I AM WORRIED ABOUT MPQ! (Discussion thread)

9RMetal

So with all of the bugs that the game has been happening lately, I have been worried about the game in a few different things:

1. Are they understaff? Should we be worry about all of the sudden the game cease to exist?
2. It worries me how much the game has not evolved this past year, and with the removal of the introducting, and not putting new PVE events, it's starting to become a chore.
3. It's been a long time since we haven't got new supports, I do use them a lot, so having new ones would make me love the game more.
4. There are more 4 and 5* now that it needs another shuffle to the feeders to at least make more sense or been on the same theme, like a Runway (Gertrude) feeds Ultron, come on!
5. PVE events need to add more timeslots, this one is pretty self-explanatory.

All of these worries makes me nervous for a game that going into my 3rd year put so much effort, time and money still love to this date, so what are you thoughts on the current situation?

Borstock

I think they just gave up on supports.

They are still consistently releasing new characters.

Changes to PvE have always been few and far between.

I don't see any reason to worry at this specific moment in time beyond reasons that have existed for a while (ex. It's an old game, etc...).

HoundofShadow

I'm be on my way to fifth year this year.

1a) Demiurge Studio was acquired by a (listed) company last year and they planned to increase staffs by a few hundred over the next few years.

The studio is profitable and has an exciting pipeline to accelerate growth and grow the team past 350+ employees during the next five years.

https://embracer.com/release/embracer-group-enters-into-agreement-to-acquire-demiurge-studios/

I remember someone started a thread about the acquistion and the developer actually posted and said they plan to continue MPQ for a few (?) more years. Some other F2P Marvel games can't even smell 2 years, like Marvel Battle Lines

1b) I think the game generating the large portion of D3Go's revenue is probably MPQ, based on what I can guess from their list of games. So, if MPQ shuts down, MtG would probably be their next money maker. But, all these are guesswork. The "lack of staff" probably comes from D3GO's end but again it's guesswork. 

2) As for evolving, the past 1 year, there might not be much. Those years before 2022/2021 see a lot of major changes to the game. From 2021-2022, I think we had a couple new non-timed events this year, a few rebalances since October last year and more 4* and 5* pvps. We also had boosted 5* which begun last year, which was big change for some. I might have missed out a few more.

3) Supports are broken. As long as they don't fix them, I don't expect much changes. However, in one of the threads in reddits recently, someone posted a reply from the dev about supports. It says that getting and upgrading supports are on their considerations.

4) The release has been consistent for years: 1 release every two weeks. As a matter of fact, there are fewer 4* releases and more 5* releases compared to the last schedule.  Letting all 5* have feeders make sense to players who want to roster all characters. It doesn't make sense for business if players can access all these resources easily, and by that, playing for full progression. Think about this, if your customers can get what they want easily for "free", why would they even want to spend? Throwing $2 or $10 a month where only 2-3% of playerbase spend money isn't sustainable. 

5) if you are playing for full progression, you can play in any timeslot. You aren't restricted by the selections. I think the best solution is to rotate the timeslot every 6 months. The current +7hr timeslot makes some other players happy, while some of the current ones not pleased.

To end, this game will be 9 years old this year, which is a big accomplishment. Even if this game close down this or next year, I think it's a really good run. The next big logical change to the game will be to add a 6*, which Marvel Contest of Champions already has done. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I would be shocked to find out this game has more than a skeleton crew fulltime attached to it. They said they were planning to do for-hire co-development back when all that went down, and there is a TON of that work floating around right now, but there is just as much blood in the water in the industry for talent, so if they are able to hire up anything close to what they were projecting, my hat is off to them. Places like Microsoft and Roblox are paying 300% of what "normal" pre-pandemic junior engineer salaries should be, and we've seen senior engineers leave for 2-400% offers from people like that too around my (totally unafiliated and unrelated) studio. If you're a small independent, you aren't competing with that. It's completely unsustainable for the industry, but it's the lay of the land right now. So I expect that any big paying project they're working on is highly likely to have the A-Team on it, and MPQ, a very mature game that doesn't (or shouldn't, at least) need a ton of new stuff done all the time, can almost surely be run by a technical designer and an artist in a pinch. I do not know it's being run that way, but I'm just saying you COULD run a game like this with a team that small on it full time.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

it’s a game , wouldn’t ever make my top 100 list of worries . 

bbigler

It takes more people than you think to run any kind of business.  People have talked about the game shutting down since the beginning and it’s still here.  Don’t worry, it’s fine.  If it makes money, they will continue.  

Omegased

it is a little concerned with the number of events that have been released late, or incorrectly suggests to me that they broke something in the backend and can't figure out how to fix it.

Or - they know it's borked, and don't have the resources to fix it. either way, it's not the most ideal situation.

wishful thinking I know - but I would love a post saying "hey, stuffs been bonkers recently - and update borked something which we didn't anticipate - it's fixed now so we shouldn't see anything in the future. oh and because Omegased asked, we're adding X-Man (Nate summers) and Banshee"

Bzhai

If they stopped releasing 2 new characters every month they would be able to free up resources to work on half the things on your list. 

But they're unwilling to do that either because it brings in money or they're just complecent and let things run on auto pilot. Without any insider knowledge or official communication we can only speculate but my feeling is there's a bit of truth from both and management issues as well. 

acescracked

Darn...MPQ is dead.  It was a great 8 year run.

Bad

HoundofShadow said:

I remember someone started a thread about the acquistion and the developer actually posted and said they plan to continue MPQ for a few (?) more years. Some other F2P Marvel games can't even smell 2 years, like Marvel Battle Lines

Well, then you have to begin taking pills for memory because the one who started that thread actually was you.
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/85525/saber-interactive-inc-acquires-demiurge-studio
As you can see, there is no dev saying something so stupid/suicide like that. 
If you kindly provide the link/screenshot of that weird fact, I would take it into consideration and I won't discard it as a fake rumour.
About the issues, there is clearly a problem. They will fix it eventually, it will take some time. 
Historically they detect the issue and then they take their good time fixing it (any of you remember the new UI/ diming screen/speed hack episode?).
This game has no rivals in what concerns, matching gems game and Marvel heroes, the day when Marvel starts screwing things off is the day when we need to start concerning.
Like not releasing a so awesome show like Moon Knight. 

bbigler

Bzhai said:

If they stopped releasing 2 new characters every month they would be able to free up resources to work on half the things on your list. 

But they're unwilling to do that either because it brings in money or they're just complecent and let things run on auto pilot. Without any insider knowledge or official communication we can only speculate but my feeling is there's a bit of truth from both and management issues as well. 

They release new characters because it drives engagement and keeps the money coming in.  From their surveys, they are clearly devoted to keeping the game alive.  Mistakes happen and it’s possible this was coincidental having many mistakes close together.  

ThaRoadWarrior

bbigler said:

It takes more people than you think to run any kind of business.  People have talked about the game shutting down since the beginning and it’s still here.  Don’t worry, it’s fine.  If it makes money, they will continue.  

I'm not talking about running a business, i'm talking about the Live Ops team that it would actually take to keep this specific game, at this point in it's lifecycle, running. I've seen it done, and I've hired people who've done it to my studio. My point is that the "business" is almost certainly focused on other co-dev opportunities. which is fine and good, and as long as this game is making more than it costs there is really no reason to shut it down. 

dianetics

I’m not concerned now. But I probably will be in a year.

Releases are steady. You should worry when new releases slow and the store pumps out new deals daily.

The selling of supports is a bit worrying, but I always thought it would eventually happen.

Tony_Foot

So you're saying I can go back to minion rush?

bbigler

I would only worry if the player base shrinks and you start seeing “going out of business” sales.  

dianetics

It is difficult to measure the player base.
The best keys are looking at how many flips there are, but not everyone checks them.
Also being that there are 10 levels and 5 slices it is hard to gauge the real player base. Also, not everyone plays daily.
Obviously D3GO knows it, but the players can only guess based on obtuse factors.

Chirus

bbigler said:

I would only worry if the player base shrinks and you start seeing “going out of business” sales.  

I don't think it would be worded quite that way, but when the sales get suspiciously frequent and highly generous, then maybe you have a reason for concern. Seeing the player base shrink in this game is harder to gauge than in others since no part of this game is played live with other players, so there are no long matchmaking times to give off a red flag. That said, players who play competitively will be the first to notice this since they often wait for the flip to join.

Tony_Foot

It’s hard to gauge but my placement in the season for pvp has rocketed the last 3 months despite playing low end 500 and out for a long long while now. That used to get me 1000 to 1100 season in season out. Last couple of months I’ve been under 700. This season I’m in the 250 to 300.

bbigler

Right, if you see the competition disappearing combined with unusually generous deals, I would be worried.  But regular updates and changes in the game are expected 

Bad

Also there are another factors in game.
Pves really hard making people joining another level, hard battles on pvp because there are annoying characters buffed, not really people competing because the 5* shards are for a not wanted character.
External factors could be holidays, or exams for high school students.
Also MMR on pvp offers an artificial view of people playing.

dokiy

Not worried at all. This is one of the least buggy, non-intrusive match 3 games I've played. You want a Marvel property that's a dumpster fire of bugs and pop-ups? Play Marvel Strike Force. That will make you appreciate how well MPQ is doing.