Marvel fans fuming over aggressive microtransactions in Marvel Snap

The latest mobile game set in the Marvel universe is upsetting fans with its aggressive microtransactions.

Marvel Snap, the latest mobile game developed by card game veterans Second Dinner Studios, is under fire from fans for having expensive microtransactions before even officially launching worldwide.

Marvel Snap recently hit the app stores and is rustling their fans’ feathers with a slow and randomised progression system that almost forces players to pay just to get by. The game’s launch has been marred with a system that players on Reddit are calling “a glorified loot box,” “misleading,” and “wallet dump.”

The outrage was severe enough from the players that Ben Brode, lead developer at Second Dinner, posted a response in the game’s Discord: “It’s clear that a lot of you are disappointed with Nexus Events and we hear you. We missed the mark on this.” Continuing, he said, “We’re here for the long run, and are focused on creating a great game that is fair and that you’ll love.”

Marvel Snap is a card battler game featuring Marvel universe characters. Picture: Marvel/Nuverse

Unlike Snap’s competitors, like Hearthstone or Master Duel, players cannot simply purchase the cards they wish to use via an in-game currency. The only way to unlock new cards in Snap is to progress through the “Collection Level” tiers and hope you get a good card randomly.

You read that right — you have to rely on random luck just to get specific cards, and if you didn’t get what you wanted, you are out of luck. In an attempt to fix the problem, Second Dinner implemented a system called ‘Nexus Events’, which is a misleading title at best. It’s not actually an event — Nexus Events are loot boxes that players can spend money on in an attempt to get rare cards. A single month’s worth of Nexus Event would cost approximately $1300 AUD to fully unlock everything within and it is practically mandatory if you want a selection of competitive cards.

Mobile games and monetisation go hand-in-hand nowadays, especially with live-service games. Even mobile games such as Genshin Impact have multiple ways to part you from your money. That hasn’t stopped them from being popular enough that Chinese universities are using in-game characters to reel in new students, however.

Original reporting by PC Gamer.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.