The chances of this letter reaching the screens at Second Dinner, are less than slim. But worse than that, the chances of anyone at Marvel/Disney reading or caring about this are even slimmer. So, my hope (though vey slim) now lies with Second Dinner. PS: The PC launch trailer/animation for Marvel Snap is too sick for words! Wow… I mean, wow! And now, for my letter:
Dear Second Dinner, I won’t beat around the bush, and keep you in suspense longer than necessary. So, I’ll just come out and say it – Please find a way to make Marvel Snap playable offline vs bots. The game already has bots, so for a layman like myself… We are halfway there already. And, the reason why I’ve made this request is because a whole bunch of you (Team Second Dinner) are passionate about us (the gamers). Many of you used to work at Blizzard, and thankfully you no longer do. You’ve started afresh, and became the Davids who might slay Goliath.
But with great power comes great responsibility.
I won’t sit here and pretend to know all the ins and outs about your studio, or the industry. You know far more than I do about all that stuff. But, as someone who is just as heartbroken as some of you are (about the horrid state of the gaming industry, and the excessive greed)… I actually enjoyed Marvel Snap, a lot. And, I only played it for 2 or 3 days, before uninstalling it from my phone. Without knowing anything about who made it, and where they came from. I just found the game unexpectedly fun! Really fun, and couldn’t believe that Marvel still has people that make FUN THINGS! But since it can’t be played offline, my time online was brief, and I had to part ways with the game. Despite it being addictively good.
Today (more than a year later), I bumped into a random YouTube video that told me about you (Second Dinner) and your journey. I immediately realised that you guys are the secret sauce that made such a game possible. Developers who are actually concerned about the fun-factor of their games!
Please fight for neglected offline-gamers like myself
Now, having made a game as magical as Marvel Snap. May you please use whatever leverage, or persuasion you hold with Marvel, and get them to sign off on an offline mode. Especially on the PC version. They most probably won’t like that, but Second Dinner should try and fight for its gamers. Even those of us who can not afford the money needed to always be online, gaming. Those of us from countries where internet connectivity is a excruciatingly-slow luxury.
Blizzard would never do such a thing, because where is the money in that?
But, thankfully we now have a David on battlefield, there to represent gamers like myself and others. Players who were born and raised in the golden age of gaming. If Marvel refuses to approve an offline mode, then maybe (in the future) you should avoid licensed productions. Take the money you got from them, and do your own thing! Before you get swallowed by Goliath, through a series of licensed games which would turn you into a mini-Blizzard. It would be a shame for you guys to have started such a fine studio, only to end up being covertly “captured” by “the man,” all over again.
I hope someone at Second Dinner will read this, and share with the rest of the team… maybe.
Who knows, stranger things have happened.
Tafadzwa Tarumbwa
