Operation Medic Bag: Update #21 – Mask Mania
For this week’s topic, we need to take a step back. Back in time that is! It was the year of our lord, 2023, and the PAYDAY marketing team were asked to invent an event (I’m keeping it, I don’t care how it sounds) to help boost our playtimes and engage our then upset playerbase.
So awoken from our stupors, the Starbreeze team of highly trained marketing professionals sat down and got their creative juices flowing.
Nothing was off the table, we put every conceivable and inconceivable idea forward. Among the SFW suggestions were art competitions, playtime marathons, or even cosplay showcases, Chains body pillow, Dallas Cologne, and even selling pictures of Ludvig’s feet. We even suggested accompanying rewards, ranging from sending out fancy PAYDAY masks to requesting new in-game content from our already beleaguered dev team, all the way to having the winner design something for the game.
It was all going well, until a sudden and dramatic change took place. One of the grumps from the community team ruined our fanciful dreams with the cold waters of reality. He said “The players don’t care about community events right now; they want content”. The team - crushed, but not defeated adjusted their plans and moved forward with the bravery and vigor we’ve come to expect of PAYDAY marketeers. So another creative meetup took place, and after many horrible ideas, “The Last Mask Standing” (later renamed Mask Mania) took shape.
The event was to be a “play to vote” event. In which players get presented with 4 cool masks. We then ask players to “vote” for what masks they want the most in the game by playing specific heists, then we tally the score and create the masks belonging to the most played heists.
We had a brainstorming session in which we suggested masks for every heist, we knew we wanted to create 4 masks (cuz that’s what our budget could afford) but pitching ideas for all heists let us pick the best ones.
We then voted for favorites from among the pitches and ended up with the suggestions from Road Rage, Gold & Shark, Dirty Ice and Rock the Cradle.
Once the concepts were created, we altered the event slightly to give players the ability to get all the masks. After all, we have created the concepts already.
Gearhead Grudge
Cut Ice
Shakedown Shark
Disco Molly
Remember when we said this happened in 2023? Well, this whole process didn’t take all that time. The event was on the backburner and intermittently got an update or suggested release. But the time was never right.
Over time, the event went through 5 iterations via 3 concept artists, 7 marketing creatives, 4 approvers, and a number of other people in order to become real. You might think “That sounds a lot”, but this whole concept went rather smoothly, all things considered. Now that we finally get to put it out into the world, we hope you like it!
The event will work much as described above, but rules tend to be easier to digest when in bullet-list format, so here we go.
- Between July 16th and 21st, play a heist.
- Earning cash will progress the corresponding mask.
- Track progress on the event website. (updates about every 10 minutes)
- Anyone participating in the events will receive the masks unlocked when they are released.
- Anyone not participating can unlock the masks via in-game hardcore challenges at a later date.
- ONLY players with telemetry enabled will have their progress included in the event. You can turn telemetry on/off in the game’s settings.
With the current numbers, two of these masks should unlock relatively easily. The other two will require some community cooperation to gain.
As for when these masks will be released, we’ll aim for as soon as possible, but before the 1-year anniversary in September for sure.
That’s all for this week, folks. In next week’s blog, we’ll be looking at the “Consumable” system that’s being added to PAYDAY 3. The eagle-eyes among you will have already seen a couple of very sneaky previews in a past video, but the full scoop is coming!
Have a great weekend.
