Business vs Play -- what is more important to D3? New revenue or game quality? (long, boring)
Yepyep
Posts: 749 Critical Contributor
As a preface: first, I want to say that I am no mayor of this board and sure am not trying to act like one. I just want to bring several conceptual threads together that seem thematically related to me. Second, I'm a little buzzed (and defintely out of my depth), so your help, correction, etc. is necessary and welcome. I'm trying to open a conversation... So:
There is much discussion on the board about, to grossly simplify, the evolution of MPQ and D3's priorities for that. Issues include
1. Supports. Monster controversy here...
2. The rapidity of the expansion of the character base, and consequent dilution of existing characters. (i) Our current characters only lose by virtue of inflation; the sacrifice and cost we have struggled to meet, often to meet a particular event demand, is promptly devalued by event demands for new characters. (ii) New powers are only worth chasing if they can beat older powers. This cycle can be fun but is inherently power-inflationary. Can we ever really rest and enjoy deploying our team?
--Put another way: is this character churn actually fun?
3. Failure to rebalance flawed characters and events. Despite consistent, pervasive requests to address abiding issues.
4. Failure ever, so far, to address legacy bugs; that are consequently always accreting over time meaning:
5. New bugs, incedental to new features, becoming seemingly permanent.
6. Lack of comunication between business drivers and customers (i.e. players).
7. The gross contempt exhibited by owners for the real-money investment of players in the value of the game as property (investment in property that only benfits the owners, like all investment in property, regardless of the source of the investment).
This list can grow. The above is a riff...
~~~~~~~
This post comes from something I posted on another thread concerning how most new things we -- the "normal" player base -- get that is new, now, seems to be support characters. Or tinykitty Supports with no avenue to the good stuff. Thinking about that, I wrote this:
I have no problem with a well-implemented support character, personally.
My real worry is: plenty of supports (and Supports) require tweaks post-release. Forward-facing business goals are easier to justify, because new revenue is usually the primary drive behind the origination process of a new feature. Reparative and maintenance goals are harder to justify, because new revenue is usually not part of the goal origination, or any subsequent, process.
So:
1. Are there (still) teams in place authorized to (a) gather and courrier player feedback identifying a need and (b) shepherd a buff/nerf up into the necessary upstream (managemen-relatedt) AND back down into the downstream (player population-related) processes?
2. Within current management, are there business processes capable of (a) pricing the identified changes, (b) triggering required authorization, and (c) locating resources to (i) plan and (ii) execute all related technical demands?
Lately we have seen only new stuff. Not fixes and rebalancings. Stagnation and desperate grabbing, MORE features, MORE characters. MORE, not better.
Not making a better game, making a flashier game.
~~~~~~~
Thoughts on any of the above? Please do call tinykitty on any of it (but please explain, too). For sure, I enjoyed a nice glass of rum and juice while writing it... ;-)
There is much discussion on the board about, to grossly simplify, the evolution of MPQ and D3's priorities for that. Issues include
1. Supports. Monster controversy here...
2. The rapidity of the expansion of the character base, and consequent dilution of existing characters. (i) Our current characters only lose by virtue of inflation; the sacrifice and cost we have struggled to meet, often to meet a particular event demand, is promptly devalued by event demands for new characters. (ii) New powers are only worth chasing if they can beat older powers. This cycle can be fun but is inherently power-inflationary. Can we ever really rest and enjoy deploying our team?
--Put another way: is this character churn actually fun?
3. Failure to rebalance flawed characters and events. Despite consistent, pervasive requests to address abiding issues.
4. Failure ever, so far, to address legacy bugs; that are consequently always accreting over time meaning:
5. New bugs, incedental to new features, becoming seemingly permanent.
6. Lack of comunication between business drivers and customers (i.e. players).
7. The gross contempt exhibited by owners for the real-money investment of players in the value of the game as property (investment in property that only benfits the owners, like all investment in property, regardless of the source of the investment).
This list can grow. The above is a riff...
~~~~~~~
This post comes from something I posted on another thread concerning how most new things we -- the "normal" player base -- get that is new, now, seems to be support characters. Or tinykitty Supports with no avenue to the good stuff. Thinking about that, I wrote this:
I have no problem with a well-implemented support character, personally.
My real worry is: plenty of supports (and Supports) require tweaks post-release. Forward-facing business goals are easier to justify, because new revenue is usually the primary drive behind the origination process of a new feature. Reparative and maintenance goals are harder to justify, because new revenue is usually not part of the goal origination, or any subsequent, process.
So:
1. Are there (still) teams in place authorized to (a) gather and courrier player feedback identifying a need and (b) shepherd a buff/nerf up into the necessary upstream (managemen-relatedt) AND back down into the downstream (player population-related) processes?
2. Within current management, are there business processes capable of (a) pricing the identified changes, (b) triggering required authorization, and (c) locating resources to (i) plan and (ii) execute all related technical demands?
Lately we have seen only new stuff. Not fixes and rebalancings. Stagnation and desperate grabbing, MORE features, MORE characters. MORE, not better.
Not making a better game, making a flashier game.
~~~~~~~
Thoughts on any of the above? Please do call tinykitty on any of it (but please explain, too). For sure, I enjoyed a nice glass of rum and juice while writing it... ;-)
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Comments
In latest 12 right now, I see 5 Support characters of varying quality, (Nico, Kraven, Lockjaw, Jubilee, and Valkyrie), 5 offensive characters of varying quality (America, Rogue, MEHulk, Nightcrawler, Yondu), and a couple that I don't have enough experience with, but seem to form a good pair (Panther and Shuri). There are at least a couple of very good options in both the support and offense categories, but also at least a couple of mediocre to bad ones. Seems like a fairly reasonable spread to me.
Since all players have different ways of looking at things, naturally, clashes in ideas happen, whether they are clashes with the developers' ideas, or even among the players' themselves. If you observe the responses in each update, there will always be negative, positive and maybe neutral feedbacks from players because each player expects the updates to be beneficial to him/her. Because it is impossible to satisfy every single player's desire in any instance, prioritising is necessary.
We've no idea how the developers prioritise tasks. Common sense tells us that businesses prioritise tasks based on difficulty and urgency. These two factors are further influenced by many more factors such as authority, number of people affected, knowledge etc. It would be reasonable to say that certain tasks or features or changes are made or prioritised based on the number of players who benefit from the change or those who requested for the change. In other words, the majority wins. Some of you might think that it is unfair but this is the way of life and how reality usually works. No company in this world can make a decision that satisfy every single customer. End of the day, there will always be at least one group of customers left dissatisfied. In MPQ, we have topics like win-based vs point based PvP and tapping vs non-tapping that prove that players disagree with one another.
There are some posters' names that stick in my mind because their replies are always negative and they will post snide remarks targeted at the developers whenever they have the opportunity. It seems to me that they have a lot of hatred and vengeance towards this game or the developers, yet, they continue to play MPQ.
As far as communication is concerned, they have different channels such as email, in-game feedbacks, websites, forums, interviews, youtube, facebook, twitter for players to communicate with them. They deploy more communication channels that other big corporations usually deploys. I guess this is not enough because I suppose, based on the replies in this forum, communication means getting the developers to answer Q&As from the players in this forum and revealing all plans and full details weeks in advance. Any incomplete details will ruffle their feathers. The last FAQ went downhill because some players were not happy/unsatisfied/<insert whatever negative emotions> with Will's answer(s).
Come to think of it, if they are generating more than 100 million revenues in 4 years, I think they are doing something right, unless you think that generating 100 million revenue for a match-3 game is below average.
Lastly, it's not that they don't listen to feedbacks, they do. They are probably facing some kind of limitations like manpower, methodology implemented by higher management and even from players' feedbacks etc.
Nothing will ever be truly balanced, but if pretty much everyone relies on a few characters, you got to figure it cuts into their revenue stream. Why would the average 4* or 5* who aren't collectors care about new releases if it doesn't compete with what they already have? What's the incentive to spend money champing other characters when one team or character does it so much better, that it becomes almost a requirement to compete?
In all likely hood, mpq is a niche market game with a limited appeal intellectual property. However, that intersection of niche game (match-3) with comic book aficionados guarantees a passionate fan base with a demonstrated history (in both similar licensed games, and in tangentially related spheres) of both spending and advocating for their view points.
So for that audience, the typical mindset already that of a collector. And once you make that leap, you pretty much have to abandon common sense economics and apply "collector" psychology.
Until they get bored or see that their value that they have invested into the game doesn’t matter anymore. Then all bets are off.
In the Realm of discretionary spending on electornic "fun" mobile gaming probably lags behind console and pc gaming. And in reality, electronic gaming overall, is probably a minor subset of the money spent on movies, television etc...
It all depends on how accurately you think you can describe the actual playerbase.
What you define as "casual" is actually pretty well informed compared to the avg person who plays candy crush.
1. I'm pretty sure even the noobiest mpq player knows the distinction between Avengers, Mutants, and Spider verse.
2. I'm also pretty sure they a more than passing interest in mcu.
Those two statements aren't necessarily true about the avg candy crush player.
You might think the avg mpq player is noob tier compared to the guys who can discuss the various iterations of GTOG, but really they are already way more nerdy and collector predisposed than the avg candy crusher.
Is gaming a niche market compared to other forms of entertainment? Yes. But I was considering "niche" to be localized to niche within its own medium: mobile gaming. Within mobile gaming, match 3s have been popular for a very long time, perhaps since the beginning of the mobile games boom.
What I describe to be the actual playerbase are people who have downloaded the game and played past the tutorial. I'm not comparing the playerbase of Candy Crush to that of MPQ. Those are a different audience. I only made the comparison to Candy Crush to illustrate that Match-3s are quite popular and not very niche.
The noobiest mpq player definitely has not read the comics, but likely has seen either the movies or a TV show. Those interested in comic books are a true niche. I'm not sold that these noobiest players have more than a passing interest in the MCU. It's very likely that some of them saw just the latest Avengers film and decided to play based on that.
and yes the future of the game depends on how well the devs can read and understand their audience.
I personally believe that that there are plenty of gaming alternatives. So most people don't download mpq unless they have more than a passing interest in the inteleectual property.
"Today, Newzoo released the latest quarterly update of its Global Games Market Report. It shows that 2.2 billion gamers across the globe are expected to generate $108.9 billion in game revenues in 2017. This represents an increase of $7.8 billion, or 7.8%, from the year before. Digital game revenues will account for $94.4 billion or 87% of the global market. Mobile is the most lucrative segment, with smartphone and tablet gaming growing 19% year over year to $46.1 billion, claiming 42% of the market. In 2020, mobile gaming will represent just more than half of the total games market. The PC and console game markets will generate $29.4 billion and $33.5 billion in 2017, respectively."
https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/the-global-games-market-will-reach-108-9-billion-in-2017-with-mobile-taking-42/
1. Newzoo is a mobile focused industry gaming group. So I'm not surprised they tout their stats in that fashion.
2. I will accept the basic premise and scale of the numbers cited. I.e. that mobile gaming represents around 46B.
That said consider the alternatives and how the gaming industry is classified.
Overall, analogs to gaming would be things like, books, music, Television, Film. I.E. if you weren't playing a "game", you would most like be, reading a book, listening to radio, watching tv.
So lets consider 50B (World Wide) in the context of Book, Music, Film, Television revenues
Publishing - 115B
Music - 50B
Film Box office revenue - 40B
Netflix/cable/redbox/video/digital - 50B
Overall TV revenue - 105B
In that context, to call 50B out of 400B niche would be overblown, but mobile gaming is a minor revenue sector compared to other entertainment/media replacement activities.
So yes I still consider mobile gaming sector (including Candy crush and clash of clans) to be a minor revenue sector.
Lastly, I'll make the concession that if you add in the candy crushers and clash of planners, they probably out number the Call of duty and fortnite consolers. but lets really look at what constitutes "mobile gaming" and our place in that segment.
Broadly mobile gaming gets down to the following categories
Brain puzzle include word based puzzle games like words with friends, scrabbleetc..
So in that "mobile gaming" space. match 3 is probably only 20% of even mobile gaming.
So yes while "niche" might be overblown, Lets keep the numbers in perspective, Mobile gaming is a minor revenue segment when compared to the universe of entertainment substitutes, and within that mobile gaming segment, match 3 represents 1/5 of the industry. More than niche, but probably still a minor segment.
Bejeweled is a work of sheer genius. Lots of hard work by lots of people -- design, programming, marketing, all of it. But in the aggregate, a work of sheer genius.
I think you are dead-on about this. I haven't looked at the revenue numbers to be sure, but I think we can just say the words "App Store" to pretty substantially prove your point...
Edited to say: oops, @acescracked, just saw your post. Exactly.
BINGO. This is precisely the issue, thanks for articulating it well. The "problem" is not too many support characters, it is in the paucity of strong leads.
That said, I'm not completely sure the issue is poor implementation (though it might be that) -- it might be planned fluff, and I was trying to get to that idea in my post: specifically, 4* characters that have limited use except under really specific conditions. Meaning events tailored to certain characters to make them seem worthwhile and desirable (Chase them! They're new and also your favorite Marvel character from childhood!) but that have little general utility. Like creating a beautiful new gas mask that nobody needs -- until the only way to survive the next challenge is by wearing that gas mask...
My closet is filling up with gas masks. That is character inflation. But it might be an inherent characteristic of the game. It might be that the CHASE is the protein in the game, and the matching/strategizing is the starchy staple.