I just got Super Smash Bros Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch. The controls feel great, the stages look incredible, and the cast of characters is amazingly large. The Smash Bros series has always had a lot of collectibles—there were 190 trophies in Melee, for instance. Smash Bros Ultimate raised the bar a bit with its new collectibles called Spirits. They boost your fighters’ stats and abilities. They’re also just fun to collect! And here’s the kicker. There are 1,300 of them! So far! And they just put out three a couple days ago that are only available for a week!
If this massive, growing volume of collectibles, coupled with limited time windows, reminds you of something you’d see in a mobile game, we’re on the same page. Let’s dig into why Nintendo is giving this a shot.
Traditional Collectibles in Console Games
There’s something magical about collectible items. A huge subset of the gaming population thrives on the satisfaction of completion, even if there’s not a special prize at the end of the road. Pokemon is perhaps the most famous collection series of all time. If you catch all 150 Pokemon (excluding Mew) in the original Red and Blue, you get an in-game diploma. That’s it! Most of those last dozen hours or so didn’t net you any Pokemon that are actually useful for your team. They only served as collectibles—“box trophies” to use the familiar jargon of the mobile gaming world. Nevertheless, I completed my Pokedex in Pokemon Red, and I know plenty of other people who got that diploma too.
I logged a lot of hours in Pokemon, but I quit after I caught the last one. That was fine with me. I had plenty of fun hours playing the game. It was fine with Nintendo too. They didn’t stand to make any more money from me playing the game any longer. I’m sure they were ready for me to move to the next game.
For whatever reason, though, I never picked up Pokemon Gold or Silver. I never checked out any of the later major entries in the series either. Sure, I road the nostalgia wave and played Pokemon Go out in the streets with everyone, but that was a fairly short diversion. I don’t have a good reason for why I never got another Pokemon game. I enjoyed the original, and the reviews have been positive on most of the later entries. I just didn’t pull the trigger on the next title.
Collectibles in Mobile Games
Publishers understand that there’s always going to be some slippage of previous users from one title to its sequel. Fortunately for mobile game publishers, they have an ace up the sleeve: in-app purchases.
Let’s talk about this phenomenon with respect to DragonVale, one of the pioneers of collecting style games on mobile. Back in 2011, Backflip Studios launched the original dragon breeding game (at least I recall it being the first) in the App Store. The entire game had no purpose other than to collect dragons. There was no battling or any reason you might chase after the rare double rainbow dragon, other than to complete your collection. I played the game, and eventually I collected them all.
Here’s the twist. I didn’t quit playing after I got that Game Center achievement. They kept putting out new dragons, and I kept collecting them. I eventually quit, but if they kept putting out content faster, maybe I’d still be playing. Many people still are.
I’ve written about GungHo’s Puzzle and Dragons on this blog in the past. It’s the mobile game in which I’ve logged the most hours, other than something I’ve developed myself. That game has over 5,000 monsters right now. I remember when it had 2,000 a couple of years ago. They continue to put out a lot of content, and while the game doesn’t generate as much money as it did five years ago, it’s still one of the top earning games in Japan in 2018. Backflip and GungHo are certainly earning more on these seven year old games than they are on their newer titles.
Limited Time Collectibles
Now it’s one thing to keep adding new stuff. It kicks things up a notch when you start taking things away! Both of the games I just mentioned utilize that approach effectively. Dragonvale has seasonal dragons that can only be bred around certain holidays. Puzzle and Dragons is usually running some sort of one to two week event with limited-time monsters. Sometimes these things come back. When I played Dragonvale, they had an event called Bring ‘em Back where you could breed any previous limited time dragon…for a limited time. I can only imagine the uptick in in-app purchases! On the other hand, sometimes these limited collectibles don’t come back. There are some highly sought after monsters in Puzzle and Dragons that appeared years ago as part of collaborations involving some licensed IP that are unlikely to ever appear again.
The knowledge that any limited time collectible may truly be available for the last time ever takes gamers’ collector instincts to a new level. When I played Pokemon Red, I actually took a couple of years off between beating the game and finishing my collection. There was no urgency. Not so in the realm of limited time content! Players are invested in their collections. They’ve put a lot of time into them, and they’re proud of them. If they miss some limited content, that compromises their whole collection! That’s why these collection based mobile games have such amazing retention.
Nintendo’s Game Plan
It’s time to circle back to Nintendo. The traditional console publishers have started to adopt pricing techniques from the mobile world in recent years, most notably in-app purchases. Some companies like EA tend to get a lot of grief over this, but Nintendo has received mostly favorable feedback for offering good value for a reasonable price when it comes to add-on content. There’s already a slate of five Smash Bros DLC packs to be released in the coming months, each with an additional character and stage.
Since Nintendo is pursuing the DLC route more heavily, it makes sense for them to focus on retention tactics that have worked so well on mobile. After all, you need to keep as many players active as possible to maximize the DLC purchases. If all goes well for Nintendo, they can spend much less effort optimizing Smash Bros Ultimate and continuing to make a good reliable revenue stream from it, as opposed to building a new game, which may or may not have as large of an audience. Less cost and more predictable revenue are a combination just too good for the console publishers to dismiss!
Concluding Thoughts
I’ve already got about 200 spirits, plus two of the three limited time ones. You can bet I’m going to have the remaining limited one before time expires. At that point, I’m going to be somewhat invested in my collection. I’ll have to get the next set of limited time items when they come out, or else I would be devaluing my previous collecting efforts by ruining my overall collection’s potential to ever be complete. Since I’ll be playing the game, I might as well pick-up any new in-app purchases that come out along the way. As long as Nintendo keeps delivering good value, I’m happy with that arrangement.