@Kabam Miike Is there a reason why we can't discuss financials in this thread and the impact on game direction?
Mcoc generates $320 million a year. 4m player base means $80 per person per year or $7 s month sub. 1m player base means $320 per person per year, or $26 is monthly sub.
What content can kabam introduce that is going to be interesting enough and fun enough to encourage the player base to spend this should be core to this thread.
And/or, what content can be put in which will let whales spend a lot more than $320 per person per year, to get enough of an advantage over the non payers, so that they are feeling that they get enough of an advantage to spend that much. @DNA3000 has hinted at this conundrum a few times.
This is the tricky balance that all of these suggestions need to bear in mind. QOL and lots of free shards, rank up materials, champion improvements and new content; if these don't encourage spending, then they aren't going to work.
I really do understand kabam's need to generate revenue here and believe it should be an integral part of how the game is improved. Whereas a lot of the suggestions in here seem to be towards benefiting ftp or general content that you can skill/time sink your way past.
If the financials of improvements don't stack up, they can't be implemented and I think people need to hold that in mind. I also think kabam should be brave and honest enough to treat the community like adults on this topic. Most fully understand and appreciate the need for kabam to make money, as otherwise, this game we all enjoy has no future!
It’s probably realistic to break out the things that are short-term possible from the things that are much longer term projects.
For example, fixing/removing Flow in AW is a short-term, very possible step that could have a significant impact. Solving the issues related to shell alliances, tanking and AW shenanigans is a much more difficult issue that has plagued AW as a mode since its inception. Not as short-term and overall not as possible.
Changing the way champions are acquired (or at least offering a skinnier pool) is also probably a short-term, possible step. Addressing the entire rewards structure is a much larger issue that will take time.
It’s important to understand that there aren’t likely to be many (if any) ideas we talk about here that haven’t also been bandied about by the game team. What is important is providing actionable and constructive feedback about how the game as currently implemented fails to provide an enjoyable/meaningful gaming experience.
I would suggest: be specific; be courteous; be realistic. Lay out what would make things better right now and recognize that large, meta changes may also be needed, but won’t happen overnight.
It’s probably realistic to break out the things that are short-term possible from the things that are much longer term projects.
For example, fixing/removing Flow in AW is a short-term, very possible step that could have a significant impact. Solving the issues related to shell alliances, tanking and AW shenanigans is a much more difficult issue that has plagued AW as a mode since its inception. Not as short-term and overall not as possible.
Changing the way champions are acquired (or at least offering a skinnier pool) is also probably a short-term, possible step. Addressing the entire rewards structure is a much larger issue that will take time.
It’s important to understand that there aren’t likely to be many (if any) ideas we talk about here that haven’t also been bandied about by the game team. What is important is providing actionable and constructive feedback about how the game as currently implemented fails to provide an enjoyable/meaningful gaming experience.
I would suggest: be specific; be courteous; be realistic. Lay out what would make things better right now and recognize that large, meta changes may also be needed, but won’t happen overnight.
Dr. Zola
I agree with you wholeheartedly. There were some new game concepts posted in this thread, but in terms of problems/complaints already in the game and potential improvements, there's not much that's new. The game team probably has heard/seen it and may have even discussed it, but the biggest issue is that it's been disregarded. Flow, as you pointed out, has been a HUGE pain point in AW. Since last off-season people have been begging for it to be changed and many great ideas have been suggested for improving it. Instead we got radio silence until the season ended and then a band-aid that no one was happy with. That's why I said in an earlier post that I do believe if this fallout happened earlier, they may have responded to this Flow issue differently instead of just brushing off the whole community. That's true for many many issues. It just seems like these complaints/recommended improvements are like a leaky water valve that has been ignored and now the whole pipe has burst so something big needs to be done, both in the short term to stop the flooding, and in the long-term to repair the damage and prevent it happening again in the future.
I see lots of people suggesting going back to 2-4*s with act 7. I for one absolutely do not want to see story content go down this road.
I wasn't even one that had big issues with the 6.2 gates but basically the entire community disagreed. Gates can't be bad bc you didn't have the 5*s for 6.2 but then be good bc you have the 3*s for something else. I don't want to use worse versions of champions with less synergies bc you guys can't make up your minds about gates being good or bad. I certainly see far less people suggesting 1*s in all these posts too. Perhaps bc a lot of are missing those and that's why we still have people crying about the last variant.
I'm fine with those types of quests being introduced in variants as that's the whole point of them. I don't want to see them anywhere near story content though.
Shouldn't be a big deal unless you're one of those guy's that've sold all his 1,2 and 3 star champs to exploit the broken matchmaking system in war
I assure you I haven't sold any of my champs. Have somewhere around 700 at the moment. Thats not the point though. I got crucified during the 6.2 threads bc I said I didn't mind the gates, they didn't really affect me as I had basically all the available 5*s at the time and an extensive 6* roster. I got told repeatedly that I'd feel differently if they affected me and that gates and restricting champion selection was inherently bad. Yet here we are and bc 2 and 3* gates wouldn't affect people they're good now? They're either inherently bad or they're only bad when they affect you and I was right all along. Regardless of which, I have no desire to use lower rarity champs bc the majority of you flip flopped on gates
I really don’t understand the point you are trying to make. Seems like it is you that did not understand the issue behind the gates. The gates aren’t the problem it is the number and rarity attached to the gate that is. If 6.2 had 3* gate (and 3* were allowed in the content) there wouldn’t have been an issue. If 6.2 had 5* gates but only required a maximum of 2, there wouldn’t have been much of an issue.
Plenty of people did and still do complain about the gates in general and say that restricting champion choice is just bad design. I assumed then and still do that people only said that bc they were negatively affected. The support of lower rarity gates in newer content kinda backs that up.
I'd rather not see gates at all personally. I definitely don't want lower rarity gates in new story content which the devs seem to have said aren't happening anyway. I would however rather gates over the node design we got in 6.3 and 6.4 that requires ultra specific counters. As I've said already in the thread I'd much rather see more node design like Icarus and backblast that can either hurt or help you. Making nodes that just make people want to play around them and bypass it all together with ghost or quake instead of incentivizing actually countering the node just isn't any fun to play really
Everyone is complaining about useless pulls and bad rng. I feel like if you had a selector and could choose any champ you want, the game would actually be worse. What's the fun in that? I want corvus, I got him. I want doom, I got him. I want..... I got him/her. What's the point? They have this selector system in marvel future fight, another netmarble game. It sucks. They give you a 6 star on day one. They give you a R2 on something like day 5. You have a maxed out 6 star(top champ in the game), by the end of a week. The game sucks. It's not fun at all because they give you everything for free. My point is, RNG is a good thing. Without it, there would be no fun
I don't think it would kill the game at all if you completed act 6 and the reward is you get to pick any champ that is in the basic if you want. That will not break the game and I think it would make the game a ton of fun.
I tried to watch it but had no idea what it was about, at some point he became a rapper or something idk
What I haven’t seen a lot in this mob mentality is a little criticism towards Seatin.
People don’t like high tier AQ and AW, act 7 and RNG. I am neutral on AQ and AW, I don’t play high level but I do have fun with it. RNG is fine with me but they could make better featured crystals.
But who is opening for thousands of dollars of crystals and making it popular? People watch it and get inspired, why change crystals if it is working and supported by a youtuber who made a professional career out of it.
Act 7 seems to be super hard. When the Abyss came out and Kabam said how long they worked on it and that it was meant to take weeks/months to complete it. Who finished it in hours on his vacation? And everyone laughing, weeks!? months!? Wahahaha
So of course they are making it even harder and the casual player probably never completes it. I cannot handle 18k or 23k attack.
People should also realize that Seatin is like a professional athlete who now doesn’t want to compete on that level anymore, which is okay.
The endgame, act 7 and abyss is something i cannot complete, I am simply not good enough, which is fine, I will move on to another game or wait till maxed 6*
It’s okay if you don’t want to compete on the highest level, just move on to a smaller alliance or different game
Don’t let your quality of life (your real life) get bothered by a game
I agree with the quality of life part but anyone who watches Seatin knows that he has started multiple free to play accounts and has a good pulse of being a f2p player. Even as a massive whale he can still speak to the everyday player. Myself included. I completed everything in the game with the exception of Abyss of Legends and I have Aegon. I just don't want to spend thousands of units to do it right now.
You can get a sense of how hard the content is for people with lesser rosters because you can only beat it with limited characters. Its just that simple, implying that hes out of touch because of his massive roster or others commenting on it that finished it early just isn't true.
It’s probably realistic to break out the things that are short-term possible from the things that are much longer term projects.
For example, fixing/removing Flow in AW is a short-term, very possible step that could have a significant impact. Solving the issues related to shell alliances, tanking and AW shenanigans is a much more difficult issue that has plagued AW as a mode since its inception. Not as short-term and overall not as possible.
Changing the way champions are acquired (or at least offering a skinnier pool) is also probably a short-term, possible step. Addressing the entire rewards structure is a much larger issue that will take time.
It’s important to understand that there aren’t likely to be many (if any) ideas we talk about here that haven’t also been bandied about by the game team. What is important is providing actionable and constructive feedback about how the game as currently implemented fails to provide an enjoyable/meaningful gaming experience.
I would suggest: be specific; be courteous; be realistic. Lay out what would make things better right now and recognize that large, meta changes may also be needed, but won’t happen overnight.
Dr. Zola
I agree with you wholeheartedly. There were some new game concepts posted in this thread, but in terms of problems/complaints already in the game and potential improvements, there's not much that's new. The game team probably has heard/seen it and may have even discussed it, but the biggest issue is that it's been disregarded. Flow, as you pointed out, has been a HUGE pain point in AW. Since last off-season people have been begging for it to be changed and many great ideas have been suggested for improving it. Instead we got radio silence until the season ended and then a band-aid that no one was happy with. That's why I said in an earlier post that I do believe if this fallout happened earlier, they may have responded to this Flow issue differently instead of just brushing off the whole community. That's true for many many issues. It just seems like these complaints/recommended improvements are like a leaky water valve that has been ignored and now the whole pipe has burst so something big needs to be done, both in the short term to stop the flooding, and in the long-term to repair the damage and prevent it happening again in the future.
Right. There are things I would like to see that have no chance of happening anytime soon.
As an example, I think materials required to rank up lower rarity champs should vary by Summoner progress level. If you’re done with Act 5, you should be able to rank 4* champs for a fraction of the current cost in gold and materials. They are functionally worthless at that point, other than to tool around with as a collector or use for synergy partners in EQ.
But I don’t expect that to happen any time soon if ever. And so I don’t spam the forums with that wild-hare idea.
First things first...fix the obvious and immediate (flow, niche champ requirements & acquisition, broken/bugged nodes and champs).
I think more instances of buffing rewards for things like EQ, AQ and/or AW without feeling the need to increase the difficulty disproportionately or at all would go a long way. Every buff to any rewards has come with a difficulty increase that doesn't necessarily match. Globals in war which has been broken since day 1, globals on top of globals on top of globals for AQ are two examples that come to mind. I don't think I've ever seen a buff in rewards where the content stayed the same and was just buffed because the rewards were outdated or not matching the effort. We STILL have war victor and loss crystals with useless junk in them like 3* arena boosts lol.....
The problem is Kabam need to make money to stay in business which everyone understands but i personally think they're going about it the wrong way, the difficult content that people call "cash grab" is unnecessary there are ways this game can make a load of money and its simple do more potion and revive deals at an affordable rate and expand the storage of those items so they don't go into overflow, also make champ specific crystals like a 5 star skill crystal that contains 4 good champs and 2 average champs example blade,nick fury, korg, killmonger, masacre,mole man, which should be price at $29.99 this crystal should come with a skill rank 1-2 and 2-3 gem and 500k gold. All champ is useful and you can hold on to the gem for another skill champ if you wish and the Gold can help with rank up cost. also with these nodes if you're going to make these nodes so difficult make boost avail similar to act 6.3, where the boost can help with countering the nodes and boosting up your champs, these boost should be able to be obtain by completing certain in game objective or by using battlechips , please make these content more fun and less of an head ache.
I've already shared an idea on how to fix it. At this point, between Tanking, Shells, and punishments, War Rating is no longer a trusted reflection of an Alliance's abilities. People are up and down the board out of Season and you need something to regulate Matches. Since people see it as an issue that some are earning the same with lower Alliances, you leave it as-is, and regulate the Points they can earn based on Prestige increments. This is in addition to the Multiplier they earn based on War Rating. Higher Prestige earns a higher Points threshold. 8k Prestige earns X plus Multiplier. 10k Prestige earns 2X plus Multiplier. A rough example, but the gist is there. AQ does this inherently by regulating the difficulty of the Map. Do the same for War, and Alliances will earn Rewards in somewhat of a rising scale that will increase as their Accounts increase. I still don't agree that it's broken. I think the "big boys" just don't like seeing "little guys" compete with them. Nevertheless, there's your fix.
It sounds like you don’t like competing with people at your level The previous system which included prestige allowed alliances like noname to get to master 1 without even facing any of the master allies Old system also allowed tons of other allies to take up spots in plat etc when they didn’t deserve it Also including a multiplier for prestige would be the end of aw
Actually, it's not about me. The only ones who don't like competing with people at their level are the ones complaining they can't take out lower guys. I haven't even returned to War since coming out of retirement. Season 18 I will be in a new Alliance. That's not the point. The previous system is the current system and I just outlined how you're not supposed to take out everyone in your Bracket because the Season Leaderboard is based on Points, not who you took out in the same Bracket. People keep looking at it like the Off-Season Leaderboard. It's not the same. I also gave a solution to that "problem". Tying Points in with Prestige while it's used in combination with War Rating effectively means the Players carry their "War Rating" wherever they go, albeit in an assembly. Players would receive Rewards in line with their Prestige and the board would resemble what people call normal. What it would also do is discourage Allies from hopping all over the board all the time after making shifts to where they optimally want to be, and they would work on building it the same as they do in AQ. The only way I see this being a problem is for some who want to take advantage of the system.
The game is 5+ years old now. EVERY 5* crystal should be a nexus style crystal now. There's 150+ champs in the 5* crystal. Goodluck getting the 1 champ you're after. And it takes most players so long to earn the 10k shards to open a new 6* just to see that they've been grinding for months to get a 6* Ant-man, diablo, lady thor, elektra, king groot, and way too many more champs that the vast majority of the player community considers trash to even list here.
The basic 5* crystal should give me 3 champs to choose from, & the basic 6* crystal should give me 2 champs to choose between. Obviously, that's still not a guarantee to get the 1 champ you really want (nor do expect to get every champ I want with every new crystal) but maybe you can get a new champ, or dupe a champ you wanted to dupe instead of duping either of your Magnetos or Cyclops' for the 7th time. Because we know you still have them at r1 lvl1 with no intentions of ever using them.
I love playing this game with the alliance that I've been with for years, but sometimes kabam you make it really hard to like this game. I don't say this because I want the game to fail. I say this because I don't want it to get stale. Something as simple as making my suggestion reality could seriously revitalize the lifeblood that is the longterm player base of mcoc.
Can we please see these suggestions as the new normal?
I don't agree that nexus crystals should replace the regular ones, but I do feel like we should be able to buy a nexus crystal with shards, for maybe like 15,000 shards, and lower the featureds to 13,000 shards.
I'm fine with either idea but I think that the basic should just be a Nexus crystal moving forward if Kabam really wanted to improve the game moving forward and relieve a ton of burnout.
The game is 5+ years old now. EVERY 5* crystal should be a nexus style crystal now. There's 150+ champs in the 5* crystal. Goodluck getting the 1 champ you're after. And it takes most players so long to earn the 10k shards to open a new 6* just to see that they've been grinding for months to get a 6* Ant-man, diablo, lady thor, elektra, king groot, and way too many more champs that the vast majority of the player community considers trash to even list here.
The basic 5* crystal should give me 3 champs to choose from, & the basic 6* crystal should give me 2 champs to choose between. Obviously, that's still not a guarantee to get the 1 champ you really want (nor do expect to get every champ I want with every new crystal) but maybe you can get a new champ, or dupe a champ you wanted to dupe instead of duping either of your Magnetos or Cyclops' for the 7th time. Because we know you still have them at r1 lvl1 with no intentions of ever using them.
I love playing this game with the alliance that I've been with for years, but sometimes kabam you make it really hard to like this game. I don't say this because I want the game to fail. I say this because I don't want it to get stale. Something as simple as making my suggestion reality could seriously revitalize the lifeblood that is the longterm player base of mcoc.
Can we please see these suggestions as the new normal?
I don't agree that nexus crystals should replace the regular ones, but I do feel like we should be able to buy a nexus crystal with shards, for maybe like 15,000 shards, and lower the featureds to 13,000 shards.
I'm fine with either idea but I think that the basic should just be a Nexus crystal moving forward if Kabam really wanted to improve the game moving forward and relieve a ton of burnout.
Agreed, replacing basic crystals with nexus ones would go a long way in relieving burnout and satisfying the playerbase
@Kabam Miike Is there a reason why we can't discuss financials in this thread and the impact on game direction?
Mcoc generates $320 million a year. 4m player base means $80 per person per year or $7 s month sub. 1m player base means $320 per person per year, or $26 is monthly sub.
Those discussions tend to have problems, often because numbers can be inaccurate or misleading.
FYI, last I checked MCOC generated about $250million USD in the most recent reported calendar year (I haven't checked in a few months). But that's revenue generated for Netmarble, the parent company. Netmarble itself has to make back the $700-$800million USD that was estimated they paid for Kabam in the first place. Kabam the company doesn't make that money directly: as a wholly owned subsidiary of Netmarble, they probably just get paid, and maybe get performance bonuses of some kind. But whether they make Netmarble $150m or $250m, pretty much none of that money goes directly into their pockets or even expands their development budget. Indirectly, the more money they make for Netmarble, the more they are likely to invest back into development. But whenever people talk about Kabam's "greed" I really wonder if they have any idea how any of this works, or if they even know that none of our money ends up directly in Kabam's lap. All of our money goes to Netmarble, Kabam gets whatever Netmarble wants to give them. After Disney takes their cut, and I'm guessing that's not a flat license fee either.
It is even more complicated than that when it comes to currency repatriation and tons of other issues. Complicated enough that I'm guessing the mods feel there's little to be gained from discussions in this direction. But because there's a disconnect between the revenue the game makes and how much can actually be spent on development, uninformed opinions here are no better than wild guesses.
Also, one other thing. Generally, most F2P games convert only about 15%-30% of their players. In other words, about 70%-85% of them are F2P at any moment in time. I doubt even half of the players of the game have every spent a dime. If Kabam got even 50% of their players to spend, they'd probably be doing talks bragging about it in the industry.
The game is 5+ years old now. EVERY 5* crystal should be a nexus style crystal now. There's 150+ champs in the 5* crystal. Goodluck getting the 1 champ you're after. And it takes most players so long to earn the 10k shards to open a new 6* just to see that they've been grinding for months to get a 6* Ant-man, diablo, lady thor, elektra, king groot, and way too many more champs that the vast majority of the player community considers trash to even list here.
The basic 5* crystal should give me 3 champs to choose from, & the basic 6* crystal should give me 2 champs to choose between. Obviously, that's still not a guarantee to get the 1 champ you really want (nor do expect to get every champ I want with every new crystal) but maybe you can get a new champ, or dupe a champ you wanted to dupe instead of duping either of your Magnetos or Cyclops' for the 7th time. Because we know you still have them at r1 lvl1 with no intentions of ever using them.
I love playing this game with the alliance that I've been with for years, but sometimes kabam you make it really hard to like this game. I don't say this because I want the game to fail. I say this because I don't want it to get stale. Something as simple as making my suggestion reality could seriously revitalize the lifeblood that is the longterm player base of mcoc.
Can we please see these suggestions as the new normal?
I don't agree that nexus crystals should replace the regular ones, but I do feel like we should be able to buy a nexus crystal with shards, for maybe like 15,000 shards, and lower the featureds to 13,000 shards.
I'm fine with either idea but I think that the basic should just be a Nexus crystal moving forward if Kabam really wanted to improve the game moving forward and relieve a ton of burnout.
Agreed, replacing basic crystals with nexus ones would go a long way in relieving burnout and satisfying the playerbase
Actually, I think that would be a temporary psychological perk at best. Of course Nexus crystals are "better" than standard Basic crystals, but I don't think they really address the problem. After all, players who pull three times as many 5* champs don't get less burnout, and getting three times the champs is even better than getting a Nexus crystal. To put it another way, if the player that opens one 5* crystal a month has a similar problem to the person that opens ten, the Nexus crystal can't possible do anything more than turn the one a month guy into at best the three a month guy with the same problem.
I think there's a subtle psychological problem that needs addressing here with a more tailored solution. I don't think the person who pulls one actually has the same problem as the person who pulls ten. I think the person who pulls ten sees the crystal devalued: they are just pulling champ after champ after champ, most of which are only good in the long run for generating shards and maybe sig levels. They are just waiting for the next useful pull, and most aren't. These people are, oversimplified a bit, bored. But the guy that opens one isn't bored. She's invested a huge amount of psychological energy into that one crystal, because it is the only one she's getting for a very long time. If it doesn't hit payday, she's not bored, she's disappointed.
Nexus crystals help both, but only indirectly. In a sense, the guy pulling many crystals is now, sort of, seeing them three times faster. But they still feel the sense that most champs that come up are not interesting, so they would still get bored. As soon as they acclimated to Nexus crystals, I think they would return to the same condition. And while the Nexus crystal would increase the chance of not being disappointed for the person only pulling one, that chance only goes up by a relatively small amount. Since they are pulling infrequently, even Nexus crystals have a very good chance of making the player disappointed for a very long period of time with just a couple bad openings.
I think the problem is that the Nexus crystals are too random, not in the general sense, but in the sense that there's no guarantee of variety. I've never seen a Nexus crystal contain two of the same champ. Because that would be silly, so I think Kabam correctly programmed the Nexus to never generate duplicates (if I'm wrong, I apologize here: I've just never seen it myself). But while the champs might not be duplicates, they could still be choices with no real difference. Sometimes I see a Nexus show three choices all of which are basically the same. For example, if all three choices are something the player has max rank, then that choice is *literally* completely worthless. It literally doesn't matter which they pick. That's an extreme case, but it can happen in more subtle ways. Sometimes all three choices are just adding ranks to champs with a couple dups. So in effect, the Nexus crystal becomes sig stones, and sometimes all three choices are champs the player doesn't really care to rank up. So again, the choice is meaningless. I'm not even touching the case where the choices are Deadpool X-force, Magneto, and Iron Patriot.
A better, but more complex Nexus, would try to mix up the champs categorically. Suppose we made a set of categories of champs. Champs released in the last two years. Champs the player doesn't have. Champs the player has unawakened. Champs in the top 30% of burst damage. Champs with strong healing. Champs updated in the last eighteen months. Etc. Not necessarily guaranteed to be completely free of duds, but more likely to contain useful champs that are useful in *different* ways. And then the Nexus crystal picked three *categories* for its three choices, and then picked randomly for each category. Players would have some chance of awakening a champ they have unawakened. They would have a chance to get a champ they didn't have. They would have a chance to get a recent champ. Not a guaranteed chance, because the Nexus would have to pick the category first. But a reasonable chance. And more importantly, the odds of all three champs offering a genuinely different choice to the player would be much higher.
I'm not sure I'm explaining the idea clearly, but I hope the basic concept is understandable. I'm not so much advocating for a Nexus with nothing but god tier champs in it. I'm advocating for a Nexus crystal to not contain "duplicates" where we extend the definition of "duplicate" to be not just literal duplicate, but also champs that for the most part might as well be the same thing. Iron Man, Superior Iron Man, and Iron Patriot really should never show up in the same Nexus crystal simultaneously.
I think this helps both the player pulling one and the player pulling lots. The player pulling one has a greater chance of not being completely disappointed, while the player pulling many has a lower chance of being bored with each crystal, because there's more likely to be significant choice going on per crystal, even if the player is "fishing" for one specific champ out of dozens of crystals. Maybe neither player gets what they want every pull, but they are more likely to get second or third choices. And at least they will feel like their choice is a meaningful choice. Choosing between a new champ and awakening a champ is a meaningful choice, even if neither champ is god tier.
@Kabam Miike Is there a reason why we can't discuss financials in this thread and the impact on game direction?
Mcoc generates $320 million a year. 4m player base means $80 per person per year or $7 s month sub. 1m player base means $320 per person per year, or $26 is monthly sub.
Those discussions tend to have problems, often because numbers can be inaccurate or misleading.
FYI, last I checked MCOC generated about $250million USD in the most recent reported calendar year (I haven't checked in a few months). But that's revenue generated for Netmarble, the parent company. Netmarble itself has to make back the $700-$800million USD that was estimated they paid for Kabam in the first place. Kabam the company doesn't make that money directly: as a wholly owned subsidiary of Netmarble, they probably just get paid, and maybe get performance bonuses of some kind. But whether they make Netmarble $150m or $250m, pretty much none of that money goes directly into their pockets or even expands their development budget. Indirectly, the more money they make for Netmarble, the more they are likely to invest back into development. But whenever people talk about Kabam's "greed" I really wonder if they have any idea how any of this works, or if they even know that none of our money ends up directly in Kabam's lap. All of our money goes to Netmarble, Kabam gets whatever Netmarble wants to give them. After Disney takes their cut, and I'm guessing that's not a flat license fee either.
It is even more complicated than that when it comes to currency repatriation and tons of other issues. Complicated enough that I'm guessing the mods feel there's little to be gained from discussions in this direction. But because there's a disconnect between the revenue the game makes and how much can actually be spent on development, uninformed opinions here are no better than wild guesses.
Also, one other thing. Generally, most F2P games convert only about 15%-30% of their players. In other words, about 70%-85% of them are F2P at any moment in time. I doubt even half of the players of the game have every spent a dime. If Kabam got even 50% of their players to spend, they'd probably be doing talks bragging about it in the industry.
I was going by statista, gamesindustry.biz and gamasutra, which are all based on netmarble's financial reports. They posted revenue split by game, including mcoc.
It's an easy Google.
My point isn't that they take too much money. My point is that the current revenue, circa 300m, will need to be retained. Not for kabam, not for running the game, but because a wider financial edifice now relies on that revenue stream, or replacement thereof by new content or games.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the amount of money mcoc makes.
My point was that any ideas on how to improve the experience for players, need to bear in mind the entirely legitimate and proper ambitions and expectations for kabam / netmarble to monetise mcoc. And how much money is needed.
So when people talk about bundling 5* sig stones in content (let alone 6* sig stones) where currently an offer for 85 5* sig levels in the recent daily sig stone offer was for $50, people need to bear in mind just how much revenue mcoc will LOSE of they start doing that.
Same with increasing access to 6* shards.
My point, in short, is that many of these ideas to improve the experience of players, have focused on more free stuff. Kabam can't do that as it will kill the game just as fast as anything else.
Ideas need to be focused on improving areas that will make, from a lapsed 4.99 unit subscription player all the way through to Seatin at $12k a year, continue to spend.
My reference of you, @DNA3000 was that I thought I recalled you mentioning a similar point on the delicacy of that balancing act.
And also that you've made the point perhaps more elegantly than most, that "free stuff" isn't going to fix it, it has to be fun, engaging, have rich monetisation potential and also as a ftp/gacha game, b give enough to those willing to really dig deep into their wallets enough of an advantage that they feel the spend is worth it.
Free sig stones, 6* shards or even a 6* ghost to every ftp players doesn't solve that.
Here’s what’s wrong with incursions: What am I doing with this pull? Won’t help me anywhere. Okay I got some gold. So what? 🤷🏼♂️
That's not what's wrong with incursions specifically, that's the issue with the whole RNG system. I pulled Kamala from my incursions war crystal as well, but at least these are easier to earn. I think the bigger issue is when you pull these kind of champs after completing a major piece of content and should be feeling proud.
No its the way Kabam builds the RNG. Just put useful champions in there, same with features and the 6 star crystals. 170 champions and you couldn't find a better champ to put in the crystals than iron fist. I don't participate, I use basics so if I get disappointed is 6k less incursion points you need.
Here’s what’s wrong with incursions: What am I doing with this pull? Won’t help me anywhere. Okay I got some gold. So what? 🤷🏼♂️
That's not what's wrong with incursions specifically, that's the issue with the whole RNG system. I pulled Kamala from my incursions war crystal as well, but at least these are easier to earn. I think the bigger issue is when you pull these kind of champs after completing a major piece of content and should be feeling proud.
No its the way Kabam builds the RNG. Just put useful champions in there, same with features and the 6 star crystals. 170 champions and you couldn't find a better champ to put in the crystals than iron fist. I don't participate, I use basics so if I get disappointed is 6k less incursion points you need.
Cherry picking the Champs in the Crystal defeats the purpose of having RNG. In the beginning of the 6* pool, they made efforts not to add Champs that were too far on the lower end, but now we're down to the wire and there's only a certain number not added. There are some obvious ones like SW that won't be, but only putting the best Champs in the pool is actually a game-breaking concept.
The game is 5+ years old now. EVERY 5* crystal should be a nexus style crystal now. There's 150+ champs in the 5* crystal. Goodluck getting the 1 champ you're after. And it takes most players so long to earn the 10k shards to open a new 6* just to see that they've been grinding for months to get a 6* Ant-man, diablo, lady thor, elektra, king groot, and way too many more champs that the vast majority of the player community considers trash to even list here.
The basic 5* crystal should give me 3 champs to choose from, & the basic 6* crystal should give me 2 champs to choose between. Obviously, that's still not a guarantee to get the 1 champ you really want (nor do expect to get every champ I want with every new crystal) but maybe you can get a new champ, or dupe a champ you wanted to dupe instead of duping either of your Magnetos or Cyclops' for the 7th time. Because we know you still have them at r1 lvl1 with no intentions of ever using them.
I love playing this game with the alliance that I've been with for years, but sometimes kabam you make it really hard to like this game. I don't say this because I want the game to fail. I say this because I don't want it to get stale. Something as simple as making my suggestion reality could seriously revitalize the lifeblood that is the longterm player base of mcoc.
Can we please see these suggestions as the new normal?
I don't agree that nexus crystals should replace the regular ones, but I do feel like we should be able to buy a nexus crystal with shards, for maybe like 15,000 shards, and lower the featureds to 13,000 shards.
I'm fine with either idea but I think that the basic should just be a Nexus crystal moving forward if Kabam really wanted to improve the game moving forward and relieve a ton of burnout.
Agreed, replacing basic crystals with nexus ones would go a long way in relieving burnout and satisfying the playerbase
A better, but more complex Nexus, would try to mix up the champs categorically. Suppose we made a set of categories of champs. Champs released in the last two years. Champs the player doesn't have. Champs the player has unawakened. Champs in the top 30% of burst damage. Champs with strong healing. Champs updated in the last eighteen months. Etc. Not necessarily guaranteed to be completely free of duds, but more likely to contain useful champs that are useful in *different* ways. And then the Nexus crystal picked three *categories* for its three choices, and then picked randomly for each category. Players would have some chance of awakening a champ they have unawakened. They would have a chance to get a champ they didn't have. They would have a chance to get a recent champ. Not a guaranteed chance, because the Nexus would have to pick the category first. But a reasonable chance. And more importantly, the odds of all three champs offering a genuinely different choice to the player would be much higher.
I'm not sure I'm explaining the idea clearly, but I hope the basic concept is understandable. I'm not so much advocating for a Nexus with nothing but god tier champs in it. I'm advocating for a Nexus crystal to not contain "duplicates" where we extend the definition of "duplicate" to be not just literal duplicate, but also champs that for the most part might as well be the same thing. Iron Man, Superior Iron Man, and Iron Patriot really should never show up in the same Nexus crystal simultaneously.
I think this helps both the player pulling one and the player pulling lots. The player pulling one has a greater chance of not being completely disappointed, while the player pulling many has a lower chance of being bored with each crystal, because there's more likely to be significant choice going on per crystal, even if the player is "fishing" for one specific champ out of dozens of crystals. Maybe neither player gets what they want every pull, but they are more likely to get second or third choices. And at least they will feel like their choice is a meaningful choice. Choosing between a new champ and awakening a champ is a meaningful choice, even if neither champ is god tier.
How realistic is it to program a Nexus crystal in this manner? The system will have to look into player's roster to generate the correct champs.
There was already a closed thread about class awakening gem, sig stones, rank-up gem conspiracy. If the system can do that with the Nexus, this allegation of conspiracy cannot be easily pushed away.
The data is what they call the lower end. Not who thinks what is garbage. Data doesn't just mean End-Game, although that's part of it. As for the newer pools, it's a mix, really. Some higher, some mid, and some lower. You can't introduce a new Rarity into the game and only include the strongest Champs, and then expect the game to adjust without easing into it. *Also worth noting that the data at the time of their release was very different than it is now.
Here’s what’s wrong with incursions: What am I doing with this pull? Won’t help me anywhere. Okay I got some gold. So what? 🤷🏼♂️
That's not what's wrong with incursions specifically, that's the issue with the whole RNG system. I pulled Kamala from my incursions war crystal as well, but at least these are easier to earn. I think the bigger issue is when you pull these kind of champs after completing a major piece of content and should be feeling proud.
No its the way Kabam builds the RNG. Just put useful champions in there, same with features and the 6 star crystals. 170 champions and you couldn't find a better champ to put in the crystals than iron fist. I don't participate, I use basics so if I get disappointed is 6k less incursion points you need.
Cherry picking the Champs in the Crystal defeats the purpose of having RNG. In the beginning of the 6* pool, they made efforts not to add Champs that were too far on the lower end, but now we're down to the wire and there's only a certain number not added. There are some obvious ones like SW that won't be, but only putting the best Champs in the pool is actually a game-breaking concept.
I never reply when I see your comments however this one felt like it needed a response because of the flaw in your logic. Yes it is very clear that adding the best champs into the crystal would be game breaking. However what about adding in only the meme-tier, useless, absolute garbage champions? That is what has been happening in case that you are not aware. Most recent additions to the 6 star pool are none other than Joe Fixit, whom I am a proud owner of (RIP me), Kamala Khan, Agent Venom, Iron Patriot, Civil Warrior, Falcon, Magneto Marvel Now (like its not enough that the OG Magneto is in there as well), Netflix Daredevil... There are new featured champions added as well but other than a few like Doom and Surfer (mostly because of prestige) are completely not worth having those other useless champions in there. I am not suggesting the total elimination of RNG but some sort of alleviation should be present because of the sheer effort of getting all the resources and in the end getting absolutely disheartened by the rubbish you keep getting.
I talked about how they steered away from the lower end of Champions in the beginning, but there's only so many Champs left not added. It's not reasonable to expect them to omit them completely. The pool of Champions to choose from is the same as what exists in the game, and eventually they'll all be added, save for the ones that are too OP for that Rarity. They're not going to devalue 75% of their own product by creating a new level of Champ and only adding the ones people don't consider garbage. That makes 6*s a graduation, not another step in progress. People have been adhering to the whole Tier List so long they think it's a construct of the game. That's one person's own review. Not the design choice of the game itself.
Once again, the lower end means the data. Not what people call lower end. Those two things are not the same. A lot of times they coincide, but not always. Your first point is that they're not better or fun. That whole comparison game never ends. Fun is subjective, and there's always something better at something. That doesn't mean they should exclude the less popular ones completely. People are always going to have Champs they chase after and that they like more. RNG is not, by definition, about always getting what you like.
I was going by statista, gamesindustry.biz and gamasutra, which are all based on netmarble's financial reports. They posted revenue split by game, including mcoc.
It's an easy Google.
It seems gamesindustry.biz steered you slightly wrong. You can actually get Netmarble's financial reports directly from them as a primary source, where they show revenue per quarter, and the approximate percentage breakdown for their top titles.
Here's a summary:
This shows the actual revenue reported on their financial report in Korean won per quarter, the reported percentage MCOC eared, the estimated exchange rate around the filing date, and the estimated US conversion in millions of dollars. The rolling totals are in the ballpark of $270-$280million USD. For various reasons I slightly under count that revenue because of accounting complexities I've seen before when it comes to this calculation in the past, but even the direct calculation would say $280million not $320million.
So where did gamesindustry.biz go wrong? Two places. First, I believe they took Netmarble's end of year reported number (2179 million Kw) and used 1164.79 as the Kw to USD conversion rate. That's where it stood at end of Q3, and it would be the number the article writer had in hand when Q4/Y2020 numbers came in. Second, they reported MCOC as being 17% of revenue, which it was in Q4 but not across the entire year. Accounting for both corrections you get $1.84billion USD instead of $1.87billion, and $280million USD instead of $317.9million USD.
For reasons I won't get into (involving foreign currency valuation, International GAAP, and repatriation strategy) I usually under value those numbers slightly: $280million calculated is something I'm only comfortable saying is "about/more than $250 million".
My point was that any ideas on how to improve the experience for players, need to bear in mind the entirely legitimate and proper ambitions and expectations for kabam / netmarble to monetise mcoc. And how much money is needed.
This is a bit tricky, because there's two things that make any discussion of the specifics difficult. First, we don't actually have the monetization numbers. Meaning, we don't know what things make which money. People like to say if Kabam does this or that it will cost them money, but it is extremely difficult to know because there are such large global forces at work. If you increase the desirability of champion crystals by a tenth of one percent that would be completely unnoticable by any of us, but that could have a giant sized effect on revenue. Meanwhile people have suggested that things like Alliance War potions or legends runs generate revenue Kabam wouldn't want to lose, but I'm not convinced either thing is really important in the larger picture, given the numbers we're talking about.
Even taking the lower numbers I calculate from the financials, a player like COWhale was a miniscule drop in the bucket. He was probably 0.1% of revenue at best, which is a rounding error on the reports. It is everyone else spending the 99.9% of the rest of the revenue that mean a lot more.
Putting it another way, making the game 5% more attractive, luring 5% more players, generating 5% more spenders, could be worth more than $10 million USD a year to the game. You'd hardly notice a 5% improvement in the game globally, but that could be worth a hundred whales or several thousand low spenders.
So we shouldn't try to predict what will or will not make Kabam money, and we shouldn't limit our suggestions to only what we think will be revenue neutral or positive. We could be wildly wrong. Even if we think it will cost them money we should still suggest it. We should just have the humility to recognize many of our suggestions won't be practical, for financial reasons or other production reasons. It might not be because Kabam "doesn't listen" or is "too stupid to do the obvious."
Comments
Mcoc generates $320 million a year. 4m player base means $80 per person per year or $7 s month sub. 1m player base means $320 per person per year, or $26 is monthly sub.
What content can kabam introduce that is going to be interesting enough and fun enough to encourage the player base to spend this should be core to this thread.
And/or, what content can be put in which will let whales spend a lot more than $320 per person per year, to get enough of an advantage over the non payers, so that they are feeling that they get enough of an advantage to spend that much. @DNA3000 has hinted at this conundrum a few times.
This is the tricky balance that all of these suggestions need to bear in mind. QOL and lots of free shards, rank up materials, champion improvements and new content; if these don't encourage spending, then they aren't going to work.
I really do understand kabam's need to generate revenue here and believe it should be an integral part of how the game is improved. Whereas a lot of the suggestions in here seem to be towards benefiting ftp or general content that you can skill/time sink your way past.
If the financials of improvements don't stack up, they can't be implemented and I think people need to hold that in mind. I also think kabam should be brave and honest enough to treat the community like adults on this topic. Most fully understand and appreciate the need for kabam to make money, as otherwise, this game we all enjoy has no future!
For example, fixing/removing Flow in AW is a short-term, very possible step that could have a significant impact. Solving the issues related to shell alliances, tanking and AW shenanigans is a much more difficult issue that has plagued AW as a mode since its inception. Not as short-term and overall not as possible.
Changing the way champions are acquired (or at least offering a skinnier pool) is also probably a short-term, possible step. Addressing the entire rewards structure is a much larger issue that will take time.
It’s important to understand that there aren’t likely to be many (if any) ideas we talk about here that haven’t also been bandied about by the game team. What is important is providing actionable and constructive feedback about how the game as currently implemented fails to provide an enjoyable/meaningful gaming experience.
I would suggest: be specific; be courteous; be realistic. Lay out what would make things better right now and recognize that large, meta changes may also be needed, but won’t happen overnight.
Dr. Zola
I'd rather not see gates at all personally. I definitely don't want lower rarity gates in new story content which the devs seem to have said aren't happening anyway. I would however rather gates over the node design we got in 6.3 and 6.4 that requires ultra specific counters. As I've said already in the thread I'd much rather see more node design like Icarus and backblast that can either hurt or help you. Making nodes that just make people want to play around them and bypass it all together with ghost or quake instead of incentivizing actually countering the node just isn't any fun to play really
You can get a sense of how hard the content is for people with lesser rosters because you can only beat it with limited characters. Its just that simple, implying that hes out of touch because of his massive roster or others commenting on it that finished it early just isn't true.
As an example, I think materials required to rank up lower rarity champs should vary by Summoner progress level. If you’re done with Act 5, you should be able to rank 4* champs for a fraction of the current cost in gold and materials. They are functionally worthless at that point, other than to tool around with as a collector or use for synergy partners in EQ.
But I don’t expect that to happen any time soon if ever. And so I don’t spam the forums with that wild-hare idea.
First things first...fix the obvious and immediate (flow, niche champ requirements & acquisition, broken/bugged nodes and champs).
Dr. Zola
Every buff to any rewards has come with a difficulty increase that doesn't necessarily match. Globals in war which has been broken since day 1, globals on top of globals on top of globals for AQ are two examples that come to mind. I don't think I've ever seen a buff in rewards where the content stayed the same and was just buffed because the rewards were outdated or not matching the effort. We STILL have war victor and loss crystals with useless junk in them like 3* arena boosts lol.....
The previous system is the current system and I just outlined how you're not supposed to take out everyone in your Bracket because the Season Leaderboard is based on Points, not who you took out in the same Bracket. People keep looking at it like the Off-Season Leaderboard. It's not the same.
I also gave a solution to that "problem". Tying Points in with Prestige while it's used in combination with War Rating effectively means the Players carry their "War Rating" wherever they go, albeit in an assembly. Players would receive Rewards in line with their Prestige and the board would resemble what people call normal. What it would also do is discourage Allies from hopping all over the board all the time after making shifts to where they optimally want to be, and they would work on building it the same as they do in AQ.
The only way I see this being a problem is for some who want to take advantage of the system.
FYI, last I checked MCOC generated about $250million USD in the most recent reported calendar year (I haven't checked in a few months). But that's revenue generated for Netmarble, the parent company. Netmarble itself has to make back the $700-$800million USD that was estimated they paid for Kabam in the first place. Kabam the company doesn't make that money directly: as a wholly owned subsidiary of Netmarble, they probably just get paid, and maybe get performance bonuses of some kind. But whether they make Netmarble $150m or $250m, pretty much none of that money goes directly into their pockets or even expands their development budget. Indirectly, the more money they make for Netmarble, the more they are likely to invest back into development. But whenever people talk about Kabam's "greed" I really wonder if they have any idea how any of this works, or if they even know that none of our money ends up directly in Kabam's lap. All of our money goes to Netmarble, Kabam gets whatever Netmarble wants to give them. After Disney takes their cut, and I'm guessing that's not a flat license fee either.
It is even more complicated than that when it comes to currency repatriation and tons of other issues. Complicated enough that I'm guessing the mods feel there's little to be gained from discussions in this direction. But because there's a disconnect between the revenue the game makes and how much can actually be spent on development, uninformed opinions here are no better than wild guesses.
Also, one other thing. Generally, most F2P games convert only about 15%-30% of their players. In other words, about 70%-85% of them are F2P at any moment in time. I doubt even half of the players of the game have every spent a dime. If Kabam got even 50% of their players to spend, they'd probably be doing talks bragging about it in the industry.
I think there's a subtle psychological problem that needs addressing here with a more tailored solution. I don't think the person who pulls one actually has the same problem as the person who pulls ten. I think the person who pulls ten sees the crystal devalued: they are just pulling champ after champ after champ, most of which are only good in the long run for generating shards and maybe sig levels. They are just waiting for the next useful pull, and most aren't. These people are, oversimplified a bit, bored. But the guy that opens one isn't bored. She's invested a huge amount of psychological energy into that one crystal, because it is the only one she's getting for a very long time. If it doesn't hit payday, she's not bored, she's disappointed.
Nexus crystals help both, but only indirectly. In a sense, the guy pulling many crystals is now, sort of, seeing them three times faster. But they still feel the sense that most champs that come up are not interesting, so they would still get bored. As soon as they acclimated to Nexus crystals, I think they would return to the same condition. And while the Nexus crystal would increase the chance of not being disappointed for the person only pulling one, that chance only goes up by a relatively small amount. Since they are pulling infrequently, even Nexus crystals have a very good chance of making the player disappointed for a very long period of time with just a couple bad openings.
I think the problem is that the Nexus crystals are too random, not in the general sense, but in the sense that there's no guarantee of variety. I've never seen a Nexus crystal contain two of the same champ. Because that would be silly, so I think Kabam correctly programmed the Nexus to never generate duplicates (if I'm wrong, I apologize here: I've just never seen it myself). But while the champs might not be duplicates, they could still be choices with no real difference. Sometimes I see a Nexus show three choices all of which are basically the same. For example, if all three choices are something the player has max rank, then that choice is *literally* completely worthless. It literally doesn't matter which they pick. That's an extreme case, but it can happen in more subtle ways. Sometimes all three choices are just adding ranks to champs with a couple dups. So in effect, the Nexus crystal becomes sig stones, and sometimes all three choices are champs the player doesn't really care to rank up. So again, the choice is meaningless. I'm not even touching the case where the choices are Deadpool X-force, Magneto, and Iron Patriot.
A better, but more complex Nexus, would try to mix up the champs categorically. Suppose we made a set of categories of champs. Champs released in the last two years. Champs the player doesn't have. Champs the player has unawakened. Champs in the top 30% of burst damage. Champs with strong healing. Champs updated in the last eighteen months. Etc. Not necessarily guaranteed to be completely free of duds, but more likely to contain useful champs that are useful in *different* ways. And then the Nexus crystal picked three *categories* for its three choices, and then picked randomly for each category. Players would have some chance of awakening a champ they have unawakened. They would have a chance to get a champ they didn't have. They would have a chance to get a recent champ. Not a guaranteed chance, because the Nexus would have to pick the category first. But a reasonable chance. And more importantly, the odds of all three champs offering a genuinely different choice to the player would be much higher.
I'm not sure I'm explaining the idea clearly, but I hope the basic concept is understandable. I'm not so much advocating for a Nexus with nothing but god tier champs in it. I'm advocating for a Nexus crystal to not contain "duplicates" where we extend the definition of "duplicate" to be not just literal duplicate, but also champs that for the most part might as well be the same thing. Iron Man, Superior Iron Man, and Iron Patriot really should never show up in the same Nexus crystal simultaneously.
I think this helps both the player pulling one and the player pulling lots. The player pulling one has a greater chance of not being completely disappointed, while the player pulling many has a lower chance of being bored with each crystal, because there's more likely to be significant choice going on per crystal, even if the player is "fishing" for one specific champ out of dozens of crystals. Maybe neither player gets what they want every pull, but they are more likely to get second or third choices. And at least they will feel like their choice is a meaningful choice. Choosing between a new champ and awakening a champ is a meaningful choice, even if neither champ is god tier.
It's an easy Google.
My point isn't that they take too much money. My point is that the current revenue, circa 300m, will need to be retained. Not for kabam, not for running the game, but because a wider financial edifice now relies on that revenue stream, or replacement thereof by new content or games.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the amount of money mcoc makes.
My point was that any ideas on how to improve the experience for players, need to bear in mind the entirely legitimate and proper ambitions and expectations for kabam / netmarble to monetise mcoc. And how much money is needed.
So when people talk about bundling 5* sig stones in content (let alone 6* sig stones) where currently an offer for 85 5* sig levels in the recent daily sig stone offer was for $50, people need to bear in mind just how much revenue mcoc will LOSE of they start doing that.
Same with increasing access to 6* shards.
My point, in short, is that many of these ideas to improve the experience of players, have focused on more free stuff. Kabam can't do that as it will kill the game just as fast as anything else.
Ideas need to be focused on improving areas that will make, from a lapsed 4.99 unit subscription player all the way through to Seatin at $12k a year, continue to spend.
My reference of you, @DNA3000 was that I thought I recalled you mentioning a similar point on the delicacy of that balancing act.
And also that you've made the point perhaps more elegantly than most, that "free stuff" isn't going to fix it, it has to be fun, engaging, have rich monetisation potential and also as a ftp/gacha game, b give enough to those willing to really dig deep into their wallets enough of an advantage that they feel the spend is worth it.
Free sig stones, 6* shards or even a 6* ghost to every ftp players doesn't solve that.
The system will have to look into player's roster to generate the correct champs.
There was already a closed thread about class awakening gem, sig stones, rank-up gem conspiracy. If the system can do that with the Nexus, this allegation of conspiracy cannot be easily pushed away.
*Also worth noting that the data at the time of their release was very different than it is now.
They're not going to devalue 75% of their own product by creating a new level of Champ and only adding the ones people don't consider garbage. That makes 6*s a graduation, not another step in progress. People have been adhering to the whole Tier List so long they think it's a construct of the game. That's one person's own review. Not the design choice of the game itself.
Your first point is that they're not better or fun. That whole comparison game never ends. Fun is subjective, and there's always something better at something. That doesn't mean they should exclude the less popular ones completely. People are always going to have Champs they chase after and that they like more. RNG is not, by definition, about always getting what you like.
Here's a summary:
This shows the actual revenue reported on their financial report in Korean won per quarter, the reported percentage MCOC eared, the estimated exchange rate around the filing date, and the estimated US conversion in millions of dollars. The rolling totals are in the ballpark of $270-$280million USD. For various reasons I slightly under count that revenue because of accounting complexities I've seen before when it comes to this calculation in the past, but even the direct calculation would say $280million not $320million.
So where did gamesindustry.biz go wrong? Two places. First, I believe they took Netmarble's end of year reported number (2179 million Kw) and used 1164.79 as the Kw to USD conversion rate. That's where it stood at end of Q3, and it would be the number the article writer had in hand when Q4/Y2020 numbers came in. Second, they reported MCOC as being 17% of revenue, which it was in Q4 but not across the entire year. Accounting for both corrections you get $1.84billion USD instead of $1.87billion, and $280million USD instead of $317.9million USD.
For reasons I won't get into (involving foreign currency valuation, International GAAP, and repatriation strategy) I usually under value those numbers slightly: $280million calculated is something I'm only comfortable saying is "about/more than $250 million". This is a bit tricky, because there's two things that make any discussion of the specifics difficult. First, we don't actually have the monetization numbers. Meaning, we don't know what things make which money. People like to say if Kabam does this or that it will cost them money, but it is extremely difficult to know because there are such large global forces at work. If you increase the desirability of champion crystals by a tenth of one percent that would be completely unnoticable by any of us, but that could have a giant sized effect on revenue. Meanwhile people have suggested that things like Alliance War potions or legends runs generate revenue Kabam wouldn't want to lose, but I'm not convinced either thing is really important in the larger picture, given the numbers we're talking about.
Even taking the lower numbers I calculate from the financials, a player like COWhale was a miniscule drop in the bucket. He was probably 0.1% of revenue at best, which is a rounding error on the reports. It is everyone else spending the 99.9% of the rest of the revenue that mean a lot more.
Putting it another way, making the game 5% more attractive, luring 5% more players, generating 5% more spenders, could be worth more than $10 million USD a year to the game. You'd hardly notice a 5% improvement in the game globally, but that could be worth a hundred whales or several thousand low spenders.
So we shouldn't try to predict what will or will not make Kabam money, and we shouldn't limit our suggestions to only what we think will be revenue neutral or positive. We could be wildly wrong. Even if we think it will cost them money we should still suggest it. We should just have the humility to recognize many of our suggestions won't be practical, for financial reasons or other production reasons. It might not be because Kabam "doesn't listen" or is "too stupid to do the obvious."