A week later: Arena ‘Revamp’ takeaways.
Without revisiting the multiple points of view, the customer reviews are (once again) overwhelmingly negative…
…even if such feedback is of little relevance for the company, based on documented precedent: the ~15% supporting views -coupled with the increased activity resulting from the offers attached to the completion of Arena Runs- are likely sufficient to enable the ‘customers are happy with this change, we can’t please everyone anyway’ stance that we have become accustomed to.
The addition of RNG (i.e. gambling) ‘chance’ to spend gems on kingdom progression resources is one of the most noteworthy elements of this arena ‘revamp’ package, as eloquently illustrated by @PGSundling :
The ‘increase grind if you don’t want to feel left behind’ practice by this company (and so many other f2p companies) continues to affect many of its customers, as demonstrated by how many across these forums are bearing with the ‘revamp’ in order to have access to a chance to spend gems on certain resources. As a result we have:
- players spending more gems
- players spending more time on the game, or less time playing modes with a better loot/hour ratio
- more players playing the mode that was ‘revamped’, thus ‘proving’ to the upstream that players like the ‘revamp’
The House wins on all fronts, when even those of us who are not chasing max kingdoms are now left with an even draggier Arena mode when Campaign thrusts it at us (‘Campaign is Optional’ claim as per Campaign Tasks Week 7: How to grind your players into spending gems - #18 by AMT).
Upon seeing the Depression caused by this company’s practices on some players (Anxiety, in less extreme cases) despite recurrent feedback from its customers, no segment of this company can be exempted of the corresponding responsibility: whether a staff decides the design direction, or merely defends it, we are once again faced with the evidence of where their Ethics/Morality stands.
‘Just don’t play the game’ is not a feasible solution for certain people severely affected by these practices: on the other hand, ‘just don’t enable these practices’ and/or ‘just don’t work for a company with such a predatory philosophy’ may be an option for certain players/staff who do not want to be part of affecting people’s lives the way this does.
Is there really no win-win alternative approach?
