Week 33. BW , Hela, Knull, Heimdall

Sekilicious

entrailbucket said:

No one is spending thousands of dollars in a sitting anymore, because they figured out that they don't have to.  Getting cover swaps is a huge part of that.


But when players who spend a few bucks here and there, or nothing at all, become dominant, that's a problem.  F2p players love to talk about the community and the health of the game, and those things do have some value.  But in games like this, revenue is the single most important metric.  When f2p players drive spenders out, revenues take a hit, and revenues are the only reason this game still exists.

To these two points.

If no one spends thousands of dollars who are your best customers? Please pick among the options that you think are in the game, not some pie-in-the-sky ideal that you think will miraculously appear if the developers become more stingy with the people that are here, now, playing their game.

You have moved the goalposts on the second point. $600 is more than most have ever spent on any game that isn't World of Warcraft. It isn't 'a few bucks here and there'. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Why would good, uniformly applied customer service cause other players to never start spending?

ThaRoadWarrior

I would say that the use case we are discussing, F2P players who can immediately 550 multiple 5*s, is pretty close to one of those steak restaurant "if you can eat this 5lb steak in one sitting, it's free! deals." The amount of times they have to pay out on it pale in comparison to the people who attempt it I'm sure.

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Why would good, uniformly applied customer service cause other players to never start spending?

Because the high-level f2p players teach new players how to dominate without spending anything, and actively discourage them from spending.

entrailbucket

Sekilicious said:

entrailbucket said:

No one is spending thousands of dollars in a sitting anymore, because they figured out that they don't have to.  Getting cover swaps is a huge part of that.


But when players who spend a few bucks here and there, or nothing at all, become dominant, that's a problem.  F2p players love to talk about the community and the health of the game, and those things do have some value.  But in games like this, revenue is the single most important metric.  When f2p players drive spenders out, revenues take a hit, and revenues are the only reason this game still exists.

To these two points.

If no one spends thousands of dollars who are your best customers? Please pick among the options that you think are in the game, not some pie-in-the-sky ideal that you think will miraculously appear if the developers become more stingy with the people that are here, now, playing their game.

You have moved the goalposts on the second point. $600 is more than most have ever spent on any game that isn't World of Warcraft. It isn't 'a few bucks here and there'. 

If you ran a store, who's your best customer?  Someone who buys something every few weeks or someone who comes in every day to use your bathroom without buying anything?

Bad

entrailbucket said:Because the high-level f2p players teach new players how to dominate without spending anything, and actively discourage them from spending.

But how many years need f2p new players to get a maxed 5* without spending nothing? 
I don't believe that a player owning a maxed 5* hasn't spent anything, and if he actually believes that is just fooling himself. 
Once you give your credit card for anything, be it a vip or a bundle, one cannot remember the amount of money wasted over the years, and being just a ocasional buyer.

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I would say that the use case we are discussing, F2P players who can immediately 550 multiple 5*s, is pretty close to one of those steak restaurant "if you can eat this 5lb steak in one sitting, it's free! deals." The amount of times they have to pay out on it pale in comparison to the people who attempt it I'm sure.

This.  You've absolutely nailed it.

Here's the problem: they used to *sell* a bunch of those 5lb steaks.  Now, someone on the internet has discovered that the restaurant offers this challenge, and has worked out a way to beat the challenge every time. 

People from all over the world discovered that the restaurant's challenge is beatable, and they're travelling from all over the place to take advantage of it.  They're telling all their friends how to do it.  The restaurant used to be full of paying customers and now it's full of steak-challenge eaters.

ThaRoadWarrior

I mean, if the solution is "sit at the table and take one bite a day for 6 years," I don't know how many of us are really, truly doing that.

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I mean, if the solution is "sit at the table and take one bite a day for 6 years," I don't know how many of us are really, truly doing that.

It's a low number of players, and a low percentage of the total number of MPQ players. 

If you look at the top placement tiers in the game, though, it's basically 100%.

HoundofShadow

Hoarding for 550 is a miserable experience. It's about 1.5 years of hoarding for top players and more than that for other players. It will take me about 2 years 4 months to hoard from scratch. With 5* boost, you have 569 5* every day. I believe not a lot of players will do that. 

I heard that roster slotsused to cost 3000 past a certain number of slot, and thanks to whale, they managed to convince the dev to cap it at 2000. So, whales does have some power. However, I can't verify the truth of this hearsay.

Anyway, in any F2P games, both non-whales and whales co-exist together. It's like they complete each other. 

dianetics

I would say a "whale" would be someone who spends more than $300 per year.
That would be a VIP who also buys into monthly promos every other month.

It is double a WoW sub, but you, presumably, also have people who go way beyond that.

How many people realistically spend more than VIP per month on the game? Anybody who is over double the sub should be the entry to whale territory.

Jimsta_rooney

ThaRoadWarrior said:

How playable is a champed Ultron? Mine isn’t there, but I kind of want to run Knulltron because I like the name…

Ultron is brittys best third,one of the most common and popular pairings in mpq.
Can wreck any team

Sekilicious

entrailbucket said:

Sekilicious said:

entrailbucket said:

No one is spending thousands of dollars in a sitting anymore, because they figured out that they don't have to.  Getting cover swaps is a huge part of that.


But when players who spend a few bucks here and there, or nothing at all, become dominant, that's a problem.  F2p players love to talk about the community and the health of the game, and those things do have some value.  But in games like this, revenue is the single most important metric.  When f2p players drive spenders out, revenues take a hit, and revenues are the only reason this game still exists.

To these two points.

If no one spends thousands of dollars who are your best customers? Please pick among the options that you think are in the game, not some pie-in-the-sky ideal that you think will miraculously appear if the developers become more stingy with the people that are here, now, playing their game.

You have moved the goalposts on the second point. $600 is more than most have ever spent on any game that isn't World of Warcraft. It isn't 'a few bucks here and there'. 

If you ran a store, who's your best customer?  Someone who buys something every few weeks or someone who comes in every day to use your bathroom without buying anything?

Since I have already stated what I think and you obviously ignored it my involvement in this discussion is finished. 

entrailbucket

dianetics said:

I would say a "whale" would be someone who spends more than $300 per year.
That would be a VIP who also buys into monthly promos every other month.

It is double a WoW sub, but you, presumably, also have people who go way beyond that.

How many people realistically spend more than VIP per month on the game? Anybody who is over double the sub should be the entry to whale territory.

$300 a year is an objectively insane amount of money to spend on a mobile game.

You have to understand what the top levels of the game used to look like, though.  Before 5*, the biggest whales had spent a few hundred dollars in total.  The community marvelled at their spending.  We thought they were crazy!

After 5* everything changed, and it changed very quickly.  Suddenly the biggest whales were spending massive amounts of money on the game.  There were buyclubs running 24/7 where players lined up to drop $100 (or $200, or $500) at a time.  If you wanted to win, you had to spend to keep up.  These players dominated the game -- if you weren't spending at their level you couldn't achieve the highest placements. 

This is when they adapted their customer service to cater to those folks.  The biggest whales had a direct line to call the developers whenever they felt like it.  High spenders got cover swaps and other benefits.  When I say "high spenders," I'm talking about tens of thousands in lifetime spend.  This sounds crazy to you, but there were a lot of them and they were 100% of top placers.

Now these players are gone -- retired, or they've quit spending.  Why?  Because there's no reason to!  They can win without spending, and spending is no longer required to win.

I don't know if that's good or bad for the game, because I don't have access to their financials and I'd have no idea what to do with them if I did. 

My question was why they're continuing to provide whale-tier customer service to players who aren't whales.

dianetics

Are they providing whale tier customer service? I would say they really aren't.
Tens of thousands in a lifetime doesn't sound crazy to me really knowing other games life Fifa or NBA 2k. It is not out of my price range if I perceive the value.

As to your point there is no real benefit to buy hand over fist with no sure jump in power level.
Even if you buy into the special deals you might get 1 5* cover per month for 30-40 bucks, and you can only buy in once.
This is beneficial for the community at whole though, so I accept and appreciate it.
I'm not a games economist but I imagine getting a wide net of low to mid tier players paying lower amounts consistently may be more profitable, and should be more steady and easier for the devs to manage monthly income than hanging on to a few big spenders who may leave at the tip of a hat.

entrailbucket

dianetics said:

Are they providing whale tier customer service? I would say they really aren't.
Tens of thousands in a lifetime doesn't sound crazy to me really knowing other games life Fifa or NBA 2k. It is not out of my price range if I perceive the value.

As to your point there is no real benefit to buy hand over fist with no sure jump in power level.
Even if you buy into the special deals you might get 1 5* cover per month for 30-40 bucks, and you can only buy in once.
This is beneficial for the community at whole though, so I accept and appreciate it.
I'm not a games economist but I imagine getting a wide net of low to mid tier players paying lower amounts consistently may be more profitable, and should be more steady and easier for the devs to manage monthly income than hanging on to a few big spenders who may leave at the tip of a hat.

The "whale tier" customer service we were talking about is a special, unadvertised service that they provide if you have the 3 latest 5* at 550.  When you have that you can trade their covers in for any other 5* cover of your choice.

Initially, they offered these swaps to players who had any character at 550.  Eventually they discovered that players would spend big once to get a 550, then exchange covers forever without spending any additional cash.

The policy was changed so that cover swapping was only available if you had the current 5* maxed out.  This was done to encourage continuous spending.

dianetics

I'm oblivious to any of this, but I get what you are talking about.
I'm not in the 550 tier so I have no frame of reference, but I don't see a current path of spending that would even take me there. I also don't think I would even want to be there.
Boosting the overall grind is fine for me, but skipping it kind of escapes the point of the game to me.

DAZ0273

entrailbucket said:

dianetics said:

Are they providing whale tier customer service? I would say they really aren't.
Tens of thousands in a lifetime doesn't sound crazy to me really knowing other games life Fifa or NBA 2k. It is not out of my price range if I perceive the value.

As to your point there is no real benefit to buy hand over fist with no sure jump in power level.
Even if you buy into the special deals you might get 1 5* cover per month for 30-40 bucks, and you can only buy in once.
This is beneficial for the community at whole though, so I accept and appreciate it.
I'm not a games economist but I imagine getting a wide net of low to mid tier players paying lower amounts consistently may be more profitable, and should be more steady and easier for the devs to manage monthly income than hanging on to a few big spenders who may leave at the tip of a hat.

The "whale tier" customer service we were talking about is a special, unadvertised service that they provide if you have the 3 latest 5* at 550.  When you have that you can trade their covers in for any other 5* cover of your choice.

Initially, they offered these swaps to players who had any character at 550.  Eventually they discovered that players would spend big once to get a 550, then exchange covers forever without spending any additional cash.

The policy was changed so that cover swapping was only available if you had the current 5* maxed out.  This was done to encourage continuous spending.

Is this still the case though? A lot (a lot!) Of your posts are in "the past" and you clearly have "issues" with certain players presumably through Alliance nonsense. What was the case in 2017 is not necessarily the case now! I don't know but then I don't claim to know - you do so - evidence?

dianetics

Is the 550 swap still a thing? If that is, then it should be evidence enough right?

DAZ0273

dianetics said:

Is the 550 swap still a thing? If that is, then it should be evidence enough right?

Exactly but how many 550 rosters do we have here? Would be good to hear from them