When does the license with Marvel/Disney expire for MPQ?

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  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    The issue for me is that I want to support MPQ financially, as I have put time and $ into this game over the years, however there is nothing for me to buy of worthwhile value beyond the $1.99 monthly HP purchase for the rewards.  I don't find VIP worth $10/mo. and I rarely find the package deals priced at $20+ dollars worth the value.  I just started playing another mobile game that involves collecting cards ( I won't name it here since it is a competitor's product).  I spent $25 on it and that $25 made a big difference in my ability to succeed in that game.  In addition, the way that game is structured that purchase would have helped a new player and a veteran player about the same. A  $25 purchase in MPQ doesn't significantly increase your success (once you are beyond 2* meta) and that is the biggest issue for me.  I am not worried about the licensing with Disney but I am worried that once the whales dry up, who is going to support the game financially? I want to but I am not going to just throw $ at it without some meaningful in-game impact.  The $ economics of the game need to be re-evaluated to entice non-whales to make purchases as well, but I have been saying that for 3+ years now too.
  • thorrium
    thorrium Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
    Warbringa said:
    The issue for me is that I want to support MPQ financially, as I have put time and $ into this game over the years, however there is nothing for me to buy of worthwhile value beyond the $1.99 monthly HP purchase for the rewards.  I don't find VIP worth $10/mo. and I rarely find the package deals priced at $20+ dollars worth the value.  I just started playing another mobile game that involves collecting cards ( I won't name it here since it is a competitor's product).  I spent $25 on it and that $25 made a big difference in my ability to succeed in that game.  In addition, the way that game is structured that purchase would have helped a new player and a veteran player about the same. A  $25 purchase in MPQ doesn't significantly increase your success (once you are beyond 2* meta) and that is the biggest issue for me.  I am not worried about the licensing with Disney but I am worried that once the whales dry up, who is going to support the game financially? I want to but I am not going to just throw $ at it without some meaningful in-game impact.  The $ economics of the game need to be re-evaluated to entice non-whales to make purchases as well, but I have been saying that for 3+ years now too.

    I am little over a year into the game, I am by no means a big spender (having bought only a few bundles that really speed up my time).
    But I decided to be a monthly VIP player, not because it has any value to me really (could just as well have bought the small hp every month instead), but I did so because it for me seemed like a reasonable subscription for a game I enjoyed.
    Now if the game is shutting down, why would I not just pull my vip and save the x-amount of months cost?  I already got all characters but a few 5*...  I got 15k hp in the bank, and my champed 4* are meta characters...  I have overcome the hp grind, and only need to continue playing to reach all champed 4*.

    Also I am sending you a pm, about the game you started... 
  • thorrium
    thorrium Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
    JHawkInc said:
    By that logic, the longer we ask the government about aliens in Area 51 and they keep ignoring us, the more likely there are actually aliens in Area 51.
    Not my government... as I am not american...
    But if you want to to have a serious discussion about military black sites then I am sure we could have one on reddit or in a private message.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,733 Chairperson of the Boards
    First, as pointed out elsewhere, it seems like the Digital Day change was driven by Amazon more than the developers.  A lot of games that were included last year, were not this year.

    A part of me thinks the developers might have decided, as a service, to tell players that they would not be participating in Digital Day.  I am sure many people would have made some different decisions about their spending prior to today, if that were the case.

    It is undoubtedly true that spending, partly due to dilution, is not the roster driver it once was.  The best way to spend, despite what some think, is probably the bundles because you know which covers you are getting and what impact they will have on your roster.

    Let's say you decide to spend 99.99 in a buy club and get 140 CP.  Odds are those will be 5-6 4*s, and very likely different 4's.  Now you have 26,000 HP so you go and buy a 40 pack.  You'll get 2-3 more 4's and the LT, so maybe by now you pull a 5.  So let's say that you got 9 4's and a 5 from that.  If you have even distribution, you'd spend $800 to add one champ level (or cover) to every 4 in your roster.  But you might have 8 5's or about 3 per Latest 5 now.  So a fully covered 5 might end up being $3500 if you were hoping to just spend your way to that.  In the meantime you added all of 4 levels to most of your champed 4's.

    It's funny in a way that the only top tier characters not suffering from horrible dilution is the Latest 5, which you are far more likely to pull than any 4 or classic 5.

    Bonus heroes help a little, but not much.

    If the developers intended to make heavy spending less important and impactful, they have achieved that, in my opinion.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    As someone else said, spending $100 in the beginning will give you a big boost over other new players, but spending $100 as a 4* or 5* player won't make a big difference, (unless you spend $100 or more every week, then it will).
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,733 Chairperson of the Boards
    Some new facts, which don't foretell imminent closure or anything, but are interesting.

    1.  A few years ago, a company called TinyCo made a game called Marvel Avengers Academy.
    2.  A couple years ago, TinyCo was acquired by JamCity
    3.  JamCity, in November, announced a large development deal with Disney to develop games based on their properties
    4.  A few days ago, it was announced that Marvel Avengers Academy is shutting down in February 2019.  You can no longer download it or see how it was doing on the charts on the App Store.

    It is quite possible that MAA was not doing very well, and that the decision to shut it down was based on that.  It would make sense, however, that a major development deal would also include plans to launch new games based on the Disney properties, and most games make the most money early on in their lifespan.  So closing older, underperforming games would make sense.

    While I choose not to read anything into the fact that Amazon Digital Day did not include MPQ, since many games were not included, it is worth noting that MPQ made a lot of money last year on ADD.  And maybe they still made good money this year with their HP sale, but I'm guessing not as much.  

    People say whales don't make up that much of the money the game brings in, but it still can't help that ADD was a bust.

    So that all makes me a bit concerned, even if the game is still going to be around for another year.  I can't help feel that we are really past the halfway point of the game one way or another.
  • Jexman
    Jexman Posts: 165 Tile Toppler
    There’s nowhere else for this current iteration to go. Maybe D3 will release an MPQ2 with Disney’s new license to give more reliable new content.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    bluewolf said:

    People say whales don't make up that much of the money the game brings in, but it still can't help that ADD was a bust.

    So that all makes me a bit concerned, even if the game is still going to be around for another year.  I can't help feel that we are really past the halfway point of the game one way or another.
    Even though ADD was a bust, whales still went crazy buying starks for the 30% HP sale.  Buy clubs were going off multiple times per day.  I'm amazed at how much people will spend to be at the top of a game.  But doing some rough calculations, you may be right that whales don't make up the majority of game revenue.  It's hard to estimate, but I think it's safe to say that MPQ is profitable, so why would any businessman shut down something that's profitable?  Disney shouldn't expect that if they shutdown a game and create another in it's place that all of those players will flock to the new game. 
  • SymmeTrey
    SymmeTrey Posts: 170 Tile Toppler
    I would actually suppose that the game is doing well from a profit/loss standpoint right now... in past years, it often felt like the dev team was fairly clueless about monetization. Some recent changes have really improved that. The bundles that have been introduced seem to have pretty high buy rates... I even see 5* Thor with the Thunder costume way more times than I ever would have expected to see him. While the game might be missing the Digital Day windfall, I would guess the game brought in more profits in January thru November than in past years...  probably by a wide margin.

    My take - the customer base is smaller, the game is mature, user growth is probably low or non-existent for the game, but, I think the game is being monetized more effectively than ever and probably has increased profits over last year. It's a small dev team, costs are pretty low, Marvel seems to believe that providing a property like this for customers to participate in the brand and promote their other Marvel products is a good thing. 

    So, I think D3 is making profits here and I think Marvel is happy with MPQ. As long as those 2 things are true, the game is safe. I see MPQ as probably a 10-year lifecycle game and we are 5 years in,so, I actually agree we are over halfway... I'd guess we have 3-6 years to go. And, after that point... well, who knows, maybe MPQ 2 is the next step or maybe everyone just moves on entirely.

    My opinion is that anyone reading this thread is far more likely to "lose" their MPQ "investment" due to eventual boredom/burnout/whatever you want to call it rather than the game shutting down in the near future. Of course, something crazy could happen at any point and such is the nature of almost any online game, but, I just don't see any meaningful short-term warning signs at this point.

    TL;DR: Is the game maturing and slowing? Yes, but, probably still has years left to run. 
  • Straycat
    Straycat Posts: 963 Critical Contributor
    bluewolf said:

    So that all makes me a bit concerned, even if the game is still going to be around for another year.  I can't help feel that we are really past the halfway point of the game one way or another.
    If anything, those facts should make us feel better. Disney is not going into its own development, so they would have no reason to make a new match 3 game and shut this one down. Also, mobile games are different than streaming services. Netflix cancels its shows to not advertise for Disney's service, but mobile games advertise for each other all the time.
    But on the other hand, if you're worried about the halfway point, MPQ is already on year 5, all these shutdown games are less than 4. Its rare for any game to make it to 10 years. Its hard to imagine the game continuing at its current pace 5 years from now, but its possible
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think I hear deckchairs being furiously shuffled.

    Disney will shut this down in a heartbeat if revenue targets are not met, and we have no idea how these are.

    I definitely don't believe in a ten year life cycle for a mobile game lol
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,733 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited December 2018
    A couple of points:

    1.  The fact that a lot of people over the past few days were going into buy clubs and otherwise spending money is not surprising at all, despite ADD not happening.  Lots of people had a mindset of "I will spend money on MPQ at the end of December" for quite a while in anticipation of ADD.  Having a sale running (again) provided enough of an excuse/reason for people to stick with that plan.  Was it less than last year?  Probably, based on people's reactions and the fact that some people got refunds from Amazon.  The devs aren't going to tell us.
    2.  Being "profitable" is not really succeeding for a corporation like Disney.  You must always be growing over last year or you are basically failing.  Was Spider-Man Unlimited unprofitable as one of the ranked games on the App Store?  Or was it just not growing enough?  Or was it really a licensing thing?  If MPQ is not growing - and it is indeed possible that it is, with the bundles and such - it is going to be looked at.  This isn't some small business like many think.  It is a match-3 game that is able to be managed by a small team but uses one of, if not the, biggest entertainment brands on the planet to draw people in.  If the playerbase is shrinking there are less people to spend money, so even if you somehow get more of them to buy into spending, you are fighting an uphill battle there.
    3. I realize that this game and the game Cookie Jam are really nothing alike, but Jam City made that game very successfully and there could be plans underway for a new Marvel Match-3 game.

    I agree that the developers have started to offer better ways to buy into the game, partly because I think they had little choice with dilution being so bad, as I stated earlier.  Tossing $100 into random token pulls will do very little with so many characters in the game, but with a bundle you can focus on a specific character and possibly get them up to usable/champable status.  Maybe that's working well enough to see things go on for a few more years.

    I just hope that the people who spent lots of money over the weekend feel like they get their money's worth (now or eventually).

    Lest we forget, another looming issue is that loot boxes are being looked at hard in other countries and soon by the US government (the FTC in particular will investigate and report to Congress).  What that looks like and how that develops could have a big impact on this game eventually.  Will they be highly regulated?  Made illegal in some places?  Will all games with them for offer have their rating pushed up to 18+ - or whatever the rating is - to make sure no children are exposed to/offered them?   These concerns could also be partly motivating the bundle offer ramp-up that we have been seeing this year.

    The top end of the game is only accessible by random chance.  That's got to be making some people worry at least a little with the current political climate turning against loot boxes.
  • Straycat
    Straycat Posts: 963 Critical Contributor
    bluewolf said:
    A couple of points:

    2.  Being "profitable" is not really succeeding for a corporation like Disney.  You must always be growing over last year or you are basically failing.  Was Spider-Man Unlimited unprofitable as one of the ranked games on the App Store?  Or was it just not growing enough?  Or was it really a licensing thing? 
    3. I realize that this game and the game Cookie Jam are really nothing alike, but Jam City made that game very successfully and there could be plans underway for a new Marvel Match-3 game.


    Lest we forget, another looming issue is that loot boxes are being looked at hard in other countries and soon by the US government (the FTC in particular will investigate and report to Congress).  What that looks like and how that develops could have a big impact on this game eventually.  Will they be highly regulated?  Made illegal in some places?  Will all games with them for offer have their rating pushed up to 18+ - or whatever the rating is - to make sure no children are exposed to/offered them?   These concerns could also be partly motivating the bundle offer ramp-up that we have been seeing this year.

    The top end of the game is only accessible by random chance.  That's got to be making some people worry at least a little with the current political climate turning against loot boxes.
    By my own experience, Spider-man unlimited was doomed for a while. It made a major, unpopular resource economy change that lead me to quit. It might also have been a licensing issue since the Spiderverse movie came out and was a big hit, and there was no movie tie-in in the game. They might want to clear out to make room for a new spiderverse game, and leaving SMU there might be confusing for newly interested players.
    Obviously its impossible to know how they operate without being in the room where it happens, but I think MPQ is not in the same situation as the other shut down games. I don't think it is just about growth. It also has to do with trends, player engagement, player retention, profitability, market share, etc. Endless runners and city builders like SMU and AA are less popular, while match 3 games are probably holding steady. Plus, new revenue streams like supports and costumes maybe are visible signs of growth.
    And I don't worry too much about the loot box thing. You can't really buy loot boxes in this game. You can win without them, and their content and odds are clearly defined.
  • SymmeTrey
    SymmeTrey Posts: 170 Tile Toppler
    As far as how Marvel feels about MPQ you only have to look at how they let you spend your Insider points - as far as games go, you only have 2 places to spend them: Contest of Champions or MPQ. I’m not aware of any other games having been in this category and certainly none of the shutdown games.
  • LHammer
    LHammer Posts: 108 Tile Toppler
    Just to throw some fuel on the fire, back in July I asked a question about adding Steam trading cards to MPQ and actually got a reply from IceIX.  The gist of it was that it would be contractually problematic because the cards would still exist after their license expired.  Perfectly legitimate answer and at the time, I thought nothing of it.  Now though, I wonder if there was a reason I got that good, prompt response?
  • Chrynos1989
    Chrynos1989 Posts: 328 Mover and Shaker
    LHammer said:
    Just to throw some fuel on the fire, back in July I asked a question about adding Steam trading cards to MPQ and actually got a reply from IceIX.  The gist of it was that it would be contractually problematic because the cards would still exist after their license expired.  Perfectly legitimate answer and at the time, I thought nothing of it.  Now though, I wonder if there was a reason I got that good, prompt response?
    I don’t see any fuel here.
    the thing is i don’t think steam can delete stuff from your inventory, which would be a copyright infringement with protected chars.
    I mean look at my inventory, i still have a friends license to give away for dead island whatever, that moba offspring thing-ding, and that is down for at least 5 years, but it’s still there, can give it away, perhaps should throw it at some friend of mine I want to troll.
    Steam never deletes stuff from inventories
  • Tony_Foot
    Tony_Foot Posts: 1,790 Chairperson of the Boards
    It changes nothing for me. Never spend more on a time wasting mobile game than would upset you if the game shut down next week. People seem to be getting the knickers in a twist over a time frame you will never know the answer to. It's no more relevant to me than this time last year.

    It's gonna end and no one will give you an official heads up. If you can't deal with that you shouldn't be spending money on a mobile match three game.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,733 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think some people are worried about money spent, some about time spent.

    The fact is that you can’t really accelerate progress without spending a LOT of money to jump into the 5 tier. So players who are tooling along, hoarding for a good group of Latests to come along - those players are understandably concerned when rumors come along that the game could end before that day comes. 

  • NeonBlue
    NeonBlue Posts: 142 Tile Toppler
    Tony_Foot said:
    It changes nothing for me. Never spend more on a time wasting mobile game than would upset you if the game shut down next week. People seem to be getting the knickers in a twist over a time frame you will never know the answer to. It's no more relevant to me than this time last year.

    It's gonna end and no one will give you an official heads up. If you can't deal with that you shouldn't be spending money on a mobile match three game.
    People aren't just worried about the money they spent, but whether they should spend money moving forward. If there was a really good deal in-game that I would buy, but there were signs that the game would be on its last legs, I would reconsider. I think many others would as well.

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