Dev Diary: First Appearance Champions
In this dev diary, we will dig into the history of Marvel Contest of Champions to explain the release of our new cosmetic feature: First Appearance Champions
Where We Are, and How We Got Here
Today, I want to take some time to peel back the curtain, and have a transparent discussion about where we are regarding the current monetization strategy for Marvel Contest of Champions. Our game has changed a lot in the last 11 years, and as the game has changed, we have had to evolve the way we operate it. One major way it has changed is in how the game makes money.
In the early years of The Contest, almost all of our revenue came from what we call “Baseline.” This was mostly players buying base Unit packs in order to buy consumables in content. Alliance Quest made a lot of money every week, with a top map tuned so that only a handful of Alliances could reasonably complete it. Alliance War was similar, with most wars being won based on who could finish the map, not who lost the most Attack Bonuses. Every new chapter of Story made an enormous amount of revenue on quest consumables, and many players used the majority of their “MCoC budget” to complete regular monthly content.
Fast forward to 2025, and less than 20% of our revenue comes from Baseline. Players now spend very little money on consumables of any form. We believe there are two major reasons why this has changed.
The first is something outside of our control: players are, on average, WAY better at the game than they were 10 years ago. If you go for a walk down memory lane on YouTube, you will see this pretty clearly. For instance, many players who were considered good at the time struggled with the Ultron boss at the end of Act 5 when it was first released. These days, it would be hard to find an end-game player who couldn’t solo that fight with a 4-Star of their choice. There are some Battlegroups that die less than 10 times a season in Alliance War, and for hundreds of Alliances, AQ Map 8 is a walk in the park. Players are simply able to do much more challenging content using few or no consumables than they were in the past.
The second reason is related to deliberate design decisions on our part. We decided that content with very high participation rates, like Story and AQ, shouldn’t be a massive roadblock for players. This was because we wanted lower-skilled players to be able to enjoy large parts of the game. In some ways, our hand was also forced by the increases in player skill. Imagine how impossibly difficult Act 9 would have to be in order for it to be as hard as Act 6 was when it was released, relative to the current skill of an endgame player. Imagine what we would have to do for an AQ Map 9 to require most end-game players to spend a substantial amount on AQ consumables. Players are so good now that it’s very challenging to create content that sinks a large volume of consumables without it feeling unfair.
Why Can’t We Go Back to “The Good Old Days?”
A common sentiment expressed by long-time players is, why can’t The Contest be like it was a decade ago? “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” The problem with this sentiment is that, when it comes to the details, players clearly don’t want The Contest of the past. Players have told us, in no uncertain terms, they do not want to spend Units on consumables. This has been very apparent in the last five years, exemplified by the incident a few years ago when we removed the major revive farms players were using. A Contest that looks like it did 8 years ago is one where most players are spending substantial Units on consumables across most major content, one in which it’s effectively impossible to complete a new Story chapter the week it’s released, and one in which very few Alliances can complete the top AQ Map. You have told us this isn’t what you want.
Why So Many Sales?
The shift in player behaviour and content design has directly led to the current monetization strategy for the game. As Baseline revenue has disappeared, we have had to find ways to replace it. Some call this greedy, but there is no business in the world that would see the biggest revenue stream of their biggest product disappearing and say, “well, I guess we just make less money now.”
As Baseline disappeared, more revenue had to come from offers. This trend started at least five years ago and continues today. And the best way to make money from offers is to have big offer events, which are sales.
The team knew years ago that creating more sales could result in a self-reinforcing feedback loop, but they didn’t think they had any other choice but to proceed down this road. So as the team added more sales, players were trained to save their money and Units for sales, which resulted in further decreases in Baseline, which resulted in more sales. Because players only spent on sales, their perception of the value of resources also shifted, meaning we had to continually offer more for less, leading to more aggressive sales. As players saved for sales and free Unit sources increased, average Unit balances increased substantially, which led to inflation and more expensive sales.
So What’s the Plan?
We do not want to be in this situation any more than players do. There isn’t a member of the dev team who wouldn’t love Alliance Quest to pay for our salaries just by existing, but that world is gone. We do not believe trying to force monetization back into our existing game modes is going to work, either for us or our players. So the plan is to try some new things, and the new thing we announced today is First Appearance Champions.
Right now, options for Summoners to customize their aesthetic and express themselves are rare, generally limited to profile pictures and titles. Over the years, we have heard from players that they want more options. Some players even go so far as trying to manipulate their Top Champions profile screen by underleveling their Champions.
First Appearance Champions is a purely cosmetic feature that we built to see if we can generate some interest, even a small amount, by rewarding and selling something that isn’t more power. We are sure some will react by saying things like “nobody asked for this,” but we are hoping that you can keep an open mind. While the primary source of First Appearance Champions this year will be Featured Champion crystals, we plan to use this system for engagement-based achievements as well. For instance, completing the Deathless Necropolis challenge within a week of Thanos’ release could have awarded a First Appearance Thanos. There may also be options to collect First Appearances of 7-Star champions already available in-game. And even if you only ever collect a few First Appearance Champions, our ability to create value from something that isn’t directly tied to champion power is good for everyone, especially if it doesn’t increase the power gap between Free to Play players and big spenders.
First Appearance Champions is our first real attempt to create a cosmetic ecosystem in The Contest. If it’s successful, we plan to go further down this road and explore more cosmetic options like customizable profiles and true achievement systems. Nothing is ever certain, but we’re hopeful that this will work, and if it does, we think it will be very good for the health of the game, help us break free of this feedback loop, and ideally, allow us to dial back our sales.
The Way Forward
First Appearance Champions is not a feature that is going to solve all of the game’s problems. As we discussed in a diary earlier this week, there is no question that the quality of the product has not been up to par as of late. We need to give players the experience they deserve, and addressing our quality issues remains our top priority. Most of our engineering and production resources are focused on making the experience better. At the same time, it is important that we work on the features we need to secure the game’s future, and we are hoping First Appearance Champions will be a small step in that direction.
