Marvel Snap
In case you forgot that Marvel Snap is a mobile game, its first big bundle after a much, much smaller one at launch has arrived for players past a certain collection level. And it’s trying to entice players to spend $100 on this free-to-play offering. As is the trend with nearly all free-to-play mobile games.
Is this bundle pay-to-win? Has Marvel Snap jumped the shark offering something like this? It’s…a bit complicated. Technically, it’s no more pay-to-win than previous offerings, just in a much larger package that is actually…a better deal than if you were spending money on things in the store already.
The $100 apocalypse bundle, or 7500 gold, includes:
Here, credits can rocket you up to higher Collection Levels, meaning access to more cards, albeit perhaps not the ones you actually want or need. The new card shop is a more focused way to save for specific cards, but even then, you are relying on the right ones rotating through.
Collection Level
Ultimately, doing well in Marvel Snap depends not just on your cards, but on your ability to use them effectively. You may buy yourself to collection level 2,000 through credits, but if you are an idiot, you will still lose all the time. Difficulty is measured by your ladder progress, and it’s hard to just buy your way to wins. You really cannot do that.
That said, jumping from what was a I think a $3 Cyclops bundle before this to a $100 Apocalypse bundle with all this stuff does feel a bit like a “what can we get away with here?” moment, and like it could be a slippery slope. If a lot of players buy these, expect more hugely priced offerings like it, and over time, you may see players frustrated with their progress through Collection Levels compared to those buying their way toward much larger stacks of cards.
Marvel Snap is unique in that it does not employ the “loot box” philosophy of most CCGs where you are fishing for the right Epics and Legendaries with specific drop rates and pity timers for card packs, but it’s still fundamentally a card collection game, and you can indeed spend money to get more cards, more quickly.
This Apocalypse bundle at its core is not really all that much different from what’s already sold, considering you can buy loads of gold and credits already, it’s just a more enticing deal because of what else comes with it. But yes, I do see this as a potential warning shot that larger, perhaps more invasive microtransactions may be coming, given that Snap does not have the hugely profitable gacha/loot box model to rely on.
Still for now, the game seems “fair” and the limited amount of money I’ve spent on it for things like season passes and cosmetic card art have not offended my sensibilities, and seem proper for the amount of time I’ve sunk into the game.
But I’m not buying this $100 bundle. I’m…not. I’m not. Probably not.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.