Turn the tables edition
Welcome back to Burning Questions, your weekly run-through of Marvel Snap's hottest topics! We've got a special one for you this week that turns the format on its head. We also talk about the viral Marvel Snap revenue report and show off some cute Dragons!
1) What do YOU think of the seasonal blog?
I promised some experimentation with the format of this article series, and we're kicking off with a big one! Brady, Senior Marketing Specialist from Second Dinner, has asked if we could help gather some information for them. That's right, in this edition of Burning Questions, Second Dinner is asking YOU the questions!
Specifically, they want to know how you feel about the seasonal blogs. The Dragons season just kicked off this week, and you can check out this month’s seasonal blog here and come back and answer a few questions about it. As an incentive, include your Discord name in the comments to have a chance to win a Season Pass for answering Second Dinner’s questions in the comments! Also, I know for a fact that Second Dinner employees will be reading the comments!
- What information is the most useful?
- What information is not useful?
- What would you like to see added?
- Do you use sections from the blog, such as albums or shop takeovers to plan ahead?
- Do you enjoy reading more flavor text? Or do you just want pictures and info as fast as possible?
2) Snap Revenue
This graphic from GamingonPhone has been making the rounds this week. Several content creators made videos about it, there was a lot of conversation about it on Twitter, and it was a hot topic on Reddit. Some people were complaining about how expensive the game is, despite making millions. Others took that as a sign the game was in decline compared to previous years and other games.
But what does this graphic really tell us?
Nothing, really. I'm not saying that as either a defense or attack on Second Dinner, or as an indictment of GamingonPhone. These numbers are missing so much context and information as to be nearly meaningless.
Marvel Snap is a private company. As a private company, their finances are a black box to the outside world. We have no idea what their licensing agreement with Marvel is like. Some speculate it's an enormous fee, but Snap is also being used as a form of advertisement for things like Cosmic Invasion and the Marvel Multiverse RPG. Vertical synergy is common among large corporations, but it also means we have no way of knowing what's going on inside Second Dinner as it relates to Marvel.
The other missing piece of the puzzle is the webshop. Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple caused every mobile gaming company on earth to do whatever they could to encourage their users to buy directly from them rather than in-app or through one of the app stores. Second Dinner has been providing pretty dramatic incentives to use their webshop, including a free Series 5 pack this season, which is a significant bonus. They spent several lines of dialogue talking up the app store in the most recent seasonal preview video. We know they're trying to migrate as much of their revenue to the webshop as possible, but we don't know how successful they've been. I'm not saying the entire difference between expectations and the number GamingonPhone has is made up by webshop migration, rather the point is that we have no idea. Combine all of this with Second Dinner starting to self-publish, which entailed creating an entirely new webshop, one that is still unavailable in many countries, and there are just so many unknown variables that any analysis of these numbers becomes pure speculation.
So why do people feel such a strong need to analyze these numbers and extract meaning?
It's simple. Between “the blip” (forced removal from app stores) and the Kid Omega fiasco, player sentiment has been rocked. A lot of the players who were already considering quitting the game were easily shaken loose by these two events. Those that remain, especially content creators, have some understandable anxiety about the game. They want to know if the game is healthy, how it's doing, and what its future holds. Unfortunately, with a private company, we're never going to get a detailed look at the financials. The only information we have to go on is the actions of the developers, which can be harder to interpret than numbers would be. But in the wake of their self-publishing transition, they're continuing to make new game modes, are actually devoting developer resources to tech debt, communicating with the community more than the vast majority of game companies, and are making (at minimum) tens of millions of dollars in revenue. No one knows what the future holds, which I understand can be scary, but Marvel Snap has some years left in it for sure.
3) How many Rian Gonzalez dragon variants did you get?
I got them all!
I don't actually spend much on cosmetics and very rarely buy variants with Gold, but when I saw Rian’s Majestic Wingbeat in my shop, I immediately pushed the button. After I had Wingbeat, I thought, “Well this doesn't even stay on board; it banishes itself.” So then I knew I had to get the amazing Dragon of the Moon variant, regardless of how underpowered that card has felt. And why not just get the actual playable cards to complete the set after that?
Sanctum Variants
In a bit of late-breaking news, our intrepid dataminers have found four upcoming variants tagged as “Sanctum.” Presumably, these will be available in the Sanctum Showdown shop or as Portal Pulls. Now we wait for the Mantis buff!
That's it for this week. Come back next week for more Burning Questions, including the return of questions to the developers in place of the developer asking you questions and… a special guest?!
Head to the comments and give your answers to Second Dinner’s questions and have a chance to win a Season Pass code for the Dragons season!