The success of Marvel Snap, the immensely popular Marvel deck-building game from a team of former Hearthstone developers, has positioned the game for maintaining a strong player base for years to come. Since its release, Marvel Snap has dominated mobile game charts as well as featuring prominently on several Game of the Year lists in 2022. Anyone who has spent significant time in the game can speak to its addictive nature, partially thanks to the collectible variants that players can collect for their favorite cards through the use of the in-game economy. Marvel Snap's economy is largely fair, but one key improvement would revolutionize the experience: allowing players to sell their unwanted variants.
Credits, Gold, and Collector Tokens act as the game's three primary currencies, with each capable of being used to purchase or upgrade Marvel Snap's hundreds of cards. Whereas gold can be used to purchase desired variants for cards players already own in the Daily Offer section of the Shop, the Collector's Caches that are regularly awarded for increasing player collection level occasionally award variants that aren't desirable. For every great Marvel Snap Knullified variant of a favorite character, there are the pixilated variants that some players might rather discard or exchange for credits. Allowing players to earn compensation in the in-game economy for unwanted variants could be the mechanic that keeps longtime players hooked in the face of Snap fatigue.
Allowing and Rewarding Discards of Unwanted Cards Could Change Seasons
The current seasonal model for Marvel Snap typically introduces a theme along with new cards and locations that connect to it. There are almost certainly dedicated Snap players that commit to purchasing the season pass for each new seasonal update, but there are also those that hold off on purchasing the game's premium season passes.
This is especially true if the new cards featured (along with their variants that are awarded for reaching seasonal level 50) aren't characters they enjoy or feature artwork that is appealing. Updating Marvel Snap to allow players to both discard variants of cards or exchange them in a new section of the in-game shop might incentivize more players to commit to the season pass.
Changing Snap's Economy to Draw New Players and Return Lapsed Ones
The introduction of Collector's Tokens in Marvel Snap was a welcome wrinkle to the in-game economy and created an opportunity for players to use both in-game progress and real-world money to purchase cards that they are interested in. It's now been more than 6 months since the introduction of Collector's Tokens, and several players have collected every card from Pools 4 and 5, with only new seasonal cards or cards introduced through updates left to collect. As a way to entice new players to get on board as well as help bring back players that may have felt they saw everything Snap had to offer, there needs to be an update allowing players to discard unwanted cards and reward in-game currencies as an exchange.
Allowing players to discard unwanted cards in hopes of earning in-game currencies to purchase wanted variants or upgrade existing ones could also provide Snap's developers with valuable data regarding which cards or variants players are discarding more often. This information could be used to steer the game's designers toward including different types of variants or adjusting card abilities that players deem less valuable, affecting the meta in the process. Marvel Snap is a successful mobile game, but shaking up the variant economy could help it achieve a longer tail than other mobile titles.
Marvel Snap is available now for PC and mobile devices.