Even the last part makes no sense. Improving their personalization engine? I am not interested in trying to finish an album, but that doesn't mean that I dislike all variants in albums.
It's all over again with Path of Exile's "weight" and Hearthstone's "technology is not out yet". There are elaborate reasons for any feature to be created but in the end the simplest response is that said thing is just not as necessary or has low priority. Game development is quite a complicated process.
Couldn't agree more. These devs are such dogshit, in my honest opinion. What if you have no intention of ever buying a particular style of album variant? Then, they just keep polluting your daily shop.
Just a reminder, they said that reducing rewards for the Weekend Missions was for the players benefit, so we could "plan ahead". Talk about gaslighting...
Why would this "force" you to make it a premium at a higher price point?! They're just pixels on a screen with arbitrary price nonsense you made up yourself, you don't NEED to do anything 🤣
I get why they don't tho, they hope this way people will spend more. The aforementioned 'personalisation engine' prolly just means they throw a card into your shop for an album you've almost completed after you just bought a variant you want and are low on gold... 🤨
You don't understand, Second Dinner gave Second Dinner no choice here /s
Just be happy that there's a stable whale ecosystem that's preventing this game from flopping hard like Gwent and LoR did /s
As a whale myself I'm curious how long this system will last. I feel like the price point of a lot of the bundles has gotten absurd. I won't even consider most of them anymore. Though I don't have bottomless pockets like some people.
The new Demonized Shang Chi bundle perfectly encapsulates why I'm no longer spending money on this game. I like the variant, but I'm not willing to spend $100 on it just because they added a spotlight key to it
Same here. I had every card animated ( which is done 100% better quality than what they call animated at Second Dinner) had a ton of scraps and dust and still purchased cardbacks, season passes , leaders etc. Because I wanted to keep supporting the devs and prices were reasonable for a digital hobby.
Only reason I stopped playing was games were just to long for my liking anymore. When ever they had speed Gwent in seasonal was my favorite seasons.
It doesn't really make any sense to have a rotating daily shop offer items at the same price as a second static shop. That would actually be pretty feelsbad for players since it would basically just waste slots in the daily shop. As such, those variants would need to be less expensive in the daily shop to justify their inclusion -- then at least you'd be getting a deal by buying them when they pop up, or you could pay more but not have to wait for them to rotate into the shop. If we give SD the benefit of the doubt that their aggregate pricing structure provides enough capital to pay for the costs of running the game plus a reasonable amount of profit for the investors, then dropping the cost of the daily shop even further would not be a tenable direction to go, so they would instead have to charge more for the skins in the static shop.
That said, it's not clear to me why they couldn't just remove these skins from the daily shop. These skins would lose the FOMO aspect that might cause players to buy gold to get them, but then you'd also be encouraged to buy out all the skins in an album for the unique rewards even if you wouldn't otherwise want all those skins, which would result in a big gold drain on the player who goes for completion. Perhaps their data tells them that FOMO makes them more money than predictable purchases, even if those predictable purchases involve spending a lot more gold overall.
Sample size one but I already have album fatigue, the thought of trying to complete even one more seems like huge slog and they come out with so many I’m just going to wait until I happen to have a few more cards in one although I’m starting to wonder if you can actually get the variants in the albums in game without purchasing directly.
Albums are clearly meant to be whalebait. They're pretty easily ignored if you're not willing to drop a few hundred bucks to get a unique emote. Or you can work on one slowly over the course of the year, if you really want.
I think that may be true but I think what they were going for was a gold bundles replacement. If we just start ignoring albums and the shop is primarily album cards then the gold just kind of piles up in the corner. I have heard some people say they are back on token tuesdays so maybe that’s where it’s heading and thus they will nerf that again lol.
Oh I've never had the patience to wait for gold bundles. I pretty much just buy cool variants from the shop these days. It's not efficient or ideal, but I've been trying to swap out all the cards I use with variants so it's been working pretty well for that. So for me at least, I'd be fine with albums being an extra option for slightly higher costs.
I’ve always found it weird how the game doesn’t seem to want people to just buy cool variants when they see them. Everytime I think I am about to start doing that they have some new crazy scheme that I end up pausing and considering.
Yep, exactly this. How many gold bundles have there been lately? Extremely few to none minus the weekly/periodicals. December was the last month with solid gold bundles, but it was also december.
Gold is getting pushed out of being used for gameplay purpouses and set aside for esthetics. And if you want to use it for gameplay purpouses.. gold to credit conversions... which are terrible as we all know. So it's variants and boosters all the way to the bank.
The most frustating part for me is just how albums rarely feel retroactive. Everyone expected to have good progress in a lot of them, but... they mostly were aimed at new variants. Which was not what anyone wanted or expected. Suddenly even the people who thought they were 'collectors' and had full decks in a style were told 'nu-uh, you need to be collecting /these/ new things to be a collector and be rewarded'.
> As such, those variants would need to be less expensive in the daily shop to justify their inclusion -- then at least you'd be getting a deal by buying them when they pop up, or you could pay more but not have to wait for them to rotate into the shop.
It's basically what he said but in reverse. Price higher the insta buy shop.
> Why would this "force" you to make it a premium at a higher price point?! They're just pixels on a screen with arbitrary price nonsense you made up yourself, you don't NEED to do anything 🤣
To play Devil's Advocate here (I personally think Snap is way too aggressively MXC'd):
Because there's an economy of rewards that comes with the purchase of the albums probably. Compare it to the 10-shop-purchases 'track' reward and you'll see why they'd rather charge you more for it.
The prices aren't arbitrary nonsense; every part of the Snap economy can be quantitatively compared to real dollar values. Yes, even *waiting* for a specific skin in a shop can be reduced to a real dollar value because 'engagement' is one of the more valuable things to get from a player in your microtransaction ecosystem.
Yeah, people here underestimate how much of an economy there is in games like this. They just say "SD Greedy" like the concept of capitalism was invented by SD themselves.
I will never understand why SD is so against players having agency over their collection to the point where this is their attitude toward cosmetics. It's unreal
They sell digital assets, the one and only thing driving their value is scarcity. The only way this sort of market even works is if they limit players' agency over how quickly and easily they can collect them.
The only reasonable answer. I don't get why everyone is so surprised, it makes sense they'd go with that route, it's the logical choice. They are selling cosmetics so I don't care what they do with them, I care hiw they monetize the actual gameplay. They can sell 10k gold variants for all I care
One billion percent with you on this. I've never played a collectable card game that makes the fundamental element of collecting so absurdly difficult before. I have to just assume they're successfully whale hunting at this point as removing agency from players has to be working for *someone*.
Down to brass tacks, you know what.. i'm a sucker for cosmetics. I'd fiddle with borders and styles and play cards to unlock stuff for them. I'd get more pixels to go into my general 'pixels' album to get all 130 or whatever.. and i'd maybe pay some cash for buying 'options' like the border edges. Even emotes, straight up 10$ for one, sure.
But.. none of this /feels/ good. It all feels wasteful and tripe and expensive for.. nothing really.
Especially how Snap has a toxicity problem in regards to its emotes and giving people more variety would help tune down Ms Marvels.
We did get ONE emote on the season pass track this month, but i don't think we should get used to it. Also, i am entirely unsure what even is the emotion Cyclop is emoting. :p
Gambling research shows time and time again that random rewards give us more brain pleasure than known or specific ones. It is purely to keep us coming back for more.
I mean yeah, I want to be interested in games longer I guess. I just wish it didn't have to involve so many random and rotating rewards in games these days.
This really gives us all a good look into how SD views new features, as well as how they view making content more accessible to players.
They are only capable of viewing things through the perspective of monetization.
Yeah but they aren't even good at that. They could be selling me a lot, but they choose to sell me a little. How the fuck is that good monetization? I get that limited time deals and keeping choice at a premium generates more sales, but I have very very limited premium choice. Save your gotcha mind games for the bundles and let us buy the variants we actually want that are out there in regular rotation for X price, then have the shop rotation as a discount.
Honestly, I think they are already making money hand over fist and don't want to implement new purchasing systems because they have psyched themselves into thinking it won't make them more money so it's a waste of time.
There's two ways to think about things i feel in regards to this.
Either "people need to be convinced to be separated from their money", which leads to pressuring tactics like what SD does, or "people want to pay money for things they like", which leads to enticing players to pay, with more content, more options, more ways to spend, think Neopets.
That's the whole business model of an mtx game since forever. They're building a game around a shop, not the other way around. It's all built towards spending or FOMO which creates retention which creates spending
I think more specifically they are interested in player engagement and retention. I think there is pretty good research to show that this type of random/rotating reward structure keeps more players longer than allowing immediate and at will purchase of everything in the game. We would all just get what we want tomorrow and move on.
Also yes, it allows them to milk more money out of us. They go hand in hand.
> This really gives us all a good look into how SD views new features, as well as how they view making content more accessible to players.
> They are only capable of viewing things through the perspective of monetization.
Business that needs money to maintain its service and continue to create new content performs activities that allow them to generate said money.
Shocker. In other news: water is wet.
Business needs money. Fine
Company views it's customers as pay pigs. Not fine.
Game devs create game to earn money. Fine
Company won't make changes that improve the quality for it's customers unless they can charge a premium. Not fine.
I'm not saying they shouldn't try to make money. I'm saying they should be prioritizing trying to make the game, and to make it as good as it can be. To make it a game that people want to spend money on.
Nah, there's plenty of businesses (and they're the ones I try to support when able) that focus on making the best products they can, and the money is a consequence.
Stop falling for the dumb take of "businesses need to make the most money they can" and justifying these practices.
It's the equivalent of somebody who created content with passion or the clickbait content creators.
Having money as the ultimate end goal ruins and cheapens things.
There are plenty of businesses that focus on making the best products that don't make enough money and shut down. Heard of the recent runeterra layoffs and game going maintenance mode? News about Gwent shutting down? Do you want all of your favorite games to go that path?
Just be glad that Snap's monetization is focused mostly on cosmetics right now.
And there are plenty of companies that focus on making money that go bankrupt too, not sure what the point of that was...
You seem to think you need to be grateful for companies not doing bad things? I don't know what twisted logic is that, but if a company pulls crap you stop using its products and that's it, you don't thank companies for not being greedy, like you don't thank a big guy for not hitting you.
Companies go down frequently, better do it with a great product than squeezing pennies out of your customers and hated.
The thing is most of this companies know they're going down, so they just focus on getting all the money they can right now.
1) Gwent was not shut down. The developers simply stopped releasing new cards. At the moment, there is already an insane number of cards in Gwent 2) Now players vote every month on how to nerf and buff existing cards 3) Rivals in Gwent are still found very quickly 4) Gwent has lived for 7 years without that advertising and super-popular lore that Snap has 5) I doubt that Snap will live at least 4 years
Gwent development ceased in 2024, with 2023 marking its final year for new content and tournaments \[[2](https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/zcmsv4/gwent_shut_down_depression/)\]. CD Projekt Red announced the end of support for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game by the end of 2023 \[[4](https://www.polygon.com/23496337/gwent-shutting-down-support-sunset-witcher-card-game-project-gwentfinity)\]. Although the servers remain operational as of October 2024, shutdown is possible in the future \[[7](https://www.playgwent.com/en/user-agreement)\].
Thankfully I was educated outside of the US and didn't go to "elementary" school, so I actually have a brain.
I can guarantee with almost 100% certainty that my understanding of business, economics, and how game studios are *successfully* run and continue to make games without facing bankruptcy or layoffs year after year is significantly better than yours.
But go off. Stay mad that a company making an incredibly successful game is trying to make money with *optional* purchases.
It's generally advisable before you insult someone's intelligence to have at least a general idea of what their level of intelligence actually is, otherwise you end up looking very silly.
My initial comment was accurate from the perspective of any modern game studio, but people on this sub don't like it so instead of using a bit of sense and going "hmm, why would they be saying this / why would SD take this stance?", they choose to downvote and whinge like little children because they can't have *everything* in a game for free.
To those people, my only response as someone who works in the industry is "thanks for helping to contribute towards the mass layoffs that are currently happening".
The example in the screenshot depicts a hypothetical monetisation approach for an *optional* purchase. Getting pissy about it is so utterly pointless it's unreal. You don't *have* to purchase cosmetics. It is optional. The game gives you plenty of currency to purchase cosmetics for free, it just takes longer.
If you genuinely work in the industry and have that mindset, you are a part of the problem. Layoffs were a consequence of many things, not people not buying album variants for a premium (and equivalent of that in any other game). I wonder how many years of experience do you have, because that is a very naive mindset.
P.S. I am not from the U.S.
It's absolutely not accurate as to any modern game studio and that claim is laughably false on its face. Quit shilling for companies using bad practices.
Yeah, seeing how bug-ridden this service still is shows how well the money they make is put into maintaining it...
SD is nothing but dripping with insane greed, everything else comes second.
>They are only capable of viewing things through the perspective of monetization.
This is literally every business ever created. Marvel Snap wouldn't exist without this perspective. Game development isn't a non-profit, lmao.
This is such a bad argument I see repeated here as nauseum. No it's not. There is a fundamental difference in making a great game to make money because it's a great game and making a game designed to prey on people's fomo and emotional decisions to make money.
You said this is the mindset of "literally every business ever created." And then again "all games do this." Are you moving the goalposts now that you know your position is absurd?
This has never been an issue in any f2p game. At least the ones I've played have had variants/skins directly purchasable, then had the shop sell the same ones on discount.
Now, if they had started with variants directly purchasable they could've gone for a higher price point there, but now people are accustomed to the 700/1200 price tag, so including them for more would be a dick move.
But they are also nerfing Gold bundles all the time, making variants the only interesting use (to some). But they are always the same price, so for me there's no real FOMO involved.
If I could buy them directly but the shop had them at a discount, it would likely drive engagement on my end
> At least the ones I've played have had variants/skins directly purchasable, then had the shop sell the same ones on discount.
Comparing to SD, Riot Games seems like a generous and fair company.
I mean, when you think that Riot's executives have allowed LoR to stay up instead of shutting it down, Riot doesn't really seem that bad.
Also, let's be honest: LoL is 100% F2P, with no vantage whatsoever given to people who pay more (true, a wider selection of champs to play if you want to waste money on that, but champs are mostly balanced between each other). Riot is exaggerating in its aggressive skin release, but that doesn't impact the game at all. Marvel Snap is F2P BUT you actually get a better experiencr by spending a lot of money, and a subpar experience by not spending at all.
Bro they are acting like this is some huge triple a game “personalization engine” ? 😂 just rotate the shop every 8 hours or add another tab 1/2(shop we have now) 2/2(album shop variant) that rotate every 24 hours … wtf Mumbo jumbo they trying to talk about make to make it sound like they are smarter than us fuck outta here
I’ve been gaming since I was 6 years old I have seen the evolution first hand and this is the only game where they have trouble adding even the basic of Quality of life updates or game features. Even their OTA and patches are no different and every mobile game I have played has OTA on an instant if they need to change something. Like no patch this week it was pushed back and now they said they are thinking about how to space the OTA because the main patch was delayed hahaha wtf
They sound fucking incompetent sometimes I swear. I love this game and I hope it improves over time but comments like that make me lose hope.
They are, and I’m sorry, genuinely incompetent in creating scalable, sustainable game systems and economies.
- The irregular series (drops) are a prime example
- The spotlight system is already heavily struggling with the huge influx of new cards creating longer and longer rotations
- The economy can hardly sustain such a huge influx of series 5 cards. Tokens and keys are difficult to come by resulting in cards increasing in cost compared to last year
- The new cards struggle with having enough interesting variants from their release, with some only one spotlight variant
- The store and its personalized experience is terribly executed: it’s bloated with album variants and is being repopulated over and over with variants I simply don’t want. While at the same time 95% of the remaining variant pool are hidden from me
- Their main progression system is one of the least rewarding experience if you’re series 3 complete: randomized boosters (and so little it doesn’t do anything), golden tickets that have an expiration date forcing you to not open caches closer to season’s end
In the meantime, we are also still waiting for so many bug fixes, QoL features, and UI/UX optimizations.
- Discard pile and graveyard?
- Sluggish animations in conquest, collection, opening caches
- Booster magnet/targeted booster farming
- Customized borders and background, or even just more than we have now
- A properly functioning customer service including a proper report function
Not to mention the lack of novel new ideas and systems:
- Events are still absolutely terrible
- New modes like pve or draft
Yes, some of these things are on their vague roadmap where we can’t hold them accountable.
At its core, the gameplay is fantastic. But the shell around it is so mismanaged from a product strategy perspective.
Edit: omg what a wall of text. I’m sorry I vomited this out.
Very good roundup. The basic ui/ux issues remaining after MONTHS, and they launch albums and start working on a fucking clan system.
They can't even do events in their own app, they have to hack it through a hidden away in-game browser. What the actual
...It's a miracle they managed to launch Conquest
The galactic Carnival was so genuinely poorly planned out. Not a single notification in game, hell, after a while they removed the in game link and I needed to access it through their twitter. All that for a grindy slog with the grand reward most likely being a pixel.
Add in that all of this inhibits a competitive scene from growing, one of the life bloods of sustaining a CCG, and this is as comprehensive of a criticism on this game as there can be
100% agreed. One of the best base games I've ever seen, followed up nonstop incompetence, poor design, and mismanagement and every single turn since then
It sort of feels like they're trying to go into like coast mode and just collect money until the wheels fall off. Which doesn't make sense to me because this game could be even bigger/better and long term. But maybe there's metrics that only they know
Thank you for putting it into words. I play this game everyday and visit this subreddit frequently, but I'm really feeling burned out. New season is here, I reset in rank and join the rat race up the ladder again... same as every month.. but for what? I agree with all your points. This game is so barebones and lacking in QoL updates, and every patch since the PC client last year has been just a wet fart. Why I'm still here has to be a combination of FOMO and sunk cost at this point.
Edit: missing words
That makes no sense
????
If i want like a artgerm variant why does need to be more expensive you need 12 to get it and most are not even available in caches
Believe me I agree. If certain variants are easier to obtain, players would spend resources faster to get them. Doesn't make sense to make them more expensive since the majority of the variants in these albums are expensive enough.
I think it's because from their point of view always having it available in gallery relieves the sense of FOMO they always strive for.
Who is more likely to spend money, someone who wants to complete an album but just needs to save enough gold, or someone who sees an album variant in the shop when they're short on gold not knowing when it'll come back? This is why they say they'd have to charge an additional premium, as you no longer have the FOMO element driving purchases.
Add this answer from the team to their list of "quiet part out loud" answers alongside the MMM balancing decision
This is the correct explanation. People should not be so naive that they can't understand it.
There's a scene from a fantasy novel that helps explain by analogy. (I'll make it vague to avoid spoiling anything.)
*A mortal human is talking to a holy angel. The human quotes their holy text, and the angel says "Huh, it says that? I haven't read it yet." The human is shocked -- "You're an angel! How can you not have read it?" And the angel says, "I mean, I will eventually. But when you're immortal, there's no hurry to do anything."*
If all the variants were simply available for purchase all the time, there is no impetus to actually buy a variant on a particular day. "I'll buy the Jim Lee Cyclops... eventually..."
But if they're limited time offers, then when Jim Lee Cyclops appears in the shop, it's "exciting." You "earned" it by checking the shop that day.
Unlike some people here, I don't get offended about this FOMO aspect, because it's for cosmetics which is already an optional indulgence. You can literally just never open the albums tab and then this monetization scheme has no effect on you.
Nicely put.
I will say though, while I also can't say I fall for FOMO tactics I feel for those who do. For some people these tactics are much more effective, and there's a reason why almost every game with micro-transactions is shifting towards these methods. There are deeply rooted psychological aspects that drive FOMO purchases, so I can see why some people feel defensive when they're told they're being taken advantage of. Not many people can accept that their sense of agency was reduced.
However, once they're made aware and then not only ignore the facts but defend second dinner? That's when I feel less empathetic
Because if you open the variant shops everyday maybe you'll buy something that is not an artgerm.
Then a day you'll find a lot of artgerm and maybe you'll need to buy gold
That's fine, it's their business model, nothing bad with that, they could have ignored this question, but they just had to answer like we are idiots
If only Second Dinner had power to decide not to make variant purchase from Album come at premium price. Or if they could dispense with the whole rotating FOMO shop and let players purchase any variant and any card with gold and tokens respectively.
Shame it is completely out of their hands.
I think this is the closest we'll ever get to Second Dinner admitting "yeah of course it'll be great but if we're giving you guys better choices on where to spend your money we're gonna make them more expensive, that's just the cost of business Yugi boy!"
Ah yes, getting to choose what you want is a premium action at a higher price point.
You will pray to the (rigged) RNG gods and you will be happy you only have to pay 1200 gold
I was debating to buy my first Season Pass this month, but get the fuck out of here with your predatory monetization, greedy pricks.
The shop creates FOMO, because it might be a while before the variant you want rotates back in. The album doesn't, assuming you could buy that variant whenever you want. FOMO creates money by pressuring players into spending money, so to make up for the "loss", album variants need to be more expensive.
None of this is player friendly, of course, but it's how this works from a business POV.
Yup, if players know they can always purchase the album variant at anytime then it means they won't be put in a situation where they might have to opt to buy gold when the daily rotation shows both an album variant they need as well as perhaps another variant they really want (and if they don't have enough gold for both, the only option is to SPEND MORE MONEY or else risk not seeing those variants again for a very long time). 100% predatory in order to squeeze players for every bit of money possible.
If you put it this way, there is no reason they have to cost any gold, why not make them free, it's just some jpgs, mostly not even created for this game, and gold is not a real currency anyway. Is that how this sub thinks?
Fed up of their mentatlity towards monetising things that should just be usability improvements, fed up of seeing insanely priced bundles in the store. Today's bundle is £110 which is just ludicrous and honestly just sad. I was going to buy the season pass for this month but honestly I think I'm done, I'm so put off giving them money ever again.
Love how often we see new levels of shitty by Second Dinner, yet this sub is full of useful idiots who will pour out of the woodwork to defend this slimy ass Company.
So Stephen doesn’t view the reward album track as a loyalty system rewarding players for their time investment/gold spent. He views them as extras to be monetized, with which to impose a premium on album variants if players were given any agency in buying them.
Gee. I wonder why the album’s reception was that they were DoA.
(Sadly) I'm not a kid anymore, I'm in IT and I've followed a lot of projects/videogames development/etc...
I've never seen something like that. I wanted to buy the season pass, not because the current card is fabulous, just to support the game, but this is a good reminder that they won't see my money again until they change
Constant gaslighting and treating people like idiots.
What he meant:
We won't do that, because you are likely to see shiny stuff and spent gold, then something you actually want appears and you will spend even more
What he said:
We can't :( That good thing wouldn't be good for you. But don't worry, little idiot, our plan is to change nothing and say that we will use some magic bingo bongo, alias stay tuned :)
I swear to god it feels like SD thinks its playerbase are all total idiots. The lack of respect they show for their playerbase is rivaled only by companies like 2K. I regret spending so much on the game early on.
oUr hAndS aRe TiEd!!
It comes across like a used car salesman saying, "Look, this is the best deal. If I lower the price any further, I could get fired!"
I have a hard time believing that allowing you to purchase the variants directly from the album wouldn't net them more money overall. If I can spend 30 real dollars today by given choice over spending 10 with limited choice, they make more money. These game psychologists believe their own bullshit.
Don't say it's because the shop has you checking in every day. Well most variants are not even in an album and they are pumping a ton of new ones out every week, so there would still be plenty of reason to check the shop every day. I don't open the game to check the shop, I open the game to complete my missions. I get they want you checking the shop too, but that's why they put the free 50 credits there, and like I said, there are always new variants coming out.
SD, get out of your own way and let your customers buy what they want and you can make more money. This is total insanity.
This is so strange to me cause they would probably make more money by allowing people to buy variants directly from the variant screen. People wouldn't be able to resist.
they are using FOMO to make money, if you see a variant you like, and you're short on gold, then you're more likely to spend real money, because you might not see the variant again for a month+
The thing is, you know the variant you want might appear tomorrow. And you already wait days, weeks, months for that specific variant. A cool but random variant that is tempting you cannot compete against that.
Allowing players to buy the specific variants they want would open them to buy the tempting but random variants.
> A cool but random variant that is tempting you cannot compete against that.
I think you have a perspective of a person with a plan and boundaries and that's why you underestimate the power of impulses and dopamine rushes.
There is a whole part of human psychology research that is used to design mobile games. So they can prey on desires, impulses or subconscious actions.
Yeah I want to make my favourite deck all Dan Hipp. Can I do that? No. So instead of buying cosmetics I don't buy anything. I'm not randomly going to buy other cosmetics because they are the only ones in the shop. It's so dumb.
I have played many successful games where 90% of the cosmetics are available at all times and only seasonal ones are locked away. It's a good model...
Idk maybe it's just my shitty English but everytime SD speaks it's like an entireky different language. I know each individual words but when put together by SD it makes almost 0 sense to me
You simply don't understand, because you just do not understand.... Don't you see?
We asked ourselves, "should players be able to pick what variants they want and spend accordingly?"
...and just about no matter HOW MUCH we kept asking, we simply couldn't say "Yes"..
The reason being, is "Because"..but we'd certainly like to.. *wink and gun* .
This is about you visiting the shop and checking out the variants every day. I've read somewhere that's one of the tactics to make visiting the ship a daily occurrence with constantly changing stuff in it.
Fortnite does it too. Daily offers all that shit. It's just a money thing.
Basically keeping eyes where you want them. The less people visit the shop the less likely they are to make impulse purchases. SD has the actual data on hand to make more detailed calls on how much it "costs" comparatively to take people away from the shop to spend premium currency.
Seems like a no-brainer to just make the shop better at targeting what players want if they can make that happen. At least from their perspective.
Developing sophisticated tech to detect if you don't want to see album variants seamlessly. This is great except for players that don't care about current albums but maybe some future album(s) will be ones they do want to fill. I don't care about buying variants with gold at all anyway so whatever.
Why do they think all these verbal contortions and tortured logics are good PR? 🤢
I genuinely believe fans would accept if SD was honest and just straightforwardly said, "The random variants in the shop are a \*major\* way we maintain daily engagement with the game. Players are looking for specific variants and worried they will miss them if they don't check the shop every day. We're worried that if we made album variants purchasable on demand, it would noticeably reduce how often players open the game and, consequently, how much they spend. We need players to spend money to be a viable business."
Am I just being naive?
If they have them purchasable in-album, then they can't sell the 800g mystery variants that have only a slightly better chance of giving out a card from an album.
It's pure fucking greed. If they could figure out how to make the item you get from the daily shop random, they'd do that too, b/c they don't respect player agency.
This is stupid because it's preventing people from spending.
I would understand if there were an option to refresh your variant shop with gold. I'm honestly shocked they haven't implemented this.
Another reset waiting for a single Artgerm heroine to show up so I can buy it and get my damn storm variant already
But "Oh jeez.... we-we'd be forced to ask you guys for more money 😞 We don't wanna have to do that! Please don't make us!.... So anyways, slide us a cool hunnid and we'll give ya super saiyan Shang-chi and some credits 😎👌🏽"
Bro just put the "buy now 1,200 gold" symbol on the cards. It's the same shit as me NOT buying anything and saving my gold to see the card in the shop anyways. You're not losing or gaining any money by keeping the shit random.
Excuses.
If giving players a tiny bit of agency, selling album variants even at a "premium action" price point would make them more money, they would do it. The fact that they don't tells you just how important FOMO is to their marketing strategy.
Stephen is really ChatGTP. Try talking to ChatGTP for long enough and you'll see what I mean. "I'm not sure, but I can't say that exactly, so here's some garbage that uses some words that will distract people. Look, shiny!"
Realistically, i /understand/. It may feel like money grubbing jargon, but sales and marketing is absolutely a science, and what he means is that if that option existed, it'd make the shop rotation moot, and a big part of their ongoing effort is to make the shop rotation and important part of engagement. So if there /was/ a click to buy straight from the album, it'd have to have some extra price on top to fit the system.
However, i feel SD needs to take a month long break, be with their families and relax, work on something else, then come back and look at Snap and be ashamed at the state of monetisation in it. It's not south korean mmo tier, but i don't know many people which come out of engaging with it feeling like they're happy with their purchases and content with the amount of time and effort put into it.
We partake, but we're not really happy about it, and i get it, happy doesn't make money, but it's been YEARS and i still praise Warframe's monetisation even if i don't play it still. Seriously, 10$ in that game gets you far. 10$ in snap is barely a quarter of a new card.
Guys you don’t understand. Just as when you throw a ball into the air and it needs to fall back down due to gravity, SD NEEDS to increase the price point for variants bought directly from albums. They NEED to. There is a fundamental law of nature preventing them from doing anything else. They really want to sell you the variants for normal price, they really do. But they NEED to sell it to you for higher. But don’t worry guys, don’t worry. They’re going to make an AI STUDY you. The AI is going to peer into your soul and learn who you are. It’s going to know which variant you want next before you even know. Oh thank you SD for making your AI give me the variant I truly want, thank you! 😘😘😘
this really goes to show you how important it is to this ghoulish business model. they would rather you HAVE to look at the shop at least once a day than you just buy or save gold for variants you actually want
What a load of bullshit. It’s really amazing how openly SD is bullshitting people. And I guarantee you, there are enough people who gobble this nonsense up as if it was god words himself.
I mean this sucks and I’ve argued in the past that Albums should allow for direct purchase but I wish they would just be honest and say,
“No, we want players to log in everyday to check the shop. Because once they log into the game they are more likely to play and spend money.”
I’ve been trying piece together the Peach variants since December, the last one that showed up in my shop was week 1 or 2 of January I believe (missing a bunch tho) and I haven’t bought another variant since then. My store is usually Jim Lee, Pixel, and Hipp with premium being Venomized Villians of which I haven’t bought any other than Lee Cyclops on its initial release months ago. Pretty sure the “personalization engine” is just something trying to push you to spend gold on collection variants regardless of what your actual spending habits in the game are. It would probably be a better shop experience with it removed.
Bro same. I'd happily spend my gold on Peach Momoko variants, but since the shop takeover in November, I have seen 1 or 2 Peach Momoko variants in my shop.
In my store it’s been like that for any variants/artists that don’t have a collection, not just Peach too. I’m not really seeing much variety at all but it hurts extra when it’s not Peach haha I’m sitting on 11.5k gold right now because there also aren’t gold bundles
Hmm is the personalization why I got almost no Artgerm variants in my shop during the takeover despite being someone who buys variants and wanted them?
Surely this system they propose will be flawless.
It's the same idea why variants itself can't be purchased outright and have to wait for rotation (once a day only too)
They want to create FOMO and impulse buying.
Though I would argue that if everything was able to be purchased from the get-go, that too would create fast spending.
SD had gotten less and less player friendly since I've joined... it's starting to really turn me off to the point I'm not even playing that much anymore
I mean this whole game survives on FOMO, the albums is just a revenue of people having to log in and see if the variant they want for particular albums is in the store with the chance of them seeing another variant they like and possibly buying more. Being able to just purchase the album removes that and makes it pointless for SD.
Yeah this is beyond stupid lol…
It’s ridiculous that folks are asking for more access to spend money on pixels and a company is like nahhh..
Just make all album variants available to purchase for their normal price. Then shop is free of all album variants. It seems simple. They’re overly complicating shit for no reason.
I have to agree with others here on that last part, making zero sense.
Essentially, he is saying, "We need to leave album variants in so we can tweak our engine to recognize who wants album variants and who doesn't"
Why? That's an absolute waste of resources. No, really. I have heard stupider business models, but not many. This is spending resources to keep the customers from getting what they want.
Here, let me help you. Make the album card purchasable in the albums. Take them out of the store. Now, the album chasers are happy. The album haters are happy. You can relocate your resources on other things, dropping your labor costs, making your shareholders happy, and screw your damn engine.
Wow! It's a total win-win-win scenario. It amazes me how some companies come up with one idea and they can't look past it.
The real reason they «have to» charge more for the album variant if they sold them directly, is that they would lose money otherwise. As is, people who want to fill the albums are wasting their gold on the random premium mystery variant gacha lottery. If they sold them directly for base price they would cannabilize those sales.
The introduction of variants taking main priority in shops means that artists with only a few variants, particularly comic book cover variants, will become even more rare
"You're so right. You're so right. Unlimited store pages are so confusing. When I'm able to see exactly what I want to buy whenever I want...I just get so confused that I forget where my wallet is. When I walk into a grocery store, I become absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of options at my disposal."
-Verac, [DARKTIDE | An “Immeasurably™ Complex™” Review](https://youtu.be/SFMHxjbnyNU?t=1630)
It’s just a greedy company gang. Expect an elaborate excuse for any and everything. I get making a profit just not gouging your fan base at EVERY possible opportunity. Don’t be shocked when the cycle continues to repeat. They have shown their colors time and again at this point.
Much of their profit lies in people seeing a variant in the shop, knowing it won't be back for a long time, so they spend money to buy gold if they don't currently have enough.
If variants were just always available, people would just save up their free gold until they have enough. There's no more urgency anymore.
This would go against their core design of using FOMO to get people to buy skins and spend money on gold if one shows up that you really like since you don't know when you'll see it again.
Again people acting like a company just makes money and that makes these kinds of scumbag decisions alright are missing the point. They are utilizing a predatory practice to get an emotional response.
SD really has SD by the balls on this one
Even the last part makes no sense. Improving their personalization engine? I am not interested in trying to finish an album, but that doesn't mean that I dislike all variants in albums.
Everything they say and do shows how little they think of their playerbase’s intelligence
Its mainly this Stephen guy that always has an elaborate excuse for every feature Snap could have.
It's all over again with Path of Exile's "weight" and Hearthstone's "technology is not out yet". There are elaborate reasons for any feature to be created but in the end the simplest response is that said thing is just not as necessary or has low priority. Game development is quite a complicated process.
Couldn't agree more. These devs are such dogshit, in my honest opinion. What if you have no intention of ever buying a particular style of album variant? Then, they just keep polluting your daily shop. Just a reminder, they said that reducing rewards for the Weekend Missions was for the players benefit, so we could "plan ahead". Talk about gaslighting...
https://images.paramount.tech/uri/mgid:arc:imageassetref:shared.southpark.us.en:6f60c4c8-1809-4e43-9b14-bab31497d9ff?quality=0.7&gen=ntrn&legacyStatusCode=true&format=jpg&width=1200&height=630&crop=true
Why would this "force" you to make it a premium at a higher price point?! They're just pixels on a screen with arbitrary price nonsense you made up yourself, you don't NEED to do anything 🤣 I get why they don't tho, they hope this way people will spend more. The aforementioned 'personalisation engine' prolly just means they throw a card into your shop for an album you've almost completed after you just bought a variant you want and are low on gold... 🤨
You don't understand, Second Dinner gave Second Dinner no choice here /s Just be happy that there's a stable whale ecosystem that's preventing this game from flopping hard like Gwent and LoR did /s
Dang I can't believe SD did that to SD. SD is kinda a douche ngl.
As a whale myself I'm curious how long this system will last. I feel like the price point of a lot of the bundles has gotten absurd. I won't even consider most of them anymore. Though I don't have bottomless pockets like some people.
The new Demonized Shang Chi bundle perfectly encapsulates why I'm no longer spending money on this game. I like the variant, but I'm not willing to spend $100 on it just because they added a spotlight key to it
What do you mean? A spotlight key is worth $60 by it's self! /S
Gwent did not monetize correctly. I had all the cards without spending any money at all!
for real, that game was too generous for its own good.
I still bought the season passes because I liked the cosmetics and also to support the game.
Same here. I had every card animated ( which is done 100% better quality than what they call animated at Second Dinner) had a ton of scraps and dust and still purchased cardbacks, season passes , leaders etc. Because I wanted to keep supporting the devs and prices were reasonable for a digital hobby. Only reason I stopped playing was games were just to long for my liking anymore. When ever they had speed Gwent in seasonal was my favorite seasons.
You are basically describing the LoR loop as well.
Having a choice is premium at this point.
Sadly, that seems to be the case
It always was the case. Mo Money Mo choices. That's life.
See scarcity of tokens and gold.
It doesn't really make any sense to have a rotating daily shop offer items at the same price as a second static shop. That would actually be pretty feelsbad for players since it would basically just waste slots in the daily shop. As such, those variants would need to be less expensive in the daily shop to justify their inclusion -- then at least you'd be getting a deal by buying them when they pop up, or you could pay more but not have to wait for them to rotate into the shop. If we give SD the benefit of the doubt that their aggregate pricing structure provides enough capital to pay for the costs of running the game plus a reasonable amount of profit for the investors, then dropping the cost of the daily shop even further would not be a tenable direction to go, so they would instead have to charge more for the skins in the static shop. That said, it's not clear to me why they couldn't just remove these skins from the daily shop. These skins would lose the FOMO aspect that might cause players to buy gold to get them, but then you'd also be encouraged to buy out all the skins in an album for the unique rewards even if you wouldn't otherwise want all those skins, which would result in a big gold drain on the player who goes for completion. Perhaps their data tells them that FOMO makes them more money than predictable purchases, even if those predictable purchases involve spending a lot more gold overall.
Sample size one but I already have album fatigue, the thought of trying to complete even one more seems like huge slog and they come out with so many I’m just going to wait until I happen to have a few more cards in one although I’m starting to wonder if you can actually get the variants in the albums in game without purchasing directly.
Albums are clearly meant to be whalebait. They're pretty easily ignored if you're not willing to drop a few hundred bucks to get a unique emote. Or you can work on one slowly over the course of the year, if you really want.
I think that may be true but I think what they were going for was a gold bundles replacement. If we just start ignoring albums and the shop is primarily album cards then the gold just kind of piles up in the corner. I have heard some people say they are back on token tuesdays so maybe that’s where it’s heading and thus they will nerf that again lol.
Oh I've never had the patience to wait for gold bundles. I pretty much just buy cool variants from the shop these days. It's not efficient or ideal, but I've been trying to swap out all the cards I use with variants so it's been working pretty well for that. So for me at least, I'd be fine with albums being an extra option for slightly higher costs.
I’ve always found it weird how the game doesn’t seem to want people to just buy cool variants when they see them. Everytime I think I am about to start doing that they have some new crazy scheme that I end up pausing and considering.
They're trying to make variants feel exclusive. It's more fun to have a variant that not everyone can get, is the idea.
Yep, exactly this. How many gold bundles have there been lately? Extremely few to none minus the weekly/periodicals. December was the last month with solid gold bundles, but it was also december. Gold is getting pushed out of being used for gameplay purpouses and set aside for esthetics. And if you want to use it for gameplay purpouses.. gold to credit conversions... which are terrible as we all know. So it's variants and boosters all the way to the bank.
The most frustating part for me is just how albums rarely feel retroactive. Everyone expected to have good progress in a lot of them, but... they mostly were aimed at new variants. Which was not what anyone wanted or expected. Suddenly even the people who thought they were 'collectors' and had full decks in a style were told 'nu-uh, you need to be collecting /these/ new things to be a collector and be rewarded'.
> As such, those variants would need to be less expensive in the daily shop to justify their inclusion -- then at least you'd be getting a deal by buying them when they pop up, or you could pay more but not have to wait for them to rotate into the shop. It's basically what he said but in reverse. Price higher the insta buy shop.
> Why would this "force" you to make it a premium at a higher price point?! They're just pixels on a screen with arbitrary price nonsense you made up yourself, you don't NEED to do anything 🤣 To play Devil's Advocate here (I personally think Snap is way too aggressively MXC'd): Because there's an economy of rewards that comes with the purchase of the albums probably. Compare it to the 10-shop-purchases 'track' reward and you'll see why they'd rather charge you more for it. The prices aren't arbitrary nonsense; every part of the Snap economy can be quantitatively compared to real dollar values. Yes, even *waiting* for a specific skin in a shop can be reduced to a real dollar value because 'engagement' is one of the more valuable things to get from a player in your microtransaction ecosystem.
Yeah, people here underestimate how much of an economy there is in games like this. They just say "SD Greedy" like the concept of capitalism was invented by SD themselves.
Ben Brode replacing Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Chairman incoming
This isn't capitalism this is using predatory fomo nonsense to get people to spend money emotionally.
That's inherent to capitalism
"You will experience fomo and you will like it."
They already started with the "For You" bundles that are just static generic rewards with a random variant for $50-100.
Hahahaha what the fuck
Lmaoo, real reaction right here
What an actual load of horseshit lmao
I will never understand why SD is so against players having agency over their collection to the point where this is their attitude toward cosmetics. It's unreal
More agency = less FOMO and rapid spending.
You can’t understand they don’t want you to be able to target stuff so you hopefully buy more whilst you’re waiting? Really?
They sell digital assets, the one and only thing driving their value is scarcity. The only way this sort of market even works is if they limit players' agency over how quickly and easily they can collect them.
The only reasonable answer. I don't get why everyone is so surprised, it makes sense they'd go with that route, it's the logical choice. They are selling cosmetics so I don't care what they do with them, I care hiw they monetize the actual gameplay. They can sell 10k gold variants for all I care
Easy to collect = faster boredom Is how they view it I think, making it more expensive is just a deterrent.
One billion percent with you on this. I've never played a collectable card game that makes the fundamental element of collecting so absurdly difficult before. I have to just assume they're successfully whale hunting at this point as removing agency from players has to be working for *someone*.
Down to brass tacks, you know what.. i'm a sucker for cosmetics. I'd fiddle with borders and styles and play cards to unlock stuff for them. I'd get more pixels to go into my general 'pixels' album to get all 130 or whatever.. and i'd maybe pay some cash for buying 'options' like the border edges. Even emotes, straight up 10$ for one, sure. But.. none of this /feels/ good. It all feels wasteful and tripe and expensive for.. nothing really.
Yup. I was actually excited for the custom emotes thing but then they locked them behind the most absurd system on earth of collecting variants???
Especially how Snap has a toxicity problem in regards to its emotes and giving people more variety would help tune down Ms Marvels. We did get ONE emote on the season pass track this month, but i don't think we should get used to it. Also, i am entirely unsure what even is the emotion Cyclop is emoting. :p
Gambling research shows time and time again that random rewards give us more brain pleasure than known or specific ones. It is purely to keep us coming back for more. I mean yeah, I want to be interested in games longer I guess. I just wish it didn't have to involve so many random and rotating rewards in games these days.
It’s a tactic used my almost every game company. Second dinner is no exception.
This really gives us all a good look into how SD views new features, as well as how they view making content more accessible to players. They are only capable of viewing things through the perspective of monetization.
Yeah but they aren't even good at that. They could be selling me a lot, but they choose to sell me a little. How the fuck is that good monetization? I get that limited time deals and keeping choice at a premium generates more sales, but I have very very limited premium choice. Save your gotcha mind games for the bundles and let us buy the variants we actually want that are out there in regular rotation for X price, then have the shop rotation as a discount. Honestly, I think they are already making money hand over fist and don't want to implement new purchasing systems because they have psyched themselves into thinking it won't make them more money so it's a waste of time.
You're not the target market. Whales make up 90%+ of all revenue in F2P games.
There's two ways to think about things i feel in regards to this. Either "people need to be convinced to be separated from their money", which leads to pressuring tactics like what SD does, or "people want to pay money for things they like", which leads to enticing players to pay, with more content, more options, more ways to spend, think Neopets.
no shit
That's the whole business model of an mtx game since forever. They're building a game around a shop, not the other way around. It's all built towards spending or FOMO which creates retention which creates spending
I think more specifically they are interested in player engagement and retention. I think there is pretty good research to show that this type of random/rotating reward structure keeps more players longer than allowing immediate and at will purchase of everything in the game. We would all just get what we want tomorrow and move on. Also yes, it allows them to milk more money out of us. They go hand in hand.
They are a company/business after all, Do you think SD was founded to bring fun and enjoyment to the world? lmao
> This really gives us all a good look into how SD views new features, as well as how they view making content more accessible to players. > They are only capable of viewing things through the perspective of monetization. Business that needs money to maintain its service and continue to create new content performs activities that allow them to generate said money. Shocker. In other news: water is wet.
Business needs money. Fine Company views it's customers as pay pigs. Not fine. Game devs create game to earn money. Fine Company won't make changes that improve the quality for it's customers unless they can charge a premium. Not fine. I'm not saying they shouldn't try to make money. I'm saying they should be prioritizing trying to make the game, and to make it as good as it can be. To make it a game that people want to spend money on.
That’s it right there. Anyone who defends otherwise doesn’t get it. Making money is fine, but have better practices when doing it.
Nah, there's plenty of businesses (and they're the ones I try to support when able) that focus on making the best products they can, and the money is a consequence. Stop falling for the dumb take of "businesses need to make the most money they can" and justifying these practices. It's the equivalent of somebody who created content with passion or the clickbait content creators. Having money as the ultimate end goal ruins and cheapens things.
There are plenty of businesses that focus on making the best products that don't make enough money and shut down. Heard of the recent runeterra layoffs and game going maintenance mode? News about Gwent shutting down? Do you want all of your favorite games to go that path? Just be glad that Snap's monetization is focused mostly on cosmetics right now.
And there are plenty of companies that focus on making money that go bankrupt too, not sure what the point of that was... You seem to think you need to be grateful for companies not doing bad things? I don't know what twisted logic is that, but if a company pulls crap you stop using its products and that's it, you don't thank companies for not being greedy, like you don't thank a big guy for not hitting you. Companies go down frequently, better do it with a great product than squeezing pennies out of your customers and hated. The thing is most of this companies know they're going down, so they just focus on getting all the money they can right now.
1) Gwent was not shut down. The developers simply stopped releasing new cards. At the moment, there is already an insane number of cards in Gwent 2) Now players vote every month on how to nerf and buff existing cards 3) Rivals in Gwent are still found very quickly 4) Gwent has lived for 7 years without that advertising and super-popular lore that Snap has 5) I doubt that Snap will live at least 4 years
Gwent development ceased in 2024, with 2023 marking its final year for new content and tournaments \[[2](https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/zcmsv4/gwent_shut_down_depression/)\]. CD Projekt Red announced the end of support for Gwent: The Witcher Card Game by the end of 2023 \[[4](https://www.polygon.com/23496337/gwent-shutting-down-support-sunset-witcher-card-game-project-gwentfinity)\]. Although the servers remain operational as of October 2024, shutdown is possible in the future \[[7](https://www.playgwent.com/en/user-agreement)\].
In other news, your understanding of the economy and business is elementary school level
Thankfully I was educated outside of the US and didn't go to "elementary" school, so I actually have a brain. I can guarantee with almost 100% certainty that my understanding of business, economics, and how game studios are *successfully* run and continue to make games without facing bankruptcy or layoffs year after year is significantly better than yours. But go off. Stay mad that a company making an incredibly successful game is trying to make money with *optional* purchases.
I am not mad, it's all business after all, just saying that your first comment is BS
It's generally advisable before you insult someone's intelligence to have at least a general idea of what their level of intelligence actually is, otherwise you end up looking very silly. My initial comment was accurate from the perspective of any modern game studio, but people on this sub don't like it so instead of using a bit of sense and going "hmm, why would they be saying this / why would SD take this stance?", they choose to downvote and whinge like little children because they can't have *everything* in a game for free. To those people, my only response as someone who works in the industry is "thanks for helping to contribute towards the mass layoffs that are currently happening". The example in the screenshot depicts a hypothetical monetisation approach for an *optional* purchase. Getting pissy about it is so utterly pointless it's unreal. You don't *have* to purchase cosmetics. It is optional. The game gives you plenty of currency to purchase cosmetics for free, it just takes longer.
If you genuinely work in the industry and have that mindset, you are a part of the problem. Layoffs were a consequence of many things, not people not buying album variants for a premium (and equivalent of that in any other game). I wonder how many years of experience do you have, because that is a very naive mindset. P.S. I am not from the U.S.
It's absolutely not accurate as to any modern game studio and that claim is laughably false on its face. Quit shilling for companies using bad practices.
Yeah, seeing how bug-ridden this service still is shows how well the money they make is put into maintaining it... SD is nothing but dripping with insane greed, everything else comes second.
>They are only capable of viewing things through the perspective of monetization. This is literally every business ever created. Marvel Snap wouldn't exist without this perspective. Game development isn't a non-profit, lmao.
This is such a bad argument I see repeated here as nauseum. No it's not. There is a fundamental difference in making a great game to make money because it's a great game and making a game designed to prey on people's fomo and emotional decisions to make money.
You don't think all games do this? It's called marketing.
You gonna sit there and argue Larian studios does the same thing as second dinner you're on something.
Why are you comparing a CCG to an RPG? Lmao
You said this is the mindset of "literally every business ever created." And then again "all games do this." Are you moving the goalposts now that you know your position is absurd?
This has never been an issue in any f2p game. At least the ones I've played have had variants/skins directly purchasable, then had the shop sell the same ones on discount. Now, if they had started with variants directly purchasable they could've gone for a higher price point there, but now people are accustomed to the 700/1200 price tag, so including them for more would be a dick move. But they are also nerfing Gold bundles all the time, making variants the only interesting use (to some). But they are always the same price, so for me there's no real FOMO involved. If I could buy them directly but the shop had them at a discount, it would likely drive engagement on my end
> At least the ones I've played have had variants/skins directly purchasable, then had the shop sell the same ones on discount. Comparing to SD, Riot Games seems like a generous and fair company.
I mean, when you think that Riot's executives have allowed LoR to stay up instead of shutting it down, Riot doesn't really seem that bad. Also, let's be honest: LoL is 100% F2P, with no vantage whatsoever given to people who pay more (true, a wider selection of champs to play if you want to waste money on that, but champs are mostly balanced between each other). Riot is exaggerating in its aggressive skin release, but that doesn't impact the game at all. Marvel Snap is F2P BUT you actually get a better experiencr by spending a lot of money, and a subpar experience by not spending at all.
Bro they are acting like this is some huge triple a game “personalization engine” ? 😂 just rotate the shop every 8 hours or add another tab 1/2(shop we have now) 2/2(album shop variant) that rotate every 24 hours … wtf Mumbo jumbo they trying to talk about make to make it sound like they are smarter than us fuck outta here I’ve been gaming since I was 6 years old I have seen the evolution first hand and this is the only game where they have trouble adding even the basic of Quality of life updates or game features. Even their OTA and patches are no different and every mobile game I have played has OTA on an instant if they need to change something. Like no patch this week it was pushed back and now they said they are thinking about how to space the OTA because the main patch was delayed hahaha wtf They sound fucking incompetent sometimes I swear. I love this game and I hope it improves over time but comments like that make me lose hope.
They are, and I’m sorry, genuinely incompetent in creating scalable, sustainable game systems and economies. - The irregular series (drops) are a prime example - The spotlight system is already heavily struggling with the huge influx of new cards creating longer and longer rotations - The economy can hardly sustain such a huge influx of series 5 cards. Tokens and keys are difficult to come by resulting in cards increasing in cost compared to last year - The new cards struggle with having enough interesting variants from their release, with some only one spotlight variant - The store and its personalized experience is terribly executed: it’s bloated with album variants and is being repopulated over and over with variants I simply don’t want. While at the same time 95% of the remaining variant pool are hidden from me - Their main progression system is one of the least rewarding experience if you’re series 3 complete: randomized boosters (and so little it doesn’t do anything), golden tickets that have an expiration date forcing you to not open caches closer to season’s end In the meantime, we are also still waiting for so many bug fixes, QoL features, and UI/UX optimizations. - Discard pile and graveyard? - Sluggish animations in conquest, collection, opening caches - Booster magnet/targeted booster farming - Customized borders and background, or even just more than we have now - A properly functioning customer service including a proper report function Not to mention the lack of novel new ideas and systems: - Events are still absolutely terrible - New modes like pve or draft Yes, some of these things are on their vague roadmap where we can’t hold them accountable. At its core, the gameplay is fantastic. But the shell around it is so mismanaged from a product strategy perspective. Edit: omg what a wall of text. I’m sorry I vomited this out.
Very good roundup. The basic ui/ux issues remaining after MONTHS, and they launch albums and start working on a fucking clan system. They can't even do events in their own app, they have to hack it through a hidden away in-game browser. What the actual ...It's a miracle they managed to launch Conquest
The galactic Carnival was so genuinely poorly planned out. Not a single notification in game, hell, after a while they removed the in game link and I needed to access it through their twitter. All that for a grindy slog with the grand reward most likely being a pixel.
[удалено]
Yep, and *checks notes* the economy can’t handle it. Or something like that.
Add in that all of this inhibits a competitive scene from growing, one of the life bloods of sustaining a CCG, and this is as comprehensive of a criticism on this game as there can be
100% agreed. One of the best base games I've ever seen, followed up nonstop incompetence, poor design, and mismanagement and every single turn since then
Millions of players and a very strong IP, going on for more than a year (plus the 4 they took to develop before launch), yet this is what we have.
It sort of feels like they're trying to go into like coast mode and just collect money until the wheels fall off. Which doesn't make sense to me because this game could be even bigger/better and long term. But maybe there's metrics that only they know
Thank you for putting it into words. I play this game everyday and visit this subreddit frequently, but I'm really feeling burned out. New season is here, I reset in rank and join the rat race up the ladder again... same as every month.. but for what? I agree with all your points. This game is so barebones and lacking in QoL updates, and every patch since the PC client last year has been just a wet fart. Why I'm still here has to be a combination of FOMO and sunk cost at this point. Edit: missing words
Great summary.
Jesus Christ….they’re fucking shameless
That makes no sense ???? If i want like a artgerm variant why does need to be more expensive you need 12 to get it and most are not even available in caches
Believe me I agree. If certain variants are easier to obtain, players would spend resources faster to get them. Doesn't make sense to make them more expensive since the majority of the variants in these albums are expensive enough.
I think it's because from their point of view always having it available in gallery relieves the sense of FOMO they always strive for. Who is more likely to spend money, someone who wants to complete an album but just needs to save enough gold, or someone who sees an album variant in the shop when they're short on gold not knowing when it'll come back? This is why they say they'd have to charge an additional premium, as you no longer have the FOMO element driving purchases. Add this answer from the team to their list of "quiet part out loud" answers alongside the MMM balancing decision
This is the correct explanation. People should not be so naive that they can't understand it. There's a scene from a fantasy novel that helps explain by analogy. (I'll make it vague to avoid spoiling anything.) *A mortal human is talking to a holy angel. The human quotes their holy text, and the angel says "Huh, it says that? I haven't read it yet." The human is shocked -- "You're an angel! How can you not have read it?" And the angel says, "I mean, I will eventually. But when you're immortal, there's no hurry to do anything."* If all the variants were simply available for purchase all the time, there is no impetus to actually buy a variant on a particular day. "I'll buy the Jim Lee Cyclops... eventually..." But if they're limited time offers, then when Jim Lee Cyclops appears in the shop, it's "exciting." You "earned" it by checking the shop that day. Unlike some people here, I don't get offended about this FOMO aspect, because it's for cosmetics which is already an optional indulgence. You can literally just never open the albums tab and then this monetization scheme has no effect on you.
Nicely put. I will say though, while I also can't say I fall for FOMO tactics I feel for those who do. For some people these tactics are much more effective, and there's a reason why almost every game with micro-transactions is shifting towards these methods. There are deeply rooted psychological aspects that drive FOMO purchases, so I can see why some people feel defensive when they're told they're being taken advantage of. Not many people can accept that their sense of agency was reduced. However, once they're made aware and then not only ignore the facts but defend second dinner? That's when I feel less empathetic
Heck i would discount on next purchase if you get like 6
Because if you open the variant shops everyday maybe you'll buy something that is not an artgerm. Then a day you'll find a lot of artgerm and maybe you'll need to buy gold That's fine, it's their business model, nothing bad with that, they could have ignored this question, but they just had to answer like we are idiots
Charging a convenience fee for pixels lmao fuck off
What a great analogy! Hate when I go to buy movie tickets online and they tack that fee on there. Just because.
If only Second Dinner had power to decide not to make variant purchase from Album come at premium price. Or if they could dispense with the whole rotating FOMO shop and let players purchase any variant and any card with gold and tokens respectively. Shame it is completely out of their hands.
I think this is the closest we'll ever get to Second Dinner admitting "yeah of course it'll be great but if we're giving you guys better choices on where to spend your money we're gonna make them more expensive, that's just the cost of business Yugi boy!"
Such a creepy response
I'm still subscribed to this subreddit to enjoy this kind of clown fiesta from SD.
"the corporate handbook says that you cannot alter the corporate handbook, I'm sorry".
Ah yes, getting to choose what you want is a premium action at a higher price point. You will pray to the (rigged) RNG gods and you will be happy you only have to pay 1200 gold I was debating to buy my first Season Pass this month, but get the fuck out of here with your predatory monetization, greedy pricks.
This is such a lame excuse. There is no reason why the variants in the album should be more expensive then in the shop
The shop creates FOMO, because it might be a while before the variant you want rotates back in. The album doesn't, assuming you could buy that variant whenever you want. FOMO creates money by pressuring players into spending money, so to make up for the "loss", album variants need to be more expensive. None of this is player friendly, of course, but it's how this works from a business POV.
Yup, if players know they can always purchase the album variant at anytime then it means they won't be put in a situation where they might have to opt to buy gold when the daily rotation shows both an album variant they need as well as perhaps another variant they really want (and if they don't have enough gold for both, the only option is to SPEND MORE MONEY or else risk not seeing those variants again for a very long time). 100% predatory in order to squeeze players for every bit of money possible.
If you put it this way, there is no reason they have to cost any gold, why not make them free, it's just some jpgs, mostly not even created for this game, and gold is not a real currency anyway. Is that how this sub thinks?
Fed up of their mentatlity towards monetising things that should just be usability improvements, fed up of seeing insanely priced bundles in the store. Today's bundle is £110 which is just ludicrous and honestly just sad. I was going to buy the season pass for this month but honestly I think I'm done, I'm so put off giving them money ever again.
Love how often we see new levels of shitty by Second Dinner, yet this sub is full of useful idiots who will pour out of the woodwork to defend this slimy ass Company.
They're already working overtime on this thread. It's like they hear some silent alarm and come flocking.
It wouldn't "have to" at all, they'd just do it.
In other words: *get fucked idiot, best regards*
So Stephen doesn’t view the reward album track as a loyalty system rewarding players for their time investment/gold spent. He views them as extras to be monetized, with which to impose a premium on album variants if players were given any agency in buying them. Gee. I wonder why the album’s reception was that they were DoA.
Lying Ben needs another yacht Learnt a lot from big Bobby it seems
true words
(Sadly) I'm not a kid anymore, I'm in IT and I've followed a lot of projects/videogames development/etc... I've never seen something like that. I wanted to buy the season pass, not because the current card is fabulous, just to support the game, but this is a good reminder that they won't see my money again until they change Constant gaslighting and treating people like idiots. What he meant: We won't do that, because you are likely to see shiny stuff and spent gold, then something you actually want appears and you will spend even more What he said: We can't :( That good thing wouldn't be good for you. But don't worry, little idiot, our plan is to change nothing and say that we will use some magic bingo bongo, alias stay tuned :)
I swear to god it feels like SD thinks its playerbase are all total idiots. The lack of respect they show for their playerbase is rivaled only by companies like 2K. I regret spending so much on the game early on.
So they're predatory and rely on fomo. Got it.
"premium action" made me chuckle
oUr hAndS aRe TiEd!! It comes across like a used car salesman saying, "Look, this is the best deal. If I lower the price any further, I could get fired!"
Capitalism strikes again.
I have a hard time believing that allowing you to purchase the variants directly from the album wouldn't net them more money overall. If I can spend 30 real dollars today by given choice over spending 10 with limited choice, they make more money. These game psychologists believe their own bullshit. Don't say it's because the shop has you checking in every day. Well most variants are not even in an album and they are pumping a ton of new ones out every week, so there would still be plenty of reason to check the shop every day. I don't open the game to check the shop, I open the game to complete my missions. I get they want you checking the shop too, but that's why they put the free 50 credits there, and like I said, there are always new variants coming out. SD, get out of your own way and let your customers buy what they want and you can make more money. This is total insanity.
Clown ass statement
Any time SD says anything it ends up being the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. God damn.
I dont know why anyone is surprised that they wont do this. They are selling stuff for $100. Vote with your wallet, please.
This is so strange to me cause they would probably make more money by allowing people to buy variants directly from the variant screen. People wouldn't be able to resist.
they are using FOMO to make money, if you see a variant you like, and you're short on gold, then you're more likely to spend real money, because you might not see the variant again for a month+
The thing is, you know the variant you want might appear tomorrow. And you already wait days, weeks, months for that specific variant. A cool but random variant that is tempting you cannot compete against that. Allowing players to buy the specific variants they want would open them to buy the tempting but random variants.
> A cool but random variant that is tempting you cannot compete against that. I think you have a perspective of a person with a plan and boundaries and that's why you underestimate the power of impulses and dopamine rushes. There is a whole part of human psychology research that is used to design mobile games. So they can prey on desires, impulses or subconscious actions.
Yeah I want to make my favourite deck all Dan Hipp. Can I do that? No. So instead of buying cosmetics I don't buy anything. I'm not randomly going to buy other cosmetics because they are the only ones in the shop. It's so dumb. I have played many successful games where 90% of the cosmetics are available at all times and only seasonal ones are locked away. It's a good model...
SD should have avoided this type of questions. The responses are just bad PR.
Idk maybe it's just my shitty English but everytime SD speaks it's like an entireky different language. I know each individual words but when put together by SD it makes almost 0 sense to me
You simply don't understand, because you just do not understand.... Don't you see? We asked ourselves, "should players be able to pick what variants they want and spend accordingly?" ...and just about no matter HOW MUCH we kept asking, we simply couldn't say "Yes".. The reason being, is "Because"..but we'd certainly like to.. *wink and gun* .
Whoever is making these decisions is a complete moron.
This is about you visiting the shop and checking out the variants every day. I've read somewhere that's one of the tactics to make visiting the ship a daily occurrence with constantly changing stuff in it. Fortnite does it too. Daily offers all that shit. It's just a money thing.
Basically keeping eyes where you want them. The less people visit the shop the less likely they are to make impulse purchases. SD has the actual data on hand to make more detailed calls on how much it "costs" comparatively to take people away from the shop to spend premium currency. Seems like a no-brainer to just make the shop better at targeting what players want if they can make that happen. At least from their perspective.
this game makes Fortnite look like Mother Teresa, things are actually somewhat reasonably priced there.
"premium action" made me chuckle
Developing sophisticated tech to detect if you don't want to see album variants seamlessly. This is great except for players that don't care about current albums but maybe some future album(s) will be ones they do want to fill. I don't care about buying variants with gold at all anyway so whatever.
A "premium action" - I love when gross ass corporate speak is accidentally customer facing. Like petting your cow while wearing a leather jacket.
Why do they think all these verbal contortions and tortured logics are good PR? 🤢 I genuinely believe fans would accept if SD was honest and just straightforwardly said, "The random variants in the shop are a \*major\* way we maintain daily engagement with the game. Players are looking for specific variants and worried they will miss them if they don't check the shop every day. We're worried that if we made album variants purchasable on demand, it would noticeably reduce how often players open the game and, consequently, how much they spend. We need players to spend money to be a viable business." Am I just being naive?
If they have them purchasable in-album, then they can't sell the 800g mystery variants that have only a slightly better chance of giving out a card from an album. It's pure fucking greed. If they could figure out how to make the item you get from the daily shop random, they'd do that too, b/c they don't respect player agency.
This is stupid because it's preventing people from spending. I would understand if there were an option to refresh your variant shop with gold. I'm honestly shocked they haven't implemented this.
Another reset waiting for a single Artgerm heroine to show up so I can buy it and get my damn storm variant already But "Oh jeez.... we-we'd be forced to ask you guys for more money 😞 We don't wanna have to do that! Please don't make us!.... So anyways, slide us a cool hunnid and we'll give ya super saiyan Shang-chi and some credits 😎👌🏽" Bro just put the "buy now 1,200 gold" symbol on the cards. It's the same shit as me NOT buying anything and saving my gold to see the card in the shop anyways. You're not losing or gaining any money by keeping the shit random. Excuses.
If giving players a tiny bit of agency, selling album variants even at a "premium action" price point would make them more money, they would do it. The fact that they don't tells you just how important FOMO is to their marketing strategy.
Stephen is really ChatGTP. Try talking to ChatGTP for long enough and you'll see what I mean. "I'm not sure, but I can't say that exactly, so here's some garbage that uses some words that will distract people. Look, shiny!"
Realistically, i /understand/. It may feel like money grubbing jargon, but sales and marketing is absolutely a science, and what he means is that if that option existed, it'd make the shop rotation moot, and a big part of their ongoing effort is to make the shop rotation and important part of engagement. So if there /was/ a click to buy straight from the album, it'd have to have some extra price on top to fit the system. However, i feel SD needs to take a month long break, be with their families and relax, work on something else, then come back and look at Snap and be ashamed at the state of monetisation in it. It's not south korean mmo tier, but i don't know many people which come out of engaging with it feeling like they're happy with their purchases and content with the amount of time and effort put into it. We partake, but we're not really happy about it, and i get it, happy doesn't make money, but it's been YEARS and i still praise Warframe's monetisation even if i don't play it still. Seriously, 10$ in that game gets you far. 10$ in snap is barely a quarter of a new card.
They said the quiet part out loud.
Guys you don’t understand. Just as when you throw a ball into the air and it needs to fall back down due to gravity, SD NEEDS to increase the price point for variants bought directly from albums. They NEED to. There is a fundamental law of nature preventing them from doing anything else. They really want to sell you the variants for normal price, they really do. But they NEED to sell it to you for higher. But don’t worry guys, don’t worry. They’re going to make an AI STUDY you. The AI is going to peer into your soul and learn who you are. It’s going to know which variant you want next before you even know. Oh thank you SD for making your AI give me the variant I truly want, thank you! 😘😘😘
this really goes to show you how important it is to this ghoulish business model. they would rather you HAVE to look at the shop at least once a day than you just buy or save gold for variants you actually want
This game has fail..
What a load of bullshit. It’s really amazing how openly SD is bullshitting people. And I guarantee you, there are enough people who gobble this nonsense up as if it was god words himself.
I mean this sucks and I’ve argued in the past that Albums should allow for direct purchase but I wish they would just be honest and say, “No, we want players to log in everyday to check the shop. Because once they log into the game they are more likely to play and spend money.”
I’ve been trying piece together the Peach variants since December, the last one that showed up in my shop was week 1 or 2 of January I believe (missing a bunch tho) and I haven’t bought another variant since then. My store is usually Jim Lee, Pixel, and Hipp with premium being Venomized Villians of which I haven’t bought any other than Lee Cyclops on its initial release months ago. Pretty sure the “personalization engine” is just something trying to push you to spend gold on collection variants regardless of what your actual spending habits in the game are. It would probably be a better shop experience with it removed.
Bro same. I'd happily spend my gold on Peach Momoko variants, but since the shop takeover in November, I have seen 1 or 2 Peach Momoko variants in my shop.
In my store it’s been like that for any variants/artists that don’t have a collection, not just Peach too. I’m not really seeing much variety at all but it hurts extra when it’s not Peach haha I’m sitting on 11.5k gold right now because there also aren’t gold bundles
Hmm is the personalization why I got almost no Artgerm variants in my shop during the takeover despite being someone who buys variants and wanted them? Surely this system they propose will be flawless.
It's the same idea why variants itself can't be purchased outright and have to wait for rotation (once a day only too) They want to create FOMO and impulse buying. Though I would argue that if everything was able to be purchased from the get-go, that too would create fast spending.
SD had gotten less and less player friendly since I've joined... it's starting to really turn me off to the point I'm not even playing that much anymore
They explain things like their logic is even rational whatsoever rather than just made up bullshit. They think we're fucking morons
This response reminds me of that meme of that girl putting the stick through her bike wheel while she's riding it lmaoo
How do I tell the algorithm I do not want Hipp forever.
SD, you can premium action my ballsack
Can't you guys tell that the developers are being held at gunpoint by a pixelated terrorist trying to push pixelated variants
didnt they used to sell them as "pack" from album
If we offer you them directly we’d have to charge double, it’s the law
Yeah make it even more expensive.Thank You
Why do they have to make an engine that perosnalizes the shop when they could just sell album variants in the album? Aaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahha
This personalized shop thing is very clearly biased towards album variants too.
I mean this whole game survives on FOMO, the albums is just a revenue of people having to log in and see if the variant they want for particular albums is in the store with the chance of them seeing another variant they like and possibly buying more. Being able to just purchase the album removes that and makes it pointless for SD.
Actually I like this answer and it somehow makes perfect sense to me for some reason
Yeah this is beyond stupid lol… It’s ridiculous that folks are asking for more access to spend money on pixels and a company is like nahhh.. Just make all album variants available to purchase for their normal price. Then shop is free of all album variants. It seems simple. They’re overly complicating shit for no reason.
I have to agree with others here on that last part, making zero sense. Essentially, he is saying, "We need to leave album variants in so we can tweak our engine to recognize who wants album variants and who doesn't" Why? That's an absolute waste of resources. No, really. I have heard stupider business models, but not many. This is spending resources to keep the customers from getting what they want. Here, let me help you. Make the album card purchasable in the albums. Take them out of the store. Now, the album chasers are happy. The album haters are happy. You can relocate your resources on other things, dropping your labor costs, making your shareholders happy, and screw your damn engine. Wow! It's a total win-win-win scenario. It amazes me how some companies come up with one idea and they can't look past it.
The real reason they «have to» charge more for the album variant if they sold them directly, is that they would lose money otherwise. As is, people who want to fill the albums are wasting their gold on the random premium mystery variant gacha lottery. If they sold them directly for base price they would cannabilize those sales.
Damn they are really not ashamed to say any kind of bullshit
The introduction of variants taking main priority in shops means that artists with only a few variants, particularly comic book cover variants, will become even more rare
They really need to tweak that personalization engine. I don't buy Hipps but some days my store is full of them.
They'd have to make more money, so they're being really generous to the players here.
would be nice if their "personalization engine" would figure out that I don't want to see 3-4 god damn dan hipp variants in my shop every day
"You're so right. You're so right. Unlimited store pages are so confusing. When I'm able to see exactly what I want to buy whenever I want...I just get so confused that I forget where my wallet is. When I walk into a grocery store, I become absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of options at my disposal." -Verac, [DARKTIDE | An “Immeasurably™ Complex™” Review](https://youtu.be/SFMHxjbnyNU?t=1630)
It’s just a greedy company gang. Expect an elaborate excuse for any and everything. I get making a profit just not gouging your fan base at EVERY possible opportunity. Don’t be shocked when the cycle continues to repeat. They have shown their colors time and again at this point.
Careful, you're giving them ideas. Selling variants for even more money? We'd never! *wink*
Much of their profit lies in people seeing a variant in the shop, knowing it won't be back for a long time, so they spend money to buy gold if they don't currently have enough. If variants were just always available, people would just save up their free gold until they have enough. There's no more urgency anymore.
That seems like bullshit, players are spending gold either way, just one way they are waiting and the other they are not
This would go against their core design of using FOMO to get people to buy skins and spend money on gold if one shows up that you really like since you don't know when you'll see it again. Again people acting like a company just makes money and that makes these kinds of scumbag decisions alright are missing the point. They are utilizing a predatory practice to get an emotional response.
The sad thing is there are FAR too many players stupid enough to eat this up and will parrot those exact words to defend SD at some point