'Corner Box'-gate

Having worked in the crazy-ass world of IT for the last 15 or so years, I've had my eyes opened to an eclectic mix of software issues, glitches... call them what you will.

Some of these are built-in errors, buried deep within the back-end code, while others often come about through some sort of user input error.

One developer I used to work with claimed that most software was "built to fail", and that no amount of Beta or User Acceptance testing would ever find every bug before a new application went live.

After the events of this week I think it's safe to say that the Marvel Collect! app has fallen foul of this particular problem. However, if there's one thing that my job has taught me over the years it's that having a SNAFU in the first place isn't so much of an issue, the real measure is how that issue gets dealt with and resolved.

As reports started to trickle in on Monday that collectors were pulling the 'pay only' Corner Boxes cards from Mystery Boxes, it was pretty obvious that something extremely large and problematic had gone down.

Corner Boxes are one of the rarest cards in the app up to this point, particularly so given that you have to pay cold, hard cash to get them. No manner of coins or diamonds will get you one of these babies - it's either trade for one or dip your hands deep into your wallets. Although I'm usually adverse to pumping money into these types of apps, I went out and paid for the bundle as soon as each Wave had dropped. These cards were just too darn cool to pass up.

When it appeared on forums and in the comments sections that collectors were pulling these for free, many having dozens of copies of each, it was clear that Topps had to step in pretty sharpish... And with card counts running at 6000+ for each card, step in they did. Unfortunately this wasn't in time before a fair few of the free copies had been traded for other high value cards - both Thorsday and Faces of Evil Motions being two of the popular ones - leaving numerous collectors feeling cheated for having paid in the first place, and others feeling hard done to for trading away valuable cards for Corner Boxes that now held very limited value.

Topps put out a message that the matter was being investigated and that an update would follow on Tuesday.

So we all waited... and waited...

Tuesday segued into Wednesday without any update, until chatter erupted as the free cards started disappearing from collections, followed then by collectors seeing Diamonds mysteriously appear against their accounts.

Topps finally broke the silence with the following statement:

We understand that this situation has been frustrating for all of the users involved. With this in mind impacted users will receive the following:

1) Owned Prior to Mystery Box Error: Users that owned a Wave 2 Corner Box Card(s), prior to the Mystery Box issue, will receive 1,000 Diamonds per owned Corner Box Card.

You will also be able to purchase one Corner Box Diamond pack, per Wave 3 Card, for the next Corner Box release. In short, you will be able to acquire at least one Corner Box Wave 3 Card on us.

2) Good Faith Trades During the Mystery Box Issue: These users will keep the Corner Box cards and have received 35,000 Coins.

Note: A good faith trade is constituted by a relatively balanced exchange of cards, for instance, a Thorsday Card exchanged for a Corner Box is considered a good faith trade. Trades that consisted of one Base Tier 1 Card for three Corner Box Cards are not considered balanced trades.

3) Mystery Box: Users that acquired these Corner Box cards from the Mystery Box and did not trade them away have received 35,000 Coins.

4) All Users will have access to a one-time 15,000 Coin Claim.

Once again we are truly sorry for this mix-up and for the inconvenience it has caused.

In just over 48 hours Topps had identified the issue and worked to resolve it in the best way possible for everyone affected.

To be fair I'm not a Topps apologist by any stretch of the imagination, but I genuinely believe that this was dealt with in a timeous and efficient manner, and that Topps should be recognised for this. Nicely done, is all I can say!

We may never find out what caused this issue in the first place, and to be honest we don't really need to know. Having the right PR in place, especially so early in the life of this app, is essential in keeping users on-side, and I think Topps weathered this particular storm really well, making the right call in terms of compensation and dealing with the matter as transparently as they possibly could.

Will there be other issues in the future? I have no doubt.

Will Topps deal with these issues in a similar way? I would like to think so, but I suppose only time will tell.

Naturally we saw the ugly side of collecting during this 48 hour period. The expected wave of animosity towards Topps - the usual spite and vitriol from those 'entitled' souls who believe they've been personally wronged by what occurred over a few digital images.

I understand a certain amount of anger, particularly as money was involved, but if collectors put just the slightest bit of trust in Topps to get things sorted (which they did) then there's no real need for all the purile rage in the first place.

Ultimately mistakes will happen, but this is when perspective needs to kick in and calm heads need to prevail. If any criticism needs to be leveled at Topps then I'd say it's more to do with the lack of an update that was promised on Tuesday, but this is a minor quibble at best.

Thanks again to Topps for sorting out the problem to the best of their ability.

Now it's back to collecting. Thorsday will be dropping soon so I've got to be ready for those free packs :)