How do you feel about costumes?

Dormammu

Costumes have been a thing for two months now and we've gotten a taste of what they'll be and how they'll be made available. I see a lot of varied opinions in regards to costumes and I'm curious about the pulse of the forums.

ThaRoadWarrior

I once bought a car for $200, and had it running for another $100. In no universe will i throw that kind of money at virtual goods

AlexNapalm

I'll get the ones offered in the VIP renewals but won't pay for one otherwise. 

KGB

I voted 'I like them and I'm willing to pay' because I already did when I purchased VIP for the first time ever for Lady Deadpool and will re-up this month for Doc Ock.

Of course the $ I spent for VIP was 'free' in the sense it came from doing goggle surveys 

KGB

Lystrata

I cannot think of many other things in life I could be less fussed about.

I don't play this game for the artwork and have zero interest in obtaining costumes in any manner. So I won't invest time or money chasing them. But if other people do... it doesn't bother me any. To each their own and all that. 

broll

My opinion isn't represented:
I like costumes and am willing to pay reasonable prices!

These things shouldn't cost more than $5 and there's no reason for them to be in bundles.  Let people spend $1-5 for the costumes they want.  There are 177 characters in the game and probably hundreds of thousands of players.  Even if a small percentage of players bought for the favorite 5ish characters (and the whales bought them all) you'd be making a lot of money for extremely marginal amount of work.  Stop being so greedy...  I know it's not just you guys, the video game industry is becoming a giant joke. 

n25philly

Where is the "I don't get why they are being held hostage in bundles" option?

Dormammu

broll said:

My opinion isn't represented:
I like costumes and am willing to pay reasonable prices!

So... would you say they need improvement?

AardvarkPepper

broll said:

My opinion isn't represented:
I like costumes and am willing to pay reasonable prices!

These things shouldn't cost more than $5 and there's no reason for them to be in bundles.  Let people spend $1-5 for the costumes they want.  There are 177 characters in the game and probably hundreds of thousands of players.  Even if a small percentage of players bought for the favorite 5ish characters (and the whales bought them all) you'd be making a lot of money for extremely marginal amount of work.  Stop being so greedy...  I know it's not just you guys, the video game industry is becoming a giant joke. 

"Reasonable".

Well let's think on it.  You produce a character costume, and you need two large-ish pictures for the play screen, three plus animations to cover each of their powers (yes?  I wouldn't know).  You'll also need a full-body picture for the character, the cost of licensing individual cover art if that's not already covered by a general contract (which for all I know it is, but it may not be).  So that's going to be what, in the $3,000 range perhaps?  Maybe more maybe less, but it's a chunk of money.

Then there's the cost of coding, debugging, sound - I don't know how much goes into costumes as I don't have any.  But you can see where the price tag can keep increasing.  Say $5,000.

Then there's the question of how much Marvel takes, taxes, and additional contractual costs.

So let's say each character costume needs a monetization of 10K just to break even.  It could be a good deal more.  It could be a good deal less.  But I think anyone trying to really get a realistic estimate of the actual costs involved might be surprised.

Then consider - sure, a theoretical high population of small spenders could monetize the game.  But MPQ doesn't have the population base of a game like DOTA.  It's a question of how many small spenders there are, and of those small spenders how many might buy into costumes, versus how many large spenders there are and how many of those might buy into costumes.

All this might leave one on the fence insofar as price determination goes.  But consider the price doesn't have to be fixed over time.  Costumes could be released at a high price point, to be gathered by the higher spenders for exclusivity and variation, then at some later date (perhaps months to a year later), a particular costume's price point might drop, then it might be purchased by lower spenders.

Personally, I'm not going to pay whatever money for Kamala Khan, Luke Cage, or Deadpool, or Thor, or Green Goblin.  Maybe Green Goblin if I really liked the art AND thought it was amazing . . . I'd pay $20 for a Todd McFarlane drawn Black Cat, but Black Cat isn't even released, or even on the short list of characters most players request.  Sooo yeah.

But just because I'm not going to buy in on costumes doesn't mean I think it's unreasonable the costumes are offered at their current price point.

JHawkInc

I think costumes are brilliant. The new Spidey game has almost 40 suits in it. Costumes let MPQ add some of those without having to spend an entire year releasing new Spider-Man variants. 

Monetizing them is even a brilliant idea. Little cosmetic purchases that don't effect the game, and let people have access to their favorite versions of their favorite characters? That's a win. There are people out there who don't spend at all that might drop a few bucks on a good costume (say, Captain Marvel fans that love the mohawk/helmet? Iron Fist fans that love the white suit, or maybe just don't like "Hobo Fist", as fans call him? Spidey fans that would rather have the comic Iron Spider suit?). And it's a great way to add minor updates that don't necessarily warrant a whole new character (like giving 5* Banner a Ruffalo look, or hell, they already gave us a "late Ragnarok" Thor since the character is based on the early movie, why not a Valkyrie like that, with the cool Asgardian armor instead of her scrapper gear?)

But they should be a few bucks apiece, the kind of thing where you scoop up a bundle of F4 costumes for $25 (Future Foundation suits, or the modern "black with blue accents" suits could have worked well). Lumping them in with a bundle of in-game goods so they can be sold for $75 is ridiculous. Instead of selling one Thor costume for $75, they should be trying to sell fifteen of them for $5 each.

Cosmetics are a way to nickel-and-dime customers by providing bitesize things that they want, and making them whale-only trophies is silly. It would be a little silly if there were a hundred costumes and they put some highly desired ones behind a high price point. But when there are only... what, 6, and TWO of them are behind $75 paywalls? If they'd spend less time trying to desperately squeeze money out of people (high cost costumes, the poor availability of Supports, etc), and worked more on making it easy for people to spend on a desirable product, they'd probably be better off. 

So yeah, I love costumes, and am willing to pay for them, but I think the prices are downright stupid, and just about the worst way they could have released them. And it's extremely frustrating to want to spend and not be able to, especially when the pricing is almost completely arbitrary. It's starting to make me second-guess purchases I would have otherwise made elsewhere in the game, and that's not fun. I enjoy spending part of my entertainment budget to boost something I derive so much free entertainment from in the first place. 

bluewolf

Technically the costumes have been a $0 item in a bundle, in most cases, where the price represents the (mostly) going rate for the resources that are being offered and the costume is included.  The bundles have been too expensive for my taste.  Anyone who wants to spend on them, go ahead.  I may hit you more in PVP, however.

A couple other points:

Fortnite made, I believe, around 3 billion dollars or more last year off cosmetic items.

Loot boxes (aka pretty much the only way to obtain 5's) are being put under the microscope around the world by many governments, including the US.  There is quite possibly going to be action that the industry will be forced to take, voluntarily or not, to change the monetization of these types of items.  Or perhaps the rating assigned to games using them for monetization.

So the game finding different funding models is fine with me.

And I've said before:  these are items that are still pretty new in the game.  It would surprise me if the plans didn't include ways to acquire costumes either more cheaply or via achievements (as the initial announcement stated), but a while after the initial availability / sale.

But you can't expect the devs to tell you that up front.

Borstock

I LOVE costumes. These characters would look very silly naked.

AardvarkPepper

bluewolf said:

Technically the costumes have been a $0 item in a bundle, in most cases, where the price represents the (mostly) going rate for the resources that are being offered and the costume is included.  The bundles have been too expensive for my taste.  Anyone who wants to spend on them, go ahead.  I may hit you more in PVP, however.

A couple other points:

Fortnite made, I believe, around 3 billion dollars or more last year off cosmetic items.

Loot boxes (aka pretty much the only way to obtain 5's) are being put under the microscope around the world by many governments, including the US.  There is quite possibly going to be action that the industry will be forced to take, voluntarily or not, to change the monetization of these types of items.  Or perhaps the rating assigned to games using them for monetization.

So the game finding different funding models is fine with me.

And I've said before:  these are items that are still pretty new in the game.  It would surprise me if the plans didn't include ways to acquire costumes either more cheaply or via achievements (as the initial announcement stated), but a while after the initial availability / sale.

But you can't expect the devs to tell you that up front.

1.  MPQ doesn't have Fortnite's player base.

2.  The US government will be bought off by special interest groups.

3.  On a side note, Fortnite tried to monetize some stuff it didn't have rights to (e.g. the Carlton dance)

turbomoose

I really like some of the costumes but I’d never pay over £10 for something that is virtual 

i do VIP occasionally but frankly I think the game gets enough money for purchases without needing to charge  ridiculous amounts for costumes 

broll

@AardvarkPepper
Sure they may cost more then I'm giving credit Though if they did the costumes coding correctly that was a one and done to make a flag to use alternate art assets and shouldn't need to reinvent the wheel every time.  They had a one time sunk cost that would cover all the characters with nothing other than a minor flip this flag and stick the art files in (outside of any bugs from unique costume changes).  In addition there's no indication they hired more people to do this, just tasked them to do it as part of their job and halted work on other features that didn't directly bring income.  They were going to pay those guys anyway so the ROI from the programming side is extremely negligible.  Art and Marvel costs are more real and I'll give you that.  So using your rough numbers I'd say there was an additional 5K investment (and that's being generous) and then 3-5K per costume they have to make back (and eventually the 5K, if they do large numbers of these, becomes smaller and smaller per costume).

Regardless my part of my argument (which I failed to post because I got so angry about gaming industry trends and started ranting)  was that by charging a smaller amount and having more people buy in, they may make more than just relying on whales.  But irregardless they'll do what their bean counters think is best, if they don't want my money that's probably better anyway...

BigSoftieFF

I like them but haven’t bought a 75$ one and don’t expect to. 

If if they figure out the economy on them I will likely participate.

jgomes32

They are nice but pointless. Not what they should be focusing on.

Cactus_Jack_87

I'm fine with them existing, but if they're going to cost $15 more than a AAA game, it would be nice if they did something other than look cool. Of course, I don't expect them to buff a character, but how about allowing them to change a character's color layout? Not only would that give players more incentive to buy (especially at the 5* tier), it would also allow a bit more flexibility in the meta. Would I spend $75 on an Thor costume? Absolutely not. Would I spend $75 to change his color layout and give him a completely different AP collecting utility? Now we're talking!

IronLad

"I like them and I'm willing to pay" - factually correct, just caveat that my price point is way lower than $75 i.e. VIP.

HoundofShadow

Neutral. From a business point of view, it's just another channel to earn extra revenues. The gaming industry is high on costumes/avatars etc and the revenues have proven it. Any sane businessman with the right product will cash in on this as well.

Six costumes have been released so far:
1. Lady Deadpool (VIP)
2. Kamala Khan's bundle 
3. 4-star Luke Cage (Vault)
4. 5-star Thor 
5. 5-star Dr Ock (Cash)
6. 5-star Green Goblin

There have been bundles with different price points that are targeted at different segments: low spenders, mid spenders and high spenders.

Costumes are not game-breaking .They are not going to give those players with different costumes advantages in a match-3 game.

As far as price point is concerned, costume is kinda free because it's thrown in free together with most of the packages. For VIP bundles, players are getting the same amount of resources + costume at the same price. The same goes to Thor's bundle. The maths has been done. The value is better than Stark Salary. They are trying different deals with Green Goblin, which is what a normal business does.

I find that there are quite a number of Walmart/Target type of customers whenever the details of different bundle deals are released. If you have certain budgets for mobile gaming and the price is high for you, just tell yourself that you are not the targeted segment. 

ThaRoadWarrior

At $75 real human dollars, they should have at least one cover for the character they go on.