPQ you're getting a pretty good deal. It's at least not like a MMORPG where you pay them $15 month because things might get better next patch.

I think in general the extremely bloated staff of all modern gaming is to blame. If you look at some of those AAA title games their list of credit goes on forever and these guys probably didn't work for free.