The Dude: It's like what Lenin said…you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh...
Donny: I am the walrus.
The Dude: You know what I'm trying to say...
Donny: I am the walrus.
Walter Sobchak: Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Illanich Uleninov!
Donny:What the fuck is he talking about, Dude?
Hello again, GME Gang. What a fun day we had yesterday! Could it continue today? Only Melvin Capital (and maybe Ryan Cohen) knows!
And an extra special hello today to our newest WSB lookie-loo, Mr. Cramer (Can I call you Jim? I’m gonna call you Jim).
Now Jim, from what I’ve been able to gather, you and your Boomer stocks and your Hot Manic Takes don’t always get a lot of love around here. But that’s not all your fault, Jim. The Paste-Eating Rocket Kids are often good for a solid meme (FYI: it’s pronounced “Mee-Mee.” Feel free to use that on air without verifying). But the Rocket Kids can be a dense bunch and they’re also often one click away from Total Financial Ruin (Quick shout out to SPCE: Pleas fly again). So you have to dig a bit in here to separate the wheat from the chaff, as someone like you actually says in real life. What the fuck even is chaff, Jim? And why do all Boomers seem to think that folksy farm-based idioms are the perfect way to conclude a thought?
Anyway. Those of us who watched your teevee clips last week where you reference your interest in WSB know that you, Jim Cramer, might be one of the Olds, but that you also Think Young(TM). https://www.thestreet.com/jim-cramestock-market-advice-moderna-boeing-fed-ftc-dec-15. So we’re going to do our best to help your young-thinkin’ brain find the Needle In the Haystack here so you can get All Your Ducks In a Row on GME. Because we know that you’re a long way from being Put Out to Pasture, and though you may be an out-of-touch millionaire prone to facile yammering, we now like you here, Jim—simply because you mentioned us and that made us blush a bit since we’re needy Millennials who just want our Boomer mommies and daddies to Tell Us They’re Proud of Us. So even though the Paste-Eating Rocket Kids here are often Buying A Pig in a Poke (Christ, please do not ever say that or the kids’ Mee-Mees are gonna fuck you up), we appreciate you recognizing that, every now and then, there’s something worth paying attention to over in this weird little pocket of the Interwebs. And since you’re actually telling your loyal single-finger-typin’ viewers to check out this WSB shitshow, and “if they’re running GME, then do some work on GME,” we assume you might actually be checking this shit out too, since all true Young Thinkers know that What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander.
Now, is the GME play as solid as your recent recommendation to buy Bed Bath and Beyond? Who knows? That seems pretty stupid, and I would look it up myself this weekend but my nice little Saturday is already pretty full so I don’t know—I don’t know if I’ll have enough time. But I’ll tell you one thing: the GME play is a lot more fucking fun. Life in a pandemic is boring, but here in this weird WSB place, these kids like fun. And for all your Boomer weirdness, you seem like you still like to have a little fun in this Mad, Mad world of ours. So consider joining us here more often. A word of warning, though: if you don’t like all the dern cuss words we use around here, Jim, well that’s just, like, your opinion man, and we’ll have you know that the Supreme Court has roundly rejected Prior Restraint.
First thing’s first: we have a bit of a bone to pick with you (now there I go). The stuff you said last week about GME as the next Blockbuster was D-U-M dumb, Jim. You were a bit out of your fucking element with that. You even made our largest shareholder and conqueror-in-waiting, Mr. Ryan Cohen, send an emoji-only tweet in response, which if you know the super nice-guy Ryan Cohen like all of us do (we actually know nothing), that is pretty much the equivalent of him bringing his dog over to micturate on your and George Sherman’s rug.
Now, I myself have never been into the whole brevity thing, but I wanted to take this opportunity to get you up to speed on the GME movie you’ve wandered into. And I know you’re down with this because you told all your viewers that if WSB is talking about GME, then “make sure you know GME.” So before you say something Absolutely Mad again and Cohen sends a tweet with an even less ambiguous emoji, it’s high time that you start Making the Sure here, Jim. Just consider this to be CPT Hubbard delivering you some Orange Sunshine and turning you on to some of that Sweet, Delicious Non-Chaff Wheat you love so goddamn much.
Part 1: GME’s Bonkers-Ass Short Interest
Now, I’m going to lead with the most crowd-pleasing part of the story here (Get ready, Rocket Kids!), and it’s the one that you did not even seem remotely familiar with in your “Stay out of GameStop, Deadbeat!” rant last week. Maybe that was by design or maybe not. We’ll return to that, Jim. But the point here is: the short interest here is batshit insane. And not just your garden variety Boomer in Rolled Up Sleeves Ranting About Buying Estee Lauder While Hitting Buttons On The Beep-Bop-Boop Machine kind of insanity. Really and truly fucking nuts.
So to TL/DR this shit for you, Jim (to use the parlance of our times): GME is the most shorted stock trading today—by far. https://financhill.com/most-heavily-shorted-stocks-today How shorted? Well, the value of shares short exceeds the market cap of the company; there are currently more shares short than the total number of shares outstanding. And when factoring in the institutional and insider ownership, the total short percentage of float is nearly 300%. https://www.gurufocus.com/term/FloatPercentageOfTSO/GME/Float-Percentage-Of-Total-Shares-Outstanding/GameStop-Corp Even higher, actually, now that Cohen’s interest is over 10%. Now, I’m not a numbers whiz like you, but that level of short interest and the small available float seems pretty fucked up to me. Like: “how is that even legal?” fucked up. And just for a frame of reference, the third most shorted security right now is your beloved Bed Bath and Beyond, with a short percentage of float at a nice and tidy 69%.
Are you starting to gather why some of us in this weird little pocket of the Interwebs are a little excited about GME? You see, as u/Jeffamazon and RodAlzmann u/Uberkikz11 and others have explained in these here corners and on the twitter machine with their top-notch DD, and as I will translate to you in lingo you can dig, the short sellers got way over their skiis on this one expecting a bankruptcy in Spring of 2020 that never came. And yet, amazingly, the short interest has only increased since then—there has effectively been no covering in the aggregate and, in fact, the short percentage has only gone up. And now, on the threshold of 2021, we all sit atop a massive powder keg wondering what is going to be the thing that finally lights this shit up. And at the end of this little missive, I’m going to tell you what I think that thing might be (Spoiler: It’s Ryan Cohen! Better start getting used to seeing his name, Jim, because this dude does not fuck around and he’s not going anywhere).
https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/k4csaa/the_real_greatest_short_burn_of_the_century_part/
https://twitter.com/RodAlzmann
https://thecollective.finance/2020/10/gamestop-gme-a-squeeze-to-44-from-14-can-be-justified-fundamentally-100-of-the-shares-are-short-watch-out/
Part 2: GameStop Isn’t Going Bankrupt and People Actually Want to Buy Shit There
So, you foul mouthed little prick, a bonkers-ass short interest is neat and all, but why is Jim Cramer wrong when Jim Cramer compares GME to Blockbuster you might be asking yourself in the third person. First, the most obvious answer, Jim, which you should fucking know already: Blockbuster was nearly $1 Billion in debt and missing debt payments left and right when it was delisted way back in 2010. That was also when there was a bit of a credit crunch, if you recall, right after that whole Housing Crash Unpleasantness that you saw coming from a mile away and from which you made hundreds of millions of dollars due to your contrarian foresight—I’m sorry, I’m clearly confusing you with Christian Bale starring as Dr. Michael Burry, weirdo head of Scion Asset Management, which also holds about 1.4M shares of GME (You really gotta start looking into this stuff, Jim. This story is made for TV, man—and you Boomers were raised by TV and you turned out TV!). Also, in 2010 when Netflix is ripping and when Blockbuster was about to be delisted and bankrupt, an analyst noted the obvious fact that Blockbuster had “nothing on the horizon that makes it look like Blockbuster is going to be more profitable.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blockbusteblockbuster-wins-debt-reprieve-forced-to-delist-idUSTRE66052720100702
But Jim, if your Blockbuster comparison has any plausibility, GameStop must have a major debt problem then, right? And yet just last month GameStop repaid $125M in debt several months ahead of time. It’s also really weird that over the past year management bought back a ton of shares, taking the OS from 102M down to just under 70M (making a short squeeze even more likely, my Rocket Children). The weirdness continues with a soon-to-be-bankrupt company holding almost $500M in cash on hand. And according to George Sherman’s “Thine Omnichannel Shalt Be The Omni-est Channel of Them All” Conference Call following Q3, by March 2021 GME will have retired a total of $500M in debt and returned $200M to shareholders through stock buy backs. I’m no expert here, and I do not presently own a Beep-Bop-Boop Machine, but that’s all pretty weird shit to be doing if you’re about to go bankrupt.
No, no – I get it: who the fuck actually looks at balance sheets anyway before spouting off about what a stock is going to do? I sure as hell don’t. That’s why I follow my man u/Uberkikz11, since that dude is a GME DD Encyclopedia and was born to crunch numbers. No, when Really Smart People make the Blockbuster comparison, it’s usually just Mouth Sounds for: A B&M Store That Used to Be Popular But Now Is Not Because Technology, QED. But here even the Really Smart People might be missing something as well. They’re right in the sense that GME must use this new console cycle window and cash influx to quickly pivot to a tech-first gaming company (more on that and our boy RC shortly!), but they’re wrong on the timing and relevance of this Super Smart Insight.
So fine, they’re doing ok on debt and cash. But who even goes to that 90s-Ass-Looking Cluttered Mall Geekery anymore anyways? I confess: in my darkest moments, as the short sellers manipulate the fuck out of this stock and I curse the names Bell and Sherman, I too have wondered this. But it turns out that, just like I have no idea why anyone listens to Maroon 5 or eats at Applebee’s, apparently a lot of people in America do shit that I do not. Crazy huh? So here is some pretty neat data showing us how out of touch we might be here, Jim:
First, when a pretty large sample size of people were recently asked the question: which of the following stores or websites do you plan to buy holiday gifts from? The #5 response from United States Americans was none other than GameStop (Ticker, Jim: GME). Only Walmart, Amazon, Target, and Dollar Store (poor people buy gifts too, Jim) were ahead of little old GameStop. That’s higher than Nike, Macy’s, the Apple Store—and double the response of Bed Bath and Fucking Beyond in every category they surveyed. Check it: (h/t to my man u/snowk88)
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/260983915
That’s kinda crazy huh? See Jim, when you Think Young(TM), you really can learn something new every day. And by following our man u/snowk88 (@snowk88 over at stocktwits), I learn lots of cool shit. But guess who already knew that? The guy that wrote this bad-ass letter that identifies GME’s brand and customer data as being one of the most valuable things GME has going for it. https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/RC_Ventures_Letter_to_GameStop.pdf
So now we know that Real Life People actually buy shit at GameStop here in the year of our lord 2020. But like that analyst from 2010 said about Blockbuster, there must not be anything on the horizon for GameStop to be more profitable in 2021, right?
Now, I will admit that being a bit bearish on GME in December of 2020 would make more sense if, say, GameStop were the nation’s largest purveyor of limp and half-lit pumpkin spice-scented candles and we were exiting the apogee of Shitty Candle Season. But as it turns out, GameStop is currently selling basically the most sought-after items that exist in the marketplace right now—where demand for the Xbox and Ps5 is far outpacing supply and is projected to continue well into 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-11-17-microsoft-expects-xbox-series-x-s-shortages-until-q2-2021 I don’t really need to get into the details on that here, because it’s pretty goddamn obvious, but I think 2020 GameStop at the precipice of a new console cycle might be in a bit of a better position than, say, 2010 Blockbuster relying on the latest Adam Sandler release to lift its sagging rental numbers. But I don’t know. Millions of people don’t watch my show looking for Candid Analysis from me and my folksy man-of-the-people-lookin’ rolled-up sleeves.
Part 3: Ryan Cohen is the Sword of Damocles Hanging Over the Short Sellers’ Dumbass Heads
And now we’ve gotten to the best part. It’s my favorite part of all of this, Jim, and if you give this a little time, I think it will be yours too. You see, all that corporate bla bla bla about balance sheets and console cycles and early debt repayment and overleveraged short sellers and brand recognition is neat and all—and definitely worth a second look by itself. Maybe even a little Beep-Bop-Boop on the ol’ sound machine—I don’t know your methods. But the real thing that’s about to rip all our faces off here is the business and investment decisions of a mild-mannered wunderkind named Ryan Cohen.
Now you can revisit my prior epistle if you want to know a bit more about the involvement of Mr. Ryan Cohen in Le Affair GameStop. https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kakxrm/gme_tribe_a_story_about_how_ryan_cohen_is_about/. My fly-by-night theory of his lawyer’s possible use of the consent solicitation could have probably marinated for another day, but the thrust of my argument there was that Cohen and his attorney have been laying the groundwork to come after GameStop for a while now. And that Cohen was likely emboldened by the humiliating, lame-ass CC performance by some dude with a mid-century comic-strip sounding name that we’ll all soon know only as: The Guy With the Punchable Face Who Used to Be CEO of GameStop.
But here is where things get really interesting. This is a story in the making, Jim, for fucks sake - take notes! This Monday, on December 21, Mr. Ryan Cohen filed a revised 13D showing that last week he started buying a shit-ton of shares—starting on Tuesday December 15th—which is the day after the stock price inexplicably plunged on Monday the 14th and the very same day you were yammering on the teevee about GME being Blockbuster! Instead of listening to you, however, Cohen started buying more GME shares (super-sleuth dark pool watchers u/rgrAi and u/snowk88 noticed in real-time that there was some very large accumulation taking place), which culminated in the big reveal that Cohen purchased a total of 2,501,000 additional shares last week—500,000 of which were purchased on Friday December 18, 2020 at the price of $16.02 a share. Ryan Cohen is still the single largest shareholder of GME with 9,001,000 shares in total, taking his ownership of GME above the 10% threshold from 9.98% to 12.9%. And so he apparently thinks that the floor for his investment is $16.02 per share. Is he still buying? We’ll know soon. But yesterday seemed like a little taste of what it might look like if a large buyer steps in to prevent short sellers from manipulating all of my nervous little Rocket Children here and their delicate little paper hands.
There was another thing we learned from this 13D filing: Ryan Cohen has apparently hired a new attorney and law firm. Instead of the great Christopher Davis of Kline Kaplan, now Ryan Cohen is represented by Ryan P. Nebel, a partner with Olshan Frome Wolosky, LLP. Now, if you’re familiar with my prior ramblings, you might wonder if I was a bit confused, and maybe even a little sad, at this sudden change from my man C. Davis. And you might be a little right. But then the wonder of the internet allowed me to learn a bit about these new lawyers. And holy shit, things are about to get fun.
Now, I liked what I knew about Chris Davis and he seems like a genuine bad ass activist attorney. But the folks at Olshan Frome and Wolosky, LLP are Next Level Players and really seem tailor-made for this exact situation. First off, Olshan is ranked as the top global lawfirm for Activist Attorneys. https://www.olshanlaw.com/assets/htmldocuments/Bloomberg%20Activism%20League%20Tables%20H12020.pdf (H/t @flummoxed at stocktwits). They seem to be the go-to law firm for major proxy battles initiated by activist investors. But possibly even more important is that Olshan is the same firm that represented Hestia and Permit in their successful proxy battle earlier this year to appoint two new directors to the GME Board. I’m not going into the fine details of that, because this is already a bit of a long-form Idiot’s New Yorker article, but GameStop just went through a proxy fight last year with Activist Investors Hestia Capital and Permit Capital, which resulted in two Board seats for our shareholder buds from Hestia and Permit. So, it’s reasonable to assume that the attorneys at Olshan might know their way around GameStop at this point and where the pressure points are here.
http://www.globallegalchronicle.com/hestia-capital-and-permit-capitals-two-new-directors-to-the-gamestop-board/
https://www.olshanlaw.com/resources-mentions-HestiaCapital-PermitCapital-GameStop-BoardofDirectors-ShareholderActivism.html
And if you follow u/snowk88 over at stocktwits (@snowk88)— you’d also find a wealth of DD on how Olshan rolls when entering these activist-investor-replaces-dumbass-boards-and-CEOs type disputes. To bottom line it: they get it fucking done.
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266158534
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266155112
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266153175
But what else did we learn from the 13D? We learned that Ryan Cohen is definitely not going anywhere any time soon. Specifically, the filing notes that RC Ventures intends to continue to engage in discussions with GameStop’s board “regarding means to drive stockholder value, including through changes to the composition of the board and other corporate governance enhancements." And while RC Ventures “desires to come to an amicable resolution with [GameStop, it] will not hesitate to take any actions that it believes are necessary to protect the best interests of all stockholders.”
I really like that last part, don’t you? And although I thought his November 16th letter was pretty goddamn clear, this 13D just ratcheted up the transparency level here. In sum, Ryan Cohen has all of our backs and he’s going to replace this Board and Sherman with people that are on the level and that will help implement his vision.
And now seems like a good time to return to those “Ryan Cohen: Boy Genius” articles that were definitely NOT part of a well-coordinated pre-hostile takeover media campaign initiated earlier this year. I think there might be a few things in those articles that Mr. Cohen wanted all of us shareholders (as well as the short sellers and the Board he’s about to replace) to really and truly understand. Recall also that Cohen is not one for diversification or for playing it safe. So here’s a few choice nuggets for you to ponder:
***
Bloomberg, June 2020: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-05/chewy-founder-cashes-out-bets-on-apple-wells-fargo
· "It's too hard to find, at least for me, what I consider great ideas," he says. "When I find things I have a lot of conviction in, I go all-in."
· Cohen uses the word “conviction” a lot. He says it’s something he learned from his father, who ran a glassware importing business in Montreal where Cohen grew up. “He taught me how to block the noise from the masses,” says Cohen. “To have a point of view and have conviction and not waver.”
· He wouldn’t, however, recommend his [non-diversified] investment approach to everyone. “You need to have the temperament to block the noise,” he says. “Sometimes it feels like a roller coaster.”
· He likens his obsessive focus on building Chewy to his approach to stock picking. "I don't want to swing for a single," he says.
***
You hear that, Jim? Our man Cohen likes idioms too! But fuck those farm idioms, Jim – we’re upgrading to the Sportsball kind now. So what’s the takeaway here? I’d say that Cohen has his Eye On The Ball and that it’s time for all short sellers and the Board to Throw in The Towel because Ryan Goddamn Cohen likes to Take the Bull By The Horns and will ensure that he Hits a Homerun for shareholders that believe in his vision.
Here’s a few more things Mr. Cohen wants all of us to know:
***
Forbes, August 2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/08/16/entrepreneur-chewy-founder-ryan-cohen-shares-his-best-advice/?sh=41e1370e5840
· “For me, each no sounded like they just didn’t understand my vision. It was frustrating at times, but never discouraging. Those ‘no’s never made me doubt my strategy – it was the opposite. I was motivated by all the rejections and they just got me fired up.”
· “I understood that thinking big was likely going to be misunderstood along the way. I’m contrarian by nature, so being misunderstood often validates what I’m doing. It wasn’t until Chewy boxes were on doorsteps across the country that the bulk of investors started to recognize our formula.”
· “[M]y biggest risk would have been not taking risk. The risk of going head-to-head against Amazon. The risk of insourcing fulfillment. The risk of building a company in Florida rather than a popular tech hub. The risk of spending $3 million a month on TV ads, more than Home Depot HD -0.1%'s budget. The risk of hiring expensive executives even though we weren’t profitable. These decisions were some of the most controversial and required me being comfortable betting against conventional wisdom, and were often contrary to the advice of my board. Suffice it to say, I was not the most popular board member.”
· “Dad never swayed when he believed in something. I never compromised my vision, regardless how many investors turned me down I was not going to give up on building Chewy into the world’s biggest online pet retailer. I love to be challenged, and I’m flexible on details, but I’m never willing to give up.”
***
Goddamn it, Ryan. I was done having children but now you’ve forced me into getting back on that train just so I can name this future child Ryan Fucking Cohen. Thanks a lot, asshole.
But to return to my point: are those the statements of a man that seems likely to walk away at this point? Or is Cohen trying to tell us all to get ready because he is going All In on this shit?
So where does this leave us? After a huge week where Cohen buys 2.5M more shares and then the SP skyrockets to $20 yesterday on that news? Well, this is where I want to tip my cap to my man Justin Dopierala over at Seeking Alpha and allow him to conclude this section. He, along with his pal Dmitriy Kozin have been pretty clear-eyed on all this shit for a while now and they both deserve some credit. And I know I gave my main man Justin a bit of a hard time in my last novella, but the dude is sharp as hell and helped a lot of us see the forest through the trees here. And you should also definitely invite him to join your poker nights (seriously: check out the dude’s tweet in response to our own Rod Alzmann’s introduction of the #WeWantCohen hashtag right after the Q3 call debacle). https://twitter.com/DOMOCAPITAL/status/1336446055685230592. You have no comment on a potential takeover involving Ryan Cohen, Justin after your hour-long googly-eyed call together? Can’t believe you’re just preemptively leaving the WSJ and Bloomberg hanging like that. Justin, I love you dude, but if I’m holding pocket Kings I’m folding after that tweet because that twinkle in your eye lets me know you’re about to drop two Aces on my ass.
Anyway. Here is what our man Dopierala thinks might happen here soon (and he called this way back on November 17th- and sorry - no links here, per the mods, as apparently no Alpha must ever be Sought from these parts):
I think a very likely outcome at this point is a majority slate next shareholder meeting where Cohen takes over BOD and then makes himself CEO. A majority slate proxy battle would require all institutions to call in shares and would force a squeeze.
We’re intrigued, Justin. Please continue:
If Ryan Cohen successfully negotiates a purchase price with the Board then the shareholders will have to vote on it. Unlike the proxy battle where Hestia and Permit were running a minority slate of directors, an offer to purchase GameStop would force institutions like Vanguard and Blackrock to call in their shares. By doing so, the shorts would be forced to close out their positions and GameStop would finally have the greatest short squeeze of all-time. Ironically, Cohen could use this opportunity to sell all of his shares and use the proceeds to entirely fund the acquisition of GameStop going down as the first person in history to acquire a billion dollar company... for absolutely nothing. In fact, his acquisition price would be less than zero.
And now is when I get to speculate on what I think is going to happen here. But I do not necessarily think Cohen is going to put an offer to buy GME to take private. That would definitely trigger a MOASS, but I’m not sure I see it given the attorneys he’s hired and his recent buys up to $16 and the amount of cash that would take. Like Dopierala’s first comment, though, I think Cohen is going to nominate directors to replace nearly the entire Board of Directors with a vote happening at the annual meeting and once that Board is in place, they’ll appoint Cohen as CEO. And as Justin notes, if he nominates a majority slate of directors, shares will have to be called in to vote. And this vote and proxy battle will make the prior minority slate Hesita/Permit battle, and the tiny short squeeze that took place when that happened, look tame by comparison.
Now everyone: get your calendars out. Because the date to nominate directors here is in Mid-March, and my super-smart corporate lawyer buds inform me that it’s standard practice to file about 7-10 days prior. So, if this actually happening, we should be seeing something on this by early March.
But even though early March is now the mark on the wall, today’s insane price action caused me to think about all of this a bit harder and speculate a bit more. And a major h/t to my buds on the stocktwits board, especially u/rgrAi (@amarbar) for all the sharp analysis on this. But if you were Ryan Cohen and you knew this company was hugely undervalued and you had a high level of CONVICTION here and also knew you needed shareholder votes to sweep out these dumbasses and implement your vision—then how would you play this with the short interest here as crazy as it is? I’d keep buying. Why? Well, lots of reasons, you smart alecks.
First, so I have more guaranteed votes (duh?). Second, so that when the building starts burning and short hedge funds run for the exits they find that a mild-mannered Millennial with super-good ideas has sealed off all the doors and windows. That’s gruesomely delicious, isn’t it? Why else, CPT? Well, finally, and maybe most importantly, because I would want to excite and delight all my fellow shareholders by triggering a slow-burn short squeeze, raising the SP significantly, so that I can once again make the point (as he did in the Nov 16 letter) that the incompetent management that caused a HUGE drop in SP following that utterly incompetent Q3 call and the shelf registration, had nothing to do with the SP increase that again happened once Cohen announced his intent and started buying. Not the console cycle, not the cost containment measures, not the buybacks and not the early debt reduction. Nope: rightly or wrongly, shareholders will see Ryan Cohen buying shares and the corresponding SP increase and everyone—especially all new buyers who are delighted at their good fortune and swept up by Ryan Cohen Fever 2021—will start getting #WeWantCohen tattoos on their ass they’ll be so happy. And all of us, newly enriched by Ryan Cohen’s Big Canadian Balls and tactical brilliance, will crawl over glass to vote for him over The Boomer Artist Formally Known As GameStop’s CEO. I could be very wrong on this last point in particular, but if we start seeing 13Ds drop here shortly, things should get very fun very quickly.
Part 4: A Return to Our Short-Squeeze-to-Da-Moon Discussion: Who’s Side Are You Fucking On, Jim?
Now, Jim, given the fast friendship we’re creating here, and all we’ve been through over the past 5000 words, I hesitate in bringing this up. But we’ve all seen the video, Jim. You know the one I’m talking about. Yes, the one where you actually tell the truth about how short selling hedge funds manipulate the market to knock down the price of perfectly good securities that many hard-working people invest in—many normal-ass people all assuming they wont ever have to Point Where On The Dolly The Invisible Hand of the Economy Touched Them. But that’s not life now is it Jim? And fuck those poor-ass rubes for not knowing how to play the game with you sophisticated Masters of the Universe, amirite?
https://www.reddit.com/dashpay/comments/93evx4/jim_cramer_reveals_dirty_tricks_short_sellers_use/
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/cramer-market-manipulato
So where are you in this whole GME/Cohen story, Jim? You candidly (gleefully?) acknowledge that a prime strategy that shorts deploy is to spread negative rumors that are then amplified by Big Smart Trustworthy Financial Media Titans like yourself to shake out unsophisticated retail players like my Rocket Kids here—who because of their tiny paper hands and you mean short selling brutes often subsist on paste and paste alone.
So for this particular security, are you the one helping with the manipulation and actively creating the “new truth” or are you just one of the Useful Idiots that these short sellers use to manipulate with an anodyne, TV media-ready comparison like: GameStop Is The Next Blockbuster? And how in the fuck does this fit into your Think Young(TM) project, Jim? Because if there is one thing that we over at WSB fucking hate, it’s a bunch of Manipulative Short Selling Boomer Fuckwads. Why on earth would a hip Young Thinker like you want to be included in that crew, Jim?
And I know we’re all friends here now, Jim, but I need to push back a bit on some of what you said in that video in such a cavalier whatareyagonnado manner. So if I understand you, short and distort and fomenting negative reactions from retail players based on deliberately false narratives is illegal, but still easy as fuck to do "because the SEC doesn't understand it." But you fucking do understand it, Jim! So why are you helping those short and distorters break the law here? Why are you being such an obtuse dumbshit? Just check out what happens to the borrow rate and short selling every time there is any good news for GME:
https://stocktwits.com/Slantedangles/message/264519950 (h/t @slantedangles). This manipulation isn't just happening with GME; it is happening everywhere. It’s baked into the cake. And that is pretty fucked up that we all just accept it because whatareyagonnado.
I think that one thing that those of us who truly do Think Young(TM) have a hard time understanding is at what point in your lives do you Boomers all finally come to realize that it’s maybe time to stop playing the game like you have been? What point do you finally have enough where doing the right thing matters more than getting paid? Maybe start by telling the truth more often—and maybe don’t go out of your way to help those corrupt-ass hedge fund managers who continually fuck over average people merely because they were stupid enough to believe you all. What contempt you Masters of the Universe have for all of them—for all of us. There is a bigger story here on GME and this out-of-control short interest (naked shorting, counterfeit shares) http://counterfeitingstock.com/CS2.0/CounterfeitingStock.html than even Ryan Cohen and the inevitable short squeeze we’re about to witness here. And it begins and ends with people like you and Melvin Capital and Bank of America not giving a fuck about the rules while thinking you’re smarter than the rest of us who do—but who lack power to do anything about it. And you know what? Maybe you are smarter than us. You certainly know how to play this game pretty well, as that video shows. But if I know my old school 1980s movies like I think I do, this is usually the part of the story where the rag-tag kids from across the tracks come over to show you hubristic rich fuckheads what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.
Now I myself have never dabbled in pacifism, Jim, so this isn’t too much of a stretch for me, but seeing that video of yours and seeing the insane short interest and all the manipulation here makes me want to burn the whole corrupt system to the ground—while barricading the doors to trap in those arrogant-ass short sellers who lie and cheat and distort to profit off average people. And though I’m certain that this larger battle is not driving him, maybe that result is one that Ryan Cohen wouldn’t mind too. Though he’s a polite Canadian and would probably just let everyone know that he’s not really mad, just disappointed. But me? I’m an Angry American and I say: Block the fucking doors and windows and light that shit up.
So maybe this epistle will be useful for your Think Young(TM) project and cause you to reflect a bit more on what’s really going on out there with this whole GME thing and the likely illegal shorting that has driven the short percentage of float to these insane levels, drawing in new retail shorts too stupid to know what’s even happening. Or maybe it wont cause you to reflect in the slightest (count me as one of those cynical types that see your overtures to WSB as a transparent play for greater market share from the Young Crowd since your old-ass audience is dying and/or switching to bonds). But in a few months when all the Billy Ray Valentines and Louis Winthorpes assembled here are toasting each other in stupid shirts on a white-sand beach somewhere, we do not want you to look back on your knee-jerk boomer-ass dismissal of GME and your Useful Idiot blathering with that same tinge of regret and longing you feel when you look at a pre-Client 9 picture of you and your old roomie: warm-toes-and-hosiery-enthusiast E. Spitzer, Esq.
In conclusion: GME = Blockbuster comparisons are for Simps and Corrupt Short-and-Distorters. Don’t be like them, Jim. And to my Rocket Children: the only weapon we wield in this stupid game is Diamond Hands with a float like this. Toughen the fuck up.
And Happy Holidays everyone.
--CPT Hubbard
TL/DR: Jim Cramer likes farm-based idioms and apparently being a useful idiot to scummy short selling hedge funds. DD on the GME turnaround is solid and overleveraged short sellers should be shitting themselves. Ryan Cohen, our polite, hard-working Canadian benefactor is about to rip all our fucking faces off and trigger a MOASS. Probably even by early March, if that time is good for you (he’ll text before he comes). And fuck infinite regress: It’s rockets all the way down here. 🚀🚀🚀 Now: diamond hands, motherfuckers.
**This is a shitpost and is only to be used as investment and life advice for Mr. Jim Cramer, Esq.

It really helps me if you check the original article & more similar at https://jb-dev.net/ !!!
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In January 2019, Drodo Studio’s Dota Auto Chess mod became insanely popular. Many companies (including household names like Valve, Riot, Ubisoft and Blizzard) rushed to release their own versions.
It seemed like the beginning of something big like MOBA or Battle Royale. But it has been more than a year now and the hype seems to have vanished completely. As quickly as it rose, it went away…
This is the first on a series of articles where we will analyze the autochess genre. Here we will be exploring the genre’s history, its current market situation and its audience. And also, what are the core design issues that autochess suffers and that no one has been able to solve yet.
u/JB: For this article I’m teaming up with my mate Victor Freso, one of my most talented folks at Pixel Noire Games, who helped me review all the games.
We also had feedback of ~300 highly engaged players from the different autochess reddit communities, which participated in an online poll whose results are available here. They’re especially thanked at the end of the article.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This wasn’t the first time that a mod got the spotlight and ended up becoming the foundation of a genre. It happened in several major, industry-defining cases before (some of which are Team Shooters, MOBAs, Battle Royale…). But on some of these cases events unfolded differently. So we identify 3 distinctive eras related to the evolution of the industry:

1st Era (2000s): Assimilation

The company whose original software had been modded (or had a close enough game, like Valve) moved quickly to absorb the successful mods and turn them into even more successful products.
Since at that point creating a major game release was very complex (required an expensive development, publishing deals and an infrastructure to distribute the product), the deal was profitable for both sides. But it meant the dissolution of the identity of the original creator team, which became embedded in the bigger company culture.
Team Fortress (1999) was originally a Quake mod. And Counter-Strike (2000) started out as a fan-made mod on the Half Life engine. Both games (and creators) were quickly absorbed by Valve.
2nd Era (2010s): Integration
By this time, the previous era model still was going on… but the gaming industry had significatively grown a lot and it was also possible for smaller or even new companies to lure the original developers, and use the mod as a proof for commercial success in order to secure funding and develop it as a full title.
The main characteristic of this era is that the original developers were able to keep a bigger share of control and relevance, rather than being integrated as just another gear on a bigger machine, because the companies they joined built their own identity around that key product.
This was the case of Riot Games: They were able to raise enough money for the creation of their company through family and angel investors, and then hire some of the original creators of DOTA, and then created League of Legends.
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A similar case happened with battle royale, which also started in 2013 as a successful DayZ mod created by the modder nicknamed PlayerUnknown. Later, it was transformed into a full product through the acquisition of the developer by a korean company (which would later be renamed as the PUBG Corporation, again showing how the company grew around the game rather than assimilating it).
Interestingly, this genre already hints what would happen with Auto Chess, since Fortnite wasn’t involved in any way with the original creators. They just copied the concept. Fortnite was a product stuck in a kind of development hell (had been 6 years in the works). As the game was getting close to the release, the developers became impressed by PUBG’s success, so they created a quick Battle Royale spin-off which became insanely popular and eventually ate the rest of the game.

3rd Era (2020s): Fragmentation

In all the cases presented previously, the newborn genre ended up in the release of one or two titles which accumulated most of the business. But this hasn’t been the case here.
In Autochess, the newborn genre has been quickly fragmented into a big list of competitors. Some are standalone games (like DOTA Underlords or Autochess: Origins), but there’s also several service-model games which released their autochess mode as well (like Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds or TeamFight Tactics, which at the end of the day is a side-game mode of League of Legends).
This creates an interesting precedent, which I believe will define future cases where an innovative new game concept appears: The hot idea will be cloned very fast because today the main bottleneck in the industry is having an innovative design that generates player interest and engagement.
By 2020, it’s way easier to create and distribute a game, there are way more developers hungry for a hit than ever before, and a lot of service-model games with short development cycles always looking for something juicy for their next update… so new ideas becoming red oceans fast will be the norm.
For sure, this won’t affect the ability of small developers and modders to innovate, but it will affect their ability to leverage that to become successful on an independant level, before they get cloned.
Dota Auto Chess, was a Dota 2 mod which obtained massive popularity. After a failed acquisition from Valve (owners of Dota), the mod developers (Drodo Studios) went to create the mobile standalone Auto Chess: Origins, while still maintaining the PC version linked to Valve. Meanwhile, Riot, Valve, Ubisoft and many other companies developed and released their own autobattlers at a record time, downgrading the genre creators to just another competitor.
And ultimately, they haven’t fixed the core issues of the original game, which separates it from a true hyper-successful product like MOBA.

MARKET STATUS

Because of the rain of clones, it’s hard to map all the autochess games on the market. It doesn’t help that some of them are available in both PC and Mobile (playable in PC, Mac, Android and iOS), and also they’re exclusive to different PC stores (Dota Underlords is only on Steam, TFT is on Riot’s LoL launcher, and Autochess Origins is only at the Epic Store…).
And if that wasn’t enough, the Auto Chess mod in DOTA2 is still very active and has no signs that it’s going to be dying soon. It’s still being regularly updated, and presumably still profitable: Some months ago they added a battle pass system, with its revenue shared between Valve and Drodo.
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What’s interesting is that none of the contenders has been able to become massively successful in terms of monetization, at least not in terms comparable to even a second or third tier MOBA. And while there are definitively different tiers of following among these titles (led by Riot Games’ TeamFight Tactics), it seems that none of them has been able to gather under its banner a significant amount of players, mobile downloads or Twitch Views…
Sources: AppAnnie (mobile metrics), TwitchMetrics (twitch)
So ultimately, we’re dividing the autochess market into 3 categories: Squires, Would-be Kings and Peasants.

• Squires: Rather than standalone games, these are side-modes of already successful products. Under this category we would list the Battlegrounds mode in Hearthstone, or League of Legends’ TFT, and maybe even the original DOTA Autochess mod. While for sure they’ll have their own dedicated audience that only plays those modes, for most players it’s just a nice and fresh activity integrated within a broader game experience. The squires are the ones that have achieved the biggest success among the autochess genre because they don’t suffer as much backlash from the lack of gameplay depth inherent to the genre, which is harmful for the long term retention: Even if the mode eventually becomes a bit shallow, players have many other things to play, and thus are retained. As a consequence, these games can still monetize significatively by selling renewals of their Battle Passes every new season. Not enough to make them successful on the degree that was expected… but at least it’s something. Other than bringing an additional source of revenue, these modes were useful to their core games: They generated player interest by providing innovative gameplay. Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds was an amazing addition to the CCG genre, and made a lot of people come back to the game to discover the new mode and reengage.

The gameplay of TeamFight Tactics (slow tempo, no team coordination, decreased attention requirement…) makes it a nice relief mode to play between LOL matches, which is its purpose in the foreseeable future. If there ever was an intention to make it a standalone game, it vanished together with the player interest on autochess…

• Would-be Kings: These are the other two top dogs of the category. They were supposed to rule… but that looking at the numbers they don’t really seem to have ever lifted off. Under this category we would list Auto Chess: Origins and DOTA Underlords. The problem is that their standalone approach means that they suffer the most of the design issues of the genre that we’ve presented in the last section of this article (i.e. flat complexity, lack of mastery depth, lack of progression and rotative meta…). That means that they lost a lot of population over time, and therefore their Battle Pass renewal isn’t as effective at generating revenue : (

DOTA Underlords is an extremely polished product in terms of graphics, character design and UX, and yet another proof that Valve devs really know how to do great games. Too bad they aren’t as good at releasing third installments...

• Peasants: Here we would list the myriad of other autochess follower titles that entered the battlefield, each achieving a different degree of success. While some may actually be profitable, what we can be sure about is that none of them has reached any significant numbers or anything close to the reach that brought industry attention.

THE AUDIENCE

We are of the belief that you can’t talk about a game and not talk about who plays it, and that players say more about a game than analyzing all its features and mechanics. So with this in mind we collected answers from ~300 autochess players (check the raw data here). After examining their responses, we’ve identified 3 main player profiles (the comments on each profile are literal):
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• Patricks, gamers looking for a competitive-but-idle experience that doesn’t require full attention and it’s easily reconcilable with their functional adult life.
• Grizzlies, competitive players that struggle with fast paced games that demand a high actions per minute ratio and quick reflexes (like MOBAs or competitive shooters).
• Warmasters, highly competitive players that enjoy more the area of strategy (setting up goals and planning how to achieve them) rather than tactics (skillful execution of actions and micromanagement).

What these profiles have in common, other than being hardcore gamers and having a big interest in competitive games, is the fact that they enjoy the lack of micromanagement, and the demand of reflexes and dexterity of autochess.
This is quite interesting, considering that the genre foundation is so close to MOBAs, which are extremely demanding on those aspects. Overall it seems that they belong to audiences below the MOBA umbrella which are currently being alienated by the bulk of ‘younger and dexterity focused’ players.
And when it comes to platforms, it seems that even though the barrier between the classic gaming platforms and mobile is progressively disappearing, the genre is still mainly focused on PC: Out of the ~300 players that answered, 50% said that they play exclusively on PC, 25% played primarily on Mobile, and the remaining 25% played in both.
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Players said that they enjoy the focus of the game in planification, as opposed to the focus on execution and performance of MOBAs. And when asked about their main points of frustration, they pointed out 2 main topics: 1.- The strong luck factor that has a strong impact on making you win or lose regardless on how well you played. 2.- The fact that the game eventually becomes shallow and repetitive, fueled by the fact updates were unexciting and not rotating the meta.
Surprised by the fact that players mention randomness as a factor of both enjoyment and frustration? Don’t be! Competitive players tend to have a love-and-hate relationship with luck, because they tend to consider that external factors outside of skills (money spent, better draw…) stole their well deserved victory.
And it’s even more frustrating in autochess, because there’s a strong snowball effect: Players that obtain a big advantage early on in the game become hard to catch later on. Which means that a few bad or good draws early on can decide the rest of the match.
There hasn’t been a single feature more criticised in Magic: The Gathering than the randomness of drawing mana. And yet, luck it’s part of what makes MTG stand out compared to other CCGs: For experienced players, it introduces uncertainty and the need to take risks and gamble, like they’d do in poker. And for rookies, it allows beating someone that has better skills and has a better deck, if Lady Luck is on their side. Won’t happen often, but it will feel awesome when it does. Like a friend likes to say: The best feeling in MTG is to draw a mana when you really need it. And the worst? To draw it when you didn’t.
This goes to say that in autochess, perhaps the power of luck needs to be reviewed, but it would be a bad decision to completely remove luck from the equation.
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DESIGN CHALLENGES

In this awesome DoF article, Giovanni Ducati already pointed out the two main problems that the games in this genre need to solve to achieve real success: Bad long term retention and low monetization.
To these issues we would add a third one, which is bad marketability: Contrary to their big brothers League of Legends and DOTA2, these games haven’t been able to achieve high organic downloads (at least not to be able to generate significant revenue through soft monetization mechanics). What’s even worse is that all these games, their themes and target audience are quite close to RPG and Strategy, which are genres with some of the highest CPIs on the market. So they need top-of-the-class retention and monetization to get a high enough LTV to scale up.
But why do these games fail at keeping players entertained for a long time? And why don’t they monetize enough? Here’s what we think:
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Flat Complexity & Progression

You have some games out there which have a strong entry barrier due to being quite complicated to grasp. But for those that can deal with the numbers and stats, the depth will keep them entertained for months and years. This is the case in most RPGs and 4X strategy games. And then you have hypercasual games, which are simple and plug and play. So they generate a great early engagement, but are too shallow to keep users hooked for a long time.
As a genre, Autochess games are in the middle ground: they have a high entry barrier, but also lack the complexity to keep players engaged for a long time…
As a general rule, games with long retention tend to follow Bushnell’s Law of being easy to learn and difficult to master. They achieve that by having what we call an unfolding experience: They appear simpler at the beginning (not necessarily easy), but require thousands of hours of practice to master.
An example of this are games that level lock most of the game complexity, so the player understands and masters only a set starter mechanics. And then, progressively unlock new modes and demand more specialized builds and gameplay, repeating the cycle several times to keep the game always interesting while attempting to avoid being overwhelming.
In World of Warcraft, character depth is huge. But this complexity is unfolded progressively, forcing the player to spend time mastering each skill and activity as they level up, before moving further.
Another approach to the same idea are competitive games focused on mechanical ability, dexterity or micromanagement. Like CS:GO or Rocket League. They may unlock all the mechanics from the beginning, but a newbie player will only be able to focus and manage some of them, and then progressively discover and master the rest in an organic way.
Rocket League hides its complexity by matchmaking early players with others of a similar skill. This makes beginner players viable even if they grasp only the basic mechanics. But, as they climb further, they’ll face rivals that take those basic skills for granted and the player will need to master more challenging techniques to keep up.
League of Legends and Overwatch are actually a combination of both: The game first introduces the player to a small selection of heroes which progressively gets expanded, while at the same time having an insane mastery depth that requires a high APM and reflexes, team coordination and thousands of hours of practice.
Contrary to any of those examples, Autochess games throw everything at you from the beginning: Character Skills, Synergies, Unit Upgrade, Gold Management, Items… It’s a lot to swallow. And there’s not even enough time to read what each thing does before the timer runs out. This creates a complex, overwhelming first impression that drives many players out.
But that’s quantity, not depth. Once you’ve gone through that traumatic starting phase, you’ve grasped all the mechanics and you know which team builds are dominating on the meta, it’s just a matter of making it happen by taking the right decisions and adapting to a few key draws.
Eventually, unless luck is really against you, your skills won’t be challenged and you won’t have new mechanics to master. At that point, winning will be based more on the knowledge of the content database and luck rather than your planning and strategic ability. And that’s boring.
So ultimately, these games are hard to grasp for a newbie, but also lack the ability to keep players interested for a very long time since they eventually run out of new features and mechanics to discover and master.

Unexciting Updates, Lack of Collection

On top of that, autochess games seem to have a hard time adding content which reawakens player interest and makes churned ones come back.
The DAU trend that we expect on a long term retention game: A decreasing trend of players until reaching a stagnation stage. At that point, a big update (or new season) is required to attract and reengage users back with new content. This is the model we would see on Fortnite or Hearthstone, but it’s not what we see in most autochesses.
On this topic, perhaps the one that has put the most effort is Riot’s TFT. Each season update, the game releases a new series of heroes, synergies, items and rebalances, as well as a big bunch of cosmetics. This generates a short lived boost on revenue (due primarily to players buying the pass) and downloads, but ultimately nothing that really moves the needle in a relevant way.
‘Why seasonal updates don’t work?‘, you may be asking. Part of the reason is that TFT, as well as every major contender do not include elements of content progression or collection. Instead, they all stick to the roguelike approach of the original mod: Players have access to the same set of units, and build their inventory exclusively during the match.
While at first this seems a good idea, since it keeps the game fair in a similar way to MOBAs, it’s oblivious to the fact that new units do not offer the same amount of gameplay depth as in League of Legends. In LoL, a new unit means weeks or even months of practice until mastering timing, range and usage of the skills, how they interact with every other champion, etc… In comparison, in TFT the new content can be fully explored in just a bunch of matches, both because the new content doesn’t offer that much depth to start with and because it’s available from the moment the player gets the update.
By lacking content progression and collection, autochesses miss the opportunity to create long term objectives after an update, more innovative mechanics and less repetitiveness. As a consequence, they have it really hard to hype players on updates.

Big ‘Snowball Effect’

In game design, the snowball effect refers to the situation where obtaining an advantage or dominance generates further conditions that almost invariably means winning the match. As you can guess, on competitive games this effect can generate a bad experience, especially when the divergence starts early on: The player that obtained the early advantage will keep on increasing the advantage and curbstomp the rest.
For example, this can happen on a Civilization game if a player gets ahead of the rest acquiring key resource territories, and uses them to achieve a greater progress in tech and income at a faster pace than the rest. Or in League of Legends if a team scores a bunch of early kills and levels up, becoming more able at scoring even more kills…
In this match of Age of Empires 2, the red player (Aztecs) managed to decimate the blue player (Turks) military units early on. Since without an army it was impossible for the blue player to secure enough resources to perform a comeback, for the next 2 hours the blue player was in a pointless, hopeless match. Kudos for not abandoning, though!
Autochess games suffer greatly from this effect, due to the following reasons:

• Resources lead to victories, victories lead to resources As you know, in autochess each player builds a team based on successive battles. Better battle performance will grant more gold, which is the resource used to buy units, perform shop rolls, etc… Similar to the cases we’ve already explained, this means that players that achieve early dominance will be able to to obtain more gold, use it to get better units and get more victories and gold, therefore increasing their team power faster than the rest. ‘But players can be lucky or unlucky, generating a factor that compensates for the advantage of having more resources early on‘, you may be considering. Unfortunately, this is a flawed logic, because of 2 main reasons: (1) Having more resources means more adaptability: The dominant players will be able to leverage on them to re-adapt their team, therefore outperforming the rest on a randomness-driven scenario. (2) Resources allow to buy more rolls, which diminishes the deviation generated by each individual roll.


• Luck factor. The previous point goes into maintaining and increasing dominance once it has been achieved early on, but another source of frustration is that luck is a huge factor in achieving early dominance. This means that your strategic skills and smarts can be completely invalidated by a couple of bad rolls at the beginning of the match. And there’s nothing that competitive players hate more than having their match stolen by factors outside the pure clash of abilities.

As an antithesis, Poker also has resource management, and luck factor determines the victory (on a specific round). But unlike Autochess, resources can’t override luck, and early victories don’t affect the later chance of winning.

Excessive Match Length

Compared to PC, on mobile is much harder to keep the player focused for a long period of time on a single session. And having a very long minimum session kind of goes against the premise of being able to play anywhere which is a primary strength of mobile as a gaming platform. This is a problem for autochess games since a single match can last for 30-45 minutes of synchronous, nonstop gameplay.
‘Isn’t the solution just make the match shorter?’, you’re probably wondering. Unfortunately, there are several reasons that make this more challenging to the core design than what it seems:

• Because in autochess the player builds its team from scratch, at the beginning of each match there are several turns to setup team foundations. Removing these early decisions severely decreases the teambuilding possibilities, decreasing overall depth.
  
• Also, each setup phase between clashes requires a minimum time to think and perform the actions. In the last turns of a match, the game can become quite demanding on thinking and input speed.
  
• Matches require a minimum amount of turns to compensate the weight of a single lucky/unlucky roll over the chances to win. Because the possible units for teambuilding appear on random rolls, the less turns there are the more luck factor the game will suffer, and as a consequence the less important the player’s strategic skills will be.
  
• And if there are few turns, there are also less chances for comebacks. Because it means that players will have less setup phases to adapt and catch a player that has obtained an early advantage.
  
• Finally, since the match involves 8 players, it requires a minimum of turns so that they all can fight between each other… Nevertheless, I don’t consider this a critical issue because Dota has been able to change this specific point on the knockout mode without sacrificing too much in terms of depth.
  

Soft Approach to Monetization

PC/Console approach to free-to-play is generally soft (i.e. primarily based on cosmetics, avoid pay-to-win…), while mobile tends to be quite hardcore in comparison. The softness of PC monetization is even more core to companies such as Valve and especially Riot Games, to which the “no monetization bs” is part of the brand values. This would be very hard to change without harming their reputation.
Same as in most autochess games, in TeamFight Tactics the players can only pay for different cosmetics and for a Battle Pass. Without the massively huge and engaged audience of League of Legends, this monetization approach isn’t able to generate meaningful revenue.
This is not exclusively because we mobile-first devs are a ruthless wallstreet folk which will use every dirty trick in the book to get a bit extra money… but also because mobile games are locked in competition for paid installs. This requires us to get as much revenue as possible from users, as fast as possible, in order to reinvest into players to keep on growing or avoid withering.
The business model of League of Legends or Fortnite is based on their extreme popularity: They already have massive amounts of highly engaged active users, so their strategy is to keep them playing and have a monetization system that, while doesn’t make as much money from the players as it could do on the short term, generates a decent amount of revenue over a longer period of time.
Games that have this soft f2p approach have it very hard to reach enough ARPPU to make paid users profitable, given the insanely high mobile CPIs. This may not be an issue to big IPs and games that are able to bring many organic players (Fortnite, League of Legends…), but it is a big issue for those that can’t attract such a big number of players due to their organic appeal.
Due to its core characteristics (strategic, number-based, complex…), Autochess is unlikely to be a massive appeal product, and therefore won’t fit into the cosmetics model. It’s a game that will have a smaller audience of highly engaged players, and therefore will require a more aggressive monetization to reach similar results.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The history of the autochess genre serves as an example of the risks of design endogamy: The devsphere rushed to clone Auto Chess, and before a year all the major contenders were in the board. But that speed came at a cost: None of these projects has brought the concept much further than its original conception, and in doing so they haven’t solved any of the core issues.
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The folks at Riot games developed the TeamFight Tactics in less than 5 months. This allowed them to release while the hype was still at its peak… but it also meant it added just a couple of improvements, and it’s otherwise very similar to the original Auto Chess mod.
After seeing all these projects fail to meet the big expectations that were placed on them, the question is if perhaps the best approach was to avoid rushing, and instead tackle the genre with a title that is not a clone, but rather a more groomed, accessible and innovative successor of the original idea.
In our next article on this series will make an attempt to see how such a game could be, rethinking the spirit and fresh design ideas of autochess to solve the issues mentioned above. (May take a while though, I want to focus on smaller articles for a couple of months…)
Meanwhile, if you want to read more about this genre, we suggest you these awesome articles from the folks at DoF: Why Auto-Chess can’t monetize – and how to fix that and How Riot can turn TFT into a billion dollar game

Special Thanks to…

These articles wouldn’t have been possible with the collaboration of ~300 members of the reddit communities of the different auto chess games who provided us with feedback and data. You folks have been incredible solving all our doubts. One thing that this genre has is some of the most awesome players around.
So big kudos for Brxm1, Erfinder Steve, Xinth, Zofia the Fierce, STRK1911, LontongSinga22, bezacho, hete, NeroVingian, marling2305, NOVA9INE , asidcabeJ, Eidallor, Rhai, Lozarian, bwdm, Toxic, Ruala, Papa Shango, MrMkay, Dread0, L7, kilmerluiz, Amikals, Sworith, Tankull, B., hete, Bour, Denzel, DeCeddy, Diaa, hamoudaxp, Benjamin “ManiaK” Depinois, Katunopolis, DanTheMan, MikelKDAplayer, 0nid, Tobocto, Tiny Rick, phuwin, Alcibiades, triceps, d20diceman, shadebedlam, stinky binky, Tutu, Myuura, suds, Kapo, Hearthstoned, Engagex, Pietrovosky, Daydreamer, Doctor Heckle, Ignis, ShawnE, NastierNate, LeCJ, Nene Thomas, Chris, trinitus_minibus, Nah, Kaubenjunge1337, Mudhutter, Asurakap, Nicky V, shinsplintshurts, bobknows27, Willem (Larry David Official on Steam), Jonathan, Dinomit24, Monstertaco, GangGreen69, Veshral Amadeus Salieri (…lol!), Kuscomem, Cmacu, Pioplu, Dilemily, qulhuae, Ilmo, MarvMind, facu1ty, crayzieap, Saint Expedite, Lobbyse, Lukino , tomes, Blitzy24, Mcmooserton, magicmerl, i4got2putsumpantzon, radicalminusone, Pipoxo, Kharambit, Bricklebrah, Rbagderp, Merforga, Superzuhong, Mo2gon, MoS.Tetu, MeBigBwainy, Zokus, CoyoteSandstorm, Stehnis, Noctis, Fkdn, Ray, Fairs1912, Fairs1912, Krakowski, HolyKrapp, Damadud, Pentium, Mach, Mudak, CaptSteffo, jwsw1990, Omaivapanda, Inquisitor Binks, Jack, yggdranix, GoodLuckM8, Centy, Prabuddha (aka Walla), dtan, Philosokitteh, Doms, ZEDD, Calloween, Synsane, Kaluma, GordonTremeshko , Djouni, DOGE, haveitall, ANIM4SSO, Task Manager, Submersed, BAKE, Viniv, La Tortuga Zorroberto, BixLe, Rafabeen, Blzane, bdlck666, FatCockNinja86, R.U.Sty, Yopsif, blesk, Quaest0r, FanOfTaylor, StaunchDruid, Rushkoski and everyone else that took some minutes to help us out on the article.

Section Zero: Intro
One thing I want to note is this week was pretty unusual for me just in terms of how I spent my time. I was on vacation from work, had a random sidegig that I have never done before, and was catching up on a bunch of craft stuff I had been meaning to get to.
I didn’t start budgeting or thinking about savings/retirement until this summer. I kind of had a wake up call when I realized that I wasn’t scheduled to pay off my student loans until my mid to late thirties. I’ve always made enough money to pay for expenses and my student loans, but I never felt like I had money leftover to save or take big vacations. Once I started budgeting I realized I did have that money but I was always impulse shopping. So I feel some regret about how much more I could have saved by this point in my career, or how much more of my student loans I could have paid off.
I have a lot of student loan debt from my bachelors. I got into a big name university and my family, friends, and teachers all told me to go no matter the cost. In retrospect I don’t think I agree with this advice, but it is what it is and I’m very motivated to pay off my loans and be debt free.
My main goal right now is to pay off my higher interest student loans before 30. After that, my goal will be to max out my 401k each year and start investing. Long term, I’d love to get to a point where I can work part time or take extended periods off every few years. I’m also contemplating having kids, so I’m trying to figure out how that affects how much I want to work and how much money I should make.
A mini goal I have is that I am trying very hard NOT to online shop right now. I bought 4 things around Black Friday and I’m trying to take a break from buying clothes for December-January. Since the beginning of COVID, my online shopping has really ramped up and I feel like I’m browsing for clothes all the time. So hopefully we will not see any clothes purchases during this week :)
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: $49,300 in my employer 401k. I’ve contributed between 4-7% ever since I started working full time.
Equity: none
Savings account balance: $16,000 - 15k of this is my emergency fund and 1k is saved for vacations
Checking account balance: $6,300
Credit card debt: currently have about $1000 on my credit card, but I pay this off in full every month. I put all of my purchases on my credit card.
Student loan debt: Currently $87,000 for a bachelor's degree from a private university. I graduated in 2015 with $140,000 of student loans and have paid about $90,000 towards them so far (part of those payments went to interest). When I first graduated I had a couple loans between 7-9%. I refinanced this summer, and now $52k of my debt is at 4%, and the other $35k is at 2.5%. My plan is to pay off the 4% as soon as possible (looks doable in the next 2-3 years), and then start investing and maxing out my 401k, and keep just paying the minimum on my 2.5% loans.
Section Two: Income $115,000 base salary with potential for a performance bonus. (I live with my boyfriend, M, and we split rent according to the ratio of our incomes, roughly 45/55, and food, utilities, etc 50/50)
Income Progression:
High school - I worked as a lifeguard during the summers, making $9-11/hr.
College - I worked ~10hrs/week in a variety of on campus jobs, which paid $10-11/hr. I also worked in fast food for one semester and made $7/hr. Each summer, I did an internship that paid between $22-28/hr.
2015- got my first full time job, $71,000. After my first year I got a raise to $82,000. This employer also matched 401k contributions up to 4%.
2017 - switched jobs, starting at $90,000 at my current company. This was my first recruiting role; I’d never thought about recruiting before but my friend referred me for the role and told me I would like it! After my first year, I got a raise to $100,000 and another after my second year to $115,000. I have the potential to receive a performance-based bonus; so far my bonuses have been between $5-15k each year.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $6040 after taxes, insurance, and 401k. I pay $126/month for health insurance (employer pays 80%) and ~$550/month goes into my 401k.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: Just this month, I started petsitting on Rover. It turns out a lot of people need to book a pet sitter over the holidays! I’m projected to make about $600 this month. Not sure how much, if any, I’ll make once the holidays are over.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: $1400/month (M pays $1700)
Renters / home insurance: $11/month
Savings contribution: Not contributing to savings right now, since my emergency fund is enough for 3-4 months of expenses
Investment contribution: Not investing right now, I am focusing on paying off my student loans.
Donations - nothing recurring; I donate $20-30 every once in a while
Debt payments: $1370 is my minimum monthly payment. Since July, I have been paying an extra $800-2000 per month. I pretty much throw all my leftover money at this.
Electric - varies between $30-70/month for my half
Wifi - paid in advance at the beginning of the year, but my half is $20/month
Cellphone - still on my parent’s plan, I tried to get off it this summer but spent 2 hours on hold with Verizon unsuccessfully… I should probably try again at some point
Subscriptions - Spotify $10/month, You Need a Budget Software ($84/year, I bought it in April). M has Costco, Netflix, and Hulu subscriptions
Gym membership - $95/month for climbing gym, might pause this soon since gyms are closing again in Boston and it’s unclear for how long
Groceries - $300-350/month for my half
Pet expenses - M has a cat who I’ve named P for this diary (because she’s a little princess). We don’t usually have any expenses for her other than cat food, which is included in groceries.
Vacation - I try to put $250/month into my vacation fund
Transit - I reload my T pass with $20-40 whenever it runs out, which it hasn’t since March. M has a car which I borrow occasionally, so I fill up the tank every few times. I’m on his auto insurance policy but I don’t pay for it, because adding me to his policy made it cheaper.
Physical Therapy - I’ve spent the past 2 years going to pelvic floor physical therapy. When I first started going to PT, I went once per week, but now I go more like every 1-2 months. My insurance covers 80% of my in-person appointments, so after I hit my $500 deductible, each visit is $25. I’m also currently in an online program run by a physical therapist that costs $55/month, and includes an exercise program and a facebook group. I’ve been dealing with pelvic floor issues for about 5 years and I’m happy to talk about it if anyone has any questions or is experiencing something similar. Finding good PTs for this was so difficult!
Gifts - I budgeted $500 this year for birthday and Christmas gifts. I usually spend $20-30 per person, with the exception of my boyfriend who I spend around $100 on for Christmas and birthday. I’ve already done all my Christmas shopping for this year!
The Diary
Day 1 (12/17)
5am - wake up, try to go back to sleep, fail. Get up, do my physical therapy exercises, journal for a bit, eat breakfast, and feed P.
9:30am - I’m on vacation from work, but I have one meeting today that I set up. It’s a quick 20min meeting about onboarding one of our new hires, and then I put my work laptop away for the day.
10:30am - I have two Rover visits today. Boston is currently under 6 inches of snow, and it’s still coming down. One of the visits is a 25 minute walk, so I decide to suit up and go now, before more snow accumulates. I love walking through bad weather and get bundled up -- I’m wearing a parka, snowboots, and coat skirt (if you haven’t ever encountered a coat skirt, check it out. They are amazing for being outside in the winter!!)
1pm - I heat up some leftover shrimp curry for lunch. For dessert, I have Costco peppermint bark. M’s work vpn connection is down, so we watch an episode of Survivor together. We got way into Survivor after they put two seasons up on Netflix and are currently watching Season 22, which is the one that’s just 90% footage of Boston Rob.
2pm - I head over to my second Rover visit. This one is for a very old, chill cat. I basically just sit next to him on the couch while he purrs for 30min. 10/10 petsitting experience.
6pm - M and I make Korean Lettuce Wraps for dinner and do a little bit of virtual socializing. I have a group zoom call with some co-workers, and then afterwards a friend from college randomly facetimes me. Somehow this feels like a lot of social interaction for one day.
Daily total: $0
Day 2
6am - get up, do my PT exercises, journal, and scroll on instagram for awhile.
7am - I had the idea to paint some greeting cards and sell them on Etsy, so I work on painting some designs with watercolors. So far I’ve just been painting a variety of cats; they’re easy to paint and the cards are looking super cute. I also want to do a series of snowmen wearing different hats. I feel moderately overwhelmed by the task of figuring out how to digitize the paintings and print cards.
12pm - Today I have three Rover appointments. The first cat is the same old guy from yesterday. On the way home I stop by Whole Foods to pick up brussels sprouts, green beans, and asparagus. We have plenty of protein and dry goods but we didn’t have veggies to make it through the next few days. $13.86
2pm - Head out to see my other two Rover “clients” today. One of the cats is shy and stays under the bed the whole visit, but the other one is super outgoing and comes running when he hears the door open. I’m hoping the shy one will come out next time I visit.
4pm - After fiddling with a variety of online editing tools, I’ve managed to turn my paintings into graphics and order custom greeting cards. I choose 5 designs and order 20 cards of each. I also spend some time getting an Etsy storefront set up, but I don’t want to list anything until I get the cards from the printer. Ordering the cards on Vistaprint costs $115.47
6pm - Facetime with a friend from highschool; we reconnected during COVID and have been doing weekly chats.
7pm - M is visiting his parents tonight (they live close by and we’ve been visiting them throughout COVID. All four of us are wfh so we have pretty minimal exposure to other people). I watch a few episodes of Survivor but not the season M and I are watching together! I start one of the Brains vs Brawn vs Beauty seasons, which I think is my favorite of the themes that they do. Okay that’s enough about Survivor for now.
Daily Total: $129.33
Day 3
6am - wake up, do PT exercises. P sits on my lap for a while so I obviously can’t move.
11am - I spent the morning watching Youtube and reading on the Libby app (the book is called “How to Stop Time” by Matt Haig. It’s a very cute story). On Youtube I’ve been watching a ton of Hannah Louise Poston. She’s a beauty youtuber who also talks in detail about budgeting. I’m not really into makeup but I love watching her budget videos.
12pm - Once again I have Rover visits today. The shy cat comes out this time! So far I have really enjoyed pet sitting; I hope I keep getting clients after the holidays. When I get back, I make myself a curry chicken salad wrap and air fried brussels sprouts for lunch.
6pm - M and I make Bayou Chicken Pasta for dinner. M is way more motivated to cook than me, and the quality of food I eat has improved a lot since we moved in together lol.
8pm - M still hasn’t bought a Christmas present for his dad so we spend some time online shopping for him. M wants to get him these trout beer glasses, but I am lobbying for a belt buckle that has a picture of pigs playing poker on it. M and I have also been talking for a couple months about booking a nearby AirBnb for a weekend trip. We were supposed to go to Europe this summer and it would’ve been our first big vacation together. We find a cute cabin in NH which has a hot tub and is near some places we can go snowshoeing. We book it for the weekend of Valentine’s Day. $150 for my half, this will come out of my vacation savings for the month.
Daily Total: $150
Day 4
10am - We have a pretty lazy morning today. M and I do the crossword and spelling bee together on the NYT website (M has a subscription for the crossword section); we used to do the crossword every day but recently our Survivor watching has derailed this habit.
11am - I don’t think I’ve mentioned my skincare routine yet, but I love reading about them in diaries. I have dry, sensitive skin. I don’t wash my face; I just splash water on it in the morning. I use The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid, Stratia Rewind (niacinamide and DMAE), and Mad Hippie SPF 30 (I randomly bought this at Whole Foods one time and love it, it has a ton of different oils and is very hydrating). I also put on The Ordinary Rose Hip Oil at night.
1pm - We take a walk around the neighborhood (gotta get those 10,000 steps!). I’m craving pretzels and hummus, but we are out of hummus, so we stop by Clover on the way back to pick some up. $3.50
3pm - It’s time to bottle my kombucha and start a new batch. I’m making the same flavor as last time, pineapple basil. Over the summer I got into a kombucha habit and was spending like $25/week on kombucha. M got me kombucha supplies and it’s been great! Each bottle now costs like 20 cents instead of $4-5.
6pm - For dinner tonight we make air fried potatoes and baked chicken thighs. Then in a shocking twist we watch Survivor before heading to bed.
Daily Total: $3.50
Day 5
6am - The usual morning routine.
8am - I got an email from a candidate yesterday that I want to talk to my boss about. We hop on a quick call to talk about how I should reply and then chat about our vacation plans. I like my boss a lot and she’s one of the main reasons I took this job.
10am - I have two Rover visits to do today. They are in complete opposite directions so there’s about an hour of walking involved in visiting both pets. I have another super shy cat today who hides under the bed the whole visit :( On the plus side, shy cat #1 is very playful today; we play with his feather toy and he lets me pet him for the first time!
2pm - Last week, I dropped my phone and it made a much-worse-than-usual phone drop noise. Ever since then, the camera on my phone doesn’t focus and I can’t take any photos. I have an appointment at the Apple store and I’m pleasantly surprised that they can replace the camera for $85. It’s still not cheap but it’s better than I was expecting. After I leave the store, I decide I should get a more protective phone case. I have an iPhone 8+ and I’m hoping to use it until they stop supporting updates for it. I research different phone cases and settle on one from Mous for $42. $127
4pm - The apartment is starting to get a little gross so I do a quick clean of the kitchen, bathroom, and floors. Sorry if this diary is getting too exciting!!
6pm - Dinner tonight is BBQ chicken pizza, topped with red onions, jalapenos, and cilantro. We have a lot of time today so we make the dough and sauce from scratch and it turns out really well! Afterwards M and I finish Season 22 of Survivor.
Daily total - $127
Day 6
8am - We did a Costco run earlier this month so we are pretty stocked up on groceries, but we still need a few things this week. I buy kale, buttermilk, panko bread crumbs, cornflakes, eggs, and cat food. For a smaller grocery run like this I don’t bother venmo-ing M for half since we tend to even out on these little trips over time. $25.80
10am - Spend way too much time on instagram and reddit this morning. I have a bunch of books in my Libby app right now but I can’t really get into any of them.
1pm - I just have one Rover visit today, and it’s a “meet and greet” where I meet the cat I’m going to be taking care of and get the keys from his owner. This cat has to be the biggest cat I have ever seen and weighs like 20lbs. Luckily he’s very friendly. I’m always nervous to meet pets in front of their owners.
3pm - M and I are going to spend a few days at his parents house for Christmas (it’s just going to be the four of us the whole time). This is my first year not spending Christmas with my family; they’re a 6 hour flight away and I really don’t want to go through an airport right now. It’s bittersweet, because that means this will be the first Christmas that M and I spend together and I’m looking forward to that! Anyways, I do some packing since we’re heading over tomorrow.
7pm - Dinner tonight is chicken nuggets using the ingredients from the grocery run. Afterwards I browse different sewing patterns. In November, I tried sewing for the first time (M has a sewing machine and makes some of his own pants. He says stores don’t make pants in bright enough colors…) and made a dress! I’m now looking for a second dress pattern to try. The first pattern I made was the All Well Box Top Ruffle Dress, if anyone’s interested, and it was super easy to follow.
Daily total - $25.80
Day 7
6am - Wake up and do my usual morning routine. It’s one of those days where I can’t activate any of the right muscles during my PT exercises and I end up pretty frustrated afterwards. I feel like I have been rehabbing this forever!
7am - I have three Rover visits today and want to get them done early so that we can leave for M’s parents’. Each visit is 30min, and there’s over an hour of walking to get everywhere, so this is going to be quite the journey. I realize after my first visit that I left without eating breakfast, so I stop at Clover and buy two softboiled eggs. $5.50
10am - I get back from all my Rover visits. I’m still hungry so I make a quesadilla, because what else would you eat at 10am.
12pm - M and I drive over to his parents. We brought all of our Christmas gifts with us (including the presents that my family mailed me, because we’re opening them on facetime) so his car is ridiculously full. P does not do well with car rides and during the 30min drive she pees, poops, and throws up in her crate :(
5pm - We spend the afternoon hanging out with M’s family, doing puzzles, making cocktails, and just generally lounging around. P has recovered from the car ride and is very cuddly. It feels weird that it’s almost Christmas and I don’t think that it’s really hit me that I’m not going home this year.
Daily total - $5.50
Weekly total: $441.13
Food + Drink - $48.66
Fun / Entertainment - $150
Home + Health - $127
Clothes + Beauty - $0
Transport - $0
Other - $115.47 (I put my Vistaprint order here, I would consider this “Arts and Crafts” spending)
Reflections
I think this was a slightly atypical week of spending for me. I had a few big expenses that are rare (phone repair, AirBnb). I usually spend ~$50-100/month on arts and crafts supplies, so the Vistaprint purchase is within my usual spending because I haven’t bought anything else in that category this month. My food spending was lower than usual this week because we didn’t do a full grocery shop.
I was a little surprised at how much I spent this week. Since I’m always just hanging out around the house right now, it doesn’t seem like I’m spending much money. But I’m still buying something almost every day! I would say I’m overall happy with this week and it feels like I spent money on 1. necessities and 2. fun things that I had anticipated/budgeted for.
Writing this diary was really fun, thanks for reading! And I promise this wasn’t a Rover ad :)

Original article & more similar at https://jb-dev.net/
In January 2019, Drodo Studio’s Dota Auto Chess mod became insanely popular. Many companies (including household names like Valve, Riot, Ubisoft and Blizzard) rushed to release their own versions.
It seemed like the beginning of something big like MOBA or Battle Royale. But it has been more than a year now and the hype seems to have vanished completely. As quickly as it rose, it went away…
This is the first on a series of articles where we will analyze the autochess genre. Here we will be exploring the genre’s history, its current market situation and its audience. And also, what are the core design issues that autochess suffers and that no one has been able to solve yet.
u/JB: For this article I’m teaming up with my mate Victor Freso, one of my most talented folks at Pixel Noire Games, who helped me review all the games.
We also had feedback of ~300 highly engaged players from the different autochess reddit communities, which participated in an online poll whose results are available here. They’re especially thanked at the end of the article.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This wasn’t the first time that a mod got the spotlight and ended up becoming the foundation of a genre. It happened in several major, industry-defining cases before (some of which are Team Shooters, MOBAs, Battle Royale…). But on some of these cases events unfolded differently. So we identify 3 distinctive eras related to the evolution of the industry:

1st Era (2000s): Assimilation

The company whose original software had been modded (or had a close enough game, like Valve) moved quickly to absorb the successful mods and turn them into even more successful products.
Since at that point creating a major game release was very complex (required an expensive development, publishing deals and an infrastructure to distribute the product), the deal was profitable for both sides. But it meant the dissolution of the identity of the original creator team, which became embedded in the bigger company culture.
2nd Era (2010s): Integration
By this time, the previous era model still was going on… but the gaming industry had significatively grown a lot and it was also possible for smaller or even new companies to lure the original developers, and use the mod as a proof for commercial success in order to secure funding and develop it as a full title.
The main characteristic of this era is that the original developers were able to keep a bigger share of control and relevance, rather than being integrated as just another gear on a bigger machine, because the companies they joined built their own identity around that key product.
This was the case of Riot Games: They were able to raise enough money for the creation of their company through family and angel investors, and then hire some of the original creators of DOTA, and then created League of Legends.
​
A similar case happened with battle royale, which also started in 2013 as a successful DayZ mod created by the modder nicknamed PlayerUnknown. Later, it was transformed into a full product through the acquisition of the developer by a korean company (which would later be renamed as the PUBG Corporation, again showing how the company grew around the game rather than assimilating it).
Interestingly, this genre already hints what would happen with Auto Chess, since Fortnite wasn’t involved in any way with the original creators. They just copied the concept. Fortnite was a product stuck in a kind of development hell (had been 6 years in the works). As the game was getting close to the release, the developers became impressed by PUBG’s success, so they created a quick Battle Royale spin-off which became insanely popular and eventually ate the rest of the game.

3rd Era (2020s): Fragmentation

In all the cases presented previously, the newborn genre ended up in the release of one or two titles which accumulated most of the business. But this hasn’t been the case here.
In Autochess, the newborn genre has been quickly fragmented into a big list of competitors. Some are standalone games (like DOTA Underlords or Autochess: Origins), but there’s also several service-model games which released their autochess mode as well (like Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds or TeamFight Tactics, which at the end of the day is a side-game mode of League of Legends).
This creates an interesting precedent, which I believe will define future cases where an innovative new game concept appears: The hot idea will be cloned very fast because today the main bottleneck in the industry is having an innovative design that generates player interest and engagement.
By 2020, it’s way easier to create and distribute a game, there are way more developers hungry for a hit than ever before, and a lot of service-model games with short development cycles always looking for something juicy for their next update… so new ideas becoming red oceans fast will be the norm.
For sure, this won’t affect the ability of small developers and modders to innovate, but it will affect their ability to leverage that to become successful on an independant level, before they get cloned.
And ultimately, they haven’t fixed the core issues of the original game, which separates it from a true hyper-successful product like MOBA.

MARKET STATUS

Because of the rain of clones, it’s hard to map all the autochess games on the market. It doesn’t help that some of them are available in both PC and Mobile (playable in PC, Mac, Android and iOS), and also they’re exclusive to different PC stores (Dota Underlords is only on Steam, TFT is on Riot’s LoL launcher, and Autochess Origins is only at the Epic Store…).
And if that wasn’t enough, the Auto Chess mod in DOTA2 is still very active and has no signs that it’s going to be dying soon. It’s still being regularly updated, and presumably still profitable: Some months ago they added a battle pass system, with its revenue shared between Valve and Drodo.
What’s interesting is that none of the contenders has been able to become massively successful in terms of monetization, at least not in terms comparable to even a second or third tier MOBA. And while there are definitively different tiers of following among these titles (led by Riot Games’ TeamFight Tactics), it seems that none of them has been able to gather under its banner a significant amount of players, mobile downloads or Twitch Views…
So ultimately, we’re dividing the autochess market into 3 categories: Squires, Would-be Kings and Peasants.

• Squires: Rather than standalone games, these are side-modes of already successful products. Under this category we would list the Battlegrounds mode in Hearthstone, or League of Legends’ TFT, and maybe even the original DOTA Autochess mod. While for sure they’ll have their own dedicated audience that only plays those modes, for most players it’s just a nice and fresh activity integrated within a broader game experience. The squires are the ones that have achieved the biggest success among the autochess genre because they don’t suffer as much backlash from the lack of gameplay depth inherent to the genre, which is harmful for the long term retention: Even if the mode eventually becomes a bit shallow, players have many other things to play, and thus are retained. As a consequence, these games can still monetize significatively by selling renewals of their Battle Passes every new season. Not enough to make them successful on the degree that was expected… but at least it’s something. Other than bringing an additional source of revenue, these modes were useful to their core games: They generated player interest by providing innovative gameplay. Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds was an amazing addition to the CCG genre, and made a lot of people come back to the game to discover the new mode and reengage.
• Would-be Kings: These are the other two top dogs of the category. They were supposed to rule… but that looking at the numbers they don’t really seem to have ever lifted off. Under this category we would list Auto Chess: Origins and DOTA Underlords. The problem is that their standalone approach means that they suffer the most of the design issues of the genre that we’ve presented in the last section of this article (i.e. flat complexity, lack of mastery depth, lack of progression and rotative meta…). That means that they lost a lot of population over time, and therefore their Battle Pass renewal isn’t as effective at generating revenue : (
• Peasants: Here we would list the myriad of other autochess follower titles that entered the battlefield, each achieving a different degree of success. While some may actually be profitable, what we can be sure about is that none of them has reached any significant numbers or anything close to the reach that brought industry attention.

THE AUDIENCE

We are of the belief that you can’t talk about a game and not talk about who plays it, and that players say more about a game than analyzing all its features and mechanics. So with this in mind we collected answers from ~300 autochess players (check the raw data here). After examining their responses, we’ve identified 3 main player profiles (the comments on each profile are literal):

• Patricks, gamers looking for a competitive-but-idle experience that doesn’t require full attention and it’s easily reconcilable with their functional adult life.
• Grizzlies, competitive players that struggle with fast paced games that demand a high actions per minute ratio and quick reflexes (like MOBAs or competitive shooters).
• Warmasters, highly competitive players that enjoy more the area of strategy (setting up goals and planning how to achieve them) rather than tactics (skillful execution of actions and micromanagement).

What these profiles have in common, other than being hardcore gamers and having a big interest in competitive games, is the fact that they enjoy the lack of micromanagement, and the demand of reflexes and dexterity of autochess.
This is quite interesting, considering that the genre foundation is so close to MOBAs, which are extremely demanding on those aspects. Overall it seems that they belong to audiences below the MOBA umbrella which are currently being alienated by the bulk of ‘younger and dexterity focused’ players.
And when it comes to platforms, it seems that even though the barrier between the classic gaming platforms and mobile is progressively disappearing, the genre is still mainly focused on PC: Out of the ~300 players that answered, 50% said that they play exclusively on PC, 25% played primarily on Mobile, and the remaining 25% played in both.
Players said that they enjoy the focus of the game in planification, as opposed to the focus on execution and performance of MOBAs. And when asked about their main points of frustration, they pointed out 2 main topics: 1.- The strong luck factor that has a strong impact on making you win or lose regardless on how well you played. 2.- The fact that the game eventually becomes shallow and repetitive, fueled by the fact updates were unexciting and not rotating the meta.
Surprised by the fact that players mention randomness as a factor of both enjoyment and frustration? Don’t be! Competitive players tend to have a love-and-hate relationship with luck, because they tend to consider that external factors outside of skills (money spent, better draw…) stole their well deserved victory.
And it’s even more frustrating in autochess, because there’s a strong snowball effect: Players that obtain a big advantage early on in the game become hard to catch later on. Which means that a few bad or good draws early on can decide the rest of the match.
There hasn’t been a single feature more criticised in Magic: The Gathering than the randomness of drawing mana. And yet, luck it’s part of what makes MTG stand out compared to other CCGs: For experienced players, it introduces uncertainty and the need to take risks and gamble, like they’d do in poker. And for rookies, it allows beating someone that has better skills and has a better deck, if Lady Luck is on their side. Won’t happen often, but it will feel awesome when it does. Like a friend likes to say: The best feeling in MTG is to draw a mana when you really need it. And the worst? To draw it when you didn’t.
This goes to say that in autochess, perhaps the power of luck needs to be reviewed, but it would be a bad decision to completely remove luck from the equation.
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DESIGN CHALLENGES

In this awesome DoF article, Giovanni Ducati already pointed out the two main problems that the games in this genre need to solve to achieve real success: Bad long term retention and low monetization.
To these issues we would add a third one, which is bad marketability: Contrary to their big brothers League of Legends and DOTA2, these games haven’t been able to achieve high organic downloads (at least not to be able to generate significant revenue through soft monetization mechanics). What’s even worse is that all these games, their themes and target audience are quite close to RPG and Strategy, which are genres with some of the highest CPIs on the market. So they need top-of-the-class retention and monetization to get a high enough LTV to scale up.
But why do these games fail at keeping players entertained for a long time? And why don’t they monetize enough? Here’s what we think:
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Flat Complexity & Progression

You have some games out there which have a strong entry barrier due to being quite complicated to grasp. But for those that can deal with the numbers and stats, the depth will keep them entertained for months and years. This is the case in most RPGs and 4X strategy games. And then you have hypercasual games, which are simple and plug and play. So they generate a great early engagement, but are too shallow to keep users hooked for a long time.
As a genre, Autochess games are in the middle ground: they have a high entry barrier, but also lack the complexity to keep players engaged for a long time…
As a general rule, games with long retention tend to follow Bushnell’s Law of being easy to learn and difficult to master. They achieve that by having what we call an unfolding experience: They appear simpler at the beginning (not necessarily easy), but require thousands of hours of practice to master.
An example of this are games that level lock most of the game complexity, so the player understands and masters only a set starter mechanics. And then, progressively unlock new modes and demand more specialized builds and gameplay, repeating the cycle several times to keep the game always interesting while attempting to avoid being overwhelming.
Another approach to the same idea are competitive games focused on mechanical ability, dexterity or micromanagement. Like CS:GO or Rocket League. They may unlock all the mechanics from the beginning, but a newbie player will only be able to focus and manage some of them, and then progressively discover and master the rest in an organic way.
League of Legends and Overwatch are actually a combination of both: The game first introduces the player to a small selection of heroes which progressively gets expanded, while at the same time having an insane mastery depth that requires a high APM and reflexes, team coordination and thousands of hours of practice.
Contrary to any of those examples, Autochess games throw everything at you from the beginning: Character Skills, Synergies, Unit Upgrade, Gold Management, Items… It’s a lot to swallow. And there’s not even enough time to read what each thing does before the timer runs out. This creates a complex, overwhelming first impression that drives many players out.
But that’s quantity, not depth. Once you’ve gone through that traumatic starting phase, you’ve grasped all the mechanics and you know which team builds are dominating on the meta, it’s just a matter of making it happen by taking the right decisions and adapting to a few key draws.
Eventually, unless luck is really against you, your skills won’t be challenged and you won’t have new mechanics to master. At that point, winning will be based more on the knowledge of the content database and luck rather than your planning and strategic ability. And that’s boring.
So ultimately, these games are hard to grasp for a newbie, but also lack the ability to keep players interested for a very long time since they eventually run out of new features and mechanics to discover and master.

Unexciting Updates, Lack of Collection

On top of that, autochess games seem to have a hard time adding content which reawakens player interest and makes churned ones come back.
On this topic, perhaps the one that has put the most effort is Riot’s TFT. Each season update, the game releases a new series of heroes, synergies, items and rebalances, as well as a big bunch of cosmetics. This generates a short lived boost on revenue (due primarily to players buying the pass) and downloads, but ultimately nothing that really moves the needle in a relevant way.
‘Why seasonal updates don’t work?‘, you may be asking. Part of the reason is that TFT, as well as every major contender do not include elements of content progression or collection. Instead, they all stick to the roguelike approach of the original mod: Players have access to the same set of units, and build their inventory exclusively during the match.
While at first this seems a good idea, since it keeps the game fair in a similar way to MOBAs, it’s oblivious to the fact that new units do not offer the same amount of gameplay depth as in League of Legends. In LoL, a new unit means weeks or even months of practice until mastering timing, range and usage of the skills, how they interact with every other champion, etc… In comparison, in TFT the new content can be fully explored in just a bunch of matches, both because the new content doesn’t offer that much depth to start with and because it’s available from the moment the player gets the update.
By lacking content progression and collection, autochesses miss the opportunity to create long term objectives after an update, more innovative mechanics and less repetitiveness. As a consequence, they have it really hard to hype players on updates.

Big ‘Snowball Effect’

In game design, the snowball effect refers to the situation where obtaining an advantage or dominance generates further conditions that almost invariably means winning the match. As you can guess, on competitive games this effect can generate a bad experience, especially when the divergence starts early on: The player that obtained the early advantage will keep on increasing the advantage and curbstomp the rest.
For example, this can happen on a Civilization game if a player gets ahead of the rest acquiring key resource territories, and uses them to achieve a greater progress in tech and income at a faster pace than the rest. Or in League of Legends if a team scores a bunch of early kills and levels up, becoming more able at scoring even more kills…
Autochess games suffer greatly from this effect, due to the following reasons:

• Resources lead to victories, victories lead to resources As you know, in autochess each player builds a team based on successive battles. Better battle performance will grant more gold, which is the resource used to buy units, perform shop rolls, etc… Similar to the cases we’ve already explained, this means that players that achieve early dominance will be able to to obtain more gold, use it to get better units and get more victories and gold, therefore increasing their team power faster than the rest. ‘But players can be lucky or unlucky, generating a factor that compensates for the advantage of having more resources early on‘, you may be considering. Unfortunately, this is a flawed logic, because of 2 main reasons: (1) Having more resources means more adaptability: The dominant players will be able to leverage on them to re-adapt their team, therefore outperforming the rest on a randomness-driven scenario. (2) Resources allow to buy more rolls, which diminishes the deviation generated by each individual roll.
• Luck factor. The previous point goes into maintaining and increasing dominance once it has been achieved early on, but another source of frustration is that luck is a huge factor in achieving early dominance. This means that your strategic skills and smarts can be completely invalidated by a couple of bad rolls at the beginning of the match. And there’s nothing that competitive players hate more than having their match stolen by factors outside the pure clash of abilities.

As an antithesis, Poker also has resource management, and luck factor determines the victory (on a specific round). But unlike Autochess, resources can’t override luck, and early victories don’t affect the later chance of winning.

Excessive Match Length

Compared to PC, on mobile is much harder to keep the player focused for a long period of time on a single session. And having a very long minimum session kind of goes against the premise of being able to play anywhere which is a primary strength of mobile as a gaming platform. This is a problem for autochess games since a single match can last for 30-45 minutes of synchronous, nonstop gameplay.
‘Isn’t the solution just make the match shorter?’, you’re probably wondering. Unfortunately, there are several reasons that make this more challenging to the core design than what it seems:

• Because in autochess the player builds its team from scratch, at the beginning of each match there are several turns to setup team foundations. Removing these early decisions severely decreases the teambuilding possibilities, decreasing overall depth.
  
• Also, each setup phase between clashes requires a minimum time to think and perform the actions. In the last turns of a match, the game can become quite demanding on thinking and input speed.
  
• Matches require a minimum amount of turns to compensate the weight of a single lucky/unlucky roll over the chances to win. Because the possible units for teambuilding appear on random rolls, the less turns there are the more luck factor the game will suffer, and as a consequence the less important the player’s strategic skills will be.
  
• And if there are few turns, there are also less chances for comebacks. Because it means that players will have less setup phases to adapt and catch a player that has obtained an early advantage.
  
• Finally, since the match involves 8 players, it requires a minimum of turns so that they all can fight between each other… Nevertheless, I don’t consider this a critical issue because Dota has been able to change this specific point on the knockout mode without sacrificing too much in terms of depth.
  

Soft Approach to Monetization

PC/Console approach to free-to-play is generally soft (i.e. primarily based on cosmetics, avoid pay-to-win…), while mobile tends to be quite hardcore in comparison. The softness of PC monetization is even more core to companies such as Valve and especially Riot Games, to which the “no monetization bs” is part of the brand values. This would be very hard to change without harming their reputation.
This is not exclusively because we mobile-first devs are a ruthless wallstreet folk which will use every dirty trick in the book to get a bit extra money… but also because mobile games are locked in competition for paid installs. This requires us to get as much revenue as possible from users, as fast as possible, in order to reinvest into players to keep on growing or avoid withering.
The business model of League of Legends or Fortnite is based on their extreme popularity: They already have massive amounts of highly engaged active users, so their strategy is to keep them playing and have a monetization system that, while doesn’t make as much money from the players as it could do on the short term, generates a decent amount of revenue over a longer period of time.
Games that have this soft f2p approach have it very hard to reach enough ARPPU to make paid users profitable, given the insanely high mobile CPIs. This may not be an issue to big IPs and games that are able to bring many organic players (Fortnite, League of Legends…), but it is a big issue for those that can’t attract such a big number of players due to their organic appeal.
Due to its core characteristics (strategic, number-based, complex…), Autochess is unlikely to be a massive appeal product, and therefore won’t fit into the cosmetics model. It’s a game that will have a smaller audience of highly engaged players, and therefore will require a more aggressive monetization to reach similar results.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The history of the autochess genre serves as an example of the risks of design endogamy: The devsphere rushed to clone Auto Chess, and before a year all the major contenders were in the board. But that speed came at a cost: None of these projects has brought the concept much further than its original conception, and in doing so they haven’t solved any of the core issues.
The folks at Riot games developed the TeamFight Tactics in less than 5 months. This allowed them to release while the hype was still at its peak… but it also meant it added just a couple of improvements, and it’s otherwise very similar to the original Auto Chess mod.
After seeing all these projects fail to meet the big expectations that were placed on them, the question is if perhaps the best approach was to avoid rushing, and instead tackle the genre with a title that is not a clone, but rather a more groomed, accessible and innovative successor of the original idea.
In our next article on this series will make an attempt to see how such a game could be, rethinking the spirit and fresh design ideas of autochess to solve the issues mentioned above. (May take a while though, I want to focus on smaller articles for a couple of months…)
Meanwhile, if you want to read more about this genre, we suggest you these awesome articles from the folks at DoF: Why Auto-Chess can’t monetize – and how to fix that and How Riot can turn TFT into a billion dollar game

Special Thanks to…

These articles wouldn’t have been possible with the collaboration of ~300 members of the reddit communities of the different auto chess games who provided us with feedback and data. You folks have been incredible solving all our doubts. One thing that this genre has is some of the most awesome players around.
So big kudos for Brxm1, Erfinder Steve, Xinth, Zofia the Fierce, STRK1911, LontongSinga22, bezacho, hete, NeroVingian, marling2305, NOVA9INE , asidcabeJ, Eidallor, Rhai, Lozarian, bwdm, Toxic, Ruala, Papa Shango, MrMkay, Dread0, L7, kilmerluiz, Amikals, Sworith, Tankull, B., hete, Bour, Denzel, DeCeddy, Diaa, hamoudaxp, Benjamin “ManiaK” Depinois, Katunopolis, DanTheMan, MikelKDAplayer, 0nid, Tobocto, Tiny Rick, phuwin, Alcibiades, triceps, d20diceman, shadebedlam, stinky binky, Tutu, Myuura, suds, Kapo, Hearthstoned, Engagex, Pietrovosky, Daydreamer, Doctor Heckle, Ignis, ShawnE, NastierNate, LeCJ, Nene Thomas, Chris, trinitus_minibus, Nah, Kaubenjunge1337, Mudhutter, Asurakap, Nicky V, shinsplintshurts, bobknows27, Willem (Larry David Official on Steam), Jonathan, Dinomit24, Monstertaco, GangGreen69, Veshral Amadeus Salieri (…lol!), Kuscomem, Cmacu, Pioplu, Dilemily, qulhuae, Ilmo, MarvMind, facu1ty, crayzieap, Saint Expedite, Lobbyse, Lukino , tomes, Blitzy24, Mcmooserton, magicmerl, i4got2putsumpantzon, radicalminusone, Pipoxo, Kharambit, Bricklebrah, Rbagderp, Merforga, Superzuhong, Mo2gon, MoS.Tetu, MeBigBwainy, Zokus, CoyoteSandstorm, Stehnis, Noctis, Fkdn, Ray, Fairs1912, Fairs1912, Krakowski, HolyKrapp, Damadud, Pentium, Mach, Mudak, CaptSteffo, jwsw1990, Omaivapanda, Inquisitor Binks, Jack, yggdranix, GoodLuckM8, Centy, Prabuddha (aka Walla), dtan, Philosokitteh, Doms, ZEDD, Calloween, Synsane, Kaluma, GordonTremeshko , Djouni, DOGE, haveitall, ANIM4SSO, Task Manager, Submersed, BAKE, Viniv, La Tortuga Zorroberto, BixLe, Rafabeen, Blzane, bdlck666, FatCockNinja86, R.U.Sty, Yopsif, blesk, Quaest0r, FanOfTaylor, StaunchDruid, Rushkoski and everyone else that took some minutes to help us out on the article.