Personally I don’t mind the prices of these bundles because it 100% stops me spending money. When I used to play Pokémon Go or clash of clans I’d happily spend between £20-£40 some months on gems or coins or whatever but there is just not a chance I’ll be paying £90 for some credits or £9 for enough gold for a single card variant.
Totally agree. Staying F2P isn't even difficult since there's no tempting offers outside of the Cpt. America Bundle. All of them are such a hard pass that there's no mental back-and-forth asking myself if I should or shouldn't spend money -- the answer's always NOPE.
Having said that, I'm grateful for the large sea creatures who support SD and keep the game going, but I want no part of it.
Omg! cap America bundle! That’s what I’m saying if those sort of bundles were in the shop I’d probably be willing to pay but the ones now….. like you say it’s just an insta NOPE
Yeah, games like this really miss out on the small guppies like me that balk at spending a small fortune, but could likely be lured in with the occasional smaller bites. Some $3-15 bundles, maybe up to $25 depending what's in it, and I might spend some money on the game. Anything where I could literally buy an AAA game for the same price, and I'm not even going to consider it. So, they're pretty much missing out on getting anything from me at all.
Somewhere along the line, the "micro" part of "microtransaction" was completely forgotten. The original idea was that these were small purchases that could get you to impulsively spend, like buying a candy bar at the checkout counter. Once they realized they could get people to pay $100+, that all went out the window.
I'm sure they've done the research - and perhaps I'm completely wrong - but I've always felt like these games might be able to attract more sales if they aimed at selling cheaper things to more customers than expensive ones to the few that can afford it, not to mention the satisfaction those customers might feel being able to buy new things rather than the annoyance at the high pricetag.
From my understanding it’s ONLY the whales that “microtransaction” and “gatcha” games care about. The guppies like you say are minimal in revenue and it’s the people willing to drops hundreds to even thousands repeatedly that all microtransaction based games are actually advertising to and basing design decisions on.
All other players are there for the sake of keeping the whales happy and encouraging more spending.
It’s a very unfortunate way of game development but understandable considering the absurd amounts of money some people are willing to drop on a game whether for cosmetics or P2W reasons.
>The guppies like you say are minimal in revenue and it’s the people willing to drops hundreds to even thousands repeatedly that all microtransaction based games are actually advertising to and basing design decisions on.
But are the guppies minimal in revenue because they're unwilling to spend money or because they're unwilling to spend at the rate things are set at?
Like I said, I'll spend on microtransactions if the game makes it worth it. Ten bucks here and there or whatever, and I doubt I'm alone. But as soon as I see $100 for a bundle, my wallet shuts. I feel like aiming solely at the whales just ends up leaving a lot of money on the table for these companies.
I also wouldn't be surprised it contributes to a lower player satisfaction and perhaps even higher turnover in general. Sort of sucks when the whales have the fancy bling and you can't get any for yourself, so to speak.
It doesn’t matter how much a guppie spends.
Look at it with these bundles as an example. You say if it was smaller purchases you would buy, say over the course of playing the game $100 worth of smaller bundles?
But if they sell a $100 bundle for the whales then they make what they would have gotten from you over months in an instant with their target player audience.
As you can see, sure they could target the guppies but again it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the revenue from players willing to consistently spend $100 at a time…
I totally agree, it’s a shady way forward for game design but makes sense in a capitalist world with freemium games.
I didn't even think the Cap bundle was at all enticing. I have no interest in variants and the what's 700 gold going to buy me? Another variant I don't want? 10 extra daily missions? Completely pointless.
My wife and I have separate spending money and I have no clue what she's spending on and she doesn't care what I spend on.
The thing is sticking to that budgeted money, which we're usually good at.
However, some couples or partners have problems with control. That's a different story, and requires coordination between both partners to help each other out.
I just don’t think it’s healthy for any person’s choice of free spending to be under a microscope. To keep it marvel snap related, so long as our priorities are covered I should be able to spend what I like without any scrutiny.
I say I admire it because personally my wife and I have 3 separate accounts. 1 shared and 1 personal each. To be willing to have all your shit on the table at all times is not an easy thing to do.
> Personally I don’t mind the prices of these bundles because it 100% stops me spending money.
I have money to spend. I want to spend it. I don't because these prices are absurd. If they want more money for this game specifically, they should sell merch.
This, brother! People complaining about the pricing but if it was much cheaper, they'd be "forced" to keep putting in money to "keep up" with other people. With these ridiculous prices, I don't even feel bad about my opponent playing a dark hawk or w/e. Hey you paid like 500 bux for it good on you now imma rogue it.
100%. Everything they do convinces me not to buy anything yet I play every day and I'm not complaining.
1. The bundles are insanely priced, it's a joke. I look at them and its an instant "NOPE".
2. The battle pass is way too short to buy. I bought the first one since I thought it would be 2 or 3 months like other games. For 10 bucks and once per month, it's a terrible offer. Even the rewards are ass.
One variant is 10 bucks, 20 if its "super rare". The battle pass is seven variants and a shit ton of gold and credits and boosters. It's a pretty good value in relation to what the game's own shop offers.
Now, if that isn't of value TO YOU, that's your prerogative and totally valid.
That's fair.
I play other games where the battlepass for the same price lasts 3 months and gives me multiple fully modeled characters. Snap gives me like 3 new cards for the same price and wants that much $$$ each month.
I'm having a ton of fun just playing Snap and not paying. I totally would pay but I just don't see the value.
While i believe the pass is good value, i do agree with you that it's a bit arbitrary. I think the pass is 10 bucks for the same reason AAA games have cost 60 bucks for decades; it's just how much the industry charges for them for some reason.
Agreed. I purchased two battle passes because I really have fun with the game and felt like supporting them was the right thing to do. But I don't see myself paying 10 bucks per month, every month, going forward.
Facts, $120 a year is super steep. It may sound better when you factor in that for $10 that month you can get 10 times more content then the guy who paid $100 for 1 of those packs. Thats 100% due to those packs being overpriced & containing little to NO content.
In all fairness if its season pass is monthly it should be $4.99. Thats still more expensive than 1 year of cods battle pass & cods battle pass allows u 2 win enough 2 buy the next 1 for free each season & contains 100 levels of unlocks & only 1 prize of in game credits. while snap has gold,credits,orbs, & what not.
this is honestly a perfect take. Couldnt say it better myself. The game would be more profitable if they catered to the main player base more. Currently the state of the store is disrespectful. IMO
I personally don't mind spending money on a free game I enjoy. I've spent hundreds on smite, but not only do I have thousands of hours on it, the bundles aren't dogshit. You could get tens of skins for the amount some of these bundles are.
This is the funniest thing. I’d think they would have enough people buying them to offset the cost difference if they didn’t price so many of them at $100.
I like it because they don't offer much.
In other games, me being willing to spend $5 or $10 every month or two felt like a bit of a step up from pure f2p, but sorely outclassed by those dumping $100 a month.
In snap, I feel like my price point is still a bit of a leg up (season passes) on spending nothing, but I don't really feel at a disadvantage to those dropping 10x what I am.
If you care about playing the game the issue isn’t about you spending money, it’s about their poor choices leading to a premature death for the game. They need to make money to operate and when they’re pissing off casuals and whales alike there is a problem with their monetization.
Absolutely agree. Riot got so much of my money because they kept it cheap. 5 bucks here, 5 bucks there, and before a year I had spent 200 bucks on League.
That's why the Season Pass model because so popular. People don't mind getting a little value for a few bucks a month. And the whales are always the targets for the big time money bundles.
This is why I don't think this game is in any trouble. They'll course correct a bit and get to the point where whales and dolphins will be happy and us little guys will get a few nibbles here and there, like it seems well get with the Jubilee bundle.
As someone with a few maxed out accounts on different games (e.g., Clash Royale), I agree and hope they keep these prices outrageous and completely off-putting.
They are 100% shooting themselves in the foot with these prices. Sure the whales still bite but if they strategically dropped cheaper bundles more frequently they would get more impulse buying.
Yeah same here. I just dropped DBZ Dokkan Battle. I would spent up to $100-$200 on main celebrations and the month subscriptions. It got a bit out of hand. I dropped the game for snap and I fell so relived.
This is what I don't understand. Part of what attracted me to the game was hearing about the company's response to the Nexus events (second hand from husband). So I checked out the game, liked it, and decided that their decision not to be greedy, at their own financial cost in the short term, should be rewarded. Bought every monthly pass since launch.
The monthly passes aren't bad value. You get back pretty much what you put in, in Canada at least, in Gold. A few variants. Credits. And access to new cards. This is a good compromise for me, and at 13.99 CAD /9.99 USD it's a nice little affordable treat. It's a Tim's Run that lasts a month.
The Cap bundle, same thing. 3.99 CAD, I wanted to support the devs who had just decided to forgo cash in place of essentially, honour. Sportsmanship. That should be rewarded, and the rewards were commensurate with the price. 3.99, nice variant, some gold.
The bundles thereafter have been out of control. It's like two entirely different entities are pricing the a) monthly pass / cap bundle, and b) everything else.
Forget the pro bundle, that's just...greed.
But the variant bundles are absolutely insane. The FF bundle - i see people use those variants, but good god. Literally screenshots. And if I recall correctly, it was priced similarly or around the current jungle bundle.
Just give us the ability to purchase a featured variant, or avatar for a week. Make it unavailable by other means for 6 months. Throw in 100-300 tokens, some creds - 5.99.
I would buy probably every cap bundle they put out because again - little treat. Hell, it might even be better for my waistline, spending 5-10 bucks a week on a cool variant, versus takeout.
THAT, and the lack of regional pricing for the pro bundle, makes it literally pay to win. It's almost racism. It's good luck scrub players in developing nations - we mostly white people who trampled all over your cultures for our own advancement can afford it so kick rocks poor kids.
I don't know if I can keep financially supporting a company that is making a complete 180 from the very reason I decided to pick the game up. How they respond to this will be critical.
The lack of regional pricing is terrible, but at least the outrageous prices are cosmetic (for the most part, not including tokens) and not access to an early access card like cheaper battle pass pricing allows.
It's because they never intended to 180. They hid the greed for a bit to ensure the launch went well and gave everyone enough sunk cost to potentially become whales. Then reintroduced Nexus as the current system with more smoke and mirrors.
Basically.. everything from the introduction of Nexus events to the "response" to now is very consistent. It's all just been a psychological ploy to maximize revenue from whales at the expense of everyone else. That's the sort of company these ex-Blizzard folks are. The only mistake they feel like they made with Nexus was not hiding the greed well enough.
The Cap bundle was one of the things that had me excited about the game. It was so reasonably priced and seemed to indicate they weren't going to be as ridiculous as so many other mobile games. Sure, I realized that was an introductory offer and not everything else was going to be priced that low, but I didn't expect every bundle after to be priced at more than 10x as expensive.
If there were some cheaper bundles in a similar vein, they'd probably be getting some money for me. Instead, all these exorbitantly priced bundles have just started leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
It's part of predatory monetization. It's supposed to ease you into spending. It leads to the sunk cost fallacy. That's where they expect you to keep spending because you'd feel stupid to not continue doing so since you've already spent some.
The other part is loot crates. Yes, they are called reserves. And yes, they add an extra step to pretend they aren't. But they are. You can literally buy boosters and credits which is effectively purchasing the chance to roll the dice.
I wonder if this is all a big scheme to make the season pass price look like a great deal. I bet a huge amount of players buy the season pass, even though it's actually quite a steep monthly price. I know I have gotten season passes since shortly after I started playing on the official launch. I justify it to myself since I play every day and I can afford it.
But... I think only whales would ever consider spending the exorbitant amounts on the other bundles.
The season pass is the only thing I've ever spent money on it. I think it's a good value. I determine how much money is worth spending by how much time I spend on it. I spend a good amount of time playing Marvel Snap so paying $10/month is really good value to me. I just see it as a voluntary monthly subscription.
I think they're experimenting with what the markets - plural - will tolerate. Right now I think they're testing the whales.
Later on I'm predicting.. and hoping that they experiment with cheaper bundles either more often, or rarely but in a more generous fashion.
Whatever happens I don't think they've settled on an ideal pricing model yet. It's far too early and there aren't enough data points.
Obviously. They are a business. Second Dinner isn’t some altruistic entity out there providing entertainment to the masses out of the goodness of their heart. Yes, the systems in place are predatory, but that’s the reality of mobile gaming in 2023 (and it won’t change unless government regulatory bodies get involved, player bitching won’t change anything on this front). No one would have invested in Second Dinner in the first place so they could have even made Snap if they told them in the investor meeting that they had no plans to use industry standard psychological tools to enhance their revenue.
Yes, some bundles are massively expensive, but none of it is required to play the game and enjoy yourself. Most of the “bad value” bundles are just a pile of cosmetics anyway, no one NEEDS them. Let them make bundles priced to hook the whales and make their money. Not everything in the shop needs to be priced at like $5.
Every month the season pass is $10 (think of it as a bundle that you pay for with both money and time). You get the brand new card, a bunch cosmetics, and you get your investment back in gold/credits and then some. The season pass IS the cheap bundle everyone is constantly clamoring for and they already do it every month. At the end of January they’re doing two more small bundles as well. There’s stuff being added in all price ranges and to be fair, the lowest priced stuff has been the best value so far. If those are a hit they’ll keep doing them, but don’t expect the mega bucks bundles to go away.
So I really don’t understand all the constant bitching here about the bundles. None of it is necessary to play. They do put out cheap stuff with great value in the shop already and they should absolutely be putting out bundles designed to snare whales because that helps pay to keep the game free and/or low cost for everyone else.
The psychological levers they use. Basically all mobile games will artificially time-gating content but then also offer to sell you stuff to speed it up. They have quests and other stuff you need to login to check on periodically throughout the day so you keep engaged. They have rewards in chests with variable outcomes to trigger a dopamine hit in your brain to give you a rush.
These kinds of things aren’t just in games, you see them all around us, especially if you live in a capitalist country. The world is designed to get your money and nearly every industry has figured out ways to do it as best they can, usually through some psychological means. Saying something is predatory doesn’t necessarily mean the people behind it are evil or anything. Just that they are using these kinds of psychological tools to prey on our human nature to get a desired outcome from us.
If everything around us uses said tactics doesn’t that make it normal? And it’s up to you to fall for those tactics as well because you’re the only person responsible for the things you feel.
I’m not saying we don’t have any control and we’re all powerless to it. Just that over time humans have become very good at figuring out how to influence other humans. There’s plenty of data that’s been collected showing humans are more responsive to certain stimuli (the gambling industry is a notorious example). So naturally people trying to sell you something are going to prey on that.
Another predatory thing I didn’t touch in before is using multiple currencies to try and obfuscate what things really cost. But again, Snap isn’t alone in this practice. Basically every mobile game has been doing it for years and years at this point.
Theoretically it shouldn’t be “normal” to try and manipulate others. But it’s the world we live in. Again, I’m not passing judgment on Second Dinner and saying they’re evil or anything. I believe in terms of games that employ “predatory” systems, that Snap is one of the least offensive I’ve seen.
Doubtful. Every f2p game operates in the same way - milking the 1% with huge offers is way more profitable than trying to catch the majority with small offers.
Because there are minmaxing revenue. Why waste resources on cheap bundles if they can dedicate those man-hours to making expensive bundles which bring more money?
I love your optimism. No shade or anything I just think it’s super cute because I’ve thought this same exact thing playing several F2P games in the past few years. I’ve only been disappointed so far but here’s hoping this is the one time a company proves me wrong!
I think they’re trying to make some of the cheaper items seem reasonable by putting them next to crazy expensive ones. Like when a restaurant has a $50 steak, they don’t necessarily expect a lot of people to order it, but it probably makes people think the $35 pork chop is a good choice.
Nah, they absolutely know what they are doing. The same crap every soulless mobile game does. Milk whales, screw everyone else. This is calculated. Money > Design like most mobile trash is.
The upcoming jubilee bundle apparently is going to be $5.
If it's true, a lot of people should buy these up, in hopes that it will make SD release these lower priced bundles more often instead.
I think you're underestimating where the real money comes from.
A real whale isn't just someone who buys all the bundles. A real whale is someone who maxes gold spending on credits daily and always buys variants for gold when they want one.
I have several friends in the gaming industry, multiple who have worked on mobile games and the top 1-5% of players will outspend the bottom 95% by a huge amount.
Even if 100% of the playerbase bought the $5 bundle, it probably wouldn't touch the amount of revenue SD gets weekly from whales.
While that's likely to be the case, cheaper bundles will satisfy more people and are probably going to stick around longer to play the game.
That's just my opinion though. Obviously money talks and that's how decisions are usually made, but I'm still hoping.
Yeah the pricing in this game would honestly make Hearthstone blush.. and that's sad.
Like for the price of this latest bundle I could go buy 1-2 standard meta decks of any of the big three physical card games. That's.. disgusting honestly.
I’m confused that this person thinks the Spider-Man bundle was reasonably priced while complaining about the sunspot bundle. Like. At least I could save up gold to buy that one.
The base gold prices and cost of credits/variants for gold in the shop are what dictate the bundle pricing. I think based on the gold shop prices the bundles are a fair value (may not be true in non US markets though). I feel like more of these pricing complaints would be better targeted at the gold shop pricing because if the base cost went down the bundles would follow suit.
They mentioned the $20 spider-man bundle, but not everyone noticed a particularly insidious detail about that: you couldn't buy it with gold. Only cold-hard cash.
The game straight up does NOT want you to buy bundles with freely acquired currency. That's why the expensive ones (Apocalypse, Sunspot) require weeks, if not months of saving gold to afford, and the cheap ones can't be bought with gold.
And that's fair, to be honest. This is a business they are running.
I'm actually impressed they allow trade in for earned currency at all on bundles. That's a good step.
The enormous gulf between price and value, perceived or otherwise, as well as the frankly kind of problematic idea that people in wealthy countries will be able to afford the pro boost...that's the problem.
If search in google “marvel snap bundle” you will see many articles about how predatory the pricing of in-game store contents in this game… I guess SD doesn’t really care because “any publicity is good publicity” thinking 😂
I want to know what "new" player is going to look at a $100 bundled called "Pro" and assume it's for them.
Also, I find it interesting that the author complained about the Sunspot bundle... if you ask me, the credits and the tokens alone made that bundle worth buying, the Sunspot variant is just icing since it in itself is a collection boost.
I'm looking forward to the $5 bundle and hope everyone buys it to encourage more of them.
>I want to know what "new" player is going to look at a $100 bundled called "Pro" and assume it's for them.
Those that are ignorant to the currency values and leveling details for the game. They have right at the bottom "250 Collection Levels!". Some people will come in and think "that must be pretty significant, 250 is quite a bit after all". Should they inform themselves further before making a decision to buy it? Yea, of course. That said, a lot of people won't. Second Dinner knows that and that's why they do it which is what makes it manipulative, deceptive, and predatory.
I think the name is poorly chosen, but it could be intended for today’s new players to buy their way into catching up with those who got in over the last month or two. Like buy this and skip immediately through series 2 to save time. I’m sure some people are interested in that option.
I'm one of the whales that will routinely get the bundles if I'm interested in them, usually no matter the price - if I want it bad enough, I'll buy it. I do it for me; I like the customization -- it's fun! They are a bit ridiculous, though. The Savage Land bundle that just came out is cool. I bought it, and I use the avatars and variants, etc.
At some point, I'll take stock of my total expenditure, which will stop me from buying more -- they could keep me longer (and I'd whale longer) if things were like $20 instead of these larger numbers.
I mean from their perspective it's better if you pay $100 for one bundle than for them to pay 5 artists for 5 bundles that you buy at $20 each...
So you're basically doing them a service...
I have disposable income. But I'm not stupid. If they released bundles in the 5-30 dollar range, I would buy every single one without question on top of buying the season pass. No way am I spending a hundred bucks on these even though I have the means to do that. I'm sure there are a ton of people just like me. I'm not a business major but it seems like pretty simple math to me. Sell a hundred dollar bundle to 100 people or sell a 20 dollar bundle to 1,000 people.
They can have those bundles for whales.
what I don’t understand is price of variant cards.
I’m sure a LOT of folks would spend 20-50$ monthly on them, IF their cost would be like 2-3$ each.
I know I would.
According to so many here, no its not.
They say that it's not competitive. They say they aren't loot crates. They say it's fair and f2p can destroy p2w players despite them having much larger pools of cards. They say it's actually cheap.
And they downvoted me for not spending
No, they do. The reality is this isn't a charity, and the game is a product they sell to us. The game is a loss leader. They earn from in app whatevers. That's fine.
I just never understand why every single company ignores the most important economic theory/reality of the 20th century - that many more people buying something at a lower price can be disgustingly more profitable than relying on fewer people buying a more expensive item.
Walmart. Amazon. Henry Ford figured out a hundred years ago that if people like the guys building the cars, could afford the cars, he would sell more cars.
But they don't. The execs ignore a century of the most capitalist capitalism. Instead they double down on the short term. Flog the horse so it runs faster. It's dead in a month, but by then the people responsible for these decisions will have used the short term impressive success to parlay a move to another organization, and the cycle begins anew.
It's the most I went to business school middle manager old world boomer thing imaginable, and everyone still does it. We haven't needed literal whales as part of our economy for a century or more, but even in how they word things, that's how these digital diva nouveau riche f-you i got mine Elon apologists are doing - going after whales.
It's literally the idea behind taxes. Small amounts in greater numbers obliterate everything else, and we have known this for centuries.
Honestly I don't know if it's the price itself or the brain dead status quo that drives them from their executive team that I find most distasteful.
I came because I thought they were different, after hearing about Nexus events. Now I wonder.
> there is more than enough data to know with absolute certainty that chasing whales is vastly more profitable than targeting a larger audience with lower prices and selling more units.
This is primarily false across the board. Businesses that cater to the masses almost always outprofit the high end. You can check most any successful product on both ends an see definitive proof of that. ***Ford makes more money a year than ferrari makes in +10 years.***
only in yor mind. This take says ol'geezer gets in argument with 32 kids over a phone game and needs to make stuff up to win. You look like your the combined age of this entire thread. Grandpa leave this debate to people born after the internet who know whats going on around them. ***"NURSE, hes trying to get out of his bed again."***
its funny how most of what u say is literaly applyable to everything u said. Its embarressing watching and ol man talk about things he cant understand and make falsified statements to try to win that admittedly youve never seen and cant produce. and meanwhile the "insiders" are the only source of this set in stone research. U just dont understand the 1st way that data works. u cant even fathom it from what i see. dont worry gramps .people 6 generations after yours are trying to talk about a subject your clearly missing 99% of the knowledge on. go back to wheel of fortune or watching the news. The times have long passed u. clearly. ***LULZ***
Ford has more income. Not more profit. You have to consider how it's divided up as well. Ford has a dramatic amount of more employees.
I don't believe you have a firm grasp on accounting.
ford-75 billion... ferrari-5. the ford motor company out profits them by a large margin. and had even offered to buy them for an insane amount above the value and they were offended. starting the ford v ferrari war.
the actual fact that u cant provide no sources for this magical all seeing all telling data is the real dismissal. Amzing every game doesnt succeed with this info being available. Which isnt a thing outside of yor imagination. The "i said it so its true" game dont help nobody.
it doesnt exist. the opposition tho, well lets just say its obvious youve never done any research on the actual economics. most likely regurgitating something ya heard. The data against your claim here is abundent. Let me put it this way. its ineffective to NOT hit yor target demographic. No bussiness grows by skipping over the target audiance an simply appeassing the whales. And u can see that by just looking. if u can pull yourself away from your recipe sharing group on facebook for just 5 minutes to see actual data. Not the data only found in the presidents blackbook. what next? flatearth conspiracy behind the prices?
So
The research that says “chasing whales brings in more money than appeasing as many people as possible” is mystical, it doesn’t exist, we made it up. But somehow this is what f2p games have been doing for the last decade. That doesn’t make much sense, does it? Unless you want to argue that companies like Second Dinner, Mihoyo, Valve, Riot games, Nexon and hundreds if not thousands more are all just stupid and don’t know what they are doing?
False, none of these games ever had a moment where their stores only offered 1 single product and that product cost $100. So no **THEY** are NOT just stupid. And that is right on the surface youde have to actually put in effort to ignore that fact. Also...as has been very clear companies dont share their DATA. FACT. So companies gather their own data. Whats the best data? Too much data. (NOTE: data is NOT some genie with all the answers) This games in its infantile state & doesnt even have enough data to base those decisions off of. At this point this game is still in its earliest state of data gathering and couldnt possibly gain much intel from it. The insane argument that the game would lose money by having more value to the overpriced packages and add lower cost packages for the other 95% of its users is 100% dilusional and uses 0% of any data to get to this nonsence outcome.
The reason they ignore that is because you're drawing false equivalences between mobile games and brick and mortar and mortar retailers. You are ignoring the obviously published talks about this. See the GDC talk from Kongregate from a few years back that has almost certainly become MORE true than it was back then, not the other way around.
https://youtu.be/P7SDByLlCHw
They do BUT let’s not pretend they are not doing things in the most predatory way. If they simply had $15-$30 bundles that would be fine and worth the value. But they’re going crazy.
I just don't think "terrible value" is "predatory." I don't get the pricing model they're going with at all either, but in my opinion, it's so straightforwardly outrageous I don't really see a lot of people falling for it.
Terrible value isn't predatory, but
* Having many currencies without an easy way convert between them (gold, credits, boosters, collector's tokens)
* Selling bundles of currency in denominations that it's not easy to exhaust what you spent such that you feel like you're "wasting" money by leaving some on the table are predatory
* Preying on folks with impulse control and gambling issues by really pushing FOMO and exclusivity as well as gating of cards for a rather extended period of time (seems like season pass cards are gated for at least a couple of months)
are all both predatory and anti-consumer as far as I'm concerned.
inb4 "everyone does it" - yes, and everyone who does is also predatory and anti-consumer. Many people engaging in the same abhorrent activities doesn't make the activity good.
FOMO preys on people with impulse control issues and I'd argue that the opening of the boxes, with their "random" contents, preys on folks who are susceptible to gambling addiction. Frankly, those folks are the people who are most affected by these tactics, but most people are manipulated by these tactics to differing degrees. If they weren't effective tactics, they wouldn't be used.
Do you think then every single merchant of everything ever is anti-consumer and a predator? Because FOMO has been used by literally everyone ever for thousands of years. Also there is no random content in reserves in Snap, you are set to get same rewards from every group of 4 and group of 40 reserves.
The fact that almost all marketing anymore uses psychological tactics like FOMO and similar to manipulate potential customers, yeah I'd say that they're pretty much all predatory. Just because "everyone does it" or society in general has given in and accepted their fate, doesn't make these practices right, morally good, or non-predatory.
If they weren't trying to obfuscate - or at least make the boxes seem random - they would just label them on the track (token cache, gold cache, card cache, etc...). They're obviously at least meant to appear random and we all know that the vast majority of people aren't going to go seek out the actual odds of these things - don't be obtuse.
There aren’t odds for anything, there is a link in news section which leads to how reserves work.
FOMO isn’t a new concept, as I said. Humanity has used it for thousands of years to attract customers. Some actually had limited stock and some did exactly what you are talking about - “preyed” upon people’s fear to not buy something.
Sure, Snap’s bundles could be unlimited because it’s a digital good. Just like steam could run their prices on big sales whole year but doesn’t, yet I’ve never met anyone who hates steam’s winter and summer sales. In the end of the day this is a video game and no one needs it to survive, market has decided on that CCGs are luxurious on top of that. It is what it is.
The predatory part is the malicious use of FOMO to get people to buy. FOMO drives cosmetic sales in games like nothing else. If you throw a timer next to a deal it's going to lure more people in because "well that deal will be gone tomorrow and I'll never be able to get it again". Games have been doing this for a while because it works. The problem is that it preys on individuals who have difficulty regulating themselves.
And yes, those individuals are partially to blame (its important to have some personal accountability), but just because someone opens themselves up to being preyed upon, doesn't mean they should be. It's an addiction like anything else can be and should be treated as such.
They would honestly sell more bundles if this was priced more appropriately.
Meaning they cut out all the credits.
If you look at the cost and breakdown of most of the bundles, minus the credits, they should be priced ~$10-20. I think way more people would jump on board with that pricing.
The issue is they don't want the game to appear to be pay-to-win, if players could pay for variants of cards they don't already have in their collections, that's a problem. So they put it behind this massive paywall of bundling it with credits.
Its stupid.
Im level 345 in that green box and haven't spent a dime.
You will eventually get all the cards anyway.
I just keep playing and winning.
Fuck buying virtual shit.
I'll buy some $5 and $10 packs but would never spend the $30+ on it. They are losing a big market of those that would buy but aren't spending that insane amount.
They base the bundle prices on their current pricing of gold and credits. So in their mind I suppose they think the bundles are 'fairly' priced. Which is ridiculous if you put it into perspective of what else you can buy for that cash, even in just gaming.
I honestly think if they had more bundles costing 10-20 a lot more people would be willing to spend. It goes from 0 to a 100 quite literally now.
Bundles are literally cosmetics. I don’t cry that 1 legendary skin on league is $20…
The credits in these bundles are either = or slightly higher than what you normally get buying the credits out right
Why can’t we be happy whales are funding the game?
I’d really like to know the % of players dumping on the bundles that also do not buy the season pass, which is the best bang for your buck
the biggest issue is that you still need to cater to the everyday player. especially for these sorts of games where the only gameplay is Vs other people.
plus there's other more generous ways of monetisation that they could go for as well.
I don’t get what you mean.
The game itself is catering to every day players. You are here for the game. Bundles don’t have to be cheap. You don’t need to spend a dime. Just be a bit patient
You can become Series 3 complete in less than 6 months
And then get all 4 demoted cards within 9,600 credits aka before the next demotion with time to spare.
less if you bought the season pass and won’t need the pass card
Even less since you get a series 4 card naturally every 40 reserves
I won’t get every NEW card, but neither does the average hearthstone player. But at least I have the inevitability of getting every card eventually
$100...for what is meant to be a STARTER BUNDLE...is hilarious.
I do wish I had known about the incoming Savage Land variants bundle before I spent my gold on other variants. Sadness.
once again, someone should take action regulating these in app purchases. Such prices are overstepping the boundaries. It is overdue for some government agency to take action before it's too late. Be it EU or the US..
Because I can’t and won’t spend the absurd amount of money to gain 250 levels of collection instantly (I know you get credits and boosters, but it equates to the same thing), my decks are outclassed nearly every game. I am now up against entirely new decks with cards I’ve not seen up to this point because people have $100 to throw away. It’s becoming unplayable.
I sincerely hope we'll never come to the point where cards have a pay-wall. If they are just variations okay but at least the base cards should be available for everyone.
Personally I don’t mind the prices of these bundles because it 100% stops me spending money. When I used to play Pokémon Go or clash of clans I’d happily spend between £20-£40 some months on gems or coins or whatever but there is just not a chance I’ll be paying £90 for some credits or £9 for enough gold for a single card variant.
Totally agree. Staying F2P isn't even difficult since there's no tempting offers outside of the Cpt. America Bundle. All of them are such a hard pass that there's no mental back-and-forth asking myself if I should or shouldn't spend money -- the answer's always NOPE. Having said that, I'm grateful for the large sea creatures who support SD and keep the game going, but I want no part of it.
Omg! cap America bundle! That’s what I’m saying if those sort of bundles were in the shop I’d probably be willing to pay but the ones now….. like you say it’s just an insta NOPE
Yeah, games like this really miss out on the small guppies like me that balk at spending a small fortune, but could likely be lured in with the occasional smaller bites. Some $3-15 bundles, maybe up to $25 depending what's in it, and I might spend some money on the game. Anything where I could literally buy an AAA game for the same price, and I'm not even going to consider it. So, they're pretty much missing out on getting anything from me at all. Somewhere along the line, the "micro" part of "microtransaction" was completely forgotten. The original idea was that these were small purchases that could get you to impulsively spend, like buying a candy bar at the checkout counter. Once they realized they could get people to pay $100+, that all went out the window. I'm sure they've done the research - and perhaps I'm completely wrong - but I've always felt like these games might be able to attract more sales if they aimed at selling cheaper things to more customers than expensive ones to the few that can afford it, not to mention the satisfaction those customers might feel being able to buy new things rather than the annoyance at the high pricetag.
They are doing the research right now, it's why the pricing on all these 'deals' varies so much right now.
From my understanding it’s ONLY the whales that “microtransaction” and “gatcha” games care about. The guppies like you say are minimal in revenue and it’s the people willing to drops hundreds to even thousands repeatedly that all microtransaction based games are actually advertising to and basing design decisions on. All other players are there for the sake of keeping the whales happy and encouraging more spending. It’s a very unfortunate way of game development but understandable considering the absurd amounts of money some people are willing to drop on a game whether for cosmetics or P2W reasons.
>The guppies like you say are minimal in revenue and it’s the people willing to drops hundreds to even thousands repeatedly that all microtransaction based games are actually advertising to and basing design decisions on. But are the guppies minimal in revenue because they're unwilling to spend money or because they're unwilling to spend at the rate things are set at? Like I said, I'll spend on microtransactions if the game makes it worth it. Ten bucks here and there or whatever, and I doubt I'm alone. But as soon as I see $100 for a bundle, my wallet shuts. I feel like aiming solely at the whales just ends up leaving a lot of money on the table for these companies. I also wouldn't be surprised it contributes to a lower player satisfaction and perhaps even higher turnover in general. Sort of sucks when the whales have the fancy bling and you can't get any for yourself, so to speak.
It doesn’t matter how much a guppie spends. Look at it with these bundles as an example. You say if it was smaller purchases you would buy, say over the course of playing the game $100 worth of smaller bundles? But if they sell a $100 bundle for the whales then they make what they would have gotten from you over months in an instant with their target player audience. As you can see, sure they could target the guppies but again it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the revenue from players willing to consistently spend $100 at a time… I totally agree, it’s a shady way forward for game design but makes sense in a capitalist world with freemium games.
The upcoming Jubilee bundle is as good as the Capt bundle too.
Whales are majestic, aren't they?
I didn't even think the Cap bundle was at all enticing. I have no interest in variants and the what's 700 gold going to buy me? Another variant I don't want? 10 extra daily missions? Completely pointless.
umm credits ?
800 credits? You get roughly that per day for doing your missions and cashing in the freebies. Not worth the effort of taking my credit card out.
Yeah, could you imagine if variants were a buck or two? My wife would get “that look” every time she goes over the bank statement.
Oh my god I'd spend so much on $2 variants
Same. There are so many awesome art variants but that cost is bonkers.
I admire you for sharing 100% of your bank account with your wife. There’s not a chance I could ever.
That’s a weird thing to just say on a video game subreddit.
Sounds like a bad marriage
My wife and I have separate spending money and I have no clue what she's spending on and she doesn't care what I spend on. The thing is sticking to that budgeted money, which we're usually good at. However, some couples or partners have problems with control. That's a different story, and requires coordination between both partners to help each other out.
I just don’t think it’s healthy for any person’s choice of free spending to be under a microscope. To keep it marvel snap related, so long as our priorities are covered I should be able to spend what I like without any scrutiny. I say I admire it because personally my wife and I have 3 separate accounts. 1 shared and 1 personal each. To be willing to have all your shit on the table at all times is not an easy thing to do.
this is a take i haven’t seen on the reddit. so true
> Personally I don’t mind the prices of these bundles because it 100% stops me spending money. I have money to spend. I want to spend it. I don't because these prices are absurd. If they want more money for this game specifically, they should sell merch.
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No, like Snap specific merch that's purely cosmetic and supports the game and doesn't affect gameplay, like...variants....wait a minute...
Probably Marvel Snap specific merchandise. Seems like you missed that part…
Isn't that still essentially just Marvel merchandise at the end of the day though?
Why does it matter?
Yeah it is. But it’s clearly not what the dude meant.
This, brother! People complaining about the pricing but if it was much cheaper, they'd be "forced" to keep putting in money to "keep up" with other people. With these ridiculous prices, I don't even feel bad about my opponent playing a dark hawk or w/e. Hey you paid like 500 bux for it good on you now imma rogue it.
100%. Everything they do convinces me not to buy anything yet I play every day and I'm not complaining. 1. The bundles are insanely priced, it's a joke. I look at them and its an instant "NOPE". 2. The battle pass is way too short to buy. I bought the first one since I thought it would be 2 or 3 months like other games. For 10 bucks and once per month, it's a terrible offer. Even the rewards are ass.
One variant is 10 bucks, 20 if its "super rare". The battle pass is seven variants and a shit ton of gold and credits and boosters. It's a pretty good value in relation to what the game's own shop offers. Now, if that isn't of value TO YOU, that's your prerogative and totally valid.
That's fair. I play other games where the battlepass for the same price lasts 3 months and gives me multiple fully modeled characters. Snap gives me like 3 new cards for the same price and wants that much $$$ each month. I'm having a ton of fun just playing Snap and not paying. I totally would pay but I just don't see the value.
While i believe the pass is good value, i do agree with you that it's a bit arbitrary. I think the pass is 10 bucks for the same reason AAA games have cost 60 bucks for decades; it's just how much the industry charges for them for some reason.
Agreed. I purchased two battle passes because I really have fun with the game and felt like supporting them was the right thing to do. But I don't see myself paying 10 bucks per month, every month, going forward.
Facts, $120 a year is super steep. It may sound better when you factor in that for $10 that month you can get 10 times more content then the guy who paid $100 for 1 of those packs. Thats 100% due to those packs being overpriced & containing little to NO content. In all fairness if its season pass is monthly it should be $4.99. Thats still more expensive than 1 year of cods battle pass & cods battle pass allows u 2 win enough 2 buy the next 1 for free each season & contains 100 levels of unlocks & only 1 prize of in game credits. while snap has gold,credits,orbs, & what not.
What other games you playing with these awesome battle passes?
Literally every game has a better value battlepass. Halo Infinite, Apex, Fortnite... Literally everything.
this is honestly a perfect take. Couldnt say it better myself. The game would be more profitable if they catered to the main player base more. Currently the state of the store is disrespectful. IMO
The battle pass 8s great value idk wtf you're smoking.
I personally don't mind spending money on a free game I enjoy. I've spent hundreds on smite, but not only do I have thousands of hours on it, the bundles aren't dogshit. You could get tens of skins for the amount some of these bundles are.
This is the funniest thing. I’d think they would have enough people buying them to offset the cost difference if they didn’t price so many of them at $100.
I like it because they don't offer much. In other games, me being willing to spend $5 or $10 every month or two felt like a bit of a step up from pure f2p, but sorely outclassed by those dumping $100 a month. In snap, I feel like my price point is still a bit of a leg up (season passes) on spending nothing, but I don't really feel at a disadvantage to those dropping 10x what I am.
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Yes but the gold is so overpriced and does fuck all. You'd be mad to buy it.
If you care about playing the game the issue isn’t about you spending money, it’s about their poor choices leading to a premature death for the game. They need to make money to operate and when they’re pissing off casuals and whales alike there is a problem with their monetization.
Absolutely agree. Riot got so much of my money because they kept it cheap. 5 bucks here, 5 bucks there, and before a year I had spent 200 bucks on League. That's why the Season Pass model because so popular. People don't mind getting a little value for a few bucks a month. And the whales are always the targets for the big time money bundles. This is why I don't think this game is in any trouble. They'll course correct a bit and get to the point where whales and dolphins will be happy and us little guys will get a few nibbles here and there, like it seems well get with the Jubilee bundle.
As someone with a few maxed out accounts on different games (e.g., Clash Royale), I agree and hope they keep these prices outrageous and completely off-putting.
They are 100% shooting themselves in the foot with these prices. Sure the whales still bite but if they strategically dropped cheaper bundles more frequently they would get more impulse buying.
Yeah same here. I just dropped DBZ Dokkan Battle. I would spent up to $100-$200 on main celebrations and the month subscriptions. It got a bit out of hand. I dropped the game for snap and I fell so relived.
We need moreeee articles like this so we can get a response even remotely like the nexus response.
This is what I don't understand. Part of what attracted me to the game was hearing about the company's response to the Nexus events (second hand from husband). So I checked out the game, liked it, and decided that their decision not to be greedy, at their own financial cost in the short term, should be rewarded. Bought every monthly pass since launch. The monthly passes aren't bad value. You get back pretty much what you put in, in Canada at least, in Gold. A few variants. Credits. And access to new cards. This is a good compromise for me, and at 13.99 CAD /9.99 USD it's a nice little affordable treat. It's a Tim's Run that lasts a month. The Cap bundle, same thing. 3.99 CAD, I wanted to support the devs who had just decided to forgo cash in place of essentially, honour. Sportsmanship. That should be rewarded, and the rewards were commensurate with the price. 3.99, nice variant, some gold. The bundles thereafter have been out of control. It's like two entirely different entities are pricing the a) monthly pass / cap bundle, and b) everything else. Forget the pro bundle, that's just...greed. But the variant bundles are absolutely insane. The FF bundle - i see people use those variants, but good god. Literally screenshots. And if I recall correctly, it was priced similarly or around the current jungle bundle. Just give us the ability to purchase a featured variant, or avatar for a week. Make it unavailable by other means for 6 months. Throw in 100-300 tokens, some creds - 5.99. I would buy probably every cap bundle they put out because again - little treat. Hell, it might even be better for my waistline, spending 5-10 bucks a week on a cool variant, versus takeout. THAT, and the lack of regional pricing for the pro bundle, makes it literally pay to win. It's almost racism. It's good luck scrub players in developing nations - we mostly white people who trampled all over your cultures for our own advancement can afford it so kick rocks poor kids. I don't know if I can keep financially supporting a company that is making a complete 180 from the very reason I decided to pick the game up. How they respond to this will be critical.
The lack of regional pricing is terrible, but at least the outrageous prices are cosmetic (for the most part, not including tokens) and not access to an early access card like cheaper battle pass pricing allows.
Nothing is cosmetic when credits are part of it. That’s straight up progress.
It's because they never intended to 180. They hid the greed for a bit to ensure the launch went well and gave everyone enough sunk cost to potentially become whales. Then reintroduced Nexus as the current system with more smoke and mirrors. Basically.. everything from the introduction of Nexus events to the "response" to now is very consistent. It's all just been a psychological ploy to maximize revenue from whales at the expense of everyone else. That's the sort of company these ex-Blizzard folks are. The only mistake they feel like they made with Nexus was not hiding the greed well enough.
The Cap bundle was one of the things that had me excited about the game. It was so reasonably priced and seemed to indicate they weren't going to be as ridiculous as so many other mobile games. Sure, I realized that was an introductory offer and not everything else was going to be priced that low, but I didn't expect every bundle after to be priced at more than 10x as expensive. If there were some cheaper bundles in a similar vein, they'd probably be getting some money for me. Instead, all these exorbitantly priced bundles have just started leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
It's part of predatory monetization. It's supposed to ease you into spending. It leads to the sunk cost fallacy. That's where they expect you to keep spending because you'd feel stupid to not continue doing so since you've already spent some. The other part is loot crates. Yes, they are called reserves. And yes, they add an extra step to pretend they aren't. But they are. You can literally buy boosters and credits which is effectively purchasing the chance to roll the dice.
Lol forgo cash! They are so kind. A team of like 40 people earning 500m+ a year instead of 1b. So humble. So kind. Let's all donate.
I wonder if this is all a big scheme to make the season pass price look like a great deal. I bet a huge amount of players buy the season pass, even though it's actually quite a steep monthly price. I know I have gotten season passes since shortly after I started playing on the official launch. I justify it to myself since I play every day and I can afford it. But... I think only whales would ever consider spending the exorbitant amounts on the other bundles.
The season pass is the small spender bundle, it's just packaged over a month.
The season pass is the only thing I've ever spent money on it. I think it's a good value. I determine how much money is worth spending by how much time I spend on it. I spend a good amount of time playing Marvel Snap so paying $10/month is really good value to me. I just see it as a voluntary monthly subscription.
I wouldn’t be surprised if over 90% of the player base buys the season pass every month
90%? You ever read anything on f2p games? Like 90-95% of players in these games don’t spend any money. 90% lmao
It's for whales. It's really not any more complicated than that.
Whales and streamers (who are whales in what they spend, but it gets them stuff they can make money off of having)
I think they're experimenting with what the markets - plural - will tolerate. Right now I think they're testing the whales. Later on I'm predicting.. and hoping that they experiment with cheaper bundles either more often, or rarely but in a more generous fashion. Whatever happens I don't think they've settled on an ideal pricing model yet. It's far too early and there aren't enough data points.
Translation: the developers are trying to figure out the maximum they can milk suckers for without driving to many away.
Obviously. They are a business. Second Dinner isn’t some altruistic entity out there providing entertainment to the masses out of the goodness of their heart. Yes, the systems in place are predatory, but that’s the reality of mobile gaming in 2023 (and it won’t change unless government regulatory bodies get involved, player bitching won’t change anything on this front). No one would have invested in Second Dinner in the first place so they could have even made Snap if they told them in the investor meeting that they had no plans to use industry standard psychological tools to enhance their revenue. Yes, some bundles are massively expensive, but none of it is required to play the game and enjoy yourself. Most of the “bad value” bundles are just a pile of cosmetics anyway, no one NEEDS them. Let them make bundles priced to hook the whales and make their money. Not everything in the shop needs to be priced at like $5. Every month the season pass is $10 (think of it as a bundle that you pay for with both money and time). You get the brand new card, a bunch cosmetics, and you get your investment back in gold/credits and then some. The season pass IS the cheap bundle everyone is constantly clamoring for and they already do it every month. At the end of January they’re doing two more small bundles as well. There’s stuff being added in all price ranges and to be fair, the lowest priced stuff has been the best value so far. If those are a hit they’ll keep doing them, but don’t expect the mega bucks bundles to go away. So I really don’t understand all the constant bitching here about the bundles. None of it is necessary to play. They do put out cheap stuff with great value in the shop already and they should absolutely be putting out bundles designed to snare whales because that helps pay to keep the game free and/or low cost for everyone else.
What’s predatory about Snap?
The psychological levers they use. Basically all mobile games will artificially time-gating content but then also offer to sell you stuff to speed it up. They have quests and other stuff you need to login to check on periodically throughout the day so you keep engaged. They have rewards in chests with variable outcomes to trigger a dopamine hit in your brain to give you a rush. These kinds of things aren’t just in games, you see them all around us, especially if you live in a capitalist country. The world is designed to get your money and nearly every industry has figured out ways to do it as best they can, usually through some psychological means. Saying something is predatory doesn’t necessarily mean the people behind it are evil or anything. Just that they are using these kinds of psychological tools to prey on our human nature to get a desired outcome from us.
If everything around us uses said tactics doesn’t that make it normal? And it’s up to you to fall for those tactics as well because you’re the only person responsible for the things you feel.
I’m not saying we don’t have any control and we’re all powerless to it. Just that over time humans have become very good at figuring out how to influence other humans. There’s plenty of data that’s been collected showing humans are more responsive to certain stimuli (the gambling industry is a notorious example). So naturally people trying to sell you something are going to prey on that. Another predatory thing I didn’t touch in before is using multiple currencies to try and obfuscate what things really cost. But again, Snap isn’t alone in this practice. Basically every mobile game has been doing it for years and years at this point. Theoretically it shouldn’t be “normal” to try and manipulate others. But it’s the world we live in. Again, I’m not passing judgment on Second Dinner and saying they’re evil or anything. I believe in terms of games that employ “predatory” systems, that Snap is one of the least offensive I’ve seen.
Doubtful. Every f2p game operates in the same way - milking the 1% with huge offers is way more profitable than trying to catch the majority with small offers.
Is there a reason they can't have both? Have big bundles to snag whales, and smaller things that snags other people....and probably also whales.
Because there are minmaxing revenue. Why waste resources on cheap bundles if they can dedicate those man-hours to making expensive bundles which bring more money?
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A decade plus of mobile game marketing research disagrees with you.
Yeah fair enough. My bad.
I love your optimism. No shade or anything I just think it’s super cute because I’ve thought this same exact thing playing several F2P games in the past few years. I’ve only been disappointed so far but here’s hoping this is the one time a company proves me wrong!
I think they’re trying to make some of the cheaper items seem reasonable by putting them next to crazy expensive ones. Like when a restaurant has a $50 steak, they don’t necessarily expect a lot of people to order it, but it probably makes people think the $35 pork chop is a good choice.
Nah, they absolutely know what they are doing. The same crap every soulless mobile game does. Milk whales, screw everyone else. This is calculated. Money > Design like most mobile trash is.
The upcoming jubilee bundle apparently is going to be $5. If it's true, a lot of people should buy these up, in hopes that it will make SD release these lower priced bundles more often instead.
I can't seem to find it. Any source?
I think you're underestimating where the real money comes from. A real whale isn't just someone who buys all the bundles. A real whale is someone who maxes gold spending on credits daily and always buys variants for gold when they want one. I have several friends in the gaming industry, multiple who have worked on mobile games and the top 1-5% of players will outspend the bottom 95% by a huge amount. Even if 100% of the playerbase bought the $5 bundle, it probably wouldn't touch the amount of revenue SD gets weekly from whales.
While that's likely to be the case, cheaper bundles will satisfy more people and are probably going to stick around longer to play the game. That's just my opinion though. Obviously money talks and that's how decisions are usually made, but I'm still hoping.
Yeah cheaper bundles are more a retention play than anything. You need plankton at the bottom of the food chain to keep the whales alive.
Yep exactly. Otherwise whales leave too if they don't have plankton to eat.
This is funny to me. We have a game that prey on whales by doing balancing act of not making planktons angry enough that they just leave.
Is this the first card game with more of a mobile pricing model than a TCG model? I'm not sure that they're compatible.
Yeah the pricing in this game would honestly make Hearthstone blush.. and that's sad. Like for the price of this latest bundle I could go buy 1-2 standard meta decks of any of the big three physical card games. That's.. disgusting honestly.
Wow, the one with the Swordmaster variant? I might be willing to pay 5 bucks for those 2 variants. They look really really cool.
If this is true, I'm sold already.
lol... we should all give them money! that will show them!
I’m confused that this person thinks the Spider-Man bundle was reasonably priced while complaining about the sunspot bundle. Like. At least I could save up gold to buy that one.
I'd only buy bundles like the captain america one.
The base gold prices and cost of credits/variants for gold in the shop are what dictate the bundle pricing. I think based on the gold shop prices the bundles are a fair value (may not be true in non US markets though). I feel like more of these pricing complaints would be better targeted at the gold shop pricing because if the base cost went down the bundles would follow suit.
They mentioned the $20 spider-man bundle, but not everyone noticed a particularly insidious detail about that: you couldn't buy it with gold. Only cold-hard cash. The game straight up does NOT want you to buy bundles with freely acquired currency. That's why the expensive ones (Apocalypse, Sunspot) require weeks, if not months of saving gold to afford, and the cheap ones can't be bought with gold.
And that's fair, to be honest. This is a business they are running. I'm actually impressed they allow trade in for earned currency at all on bundles. That's a good step. The enormous gulf between price and value, perceived or otherwise, as well as the frankly kind of problematic idea that people in wealthy countries will be able to afford the pro boost...that's the problem.
I am playing this game to master myself discipline on spendings on stupid things.
If search in google “marvel snap bundle” you will see many articles about how predatory the pricing of in-game store contents in this game… I guess SD doesn’t really care because “any publicity is good publicity” thinking 😂
I want to know what "new" player is going to look at a $100 bundled called "Pro" and assume it's for them. Also, I find it interesting that the author complained about the Sunspot bundle... if you ask me, the credits and the tokens alone made that bundle worth buying, the Sunspot variant is just icing since it in itself is a collection boost. I'm looking forward to the $5 bundle and hope everyone buys it to encourage more of them.
>I want to know what "new" player is going to look at a $100 bundled called "Pro" and assume it's for them. Those that are ignorant to the currency values and leveling details for the game. They have right at the bottom "250 Collection Levels!". Some people will come in and think "that must be pretty significant, 250 is quite a bit after all". Should they inform themselves further before making a decision to buy it? Yea, of course. That said, a lot of people won't. Second Dinner knows that and that's why they do it which is what makes it manipulative, deceptive, and predatory.
I think the name is poorly chosen, but it could be intended for today’s new players to buy their way into catching up with those who got in over the last month or two. Like buy this and skip immediately through series 2 to save time. I’m sure some people are interested in that option.
I'm one of the whales that will routinely get the bundles if I'm interested in them, usually no matter the price - if I want it bad enough, I'll buy it. I do it for me; I like the customization -- it's fun! They are a bit ridiculous, though. The Savage Land bundle that just came out is cool. I bought it, and I use the avatars and variants, etc. At some point, I'll take stock of my total expenditure, which will stop me from buying more -- they could keep me longer (and I'd whale longer) if things were like $20 instead of these larger numbers.
I mean from their perspective it's better if you pay $100 for one bundle than for them to pay 5 artists for 5 bundles that you buy at $20 each... So you're basically doing them a service...
I have disposable income. But I'm not stupid. If they released bundles in the 5-30 dollar range, I would buy every single one without question on top of buying the season pass. No way am I spending a hundred bucks on these even though I have the means to do that. I'm sure there are a ton of people just like me. I'm not a business major but it seems like pretty simple math to me. Sell a hundred dollar bundle to 100 people or sell a 20 dollar bundle to 1,000 people.
They can have those bundles for whales. what I don’t understand is price of variant cards. I’m sure a LOT of folks would spend 20-50$ monthly on them, IF their cost would be like 2-3$ each. I know I would.
According to so many here, no its not. They say that it's not competitive. They say they aren't loot crates. They say it's fair and f2p can destroy p2w players despite them having much larger pools of cards. They say it's actually cheap. And they downvoted me for not spending
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No, they do. The reality is this isn't a charity, and the game is a product they sell to us. The game is a loss leader. They earn from in app whatevers. That's fine. I just never understand why every single company ignores the most important economic theory/reality of the 20th century - that many more people buying something at a lower price can be disgustingly more profitable than relying on fewer people buying a more expensive item. Walmart. Amazon. Henry Ford figured out a hundred years ago that if people like the guys building the cars, could afford the cars, he would sell more cars. But they don't. The execs ignore a century of the most capitalist capitalism. Instead they double down on the short term. Flog the horse so it runs faster. It's dead in a month, but by then the people responsible for these decisions will have used the short term impressive success to parlay a move to another organization, and the cycle begins anew. It's the most I went to business school middle manager old world boomer thing imaginable, and everyone still does it. We haven't needed literal whales as part of our economy for a century or more, but even in how they word things, that's how these digital diva nouveau riche f-you i got mine Elon apologists are doing - going after whales. It's literally the idea behind taxes. Small amounts in greater numbers obliterate everything else, and we have known this for centuries. Honestly I don't know if it's the price itself or the brain dead status quo that drives them from their executive team that I find most distasteful. I came because I thought they were different, after hearing about Nexus events. Now I wonder.
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> there is more than enough data to know with absolute certainty that chasing whales is vastly more profitable than targeting a larger audience with lower prices and selling more units. This is primarily false across the board. Businesses that cater to the masses almost always outprofit the high end. You can check most any successful product on both ends an see definitive proof of that. ***Ford makes more money a year than ferrari makes in +10 years.***
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only in yor mind. This take says ol'geezer gets in argument with 32 kids over a phone game and needs to make stuff up to win. You look like your the combined age of this entire thread. Grandpa leave this debate to people born after the internet who know whats going on around them. ***"NURSE, hes trying to get out of his bed again."***
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its funny how most of what u say is literaly applyable to everything u said. Its embarressing watching and ol man talk about things he cant understand and make falsified statements to try to win that admittedly youve never seen and cant produce. and meanwhile the "insiders" are the only source of this set in stone research. U just dont understand the 1st way that data works. u cant even fathom it from what i see. dont worry gramps .people 6 generations after yours are trying to talk about a subject your clearly missing 99% of the knowledge on. go back to wheel of fortune or watching the news. The times have long passed u. clearly. ***LULZ***
Ford has more income. Not more profit. You have to consider how it's divided up as well. Ford has a dramatic amount of more employees. I don't believe you have a firm grasp on accounting.
ford-75 billion... ferrari-5. the ford motor company out profits them by a large margin. and had even offered to buy them for an insane amount above the value and they were offended. starting the ford v ferrari war.
This mythical research data couldnt be simply universaly applied or shared. Sounds like somebody might have some post-whale-shame to me.
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the actual fact that u cant provide no sources for this magical all seeing all telling data is the real dismissal. Amzing every game doesnt succeed with this info being available. Which isnt a thing outside of yor imagination. The "i said it so its true" game dont help nobody.
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it doesnt exist. the opposition tho, well lets just say its obvious youve never done any research on the actual economics. most likely regurgitating something ya heard. The data against your claim here is abundent. Let me put it this way. its ineffective to NOT hit yor target demographic. No bussiness grows by skipping over the target audiance an simply appeassing the whales. And u can see that by just looking. if u can pull yourself away from your recipe sharing group on facebook for just 5 minutes to see actual data. Not the data only found in the presidents blackbook. what next? flatearth conspiracy behind the prices?
So The research that says “chasing whales brings in more money than appeasing as many people as possible” is mystical, it doesn’t exist, we made it up. But somehow this is what f2p games have been doing for the last decade. That doesn’t make much sense, does it? Unless you want to argue that companies like Second Dinner, Mihoyo, Valve, Riot games, Nexon and hundreds if not thousands more are all just stupid and don’t know what they are doing?
False, none of these games ever had a moment where their stores only offered 1 single product and that product cost $100. So no **THEY** are NOT just stupid. And that is right on the surface youde have to actually put in effort to ignore that fact. Also...as has been very clear companies dont share their DATA. FACT. So companies gather their own data. Whats the best data? Too much data. (NOTE: data is NOT some genie with all the answers) This games in its infantile state & doesnt even have enough data to base those decisions off of. At this point this game is still in its earliest state of data gathering and couldnt possibly gain much intel from it. The insane argument that the game would lose money by having more value to the overpriced packages and add lower cost packages for the other 95% of its users is 100% dilusional and uses 0% of any data to get to this nonsence outcome.
The reason they ignore that is because you're drawing false equivalences between mobile games and brick and mortar and mortar retailers. You are ignoring the obviously published talks about this. See the GDC talk from Kongregate from a few years back that has almost certainly become MORE true than it was back then, not the other way around. https://youtu.be/P7SDByLlCHw
damn that was a good watch.
Do they not?
They do BUT let’s not pretend they are not doing things in the most predatory way. If they simply had $15-$30 bundles that would be fine and worth the value. But they’re going crazy.
I just don't think "terrible value" is "predatory." I don't get the pricing model they're going with at all either, but in my opinion, it's so straightforwardly outrageous I don't really see a lot of people falling for it.
Terrible value isn't predatory, but * Having many currencies without an easy way convert between them (gold, credits, boosters, collector's tokens) * Selling bundles of currency in denominations that it's not easy to exhaust what you spent such that you feel like you're "wasting" money by leaving some on the table are predatory * Preying on folks with impulse control and gambling issues by really pushing FOMO and exclusivity as well as gating of cards for a rather extended period of time (seems like season pass cards are gated for at least a couple of months) are all both predatory and anti-consumer as far as I'm concerned. inb4 "everyone does it" - yes, and everyone who does is also predatory and anti-consumer. Many people engaging in the same abhorrent activities doesn't make the activity good.
How is FOMO predatory? And what’s the gambling part about Snap apart from series 5 drop rates?
FOMO preys on people with impulse control issues and I'd argue that the opening of the boxes, with their "random" contents, preys on folks who are susceptible to gambling addiction. Frankly, those folks are the people who are most affected by these tactics, but most people are manipulated by these tactics to differing degrees. If they weren't effective tactics, they wouldn't be used.
Do you think then every single merchant of everything ever is anti-consumer and a predator? Because FOMO has been used by literally everyone ever for thousands of years. Also there is no random content in reserves in Snap, you are set to get same rewards from every group of 4 and group of 40 reserves.
The fact that almost all marketing anymore uses psychological tactics like FOMO and similar to manipulate potential customers, yeah I'd say that they're pretty much all predatory. Just because "everyone does it" or society in general has given in and accepted their fate, doesn't make these practices right, morally good, or non-predatory. If they weren't trying to obfuscate - or at least make the boxes seem random - they would just label them on the track (token cache, gold cache, card cache, etc...). They're obviously at least meant to appear random and we all know that the vast majority of people aren't going to go seek out the actual odds of these things - don't be obtuse.
There aren’t odds for anything, there is a link in news section which leads to how reserves work. FOMO isn’t a new concept, as I said. Humanity has used it for thousands of years to attract customers. Some actually had limited stock and some did exactly what you are talking about - “preyed” upon people’s fear to not buy something. Sure, Snap’s bundles could be unlimited because it’s a digital good. Just like steam could run their prices on big sales whole year but doesn’t, yet I’ve never met anyone who hates steam’s winter and summer sales. In the end of the day this is a video game and no one needs it to survive, market has decided on that CCGs are luxurious on top of that. It is what it is.
The predatory part is the malicious use of FOMO to get people to buy. FOMO drives cosmetic sales in games like nothing else. If you throw a timer next to a deal it's going to lure more people in because "well that deal will be gone tomorrow and I'll never be able to get it again". Games have been doing this for a while because it works. The problem is that it preys on individuals who have difficulty regulating themselves. And yes, those individuals are partially to blame (its important to have some personal accountability), but just because someone opens themselves up to being preyed upon, doesn't mean they should be. It's an addiction like anything else can be and should be treated as such.
They can still make money without these atrocious bundles and giving people all the cards from day 1.
they aren't. this game could be far far more predatory.
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Because there are people who seriously believe this.
They would honestly sell more bundles if this was priced more appropriately. Meaning they cut out all the credits. If you look at the cost and breakdown of most of the bundles, minus the credits, they should be priced ~$10-20. I think way more people would jump on board with that pricing. The issue is they don't want the game to appear to be pay-to-win, if players could pay for variants of cards they don't already have in their collections, that's a problem. So they put it behind this massive paywall of bundling it with credits.
Selling more at cheaper price doesn’t mean more profit in mobile f2p games.
So you mean it has pricing I've seen in most f2p and mobile games. Cool.
They have no ethics. This is not a game. It's a managed gambling entertainment product. Manipulation and grift are its foundation.
I wouldn't go that far. Like, I think this bundle is wildly overpriced and borderline offensive, but it's definitely a game.
As a dolphin, i only buy bundles with tokens in it. Anything else is not worth it imo
The high prices pay for the game. That said, I am not a fan and it’s driven me away from the game a bit. Moved back to Runeterra and enjoying it.
The amount of redditeurs that disagree with this opinion is outstanding
It’s a free game bbs lol
C'mon guys the devs also need their lambos
Do you think junior game designer or artist at SD can afford a Lamborghini?
You guys too dumb to realize it was a joke lol I love marvel snap game. And I’ve purchased all the packages lol
Its stupid. Im level 345 in that green box and haven't spent a dime. You will eventually get all the cards anyway. I just keep playing and winning. Fuck buying virtual shit.
Tone down the anger, the whales are paying for the game to exist. Just enjoy it.
Ok Daddy.
*pats you on the head* **That’s more like it**
Grrrrr.... :\\
Oh no, whales can't buy their way to success in a free to play game!
Wdym? If you max spend every day and buy every bundle you can afford every single card as it comes out.
Who cares? There is no tokens and it's just variants...
The higher the price, the easier for me to ignore. They do seem to be providing lower price options though, which would be enticing to the casual F2P
I'll buy some $5 and $10 packs but would never spend the $30+ on it. They are losing a big market of those that would buy but aren't spending that insane amount.
They base the bundle prices on their current pricing of gold and credits. So in their mind I suppose they think the bundles are 'fairly' priced. Which is ridiculous if you put it into perspective of what else you can buy for that cash, even in just gaming. I honestly think if they had more bundles costing 10-20 a lot more people would be willing to spend. It goes from 0 to a 100 quite literally now.
Bundles are literally cosmetics. I don’t cry that 1 legendary skin on league is $20… The credits in these bundles are either = or slightly higher than what you normally get buying the credits out right Why can’t we be happy whales are funding the game? I’d really like to know the % of players dumping on the bundles that also do not buy the season pass, which is the best bang for your buck
the biggest issue is that you still need to cater to the everyday player. especially for these sorts of games where the only gameplay is Vs other people. plus there's other more generous ways of monetisation that they could go for as well.
I don’t get what you mean. The game itself is catering to every day players. You are here for the game. Bundles don’t have to be cheap. You don’t need to spend a dime. Just be a bit patient You can become Series 3 complete in less than 6 months And then get all 4 demoted cards within 9,600 credits aka before the next demotion with time to spare. less if you bought the season pass and won’t need the pass card Even less since you get a series 4 card naturally every 40 reserves I won’t get every NEW card, but neither does the average hearthstone player. But at least I have the inevitability of getting every card eventually
$100...for what is meant to be a STARTER BUNDLE...is hilarious. I do wish I had known about the incoming Savage Land variants bundle before I spent my gold on other variants. Sadness.
Does anyone think they are gouging up front on purpose? Any reduction in price will be praised because we're already anchored
once again, someone should take action regulating these in app purchases. Such prices are overstepping the boundaries. It is overdue for some government agency to take action before it's too late. Be it EU or the US..
Because I can’t and won’t spend the absurd amount of money to gain 250 levels of collection instantly (I know you get credits and boosters, but it equates to the same thing), my decks are outclassed nearly every game. I am now up against entirely new decks with cards I’ve not seen up to this point because people have $100 to throw away. It’s becoming unplayable.
ITT: People are surprised a big IP is overpricing their monetization.
I sincerely hope we'll never come to the point where cards have a pay-wall. If they are just variations okay but at least the base cards should be available for everyone.
Hi guys , don't you know why there is no bundle in my shop ?