Nintendo is removing lootboxes from Mario Kart Tour (another mobile game).

[DefyingFates]

Source (vg247).

Do you think the same could happen to FEH? FEH makes way more money than any of their other mobile games (I'm sure it's passed $1b in revenue by now), but if they really are going to swap summoning out for something like an expanded Grail shop I'd be really curious to see how that looks.

What do you think, do you think it's even possible? And please move this to another forum if it's in the wrong place; I figured it belonged here because it could directly affect FEH, but if everyone thinks it's better suited for Out of the Forest, go for it mods!

[Othin]

Interesting. Unless they're in a hurry, my inclination is to wait and see how it goes for Mario Kart Tour, to see what the change looks like and if the game is able to survive it.

[Etrurian emperor]

I certainly hope the FEH gacha system will be replaced by something less cumbersome. It might also put a halt to the game being banned in some places such as Belgium. 

[Ice Dragon]

No amount of optimism is going to make me think this will upend the gacha system in Heroes.

There isn't a way to feasibly get anywhere close to the game's current revenue while still keeping the game free to play as a baseline for a game that is this successful.

It currently costs about 89 USD on average to pull a specific focus unit (i.e. pulling a different focus unit won't count towards this) from a banner with 4 focus units and a 3% base focus rate, counting the pity boost and summon circles with no orbs of the correct color.

It's much easier to market spending x money on chances to pull the unit than it is spending x money to buy the unit outright (even if it comes with all of the fodder and pity-breaker pulls that come with it), and it's pretty much certain that switching the model will result in reduced sales due to the reduced marketability, even if the expected payout is exactly identical.

I assume that Mario Kart Tour has less revenue to lose from removing their gacha mechanics that Heroes does.

 

At best, we might see an increase in the availability of sparks for Feh Pass subscribers (or a higher tier subscription with more sparks) and an increase in orb pack bundles that come with free units.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

this is surprising news given the fact that Mario Kart Tour and Fire Emblem Heroes are both capital N Nintendo games, compared to say, whatever's going on with a Pokemon game. I hear the reason is because EU laws are starting to catch up on lootboxes and gacha mechanics, and cutting out all of Europe is too costly compared to one or two countries that already took the plunge over there. So there's no doubt then that Mario Kart Tour has a future of content updates. Will Fire Emblem Heroes get a similar update? I think the more operative question is how much longer will Heroes even last at this point? I'd say it's time to cash out and start on FEH2. How do you get your whales to come home? Brand recognition and a clean slate to start from Zero. Probably won't be literally called Fire Emblem Heroes 2, but a new game presents a better opportunity to change up the pricing models than trying to rework an existing game in a way that doesn't alienate the few spenders who stuck around. Mario Kart Tour might be that trial run, so keep an eye on it. That's probably the future of FE Heroes.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Humanoid]

I'm thinking the obscene amount of cash FEH pulls in is probably what allows Nintendo Mobile to take a risk with exploring alternate revenue streams for their lesser titles. I certainly hope it goes well for them, it certainly would set a desirable precedent, if not for FEH then perhaps for whatever succeeds it. All this comes with the caveat that I know nothing about MKT other than it has some tracks that have been ported to MK8.

The audience for Mario is also presumably more international than Fire Emblem so I suppose there's more at risk with the possibility of incoming anti-lootbox legislation in western markets? FEH rakes in so much that it's not a stretch to assume that it's worth losing the entire EU market to keep the gacha model. This guess might be trivially disproven by public revenue numbers, not sure.

[Diovani Bressan]

I play Mario Kart Tour, and I have mixed feelings about the removal of the gacha. I need to see the prices in the Spotlight Shop (I believe this is what is called) to give it my final opinion. 

Not sure how it would work on FEH. Would be nice to get a unit you want with less orbs possible... but if takes like 100 orbs for a 5* copy, then I am not sure. Like... in a sparkable banner without tickets costs at least 160 orbs to reach the spark, and that gives me the unit I want + any more units during those 40 summons, which could be multiple copies of that same unit or copies of others units that are also merge projects I have. Or course not all banners allow spark without the Feh Pass.

For long term projects, that could be a good thing. Using the same example of costing 100 orbs per 5* copy, this means having 1,100 orbs is iqual to a guaranteed +10 Hero... but for the cost of losing 250+ copies of others heroes.

Both ways have positive and negative points.

[XRay]

I do not see them removing the gacha from Heroes, although I am a bit surprised they are doing so for Mario Kart. Mario Kart is no Heroes, but it still generates a sizeable chunk of revenue at second place. I do not see this impacting Heroes much unless Mario Kart somehow does really well after the change, then in that case, maybe they will consider implementing some changes for Heroes too.

33 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Not sure how it would work on FEH. Would be nice to get a unit you want with less orbs possible... but if takes like 100 orbs for a 5* copy, then I am not sure. Like... in a sparkable banner without tickets costs at least 160 orbs to reach the spark, and that gives me the unit I want + any more units during those 40 summons, which could be multiple copies of that same unit or copies of others units that are also merge projects I have. Or course not all banners allow spark without the Feh Pass.

I will be down for 100 orbs for a Normalized copy, and even more so if they allow us to customize their Assets and Flaws.

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

I will be down for 100 orbs for a Normalized copy, and even more so if they allow us to customize their Assets and Flaws.

Given that that's a massive 40% discount compared to what we currently have (~170 orbs per focus 5-star when sniping) at the cost of not getting any fodder or pity breakers, I think anyone would take that offer.

[Diovani Bressan]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I will be down for 100 orbs for a Normalized copy, and even more so if they allow us to customize their Assets and Flaws.

 

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Given that that's a massive 40% discount compared to what we currently have (~170 orbs per focus 5-star when sniping) at the cost of not getting any fodder or pity breakers, I think anyone would take that offer.

Hmm, yeah. Thinking better on it, 100 orbs would not be a bad deal. Considering I have a friend that spent near 800 orbs for only two Harmonized Azuras last month... 

But I don't think they will do it, of removing Gacha.

[Ice Dragon]

So I've spent some time this morning brainstorming and I think I've devised a model that could feasibly replace a gacha model... if you ignore the fact that it's still harder to market when players can easily convert orb prices into actual currency.

I do think that some amount of randomness is a good thing, as one of the advantages of randomness is that it forces players to make do with what they get, even if it isn't what they wanted, so I think there's value in leaving something up to chance as long as it isn't the focus pulls. There are units that you normally wouldn't use, but you end up using simply because you have them. This is one of the things that makes rogue-like games popular and replayable.

 

First off, the current average number of orbs needed to pull any 5-star focus character from a 4-character 3%-focus-rate banner is about 120 orbs, so I'll arbitrarily make that the base price of a 5-star character. It's a pretty round number, after all.

When sniping, the current average number of orbs needed to pull a 4-star focus character (at any rarity) is about 40 orbs, so I'll make that the base price for a 4-star focus character. Again, it's a pretty nice round number that divides evenly into the previous number.

 

When a banner is active, you can buy any of the units on the banner for the above listed price: 120 orbs for a 5-star focus character or 40 orbs for a 4-star focus character. Banner units that are in the SR pool can probably be half off, so 60 orbs. No one who knows what they're doing bothers to pull for focus units that are in the 3-to-4-star pool, so those don't need to exist anymore (but if they need to exist, I guess they could charge 20 orbs or something). Units that are not on an active banner cannot be bought.

Buying a character in this way gives you 5 "summoning tickets" for every 20 orbs spent. Summoning tickets can be redeemed for a random roll from the standard summoning pool with each summoning ticket giving you one roll and the summon rates being comparable to what they are currently, minus the focus pool. This is how players will still receive fodder and pity breakers.

Sparks no longer need to exist (especially due to the discounted prices), but if the mechanic is retained, they occur after 120 orbs are spent.

 

A problem with Legendary/Mythic banners is that the average number of orbs needed to snipe a specific unit is about 200 orbs, but on average, you'll also pull 2 of the units that share the targeted unit's color and 0.5 a copy of one of the other units on the banner. There isn't really a good way to simultaneously have a high cost per copy of the targeted unit while having a low cost for any focus unit unless the game forces you to buy them in bundles, e.g. it costs 200 orbs to buy Deirdre, Myrrh, and Fae together, but you can't buy them separately.

This would also probably force them to make the colors on each banner a bit more balanced in order to actually make it worth buying anything other than the color of the new unit. I don't think anyone would really want to buy a bundle of Seliph, Galzus, and Hugh for 200 orbs, even if it's technically a gigantic discount for the latter two, whereas 200 orbs for a bundle of Deirdre, Myrrh, and Fae sounds like an absolute steal.

 

Numbers could probably use some adjustments, but that's the general gist of what I'd do if I could replace the gacha system with anything else and didn't have to worry about marketing. You can easily convert that 120 orb cost and see that it comes out to 62 USD per unit and that a 40-orb 4-star focus unit still comes out to 21 USD per unit. The use of an intermediate currency is specifically there to mask the actual cost of each item, but when the prices are as transparent as this would be (instead of being further obfuscated by the gacha mechanic), that mask is incredibly thin.

And once again just to make sure, no, I don't think Heroes will ever get off the gacha model. Losing all of the EU as a market is probably still more profitable than getting rid of the gacha mechanic.

[King Marth 64]

I definitely do not see Nintendo is going to pull the plug for Fire Emblem Heroes yet due to the game had much better chance of success than the other Nintendo mobile games had gotten. I definitely think they might going to keep the orbs in the game as it is.

Edited September 12, 2022 by King Marth 64

[Nébulya]

I'd like it to be removed because of our laws in Belgium. I'm even wondering if Mario Kart Tour is going to be back in our country now that there isn't any gacha in it. 

We can still play it by having our country changed to France but it's still annoying . 

[DefyingFates]

I know it's a stretch, but after the reveal of Engage, a part of me is wondering if however Engage handles bonus characters may be used as reference for FEH if the need arises. Hmm...

(Trailer for those who missed it.)

Of course, the point is moot if all the "Emblems" are fully fleshed out cast members and not just a mechanic (except for Marth).

Spoiler

 

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by DefyingFates

[Kori]

Engage is using FEH as a reference, at least, so who knows. It could go both ways.

6 hours ago, Nagraal said:

I'd like it to be removed because of our laws in Belgium. I'm even wondering if Mario Kart Tour is going to be back in our country now that there isn't any gacha in it. 

We can still play it by having our country changed to France but it's still annoying . 

That would be nice, especially since it's getting harder to go around the limitation. (Or at least, Google Play sems to be catching on that I shouldn't be allowed to make purchases in FEH, if not on the part where I technically shouldn't be playing it at all and that the app didn't come from its play store.)

[Ice Dragon]

4 hours ago, Kori said:

(Or at least, Google Play sems to be catching on that I shouldn't be allowed to make purchases in FEH, if not on the part where I technically shouldn't be playing it at all and that the app didn't come from its play store.)

Google has recently been cracking down on purchases made in games that are locked from your region. This is pretty well known in communities for games that are region-locked to Japan where you need both a Japanese Google account and a Japanese billing address in order to make the purchase. From what I've heard, it's something about preventing money laundering or something like that.

[Kori]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Google has recently been cracking down on purchases made in games that are locked from your region. This is pretty well known in communities for games that are region-locked to Japan where you need both a Japanese Google account and a Japanese billing address in order to make the purchase. From what I've heard, it's something about preventing money laundering or something like that.

Kudos to them for adressing money laundering, then, even though it's inconvenient to us. And thanks, I'm not part of those communities so while that tracks with what i'd found when looking it up, I wasn't sure if it was a general issue.

 

[DefyingFates]

Wait, how do you launder money with games, whale on your own gachas?

Either way, sorry to any Belgium players who are having increased trouble due to prevention against stuff like that.

Edited September 18, 2022 by DefyingFates

[Humanoid]

Third party orb sales, you give them money and your account details, they buy orbs for you using dirty money, stolen credit cards, etc.

[DefyingFates]

That's still easily traced, right? And I assume Nintendo would be the benefactors in that example, not some really obsessed mobster whales?

[Jave]

I played Mario Kart Tour for a couple of months and while the actual game was fun (Time Attack Mario Kart is something I hope they include in the next console game), the gacha system in it was AWFUL. So glad they're taking it out because I feel that game would make a lot more money by simply letting you buy characters and outfits directly.

[Humanoid]

38 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

That's still easily traced, right? And I assume Nintendo would be the benefactors in that example, not some really obsessed mobster whales?

Well you might trace the transaction back to Russia or India, but then what? Nothing, because they're out of your jurisdiction. You can see why Google wants to stop those transactions happening in the first place. In the specific example of orb buying, the credit card charges are eventually reversed, and the buyer is left carrying the can in the form of negative orbs. I imagine they also reserve the right to ban the account completely.

At least with virtual goods there is no inherent cost price I suppose. There are still costs involved in the recovery process - incidentally why more than a few game developers outright say they'd rather you pirate their games than buy third-party keys (please never buy from dodgy marketplaces like G2A or Kinguin) bought with stolen cards - but at least the vendor at the end of the chain isn't out some real, tangible merchandise.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Humanoid