Today, Tempo announced that they will be updating their card-based auto-battle game, The Bazaar, on September 10 with new pricing and a renewed update structure.
Throughout the game’s Early Access period, The Bazaar underwent several changes to its pricing and monetization avenues. First, it required access to Early Access through a $30 entry fee or through a friend code invite. Then, they attempted to utilize montization through a monthly subscription that allowed players to gain access to a prize pass with extra bonuses such as double experience and double chest rewards from Ranked play.
Then, when the game launched on Steam, they abandoned that monetization practice and made the game premium to play, meaning it required a $39.99 purchase price on Steam… a decision that caused quite a bit of controversy, even though they stated anyone who purchased the game would be grandfathered in if they elected to continue to play the game on Tempo’s proprietary launcher rather than the Steam platform. Tempo initially stated that all players would have to buy the game if they wished to switch platforms, which angered the community.
Tempo relieved this by offering a $19.99 deal where you could purchase the new hero Stelle and receive the game and its three base heroes for free. That offer has been extended until September 10.
Now, in a statement put out by Tempo today, they have re-evaluated things and have boldly stated that they have settled on a new price for the game, and that significant changes to the game’s distribution of future content will, most likely, not be modified beyond the new structure, indicating that they have settled on a sweet spot that will support the future health of the game.
As of September 10, the Stelle bundle for $19.99 will disappear; however, the price for the game will be lowered to $19.99 from $39.99, which brings it more in line with other games of its type on Steam. Tempo is aware that players have already paid $39.99 for the game and have stated that they are currently working with Steam to compensate players fairly who have already paid that price.
The new $19.99 price tag still includes the base game along with the first three heroes: Pygmalien, Vanessa, and Dooley. It will not include Stelle beyond September 10 when the promotion ends. It also does not include Mak. Both Mak and Stelle will remain as $19.99 separate buys.
Other notes state that The Bazaar will be updated to Unity 6.0 on the September 10 update. Along with this, they are introducing updated Matchmaking that will only match players with ghosts of equal or lesser rank. This will prevent a bronze-ranked player from being matched with a Legendary-ranked player. The goal here is to make it easier for new players to get acclimated to the game’s systems. These changes will be applied to Ranked and Normal modes.
In addition, on season resets, high-ranked players will be reset to a lower rank, but not all the way to bronze. Each season will reset monthly; however, unlike before, the Prize Pass will NOT reset with the new season.
Instead, the Prize Pass will reset on content updates, which will come every few months. Content updates will include card packs for existing heroes or new heroes altogether. Rather than releasing 10 cards per hero via the prize pass, they are opting for much larger backs for all heroes simultaneously; however, because only select heroes have received different levels of 10-card boosts, heroes with the least amount of total cards will be updated first until they are all even. Once they are even, all heroes will receive booster packs at the same time.
Going forward, this seems to be the preferred method. Tempo has stated that the constant change in direction with the game has caused a lot of friction for players, but they hope that this will be the final time that the game will undergo massive and erratic system updates.
Source: Bazaar Discord and Official Reddit
