Are Kabam devs happy with the Banquet results?

FunnyDude · January 4

AFAIK, last year, No.1 was Magus and he spent about $ 120-130K, this year the No.1 is KuwaitWolf who spent roughly $ 45-50K.
All those whales were not happy with the crystals, and they spent much less this year.

A week before the event, a lot of ppl complained about the ranking rewards and crystals, but Kabam decided to ignore those feedbacks.

War tactics are kind of in the same situation, Kabam said devs are happy, but AFAIK, half of top50 alliance stop using potions in wars, not sure this what devs want to see.

Gamer · January 4

Honestly the ranked rewards from high top 90 was that’s bad the Crystal them self was the bad ones

Colinwhitworth69 · January 4

I am zero percent worried about how much money Kabam is making, because I know it is a lot. The time and money it takes to create these events is minuscule to whatever it makes.

Pikolu · January 4

If kabam is making more money throughout the year, then they don't need to rely on Banquet/Cyber weekend/July 4th to make money. If they don't rely on those events for money, then we hopefully won't see a repeat of last J4 which was so disgustingly OP that people like Seatin who hadn't played for 2 years could just drop money on J4 and be caught up with all the top people who have been grinding all the tough content the last 2 years.

captain_rogers · January 4

Bro wtf you mean by $120k. I thought a individual who spend this game can spen a max of 5k $, lol.

I never knew whales could spend this high, I mean, $120k is the annual income for a upper middle class US household.

Pikolu · January 4

captain_rogers said:
Bro wtf you mean by $120k. I thought a individual who spend this game can spen a max of 5k $, lol.

I never knew whales could spend this high, I mean, $120k is the annual income for a upper middle class US household.

Whales can spend as much as they want. For someone who has millions of dollars, 120k is just a fancy vacation to somewhere. Odds are those kinds of people are also spending more than 120k just for their new car. If they're in the position where they can spend that much and it doesn't hurt them financially, then let them have their fun.

FunnyDude · January 4

captain_rogers said:
Bro wtf you mean by $120k. I thought a individual who spend this game can spen a max of 5k $, lol.

I never knew whales could spend this high, I mean, $120k is the annual income for a upper middle class US household.

No.1 was always above $ 100k except this year, this is the reality of this game
If whales spent less, something is wrong.

Mrt9810 · January 4

Pikolu said:

captain_rogers said:
Bro wtf you mean by $120k. I thought a individual who spend this game can spen a max of 5k $, lol.

I never knew whales could spend this high, I mean, $120k is the annual income for a upper middle class US household.
Whales can spend as much as they want. For someone who has millions of dollars, 120k is just a fancy vacation to somewhere. Odds are those kinds of people are also spending more than 120k just for their new car. If they're in the position where they can spend that much and it doesn't hurt them financially, then let them have their fun.

They are obviously loaded to begin with but also this is their job; they make money creating content. Not sure if if all equals out (I doubt it) but still they do make money and put it it back into the game.

BringPopcorn · January 4

The in-game economy has shifted in a weird way, and its based on inflation.
Kabam as kept the price of units the same since starting the game, maybe one can argue it changed with the introduction of the summoner store but its minimal. The only way to adjust to inflation without changing the price of units is lowering the value that those units can acquire. I believe that's the reason behind CM and Banquet being so bad, they can't charge more money for units, so the decrease the value of them (also no reason to increase the price of something that most players farm for free)

PT_99 · January 4

God bless whales who finally voted by their wallets and spent less than half of what they did last year, it's ridiculous that Kabam continued to ignore the millions of feedback that were suggested in that Banquet thread.

Hopefully next big deal will be something worthwhile, after cyber and Banquet, oh man.

BringPopcorn · January 4

PT_99 said:
God bless whales who finally voted by their wallets and spent less than half of what they did last year, it's ridiculous that Kabam continued to ignore the millions of feedback that were suggested in that Banquet thread.

Hopefully next big deal will be something worthwhile, after cyber and Banquet, oh man.

You mean the "millions" of feedback from F2P players that spend 16 hours a day farming free units? I bet that will hit their pockets...

Pikolu · January 4

PT_99 said:
it's ridiculous that Kabam continued to ignore the millions of feedback that were suggested in that Banquet thread.

That banquet thread was created too late for kabam to do anything about it this year. Everything was already created and people were starting to pack up shop by the time community feedback came in. They do hear the feedback though and next banquet should be a lot better.

I just hope they finally introduce progression gates to banquet since balancing Valiants wants and needs with conquerors is likely the main reason the crystals were so bad this year.

Wicket329 · January 4

BringPopcorn said:
The in-game economy has shifted in a weird way, and its based on inflation.
Kabam as kept the price of units the same since starting the game, maybe one can argue it changed with the introduction of the summoner store but its minimal. The only way to adjust to inflation without changing the price of units is lowering the value that those units can acquire. I believe that's the reason behind CM and Banquet being so bad, they can't charge more money for units, so the decrease the value of them (also no reason to increase the price of something that most players farm for free)

That’s not how inflation works. The cost of coding one bundle is the same as coding any other bundle. It doesn’t cost Kabam any more money to sell one bundle than any other.

The deals were “so bad” because Kabam appears to want to shift the primary means of progression to be more content-oriented, supplemented by spending, rather than it being spending-oriented, supplemented by content. I think this is a good shift long term for the health of the game and player morale, although it might sting in the short term as we acclimate to it.

BringPopcorn · January 4

Wicket329 said:

BringPopcorn said:
The in-game economy has shifted in a weird way, and its based on inflation.
Kabam as kept the price of units the same since starting the game, maybe one can argue it changed with the introduction of the summoner store but its minimal. The only way to adjust to inflation without changing the price of units is lowering the value that those units can acquire. I believe that's the reason behind CM and Banquet being so bad, they can't charge more money for units, so the decrease the value of them (also no reason to increase the price of something that most players farm for free)
That’s not how inflation works. The cost of coding one bundle is the same as coding any other bundle. It doesn’t cost Kabam any more money to sell one bundle than any other.

The deals were “so bad” because Kabam appears to want to shift the primary means of progression to be more content-oriented, supplemented by spending, rather than it being spending-oriented, supplemented by content. I think this is a good shift long term for the health of the game and player morale, although it might sting in the short term as we acclimate to it.

Yeah and i bet their salaries are paid in coding and eat coding for dinner...

PT_99 · January 4

BringPopcorn said:

PT_99 said:
God bless whales who finally voted by their wallets and spent less than half of what they did last year, it's ridiculous that Kabam continued to ignore the millions of feedback that were suggested in that Banquet thread.

Hopefully next big deal will be something worthwhile, after cyber and Banquet, oh man.
You mean the "millions" of feedback from F2P players that spend 16 hours a day farming free units? I bet that will hit their pockets...

I've never grinded more than 20 minutes in Arena in single sitting. If someone is grinding that much or even half of 16 then I think getting a part time job would be better grind and reward ratio.

ahmynuts · January 4

Yes. Trust me I'm a Kabam dev

captain_rogers · January 4

Pikolu said:

captain_rogers said:
Bro wtf you mean by $120k. I thought a individual who spend this game can spen a max of 5k $, lol.

I never knew whales could spend this high, I mean, $120k is the annual income for a upper middle class US household.
Whales can spend as much as they want. For someone who has millions of dollars, 120k is just a fancy vacation to somewhere. Odds are those kinds of people are also spending more than 120k just for their new car. If they're in the position where they can spend that much and it doesn't hurt them financially, then let them have their fun.

I mean, Rich kids do this in every AAA games or is it something restricted to mcoc.

I agree, let them have their fun, but provided the average finance condition of people, this seems

Chuck_Finley · January 4

Still not sure what the intent was in nerfing it - though the whole “it will ruin necropolis rewards if we made it anything more” is beyond silly.

Whether they are happy or not, I don’t see why anyone paragon+ should ever worry about the banquet ever again. Use your units elsewhere - this event continues to be changed year after year in the wrong direction in terms of player benefits. December is destined to be dud going forward.

Vegeta9001 · January 4

Haven't spent a penny since July personally, I knew I didn't have the funds to get worthwhile solo ranking rewards so settled for 2-3% by spending a chunk of my units.

Wicket329 · January 4

BringPopcorn said:

Wicket329 said:

BringPopcorn said:
The in-game economy has shifted in a weird way, and its based on inflation.
Kabam as kept the price of units the same since starting the game, maybe one can argue it changed with the introduction of the summoner store but its minimal. The only way to adjust to inflation without changing the price of units is lowering the value that those units can acquire. I believe that's the reason behind CM and Banquet being so bad, they can't charge more money for units, so the decrease the value of them (also no reason to increase the price of something that most players farm for free)
That’s not how inflation works. The cost of coding one bundle is the same as coding any other bundle. It doesn’t cost Kabam any more money to sell one bundle than any other.

The deals were “so bad” because Kabam appears to want to shift the primary means of progression to be more content-oriented, supplemented by spending, rather than it being spending-oriented, supplemented by content. I think this is a good shift long term for the health of the game and player morale, although it might sting in the short term as we acclimate to it.
Yeah and i bet their salaries are paid in coding and eat coding for dinner...

The way inflation has hit this game is that we now have more frequent sale events and more things to spend money/units on. Now we get something for Valentine’s Day and sometimes there’s the Spring Cleaning event and all of these other various sales events that are new and intended to increase revenue for the game. The lever that Kabam plays with most is quantity, not quality. Kabam knows full well that if they reduced quality on things, people just wouldn’t buy them and would wait for the quality to go back up. They’ve been at this for a while, they know how to run their business.

Units buy just as much as they always have, arguably more. Real dollars buy just as much in this game as they always have, arguably more. If you don’t believe me, look at the Valiant early access deals. Objectively more bang for your buck than any other iteration of the deal (whether you think it’s worth it or not is a separate conversation). Look at Paragon crystals as compared to Cavalier crystals. Same price point, better value.

Kabam has straight up said that they didn’t want banquet or cyber weekend deals to immediately invalidate Necropolis. It’s not a mystery to be solved, we know the answer. Come up with whatever other conspiracies you want, it won’t change the reality of this situation.

Stature · January 4

BringPopcorn said:

Wicket329 said:

BringPopcorn said:
The in-game economy has shifted in a weird way, and its based on inflation.
Kabam as kept the price of units the same since starting the game, maybe one can argue it changed with the introduction of the summoner store but its minimal. The only way to adjust to inflation without changing the price of units is lowering the value that those units can acquire. I believe that's the reason behind CM and Banquet being so bad, they can't charge more money for units, so the decrease the value of them (also no reason to increase the price of something that most players farm for free)
That’s not how inflation works. The cost of coding one bundle is the same as coding any other bundle. It doesn’t cost Kabam any more money to sell one bundle than any other.

The deals were “so bad” because Kabam appears to want to shift the primary means of progression to be more content-oriented, supplemented by spending, rather than it being spending-oriented, supplemented by content. I think this is a good shift long term for the health of the game and player morale, although it might sting in the short term as we acclimate to it.
Yeah and i bet their salaries are paid in coding and eat coding for dinner...

How does devaluing units help pay salaries? Majority of the company's revenues likely come from unit sales since that is most valuable in-game currency.

You are right about inflation, in terms that it is easier to grind units now than it was 2-3 years ago due to roster expansion (making Arena milestones easier to achieve). Banquet this year was probably a reflection of the fact that there are too many units sloshing around. Despite all the complaints a lot of people hit all the solo milestones. That didn't even guarantee top 10% ranking even with extra milestones and a lot more unit investment required vs. last year.

Hopefully, between CW, Banquet and Necropolis a lot of units have been drained. Revive farm nerf will balance out some of the unit availability as new content comes out.

BringPopcorn · January 4

Chuck_Finley said:
Still not sure what the intent was in nerfing it - though the whole “it will ruin necropolis rewards if we made it anything more” is beyond silly.

Whether they are happy or not, I don’t see why anyone paragon+ should ever worry about the banquet ever again. Use your units elsewhere - this event continues to be changed year after year in the wrong direction in terms of player benefits. December is destined to be dud going forward.

7* and new progression title, whenever either one of this happened, the deals and events had pretty bad items to buy.

BringPopcorn · January 4

Stature said:

BringPopcorn said:

Wicket329 said:

BringPopcorn said:
The in-game economy has shifted in a weird way, and its based on inflation.
Kabam as kept the price of units the same since starting the game, maybe one can argue it changed with the introduction of the summoner store but its minimal. The only way to adjust to inflation without changing the price of units is lowering the value that those units can acquire. I believe that's the reason behind CM and Banquet being so bad, they can't charge more money for units, so the decrease the value of them (also no reason to increase the price of something that most players farm for free)
That’s not how inflation works. The cost of coding one bundle is the same as coding any other bundle. It doesn’t cost Kabam any more money to sell one bundle than any other.

The deals were “so bad” because Kabam appears to want to shift the primary means of progression to be more content-oriented, supplemented by spending, rather than it being spending-oriented, supplemented by content. I think this is a good shift long term for the health of the game and player morale, although it might sting in the short term as we acclimate to it.
Yeah and i bet their salaries are paid in coding and eat coding for dinner...
How does devaluing units help pay salaries? Majority of the company's revenues likely come from unit sales since that is most valuable in-game currency.

You are right about inflation, in terms that it is easier to grind units now than it was 2-3 years ago due to roster expansion (making Arena milestones easier to achieve). Banquet this year was probably a reflection of the fact that there are too many units sloshing around. Despite all the complaints a lot of people hit all the solo milestones. That didn't even guarantee top 10% ranking even with extra milestones and a lot more unit investment required vs. last year.

Hopefully, between CW, Banquet and Necropolis a lot of units have been drained. Revive farm nerf will balance out some of the unit availability as new content comes out.

You answered your own question?...
Majority of revenue comes from unit sales, if the value of what units can buy is reduced then your units are not as valuable are they?
Odin is the same price as before 3100 units for 99 bucks, now what you can buy with 3100 units is not even close of what 3100 units were worth a year ago.
You think readjusting the milestones for GGCs, readjusting the unit milestones for 4th and CM and increasing the limits of money deals are just a coincidence?

klobberintyme · January 4

FunnyDude said:
AFAIK, last year, No.1 was Magus and he spent about $ 120-130K, this year the No.1 is KuwaitWolf who spent roughly $ 45-50K.
All those whales were not happy with the crystals, and they spent much less this year.

A week before the event, a lot of ppl complained about the ranking rewards and crystals, but Kabam decided to ignore those feedbacks.

War tactics are kind of in the same situation, Kabam said devs are happy, but AFAIK, half of top50 alliance stop using potions in wars, not sure this what devs want to see.

In the micro, they made less on this event than previous. In fairness, Magus' spend last year was an outlier, and clearly the strategy shift for mcoc was to throttle end game progression at the cost of potential revenue in the short term. However...

Mcoc and Kabam are part of a larger portfolio. A grand plan to stretch out this games lifespan at the cost of expected revenue might be fine in a vacuum, but Netmarble has been cratering recently with their other offerings, and this is a tenuous time for gaming companies in general. It'll be very interesting to see what shakes out when the 2023 q4 fiscal report comes out.

ItsClobberinTime · January 4

Whether they're happy or not, who knows. The only thing we know is that the event was definitely worse than last year and because of it people didn't whale out as hard as last year, not even close. We'll have to see if they actually change something next Banquet (hopefully make the GBCs progression based cause that was the main reason this Banquet was terrible, it wasn't even the solo or alliance rewards I thought those were alright)

WhiteKnight · January 4

The reality is Kabam are out of whack with there customer base massively.

A lot players, including weren't happy either the contents of the GBC crystals from the get go, Kabam should have known what people want and should already have realised by now that Banquet NEEDS to be progression gated.

I completely understand not having someone who started playing 6 months ago, get to level 40 and then just drop 60k to have potentially the biggest roster and therefore limiting the GBC but the reality is, the people who are spending have played this game a long time and have no intention of spending more money on terrible resources such as t2a and t5b etc.

Kabam NEED to get things together, maybe hire someone who is at High Paragon/Valiant level to have an input on this or actually listen to the content creators feedback.

Kabam might be making more money year on year but I guarantee Banquet is the event that brings I'm the most money all year and for this one to be so much lower than the past is going to hurt and someone is going to be pissed off....

I'm hoping 2024 will come with changes, maybe Kabam not sticking the middle finger up at any comments their player base makes on things such as this new war node, the problem with AI and the GBC crystals would be a good start.

Maybe @Kabam Miike and Jaxx might be able to relay some of this better? Or if they're replying then someone needs to be listening... right now someone is dropping the ball

BringPopcorn · January 4

ItsClobberinTime said:
Whether they're happy or not, who knows. The only thing we know is that the event was definitely worse than last year and because of it people didn't whale out as hard as last year, not even close. We'll have to see if they actually change something next Banquet (hopefully make the GBCs progression based cause that was the main reason this Banquet was terrible, it wasn't even the solo or alliance rewards I thought those were alright)

It was terrible, i stopped opening crystals cause of the overflow of t2a and t3b.. and useless 6* shards... Everything that is not progressing based is usually bad; this one was terrible. Low % chance for 750 7* shards?.. agh

ItsClobberinTime · January 4

BringPopcorn said:

ItsClobberinTime said:
Whether they're happy or not, who knows. The only thing we know is that the event was definitely worse than last year and because of it people didn't whale out as hard as last year, not even close. We'll have to see if they actually change something next Banquet (hopefully make the GBCs progression based cause that was the main reason this Banquet was terrible, it wasn't even the solo or alliance rewards I thought those were alright)
It was terrible, i stopped opening crystals cause of the overflow of t2a and t3b.. and useless 6* shards... Everything that is not progressing based is usually bad; this one was terrible. Low % chance for 750 7* shards?.. agh

Yeah I had to sell t2a and t3b because of it. I got about 25 t2a which is just absolutely pathetic, I got like 1.5k 7* shards out of those and 400 Titan shards in total lmao I actually felt like I was back to being Cav for the first time in I don't know how long.

DNA3000 · January 4

captain_rogers said:
Bro wtf you mean by $120k. I thought a individual who spend this game can spen a max of 5k $, lol.

I never knew whales could spend this high, I mean, $120k is the annual income for a upper middle class US household.

That's not even anywhere near what gaming whales can spend. This guy spent two million dollars on a mobile game: https://venturebeat.com/games/the-deanbeat-this-player-spent-2-million-in-a-mobile-game-then-he-led-a-boycott/ and he's not unique. I don't know if anyone has spent that much on MCOC, but I wouldn't be surprised if the top spenders in the game have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars approaching seven figures.

It is important to note why these mega whales spend. For the most part, it isn't to get "things." There's nothing a mobile game can sell that is worth millions of dollars. And I remember the game Mobile War (mentioned in the article). In terms of gameplay, it was barely a game. It was what the mobile game industry called an "MMO" but it was a glorified calculator pretending to be a game. If we spend money to buy some pixels on a screen, they were spending money to buy numbers on a screen. Most of these guys spend because the game is just a nexus to pour their passion into, and it is the cooperative and competitive aspects of the game that are the real game. They aren't spending to buy things, they are spending to help others, and to compete against others. The game is just the grass they are playing on.

ItsClobberinTime · January 4

BringPopcorn said:

ItsClobberinTime said:
Whether they're happy or not, who knows. The only thing we know is that the event was definitely worse than last year and because of it people didn't whale out as hard as last year, not even close. We'll have to see if they actually change something next Banquet (hopefully make the GBCs progression based cause that was the main reason this Banquet was terrible, it wasn't even the solo or alliance rewards I thought those were alright)
It was terrible, i stopped opening crystals cause of the overflow of t2a and t3b.. and useless 6* shards... Everything that is not progressing based is usually bad; this one was terrible. Low % chance for 750 7* shards?.. agh

It seems an Uncollected player disagrees with us, nvm the event was great... 🤣

BringPopcorn · January 4

ItsClobberinTime said:

BringPopcorn said:

ItsClobberinTime said:
Whether they're happy or not, who knows. The only thing we know is that the event was definitely worse than last year and because of it people didn't whale out as hard as last year, not even close. We'll have to see if they actually change something next Banquet (hopefully make the GBCs progression based cause that was the main reason this Banquet was terrible, it wasn't even the solo or alliance rewards I thought those were alright)
It was terrible, i stopped opening crystals cause of the overflow of t2a and t3b.. and useless 6* shards... Everything that is not progressing based is usually bad; this one was terrible. Low % chance for 750 7* shards?.. agh
It seems an Uncollected player disagrees with us, nvm the event was great... 🤣

Yeah, damn those UC and Cavs with 6r3s still stuck at GM

Are Kabam devs happy with the Banquet results?

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