How long does MPQ have left?

@Phumade said:
https://digitalbros.com/investor-relation/documents-and-results/financial-documents/

Thats the official parent company, and they do discuss the marvel puzzle quest segments. Long story short, revenues and expenses are largely down and I suspect they are reorganizing the game economy to match how their other IPs monetize.

Its clear, they are right sizing in anticipation of a new push, whether they can retain their own playerbase or attract enough new players remains to be seen. but its all laid out in publically accessible reports

Revenues from the Free-to-Play operating segment declined by 21% compared to the first quarter of the previous
fiscal year. The Group will relaunch the video games in the portfolio starting from the second half of the fiscal
year, especially in some specific markets that are currently generating only marginal revenue.

page 19 of the recent financial report

more indepth discussion with revenue and expense charts page 25
https://digitalbros-com.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Digital-Bros-Interim-Report-as-of-September-30th-2024_cr.pdf

Thanks for the actual data/sources! Now that it’s here (and I guess this is just one of a few mentioned) I’m curious people’s takes.

I think ascension really messed up the game economy. I think it was a great idea in theory to make any character you love a chase, but the implementation was really borked and not well thought out. That to me felt like the beginning of the tailspin, as every move after has felt like an attempt to recalibrate after the fact. Cover costs, swap costs, season vaults, chroma costumes, borked characters, angering a large revenue source, shifting timelines… man I hope they figure out how to right the ship

I don't think it's about ascension. I believe they ruined the game when they added supports to PvP that clearly weren't designed for PvP. The Nam'Baku team, for example, isn't really a problem until you give them free AP, free extra moves, and they go away or airborne every time you try to do anything.

Even the broken as all get out Sidewinder wouldn't be too bad if you could hit him before ChasmCopter makes fifty-two matches while your phone screen times out, downing your entire team before you even get a turn.

The 1* characters like Jugg and Spidey would also be much less of a menace if they didn't get 12 free purple AP and then insane amounts of free AP and match dmg as the Car or Copter hands the AI the match.

OK, here are two screenshots of my spreadsheet. This is based on Sensor Tower data you can access for free. I included some before August 2023, when I was not recording it as consistently but you can compare to what it was like. I put in a green line there between the earlier numbers. I did not always record both stores (don't ask me why, lol. maybe I just forgot or got bored halfway through. But also, took me a while to figure out the exact search term to use to get what I wanted from google.)

On Sensor Tower, you can view the immediately prior month's info for any app as a teaser, I assume, to get people to pay for premium. So this is all public info I recorded. I assume (?) if you pay you would get more granular numbers.

So it's entirely possible these are off by like 100K either way between the two stores, as all the numbers are rounded to the nearest 100K. I don't bother to track steam which is like maybe 1000 players vs 44K or so on mobile, or has been.

If this gets modded away, that's fair.

@DAZ0273 said:
The 1* characters wouldn't be an issue if they weren't ascended. Likewise Iron May, M'Baku, 3* Namor, etc.

Ascension is good for 95 percent of the roster. Before ascension, I sold max champs because I had no use for them. Even in pick-2, most didn't move the needle in 5* land. I like ascension because more of them are usable and we get more rewards.

Supports are evil in PvP. They are more valuable than bringing AP. They are more valuable than team-ups, because they can fire game changing powers more than once. And they force you to use specific characters or you straight up lose, even with what would otherwise be a viable counter pick.

MPQ isn't pay to win enough (or really, at all, anymore). You should be able to spend money to be competitive.

Supports are important in PvP now. Why aren't they selling a 3* Leapfrog every other week? If I need Golden Oldie to compete in PvE, why can't I just buy her?

They're leaving massive amounts of money on the table, and why? Because they don't want to upset veterans who don't spend anyway and think it would be unfair? If they go you lose nothing. Sell us stuff!

@Phumade said:

@bluewolf said:
I would note the following. Nothing is a prediction.

2. The most recent financial docs from the ownership are from last year and things can change during the year.

Lastly I assume most live service games that shut down do so during mid-stream; they do not (or may not) have a sunset plan extending for months and rapidly changing conditions probably interrupt long term planning.

The main thing to add is that we are nearing the 1/2 point of the financial year. So we should see the engine next 30-60 days according to their shareholde guidance.

Historically, d3 winds down live service by accelerating the distribution of end game content. We saw this with Adventure time Puzzle quest. where it eventually ends up with a rotation of a few well established pve events and maybe LRs till the lights turn off?

With MPQ this is super easy. If we ever stop getting new characters, it's over.

@LavaManLee said:

@bluewolf said:
OK, here are two screenshots of my spreadsheet. This is based on Sensor Tower data you can access for free. I included some before August 2023, when I was not recording it as consistently but you can compare to what it was like. I put in a green line there between the earlier numbers. I did not always record both stores (don't ask me why, lol. maybe I just forgot or got bored halfway through. But also, took me a while to figure out the exact search term to use to get what I wanted from google.)

On Sensor Tower, you can view the immediately prior month's info for any app as a teaser, I assume, to get people to pay for premium. So this is all public info I recorded. I assume (?) if you pay you would get more granular numbers.

So it's entirely possible these are off by like 100K either way between the two stores, as all the numbers are rounded to the nearest 100K. I don't bother to track steam which is like maybe 1000 players vs 44K or so on mobile, or has been.

If this gets modded away, that's fair.

First, thanks for sharing. Second, a few quick observations:

• Whatever they did for the Anniversary in October worked. Decent revenue that month.
• Getting rid of using CS for Cover Swaps which got rid of buy clubs has definitely affected their revenue. Imagine it gets worse. Buy clubs helped with bad 5*s as people on the train just kept rolling along. Nobody spent money on Gorgon (for the most part).
• Agree with entrail on some previous comments. Why aren't they selling more things? Whether supports or Aunt May or whatever. They have a very odd business model.

Look at what's in the offers right now. Blade and Mr Fantastic, Misty and Gargantos, Okoye, Talon Fighter, Arcade. Who is spending money on that stuff? Okoye is obsolete and the rest of it is pointless.

Imagine they were selling a 450 4->5* Juggernaut, or a 370 Sidewinder, or a 550 Golden Oldie, or a 5* Thanos Copter?

Or better yet -- start selling new "meta" level stuff that literally cannot be earned in game!

@LavaManLee said:

@bluewolf said:
OK, here are two screenshots of my spreadsheet. This is based on Sensor Tower data you can access for free. I included some before August 2023, when I was not recording it as consistently but you can compare to what it was like. I put in a green line there between the earlier numbers. I did not always record both stores (don't ask me why, lol. maybe I just forgot or got bored halfway through. But also, took me a while to figure out the exact search term to use to get what I wanted from google.)

On Sensor Tower, you can view the immediately prior month's info for any app as a teaser, I assume, to get people to pay for premium. So this is all public info I recorded. I assume (?) if you pay you would get more granular numbers.

So it's entirely possible these are off by like 100K either way between the two stores, as all the numbers are rounded to the nearest 100K. I don't bother to track steam which is like maybe 1000 players vs 44K or so on mobile, or has been.

If this gets modded away, that's fair.

First, thanks for sharing. Second, a few quick observations:

• Whatever they did for the Anniversary in October worked. Decent revenue that month.
• Getting rid of using CS for Cover Swaps which got rid of buy clubs has definitely affected their revenue. Imagine it gets worse. Buy clubs helped with bad 5*s as people on the train just kept rolling along. Nobody spent money on Gorgon (for the most part).
• Agree with entrail on some previous comments. Why aren't they selling more things? Whether supports or Aunt May or whatever. They have a very odd business model.

Aren’t the buy clubs just a large group of veteran players? The idea that vets don’t spend is ridiculous. Vets spend when they feel there’s stuff worth spending on. I think voting with your wallet and your time is smart as a consumer, because that’s where your power is (that and reviews) and that’s what people have done.

This is not my game. This is not your game. It belongs to the developers. They can decide when the game ends and/or how they choose to run it. Each individual player can decide how they want to invest their time/money. I can only speak to how I feel about the game personally. But the trends are telling me 1) I’m probably not unique in how I feel and 2) the buy club shut down may have had a bigger impact than even I recognized.

I’m all for selling Golden Oldie or Leap or whatever. I don’t understand why that would “piss off” anyone. I’ve never seen someone get up in arms about A sale. If it’s bad people mock it and pass. If it’s good they are the first to buy it lol.

I’m a part of several large online MPQ communities and the large majority have actually been very kind, helpful, and WANT to help others succeed. I know players who are huge spenders with 5* soul stones grinding the community challenge because they wanted to help the have-nots. Those are the communities I frequent. Yes, you get a few of the “other” types, but by and large the community is what keeps many (myself included) engaged as much as they are.

So I agree with entrails idea to sell more stuff. I don’t agree that it would upset the vets (again they are the first to buy a good deal).

It's sort of impossible to do what I'm suggesting right now, because they've utterly ruined the metagame, but let's say they create some new must-have character (how about a 99% passive match-damage reducer who can't be stunned?) and sell him for $100, but don't put him in tokens at all. Or put him in tokens, but as a 1*, and his good abilities don't turn on until 550?

Thats a riot and LoL (league of legends) type monetization. I'm not expressing an opinion on those dollar amounts other than, this is what modern gaming costs. and riot is not the worst offender by a long shot. The really bad mobile game companies (Genshin gaming etc )are much much worse. The old D3 team was an outlier in how they viewed monetization. We should all acknowledge the new overloards (and we might as well call them the Digital Bros) will have their own view on how games should be monetized. How and what that will look like is still to be determined, but we should not delude ourselves that even if the same managers are making the MPQ "economics" decisions, they have new bosses with very different expectations.

@WhiteBomber said:
Damn, DD agreed with EB and it still went south, interesting.

Yeah, you know what? Let's scratch that whole thing.