Marvel Snap2023’s first patch is here. And while it comes with an interesting array of buffs and long requested nerfsit also brings a new bundle to the store that finally makes me look a little sideways to my favorite mobile game ever.
As mobile games go, Marvel Snaphas been very good at monetization. You spend $10 a month if you want that season’s new map/premium battle pass filled with premium prizes, which feels pretty standard. You can also spend money on gold, which is used to buy credits that cosmetically upgrade your cards. As you upgrade your cards, you gain collect levels that, as you level up, reward you with newer, more powerful cards. While that sounds a bit like “pay-to-win”, you can earn a lot of credits simply by completing quests, and the collection level ladder will occasionally spit out premium gold as well. So while I was able to increase my collection level faster by buying gold, I comfortably increased my level without spending any money. You can also spend gold on fancy (and I mean “I’ll expire if I don’t have this” fancy) variants of cards featuring the work of famous artists such as Alex Ross and Peach Momoko.
That’s a good place to be. A player can spend money to get cards faster if they want to, but the game rewards players at a fast enough rate that such purchases aren’t strictly necessary – compared to, say, Diablo Immortalwhere the only reasonable way to get premium gear is through spend a lot of money.
For example, today’s patch notes contain new information about a bundle designed to give new players an edge.
“For new players who want to jump right in, we’re releasing a one-time purchase, ‘Pro Bundle’ with 12,500 Credits and enough boosters to upgrade 8 cards from Common to Infinity,” read today’s patch notes.
The price for that bundle? One hundred whole US dollars.
Because there’s nothing more fun for new players than asking them to spend $100 straight from the rip.
Unfortunately this is not the first time Marvel Snaphas tried to exhaust his players. During the winter holidays, it introduced several bundles priced at $50 or higherincluding a Sunspot variant bundle which I would have killed if it didn’t cost 6,000 gold or $80! (A third party Marvel Snap enthusiastic site, Snap zonehas made a handy chart with everything from snap‘s bundles, their prices and calculations of their perceived “value”. The average price of a bundle in USD? $54.)
It is further disturbing because Marvel Snap hasn’t always priced its items as if there isn’t a massive cost of living crisis underway and we all have hundred dollar bills in our suit jackets. There was a Spider-Man bundle a few weeks ago that took that a perfectly reasonable $20. The game’s welcome bundle when the game first launched in October only costs $3. If there were other bundles on sale in the store, it wouldn’t be too bad that these particular bundles cost at least $50 a pop. But snap only offers one bundle at a time.
So what does it say about a game that jumps from $3 welcome bundles to $100 welcome bundles? The community thinks Second Dinner is whale hunting – or players who routinely drop large amounts of money.
I want to believe that because Marvel Snap is still relatively new, the folks at Second Dinner are still figuring out the sweet spot between making money and providing value to players. I think marvel Snap, with its variant store and monthly season pass, there’s already a good place for that. But routinely charging more than $50 for things players want isn’t it.
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