How do you feel about costumes?

randomhero1090

I've acquired covers because I wanted the HP.  Not the other way around.

Daredevil217

I got that $200 Black Friday PS4 Slim deal that came with Spider-Man.  I'm that weird guy who prefers digital games to physical copies and so I hit the PS4 store which was having a winter sale, and they discount games if you are a PSN member, and I had a 20% off coupon that came with the console. I ended up getting: NHL 19, Diablo III ultimate edition, Worms Battleground, Worm's WMD, Everybody's Golf, GTA-V, and Monopoly for just under 70 dollars.  Yes that's 7 full console games, for the price of a costume on MPQ.  I'm glad people are buying them, because I play MPQ more than any of the above games, and I want them to make money, but I'd never spend that much to play match-3 dress-up.

Persephone

Neutral.
This is how I look at costumes: I'm not there, yet. 
Here's why: I'm in the beginning of 4* play-.  I champed my first one last month.  I'm close to champing several more.  I  recently started to roster 5*.  My goal in the game at the moment is continuing to champ 4* and increase 5* characters to roster.  My mind is simply not on costumes. 

Straycat

@broll @AardvarkPepper

I don't know how their finances work, but I don't think they priced costumes on cost and markup. Especially considering that they are purely cosmetic. They are probably priced based on their marketing research on how high for it to become a trophy while still sell.  

I don't think they itemize costs like that either. There are development costs for everything, not everything makes money, not everything gets made. And its a new revenue stream; if they only made 1 sale, that's $75 they wouldn't have made before. I assume most of the coding work is creating the feature, so its mostly gravy from here on.

But hey, I could be completely wrong, who knows

AardvarkPepper

Straycat said:

@broll @AardvarkPepper

I don't know how their finances work, but I don't think they priced costumes on cost and markup.

It wasn't my intent to imply they did.  Contextually, I hypothesized costume costs to establish a base cost that needed to be recouped, and stated DOTA and Fortnite playerbases are different to MPQ's database so different monetization schemes might be considered "reasonable."  Price point was established to maximize profits; I think we'd agree?

Straycat said:

I don't think they itemize costs like that either.

Believe me, they do.

Oh, I know.  It's a really silly assumption to believe people or groups act "intelligently"; in the real world things really don't work that way much of the time.

But consider.  Even if there isn't a bean-counter in head office totting up columns, say you're a motivated employee that wants a salary increase.  Does it sound better to say "Hey boss, I want more money?"  Or does it sound better to say "Since my last review, I brought X additional revenue to the company?"  Sure, that employee might not get a raise even with the latter, but if they go in for a few performance reviews and there's always something like that going on, well - let's just say they've got some leverage at that point, not because of however much money they *already* made, but for the concept that they're a value-added employee that will generate more profit for the company than they will cost even in spite of a raise.

Then too, there are feasibility studies undertaken before anything gets implemented.  It might not be a twenty page report, maybe it's just someone that hears a proposal then says "yes" or "no".  But in the end, it's a question of costs and potential profits, and if the cost to potential profits don't look good, then the feature won't be implemented in the first place.

One way or another, someone's counting those beans, and if on the off chance there isn't someone counting those beans now, there probably will be, just a matter of time - whether boss or employee, someone will, just because it's in their interests to do so.

Banquetto

Don't have any, don't expect to ever have any, voted "don't care".

Dragon_Nexus

As with so many features in the game, I love the concept and hate the execution.

I loved the idea that achieving certain things would reward you with a new look for a character. I strongly dislike the only way to obtain costumes so far has been to spend money. And *large* amounts of money, too.

jamesh

All the costume releases so far seem to have been about maximising short term revenue.  That's fine, but it also makes it seem like the devs don't see this as a long term revenue source.

If you are a new player and believe strongly that Luke Cage should wear shorts or that Thor should not wear a hat, there's no amount of money you can spend to make that happen.  Using "fear of missing out" might have increased the short term revenue for those costumes, but it also means that work is bringing in zero new revenue.

Of course, without knowing the game's finances and future it is hard to tell how the current high price/limited time strategy would compare with a low price/long tail strategy.

Coubii

They are a nice addition. That alliance event using red goblin and superior octavius costumes was nice.

But they are way too expensive for a cosmetic design.

TPF Alexis

I like them enough that I broke my FTP streak. Shelled out for Khan, and got VIP for Fempool. Probably going to keep it for Superior Doc Ock. But there is no way I'm ever dropping US$75 in one go on a mobile game.

0_efx_0

“I’d buy that for a dollar!”

wingX

I think it will be interesting if they set up an event, with very difficult/challenging nodes that are hard to beat that award costume thus for those want the costume, they can have the option to purchase ISO,HP, etc to upgrade their characters to win the challenge which in turn get the costume.

DAZ0273

I have nothing against costumes but possibly it is my console playing background that makes me grounded in thinking that these sort of things are meant as cosmetic additions that are just a bit of fun, rather than what amounts to a very major purchase.

I also understand that "if you balk at the price this isn't aimed at you" viewpoint but quite frankly that doesn't really make a great deal of sense to me as this is exactly the sort of small micro throwaway purchases that I would have thought would be perfect for Marvel Puzzle Quest to exploit the vast Marvel library and multiple character looks.

AardvarkPepper

1)  The costumes don't cost $75 or however much.  You buy an expensive package, you don't get some stuff you may otherwise have gotten, but get the costume instead.  The exact opportunity cost I haven't figured, but it isn't *that* much, I think?

Granted you have to spend however much to access the costume (and that's a real thing), but it's not really $75 for a costume and nothing else.

2)  A lot of posters keep saying costumes are priced high, or they are priced low, implying it must be all one or all the other.  I mean come on folks.  This is the video game industry; pricing can be altered with digital distribution.  I anticipate costumes will be available in high price packages at first, but *then particular costume prices will drop a few months to a year after release*, the change in price allowing MPQ to capture more area under the supply/demand curve.

Straycat

AardvarkPepper said:

Straycat said:

@broll @AardvarkPepper

I don't know how their finances work, but I don't think they priced costumes on cost and markup.

It wasn't my intent to imply they did.  Contextually, I hypothesized costume costs to establish a base cost that needed to be recouped, and stated DOTA and Fortnite playerbases are different to MPQ's database so different monetization schemes might be considered "reasonable."  Price point was established to maximize profits; I think we'd agree?

Straycat said:

I don't think they itemize costs like that either.

Believe me, they do.

Oh, I know.  It's a really silly assumption to believe people or groups act "intelligently"; in the real world things really don't work that way much of the time.

You're saying cost and markup. Base cost to be recouped, each aspect of the design is itemized and priced to maximize profit. I don't think it works like that. It doesn't cost them $30 everytime to make the $75 costume bundle, package it, and ship it. Its not like if they gave everyone a costume for free that they'd be losing money.

What are the base costs? As I said, everything costs money, not everything makes money, and not everything gets made. Does the coder get more money for coding costumes than for getting the daily data drop done? Does the designer get no salary for the time spent on the "send away characters" feature that was hinted at but never made? 

I also don't really think its priced for profit. I kinda think they'd get more money by selling a 75 cent costume. But would people want a cheap trophy or an expensive one? I think its priced that high to inflate its value more than just to make back dev costs. Like maybe they were told to have more high price items aimed at people with nothing else to do with their roster, then worked backwards from there.

DAZ0273

AardvarkPepper said:

2)  A lot of posters keep saying costumes are priced high, or they are priced low, implying it must be all one or all the other.  I mean come on folks.  This is the video game industry; pricing can be altered with digital distribution.  I anticipate costumes will be available in high price packages at first, but *then particular costume prices will drop a few months to a year after release*, the change in price allowing MPQ to capture more area under the supply/demand curve.

I don't really recall MPQ operating a discounting policy on their digital goods. Roster slot sale I guess? I've never seen a "half price 5* CP cost sale" for instance in all these years. I've never seen a bundle offered (let alone at a reduced cost) a second time after it was initially offered either. Costumes appear to be part of MPQ's ongoing pressurised sales tactics that operate on a "get in now or never" basis.

AardvarkPepper

DAZ0273 said:

I don't really recall MPQ operating a discounting policy on their digital goods. Roster slot sale I guess? I've never seen a "half price 5* CP cost sale" for instance in all these years. I've never seen a bundle offered (let alone at a reduced cost) a second time after it was initially offered either. Costumes appear to be part of MPQ's ongoing pressurised sales tactics that operate on a "get in now or never" basis.

Discounting of the sort I described - I'd agree, we don't see in MPQ right now.

But my thought is, costumes are a cosmetic option, and that means the monetization plan *may* be different.

Let's say in five years (if we're all still here of course) MPQ can choose to discount something.  Will it discount HP?  Iso?  Costs for token packs?  These are the fundamentals of ongoing monetization.  So discounts there, perhaps not.

But let's say - and this is purely speculative - that at that point five years in the future, 20 costumes have been released a year, and the first two years of releases haven't sold well for the past three years.

At that point, what do you do?  They're not selling much at the current price point.  So at that point, does dropping the price to try to get more sales (though at reduced amounts) make sense?  I think it does.

That's not to say discounting is necessarily a good idea.  Maybe players that would buy a costume normally would instead not buy if they thought there would be a sale sometime down the line (and when that sale came around maybe they'd decide they didn't want to make a purchase after all).  So discounting over time can negatively impact profits as well.  It all depends on the metrics.

Straycat said:

Its not like if they gave everyone a costume for free that they'd be losing money.

I also don't really think its priced for profit. I kinda think they'd get more money by selling a 75 cent costume

I think we agree on the ways different companies may function, but perhaps disagree on how we may think MPQ particularly operates - and I think this resolution will not be resolved without reference to metrics, which I for one don't have.

Basically my argument is - although I don't care for costumes, I haven't seen anything with them so far that I consider a downright bad idea or inexplicable.  It can all be explained depending on sales metrics, risk preference, projections, cost savings, and implementing costumes on a "trial" basis to see what may make the most profits overall.

That is . . . even if I don't like it, I more or less trust MPQ developers know what they're doing.

But hey, I wouldn't have predicted Telltale games shutting down either.  So what do I know, really?

Dogface

We can speculate as much as we want, but unless they decide to sell a costume without the additional HP/tokens we're not gonna find out how wanted costumes are.

NightmarePL

I think costumes are nice . But it's only a visual change in a game . Better idea would be implement some boost what costume can do I dunno faster health regen or plus damage to certain colour . Then maybe they would be more appreciation in community 

jym010

Borstock said:

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

Not Rogue....Hubba Hubba!