Does Kabam understand the game economy?

As if the unit cost wasn’t bad enough, the pitiful amount of gold is straight up insulting.

Comments

Some are more vocal than others 😉

Is it possible to have an indication whether or not the older Trophy champions like Thanos, Vision, Punisher and Immortal Iron Fist are on the very long list to be assessed for a buff?

We all understand that Trophy champs can't be too powerful; but in all seriousness, it would be nice if playing with them wasn't an act of deliberate self-sabotage...

Rasilover

He should be worth 500 units lol

TyEdge

Say what you want about the deals, but someone once said re: pokemon that every Pokémon is somebody’s favorite Pokémon. The same applies here. People spend money in this game (or units) for all kinds of stuff.

I wouldn’t pay 20 units for a profile pic, but people pay 500.

I wouldn’t pay 6000 units for a bad champ but someone will if they just want him. I would pay 6000 units for a duped Vision at a reasonable sig but they aren’t gonna sell me 5 Visions for 6000 units.

With all of that said, I don’t understand what there is to be drawn from so few data points. Hypothetically, it was offered twice at 6000. Maybe the sales were comparable. Even if that’s true, the economy was the same both times - 6-stars were the top of the heap. I would’ve expected a change with that no longer true.

ThatGuyYouSaw235

I'm gonna be honest, 390$ NZD for a 6* Thanos is insane to me.

I've had my account since Kamala Khan came out and the way things are priced in the game still shocks me.

UnOriginal

Ok aside of Thanos the second and third deals are stupid

Ercarret

I don't really care. It's obviously not worth it for the average player but it's seemingly worth it to some players, or the offers wouldn't keep popping up.

One thing I will say, though, is that it would be nice to see some other champions pop up in these offers from time to time. Say OG Punisher. I'm not even sure if you can get him as a 6*. I've certainly never gotten him as a 6*. I don't think I even have him as a 5*.

There are some other trophy champs that could also make for decent additions. Labyrinth Ultron, for example. I mean, he's only available as a 5* in those rewards anyway.

I don't know why I'm making this suggestion since I wouldn't buy those offers anyway, but I just think it would be nice to broaden the offerings somewhat.

Greekhit

5* and 6* versions of Punisher are available as rare drops at two higher versions of arena crystals.
As for Labyrinth Ultron, it would be nice to see 2*-4* versions added to the game (through special crystals or even added to basic pool), and 6* version as a trophy for exploring next “X of Legends”.
I would keep though 5* Labyrinth Ultron exclusively as LOL trophy champ, to avoid reducing his value and to incentivise future players exploring the content in order to have an exclusive rare champ.

Demonzfyre

Show me where Jax said if 1 person out of a billion buys it, they consider it a good deal.

We get offers nearly everyday for the masses. We got one today meant for everyone for 839 units for $20. We have the daily offers. The offers for like Thanos are more rare because they target a handful of players. You all make stuff up in your heads just so you can be mad.

Geronimo3124

I agree with your posts in this thread. You guys have data that we cannot access so it makes sense.

I think the issue most people are trying to bring up but failing, is that the data you guys are receiving is lagging data. It shows what worked 1 month, 6 months, or 1 year ago.

I think using a predictive model to generate leading indicators would provide you guys more insights into what summoners Will be interested in in future months for deals and offers. Ultimately this would generate much more income

DNA3000

As someone who has studied game design, and specifically game economy design, and worked on MMO reward systems, and discussed the game economy with the MCOC developers, I guess I do.

If only one in a billion people bought any particular offer, that would be a thousandth of a person. Which I don't think rounds upward to one. All offers have lots of people who buy them. I say that as someone who once guessed how many people bought a particular thing in the game and got the actual number right within a couple percentage points.

Every offer is targeted differently, and *none* of them are targeted at the majority of players. For one thing, the sum total of all spending players is not the majority of players. Its on the order of five percent of players. And even among those players, most offers are not targeted at the majority of them due to the practice of offer tiering. Most offers are probably targeted at less than half of all spenders, and many are targeted at less than ten percent of all spenders. This is a specific strategy commonplace in F2P monetized games.

Monetization is not just about selling stuff. Every offer serves the dual purpose of actually generating revenue and collecting data about player wants and needs. Spending is a form of feedback. And different offers target different kinds of spending. Some offers are designed to try to convert non-spenders into spenders. Some are designed to be low value offers targeting people with lower value thresholds and willing to spend a lot. Some are designed to provide the opposite effect, giving players a thrill with their spending. Some are open ended offers, others are value enhanced limited offers. Some target practical spenders, some target pursuit spenders, some target collectors. There is a very wide spectrum of offers targeting different kinds of spenders and offering them different kinds of spending experiences. It is no one's job to design the monetization system around the desires of one single player.

And threatening to stop spending in a forum post is entirely meaningless. For one thing, every single player that has ever done that as a bluff shows up in the spending data, and the devs have seen a ton of bluffs. For another thing, as I said less than one in twenty people spend on this game. And spenders come and go. F2P games like this are designed on the assumption that players join and players leave. The average player spends a finite time playing this game, as does the average spender. A single player prematurely stopping spending is not even a blip. The game presumes it will lose your spending eventually regardless of whether you spend now or not.

DNA3000

There's no such thing. Or rather, there's no such thing as a predictive monetization model that will work the way you are implying. The simple fact is: there's no way to ever know if the predictive model is correct, because you will never have a chance to test it. There's no way to say we sold this much last year, if we change the offer to be that we will make more money than if we don't change it at all. Because you can't do both experiments to check.

The devs make decisions about what to make offers today based on spending data from the past. In effect that *is* a prediction about what will work. Someone else can come along and take the historical data and attempt to project what the actual state of play is today and from that design offers tuned for the predicted playerbase state rather than the past state. But that would just be a different kind of guess. And there's no way to know who would have been right.

To repeat something I've stated often, the goal of the monetization designers is not to make as much money as possible. The goal is to make as much money as possible balanced against the need to reduce the impact on the game economy as much as possible. And it is those countervailing factors that make this not just a simple question of selling whatever people are willing to buy.

raviXsharma

Instead of refering to "internal data" kabam should openly say they are doing it for revenue and it's not for us. That ends the discussion with no arguments and all points proved. Besides that, hey mate, can you please try shortening your points, that helps. Thanks.

AverageDesi

Basically that you have no idea what you're talking about and that your 'opinion' on the matter is born from ignorance . Unless ofcourse,you take the time to read and understand the issue

JK_47

All your points are relevant when it comes to any discussion in the forum, u seem to break it down really good ...kudos for that...

No offense but I keep wondering why do you keep taking KABAM's side or jump to the house's defense always...

I kindly request you to advocate on behalf of the playerbase for atleast one need every month, consider it a request, challenge or dare whatever...just wana make something good happen outta of your writing prowess for the playerbase...thank you in advance

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/339675/whats-immediately-needed-playerbase-demands-vs-game-demands#Comment_2327419

AverageDesi

DNA suggested and made the push for the free 40% revives in alliance war. He suggested the 2 token win and 1 token loss in BG. And those got implemented.

It's not that he jumps to the houses defense always. Just recently he was advocating(or at least on that side) harsher punishments for botting than the one Kabam does.

And it's not that going for the "house" is bad. Because if the house wins, we win

Geronimo3124

This is just not true whatsoever. Every exceptional business practices what i said earlier. Governments and central banks practice this model for budgeting and economic policy.

Chipotle is a great example. Before the pandemic you could get a burrito for about $10. Based on increased foot traffics and to go orders, they increased prices around 25% each quarter based on their models of what consumers would pay and still order there. It has gotten to a point at chipotle that burritos are getting too expensive for the average consumers and the data that they are seeing in the economy is mandating that they can not raise prices anymore and may end up having to drop prices soon.

Same goes for MCOC. I’m sure the data shows that some people bought Thanos or Vision in the past, but is 6000 units reasonable for most consumers to purchase this? At this point of progression and inflation of champion acquisition, a reasonable model will show that maybe 3000 units would be better for them to offer since it is more tempting to the average consumer than 6000.

Doctorwho13

The one flaw I see there is that units are in game currency and 6000 is relatively easy to get

Don’t get me wrong. My evaluation of worth is obviously subjective. But I agree I wouldn’t pay 6000

Still. No one has to spend actual money to get that offer. Which is where the chipotle example is flawed because that’s based on real-world marketplace factors where you can only by with an actual real world currency.

Free in game currency changes many factors which makes it difficult to apply those principles

From kabams point it’s also not a supply and demand issue. It’s a digital pixelated purchase. One billion people could buy it with units and it would never run out

There’s no actual gain for them to drop it to 3000 units. Other than say public relations. No monetary gain anyway.

Shadowstrike

It was said a while back that in terms of buff priority, trophy Champions were going to be the very last Champions to be touched.

Demonzfyre

Units are free in game homie.

Demonzfyre

You're basically admitting you don't know how inflation works. You don't know what cost of business is. For some reason you think they raised prices because they think people will pay more because of an increase in business and they think people will pay more just for funsies. You don't get to lecture anyone else on business practices based on this comment alone. Prices went up everywhere during the pandemic. It cost more to get the same supplies you've always got, meat cost more, ingredients cost more. Plants were shut down everywhere in the world slowing the supply chain.

Tomatoes were hard to get, avocadoes were hard to get, staff were hard to retain, business costs went up. That's why prices went up, not because people were getting more to-go orders.

When I worked for Wendy's in the year 2000, a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger cost $0.99 and it's $2.19 now. Costs of goods go up, prices rise. The pandemic skyrocketed prices everywhere because of the shortage of goods.

Andremlopes

I didn't even for a minute considered picking up that offer and thought at first that no one would do it.

Then two members from my alliance did it. For collection reasons. People have different goals in this game and Kabam doesn't make the game for some of the player base... they make the game for everybody.

So for some people the good offers will come today, for others, it was the Thanos one. No need to criticize every aspect of the game that you personally don't like.

GrandOldKai

Which is odd, because isn't Jessica Jones a trophy champ?

yet she was looked at in the Rebalance Program

(nothing came of it, though)

GroundedWisdom

It's because she was released after the program started.

Feeney234

So by this you are implying that your "internal data" shows people are actually getting these deals?

I find that very hard to believe.

Show us the data and back up your claims

GroundedWisdom

Yes. Call out the staff and demand to see their internal data. That's reasonable.

StuntzTheCMMKid

"There is no great conspiracy to get people to spend their units before 4th of July. That's just not a thing."

BS. Nice try. This OVERPRICED offer with a "RARE CHAMP", just happens to show up right before 4th of July deals? Nah dude. It's no different from other OVERPRICED, useless deals that Kabam programs before a huge spending event. This was PLANNED.

Who are you trying to fool? We've been playing this game for a LONG time man.

StuntzTheCMMKid

Exactly!! GW and Kabam knows this. They like to pretend like they don't.

StuntzTheCMMKid

We've been complaining about the pitiful gold amount in these offers for years. Those complaints have fallen on deaf ears. The 4th of July Paragon offers are a prime example of that. Cats, Rank Up Mats, 7* champs, all require MORE gold, yet the offers have the same pitiful 1 Million amout of gold as it did years ago. Make it make sense. Very frustrating.

Additionally, game progression titles are now at Paragon, but we still get "uncollected" gold crystals with a pathetic "upgraded" amount of 19,500 gold nuggets minimum per crystal.

19,500. As if that's really SOMETHING.

Pathetic.

They understand the game economy, they just refuse to improve it.

DUHveed

I don’t think you understand the definition of “internal data.” That means it’s for Kabam’s eyes only

GroundedWisdom

Yeah. We can agree to disagree. Tin foil is not my color, and it leaves a bitter taste on food.