Episode 42: Marvelling at Marvel Snap

Introduction

[00:00:00] Jon Jordan: Hello, and welcome to the Mobile GameDev Playbook. Thanks for tuning in for another episode. This is a podcast all about what makes a great mobile game, what is and isn’t working for mobile game designers and all of the latest trends. I’m your host, Jon Jordan. Joining me today we have Chief Game Analyst Erno Kiiski from GameRefinery by Liftoff. How’s it going, Erno?

[00:00:23] Erno Kiiski: Doing great, Jon. Thank you.

[00:00:25] Jon: Good. Ably assisted we have Joel Julkunen, the head of analytics at GameRefinery by Liftoff. How’s it going, Joel?

[00:00:33] Joel Julkunen: Great as well. Nice to be here.

Why should you play Marvel Snap if you haven’t already

[00:00:34] Jon: Good. We’ve got a good topic to discuss this year, one of many people’s games of the year for 2022, which is Marvel Snap. This plays into a lot of the things we’ve been talking about over the last 12 months about the use of IP, how game developers balance accessibility with the depth of play and monetization, and how all those things come together in a particular product. Should we explain to people who still need to play Marvel Snap? Obviously, everyone should have done it. If you haven’t, stop the podcast, download it, and play it. What’s Marvel Snap about besides being a game based around Marvel characters?

[00:01:21] Joel: As we all know, it’s a collective card game, and just like in any other CGG, you’re playing real-time matches against one opponent. That’s basically where all the superficial similarities end because what makes Snap different from Magic The Gathering or Hearthstone is that you have a much smaller deck. You have only 12 cards instead of, for example, 30 or 60 cards. Then the only card type you’re using in the card game is, at the moment, at least, characters. There are no instant spells, sorceries, magic, or secrets like in Hearthstone. Then instead of killing or attacking your opponent, the matches are all about trying to control three different areas in every match. When a match starts, there are three areas, and you’re deploying your characters to these areas in your turn. These three areas have different major effects that affect how the cards work in that match. As I mentioned in the beginning, these areas inject a lot of randomness and tactical dimension to the game, which is needed, as you have a much smaller deck. There is less randomness, like in Hearthstone, relating to the cards you draw in the game.

As you have these areas that are revealed and cause these major random effects, you have to focus on a tactical level to react to how the game changes every turn. If you have to wrap the core gameplay experience up, that’s how it is. I’ve been playing Hearthstone since it was beta launched. My first game of Magic was probably in 1994. This is different and fast-paced and doesn’t feel repetitive at all.

Marvel Snap is a mobile-first card game

[00:03:23] Erno: Another aspect is that it’s a mobile-first game, whereas the other card games originated elsewhere. Hearthstone was mainly a PC game and then came to mobile. Then Magic, of course, the origins are in the actual physical card game. In contrast, Snap is a mobile first-in-mind developed game. Another factor in the core gameplay that pushes the game towards that is, for example, the set number of rounds. Because in Magic or Hearthstone, the matches can go quite long and take quite a bit of time, depending on each game.

The length of the match always varies. In Snap, you always have six turns; somebody wins or loses. It forces players, and it’s always short and easy to go. You always know that you can play one game and how long it will take. It forces the matches to be quick. Then another aspect which is innovative and exciting is that the core gameplay brings the snap mechanics, which is in the name already. How the snap mechanic works in Marvel Snap is like a betting system. Every match you win, you get these progression points for your rank or these rank points.

You can bet on any point of the game on any of those six turns. You can say that “I’m going to bet more. I’m going to win this.” It’s the psychological difference: “If I put more of my ranking points into the table and if I win, then, of course, I get more,” so I have that thing. There’s always the risk. Then that also brings a little bit of the bluffing side that you’ll see, “I’m probably not going to win this, but I’m going to bet still.” It’s almost like a poker element that comes into play: “I’m not so sure, but maybe I’ll try the bluff.” Because if you don’t accept the Snap, you can retreat. Then you’re going to lose the game. Then you’re not going to lose as many points as you would have if you had accepted the bet, like poker betting. That’s also short-paced, and that snapping betting type of system brings an exciting and unique twist to card gameplay.

[00:06:02] Jon: Absolutely. It’s a good overview that you guys have pulled out some key parts. Not being an expert in this genre, it is clear that the problem with most of these trading card games on mobile is they have very much seen, “This is how Hearthstone does it, and we are going to tinker around the edges, but we’re going to make a pretty hardcore card game where we have loads of cards.” For mobile and me as a player, when you start one of those games, you are immediately overwhelmed by what’s going on, what these cards are, and what they all do.

In most games, you have a good few hours of work to get a basic idea of what’s happening. Marvel Snap tears that up and streamlines accessibility into a few little pockets. They all work together well in terms of layering how the locations work. You only have to win two of the three locations. You can choose where to place your cards so that you can go, “I’ll lose that one, but I’ll win these two.” There’s quite a lot of exciting decision-making that players have to do, but it’s not based on a very complex understanding of the cards themselves per se, which is the real innovative thing.

[00:07:15] Joel: Definitely. I added one thing you mentioned: the game is like you said, straightforward to get into. As you said, there are only so many cards in the game. They are, of course, introducing more and more cards. For example, the pool is much more limited than with Hearthstone and Magic. Erno also mentioned that this is made for mobile because the games are rapid. You can quickly start a new one. You can retreat if you want and then play another one. If you compare that to Magic, which was originally a tabletop card game with physical cards, Marvel Snap wouldn’t be successful if it were in a physical form because the games would be so quick.

On mobile, it works wonderfully. Then as it’s easy to get to, and we’re going to touch it later, but there are no packs to purchase. You get cards in tiny increments. You get new cards. Eventually, you’ll get all the cards if you play enough. You slowly learn all the cards. It’s not like you’re opening ten packs, getting 50 cards, and trying to learn all of the cards and mechanics, but you’re getting them one at a time, and that’s plenty of time for you to digest everything.

The importance of well-known IP in the success of Marvel Snap

[00:08:37] Jon: You spoke about it being developed mobile-first, and it’s all interesting because the team is a US team, come out of Blizzard, it was. They were PC developers, but they’ve come at it as mobile first. The first surprising thing for me when downloading it is, “Oh, it’s a portrait.” You supposedly play it on your phone. Every other card game, I’m sure some others haven’t, but when you think about Hearthstone, you think about landscape. You have the cards laid out at the bottom of the screen.

This takes it on its head. Cool. We get many other things to pick apart as we go through it. Traditionally, these card-based games have typically been quite a niche. We’ve mentioned some very successful individual products, like Hearthstone and Magic. There’s a surprising amount of games developed for this genre, considering there are few successful games. Those successful games differ from the number of people playing something like Call of Duty. This has always been seen as a profitable niche.

It’s a market that has a capped amount of players. Do you think that everything we’ve spoken about regarding the accessibility that Marvel Snap has broken that argument? Also, partly because of the IP, who doesn’t like playing with Spider-Man and Hulk? Have we seen that this has addressed a different audience that just brought people who wouldn’t play Hearthstone into what would’ve been seen as this collectable card niche, which may not be niche anymore?

[00:10:18] Erno: Yes. As you already mentioned in the beginning, the way they made the CCGs genre, which has always been this niche, hardcore, small audience genre, into a mass audience. All those factors, the quickness of the gameplay, the IP, the appeal of the IP, and also something that we still need to discuss is the meta layer of the game and the progression systems of the game. That is also unique in how they have done it. I’ll explain it quickly.

Progression system

Erno: In the game, you earn cards by increasing your collection level. It’s a linear level that you grow all the time. Then how do you increase the collection levels? You earn character shards or boosters every match you play, and then you upgrade those cards visually. Let’s say you have a Spider-Man; then you play a game with the Spider-Man in your deck. Then you earn, let’s say, six shards of Spider-Man. Then you can upgrade it to a higher level, and the card’s borders change to green, for example.

Every time you do an upgrade, you earn collection level XP. Then you go further and further in the collection level, like a linear line, and then you get to the different reward thresholds. Then you unlock currencies of currencies, which are used for the upgrades, for example, and the new card. All the new cards are basically distributed through the collection. This is a unique loop for the CCG in that you play the game. You are only able to purchase a few of the cards. Once you play the game, you instantly get those shards, upgrade the characters, and unlock new cards.

The cards are pooled into these different tiers. The first group is from collection levels from 1 to like 200. Also, you are not getting matched against players who have played so much more, especially when you don’t have access to those cards. It brings this exciting loop in the meta. All the time, you get the small incremental progression, which is common for mobile games. If you think about Hearthstone, it’s a ranked season, but you don’t get the progression in every game, which is also quite appealing. Also, that comes to monetization. Because all the CCGs have gachas loot boxes and card packs, and Snap doesn’t have that. That also, for a certain audience, definitely makes it much more appealing.

[00:13:47] Joel: Yes. I agree with Erno. This could take CCGs to a wider audience. Erno mentions the frequent progression in thresholds you are crossing in Snap. Like Erno mentioned, you have the collection level almost, let’s say, after two or three games, especially in the beginning, you are unlocking a new card or getting new boosters in the reward track. Then you also have many daily quests, a weekly quest, a battle pass season, and seasonal quests.

Every quick match you play, you can see that you are progressing in either these quests or the collection level. Matches are speedy to play. You get hooked on it. You want to play another one and another one, another one. Compared to Hearthstone, which only has one daily request, you can have three at a time. You get one every day. Then you have these three weekly quests. It’s so much more. They will find this more appealing if you’re thinking about more casual gamers or more mainstream, not CCG lovers. As Erno mentioned, this is much more familiar to other mobile games; these mechanics give you a reason to play another round. The reason is not only the fact that you get, let’s say, four more ranking points. That’s one thing.

[00:15:23] Jon: I think, indeed, at the early stages of free-to-play mobile games, that idea of being quite generous with rewards and getting people into the loops of understanding how these deeper meta-progression systems work and everything you do, you feel like you’re getting over rewarded: “It’s great. I’m going to keep going, keep going.” That’s very important, the first 7, 30 days of retention. We’ve painted the scene of this being a very innovative game, well thought through in terms of the game design and how it fits into mobile.

A phrase we always use for games as seen as being good game design for any game is easy to play, hard to master. Still, maybe you say fairly early, but the easy-to-play bit, indeed, they’ve succeeded on the hard-to-master thing and the complexity, which is really as the games as a service work because some of these games have been around for almost a decade now as free-to-play mobile games. Early stages, where is it for that? They over-indexed on they get people in, and it’s cool; there’s always stuff going on.

You have these exciting poker mechanics. From my point of view, who has yet to play as much as you guys, it’s going to have to be slightly under-indexed on the deep complexity because not one product can’t do everything. Is that a fair argument, or are there things they can do as time goes on to increase the things that hardcore players playing every day do? We always know in free-to-play mobile that there are people who max out content. Because of the way that it’s played, they play games faster than developers can create new content, which is one of the big problems. Where does Snap fit in terms of that?

Marvel Snap has to start bringing more horizontal content at some point

[00:17:14] Joel: I can go first. It’s true that in the future, Marvel Snap, like all the other mentioned mobile games, Snap has to invent more, bring more content, and keep end game players engaged. They are very well built to last in terms of core gameplay and the game’s mechanics. Because you have these areas, they introduce new areas that spice up every match, which helps keep the game interesting even though they don’t have 10,000 cards like Hearthstone or Magic. Even with the smaller pool of cards, they can keep the game fresh because they get these areas.

You can bring fewer new cards to keep the deck meta interesting. That is helping them a lot. As I see it, Marvel Snap has to start getting more horizontal content at some point, whether or not it’s additional play modes. For example, it doesn’t have any social element at the moment. You cannot even play against your friend. There are no teams or guilds or co-op games or bigger tournaments. There definitely will be, though, but that’s one area. Maybe I’m just talking about my experience playing Hearthstone and Magic for a while; I’m also looking forward to Snap bringing new types of cards. Of course, they have to bring new characters and heroes, but they should bring specific spell mechanics or enchantments to increase the tactical depth or the game’s strategic depth. Even though you have only 12 cards in your deck, it might get stale if you don’t bring new keywords, for example, as the other games have done. Those two areas are the ones I’m looking forward to new things in Snap.

[00:19:29] Erno: Yes. You mentioned the strategic depth compared to the more traditional CCGs. It also adapts to what we discussed; this game is made for wider orients and more appealing casual mechanics. That’s why also I don’t see more Snap becoming an eSport, because there’s so much more randomness with the locations and so on, and like you said, the deeper depth is necessarily not there. This super hardcore eSports type of aspects that Magic and Hearthstone have are not there.

Then again, it’s a game for different purposes, and the location system is the key, as we discussed. Every match is different, bringing these new weird moments when a new location is introduced. Then something happens, and it changes each match even though you play with a small deck of cards, it changes the way you have to think every time. That’s a more hardcore, competitive eSports landscape, which could be much tougher to pull off. That’s why the game is a more fun, appealing card game. It could also have a few problems on the super highly competitive side.

[00:21:16] Jon: Given how embedded stuff like Hearthstone and Magic are, if you’re making a game, it’s almost impossible to build a product that will compete with those because they just have been around for so long, but you wouldn’t bother doing that. Interestingly, the developer’s seconding a US developer, but the publisher is part of a Chinese company, ByteDance, which has TikTok. I would only read a little into those two things. Obviously, TikTok says a little bit about being very accessible and just having fun with it rather than being a deep social network; you can also argue, as deep as Facebook.

[00:21:59] Erno: Definitely. As you mentioned, it taps into all of these things discussed in this podcast, especially the post-IDFA era, the more casual going from hardcore to taking more casual elements to widen the audience. You have the IP, which helps you with marketing and monetization. It’s not so whale-driven like those because you cannot target them anymore so strongly. It’s a perfect example of these trends that the industry has been talking about recently, and it taps into those boxes.

Monetization

[00:22:39] Jon: We’ve been very good; we’ve not mentioned monetization until you just did there. We’ve been very, very constrained. We have it as a question clearly, and this plays into this mass market, not so deep, lots of stuff getting for free. Indeed, when it came out, one of the criticisms was, how will this monetize? There’s been some numbers put out. I want to know how official they are, and we start seeing some updates. What are your views on how it’s monetizing and how that will play out in the future?

Is it going to be the basic way of monetizing, like “Let’s find the biggest addressable audience and make it easy for people to spend small amounts of money”? Or can they play into more of what free-to-play mobile people do, which is finding people who want to spend a lot of money and be completist? How do you think it’s playing on that score?

[00:23:38] Erno: I can start on that. When I spoke how the game works, there are no card packs and no gachas, which is the key for many mobile games and CCGs. That’s the feature that brings the spend depth. That’s the feature that brings monetization for the most hardcore users. In Marvel Snap, you cannot do that. There’s little value to spending a lot, which is the key question about that game.

How they monetize is that they’re selling the currency you need to upgrade because you’re going to run out of it at some point. You can buy more of that currency, so you’re indirectly speeding up your progression in the collection level, even though you still need to play to get those boosters. You’re indirectly helping you to acquire cards more quickly, but it’s different. It’s not the same as buying randomized rewards, for example. Then we have yet to discuss the variants, basically the skins for the cards.

The interesting thing about how they work in Marvel Snap is that they are individual cards. You’re not putting variant skin on top of the basic version, but it’s its own card, and it has its own progression and level-up system, so you are also leveling that up, and it also helps you acquire those variant skins. At some point, especially during the higher levels, you need to obtain them because you need to get more of a progression in the collection level; more than just acquiring the basic cards is required. It’s another way to help you go more linearly through the linear collection level.

They just recently added limited-time bundles. They didn’t have much of that yet, but now they have started making bundles like “Buy this variant, this skin of this card, and then the currency, and you can upgrade them.” Then the key thing where I assume 80% of the revenue or something like that comes from the Battle Pass. It’s Battle Pass-heavy. It’s a basic type of battle pass each season, I think about one-month-long seasons; each Battle Pass brings one new card, so there’s an incentive to get a new card that you’re not able to get without the purchase, and you progress through there. That’s easily the key monetization mechanic in the game at the moment. Then if you look at the game’s performance, of course, there was the mega-mega splash in the launch with the mega-mega amount of downloads, which also increased the revenues. The monetization model shows there’s less spending depth than the other CCGs.

When we looked at the revenue per download, it was lower. It’s been a couple of months, a couple of seasons in, and we have seen the spikes of new Battle Pass releases. They always bring a new spike. The downloads are still high, but they have gone down quite a lot. The actual amount of revenue, and the baseline of the revenue, at least yet, haven’t declined that much. If we look at the graph for revenue per download, it’s not as high, at least yet, so the individual spend or the LTV paid user has yet to be high, but it’s steadily still growing. That indicates that even though the downloads are slowing down, the game has retained shares quite well, and the existing users have bought the new seasons. So far, it looks pretty healthy.

So far, it’s been growing all the time. The players have been staying in the game, but then that’s the question, how long will that last? This game can convert more users more widely compared to some of the other more hardcore whale-driven monetization models, and the revenue per download is growing. That remains to be seen. Will it plateau at some point, and when will it?

[00:28:36] Joel: Good points, Erno. Looking at the game and how much they’ve been active in bringing new content, Battle Pass seasons regularly get introduced along with new exciting cards, avatars, and profile pictures. Also, they have brought a token shop, a new way of purchasing specific cards, not just variants, in the shop, which is one way to monetize. Then they had this collaboration event in December. They are bringing content to the game because they know that now they have hit core gameplay, and the players love it, and they’re bringing in new cards to retain these players and trying to increase their LTVs.

Now, the next three to six months are crucial. I look forward to new play modes, not just new cards but new playing modes more on the competitive and social side, some tournaments, some challenging aspects, and playing against your friends. Erno, you know something about this, there’s been rumors on what’s coming. Like so many other games, they need to keep the product new and refreshing and keep innovating; otherwise, they will lose momentum. It can drift down to being considered a mediocre success after two or three years.

Friendly matches in a tournament format

[00:30:23] Erno: Yes, Joel mentioned the new content. That’s the way. As I said, its core gameplay is so great at the moment. It’s so fun to play. It still retains as well. At some point, of course, to some players, it starts to get stale even though new cards, meta changes, etc. What are they bringing to bring a fresh twist to the game? Just two days ago, they released the latest Battle Pass season. They also announced their first new gameplay mode, a friendly match mode. It still needs to be made live, but it should be coming this month.

You can now play with your friends, connect with them, and play matches against them. What’s quite interesting in that one is that it’s not just an individual game, but they created that friendly match in this tournament format. You play three matches against your friends. You start with ten health each. You’re not playing for the rank points but for the health for that individual set of three matches. Let’s say you win the first match, snapped, and your opponent accepts, then let’s say five health points go away from that player who lost.

Then you go to the second game. Then another player starts again with ten health, but another already has five health. It brings this tournament game mode, which is then now, of course, for the community. They can start to build this type of our own tournaments and this type of a thing. Interesting to see how is it received, and then are they going to scale it like a proper mode? Because now, you need to have a code to connect to one player, and it is like a friendly mode. This attractive new way of playing and this new mode is already coming this month, which is great to hear.

[00:32:39] Joel: Yes, it’s fascinating for a game like Snap, that quick tournament mode, at least in my opinion, hits the nail on the head. It would be perfect because I’ve been playing Hearthstone for years, and it still misses that quick tournament mode and more competitive aspects. Yes, you have different modes like battlegrounds, mercenaries mode, ranked and casual and whatever, but there is nothing more significant like weekend tournaments. Yes, you have the Fireside live tournament stuff; at least you used to have that.

If Marvel Snap can pull this off well and then, as Erno said, expand this beyond just friends, using some brackets, some tournaments, some co-op matching of eight players versus eight players, and you have some admission fee. There, you would also have this additional monetization option. Put some gold or hard currency admission fee to one of these tournaments. Then you have great prizes combined with Snap‘s thrill-infused gameplay mechanic. At least I would play this.

[00:33:57] Erno: Yes. That’s interesting because like some other very widely appealing even more casual games like Stumble Guys. It was a hit Fall Guys type of battle royale platformer; feature-wise, it’s straightforward: you play, always go to the match, progress in the Battle Pass, and so on. They have this type of tournament system. Like Joel mentioned, you have to pay a little bit of premium currency to get into a tournament, and then it’s this thrill of multiple games. Even in battle royale, the basic idea is to be the last man to survive. Then combined with the multiple phases, it gives even more of this thrill in the tournament format. I also see this more casual tournament type of feature as something fitting for Snap.

[00:34:50] Jon: Good. They’re still in the early stages of focusing on all that retention bits or getting people in and then retaining them. I think regarding monetization, there are always things you can do. Still, your biggest audience makes it much easier to tweak monetization than if you have a tiny audience. You have to go in this whale-type monetization, which they don’t have at the moment. It’s positive that it’s still focusing on retention. As you’ve pointed out, there are some self-evident things they can do that will grow the retention of other players. Then monetization can change over the months and years. There’s a focus on engaging players and retaining them in the short and long term.

Cool. We’ll see how it goes. Lovely. Thank you very much for your expertise there—lots of enthusiasm about trading card games and CCGs. Thanks to Erno and thanks to Joel.

[00:35:46] Erno: Thank you. Thank you.

[00:35:47] Joel: Thank you. Thank you.

[00:35:47] Jon: Thanks for watching or listening to the podcast, however you consumed it. Every episode, we talk about the mobile games industry and these great new products coming out even a decade into the sector, now by far the largest single part of the games industry and still come up with very innovative ways of engaging audiences and monetizing them and retaining them. I hope you subscribe to the channel. Come back next time. See you. Bye.

[00:36:10] Erno: Bye.

[00:36:11] Joel: Bye-bye.