Wow. It’s been about 6 years since Fire Emblem Heroes mobile game was first released in Feb 2017. Book VI ended last month. This month, it’s the start of book VII. It’s amazing that he game is still going pretty strong. Based on the latest estimate, this game is still generating about 2 億 every single month.
As usual, game update comes along with new book release. There’s no exception this time around. Let’s dig in on what’s new this month.
New Story
I think story telling improved for the better. The big boss can control time. It’s very interesting.
New Game Mode
There’s no new game mode or new mechanic this time around. Summoner duel game mode was introduced last year. Unfortunately, that game mode didn’t go well, majority of players do not enjoy that game mode. Binding World was introduced earlier this year. This game mode was pretty well received.
New Heroes Type
There’s no new heroes type either. Rearmed heroes that were introduced a few months ago was the latest new hero type. I’m not sure when IS will introduce new heroes type.
New way to purchase hero
IS introduced new way to purchase hero from Binding World. Now, players can purchase other players’ heroes they found while playing the Binding World game. This new introduction actually created some discussion where some players are actually displeased and some players are actually liked it. As for me, I don’t really care about it as I have no interest in buying one. One thing came to my mind, how does the legality of this work? Players pay money to purchase a copy of other players’ hero they built. Let’s assume those people spent money to purchase orbs and summon to get the hero, plus the skills. Then other people found that hero in Binding World and decided to purchase a copy of that hero. The money goes to IS. The player who own the hero that other players copy did not get compensated at all. For me, this doesn’t make sense at all. If IS get compensated, then the players whose heroes got copied should be compensated too. 🙂 Well, that’s just my opinion.
New Arena Reward
This is probably the best of the latest update. Arena game mode has new reward – 4* special ticket to summon random 4* special heroes every single season. That means, players are guaranteed to get 52 – 4* special heroes in a year since there are 52 seasons in a year. This is really amazing. Though the selection of 4* special heroes are not that great, it’s still a great addition. There are only a few heroes that I really want from those pool, such as Byleth (fodder) and Brave Hector.
This new reward was not new idea. Players have been suggesting/requesting this kind of reward for a few years by now. At that time, some players thought that IS might not do this as it’s going to reduce their revenue, but I think this new feature probably don’t have that big of impact to the revenue. On the contrary, I think it may actually increase their revenue. Let’s think about it.
All players like this new rewards. Sure, dolphins or whales will also enjoy it, but F2P will gain the most. Now, F2P has more chance to compete on top tier in colosseum mode. There are a lot of excellent players from the F2P pool vs from the dolphins or whales pool. So, this means that the numbers of excellent F2P players in top tier will gradually increase, which will cause the dolphins and whales to spend more orbs in order to get new heroes or fodders to stay on top tier. Of course, the increase will be super slow as there are lots of heroes in 4* special pool and only 52 weeks in a year. The likelihood F2P to +10 4*-special heroes will be very low. Nevertheless, it will gradually increase eventually. By that time, dolphins and whales will get more pressure by F2P. And the only way for them to stay ahead is by shelling out money to purchase orbs for the latest and greatest heroes.
For the Future
With that similar thought, then I think IS should definitely consider updating the SPARK feature. Allowing 1 SPARK to be available on all new banners to everyone instead of locking some banners behind FEH pass. As for FEH pass users, allow them to SPARK twice instead of once. Will this cause IS’ revenue to go down? I don’t think it will. How will that work? Well, first of all, even with allowing SPARK to be available to everyone on all banners, F2P will not be able to SPARK on all of them. There are about 4-5 sparkable banners in a month and it needs about 135-160 orbs per banner to SPARK. There are only about 300 free orbs per month. So, F2P is limited to 2 SPARKs at most per month. F2P will then need to manage their orb more wisely. As for dolphins and whales, this actually may push them to at least SPARK twice on most banners. Since we all know that summoning is totally random and is the same as gambling, if there’s an option for guaranteed summon, it’s very likely they will push to get to the 2nd SPARK. So, instead of spending between 135 to 160 orbs per banner, they may spend about 300 orbs per banner. Will this then increase the gap between dolphins/whales vs F2Ps even more? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I think the gap between dophins/whales vs F2P will stay the same.
Well, that’s my analysis. Will revenue go down? Will the gap between dolphins/whales vs F2P increase? Will this increase player base? I think only IS can answer those questions accurately. In my opinion, I think allowing 1 SPARK on all new banner to all players and 2x SPARKs to FEH Pass users is a good idea.