Jimmy!
Once again sharing an opinion I was asked to share here on PeakD. This is a collection of several of my recent discord comments on the topic, edited for flow and to try to reduce redundancy.
Based on my ongoing observations, spanning years now...
I currently feel like the company is turning this into an ultra elitist game with a ridiculously high price wall to participate. I personally do not believe the game can be successful with that model.
We've come a long way from the original stated mission of wanting to help change lives and genuinely affect/help people who are born into unfortunate economic situations (and actually being able to DO that anymore).
Allowing players to enter at an affordable point, have fun, earn, trade, sell, and grow their accounts is absolutely essential for this to succeed.
We have reached a crossroads, and the team has to decide if we want to hit the mainstream, with a large and constantly expanding and enthusiastic player base, or if we want to be an incredibly expensive and exclusive club.
Pricing is an essential ingredient in this decision.
Is it more realistic to attract and retain 10,000 players who will spend $100? Or 100 players who will spend $10,000? I’d bet all of my money on option A.
And you know what? Out of those 10,000, you very well might find the 100 who WILL spend $10,000!
Once again, the pricing of the new promo cards has caused a commotion in the community. The overwhelming consensus is that the prices are ridiculously expensive, and 99% of the players I know share this sentiment (no exaggeration).
A sentiment we have been hearing from the player base, over and over, is that the team needs to learn to 'read the room'. I'm not saying this to be negative, but rather in the hopes that... well... they learn to read the room!!!
Current pricing for the new promos:
Rare: Sanctus Vicar: 3,000 DEC/bcx. 345,000 DEC maxed.
$345 with DEC at peg, $258 at today’s trading rate (DEC at .00075)
Legendary: Elanor Bravefoot: 50,000 DEC/bcx. 550,000 DEC maxed
$555 with DEC at peg, $412.5 at today’s trading rate (DEC at .00075)
Promos are not just about making money, but about getting your community excited! Do it right and you achieve both. We are onto a third consecutive round of promos that have been very highly priced and have rubbed the majority of the community the wrong way. This is counterproductive and the opposite of what needs to be achieved with promos!!
To emphasize, promos need to:
A) generate substantial revenue
B) get your community hyped
When priced right, we achieve both. When priced too high, we achieve neither.
We're also getting into the territory of the community reaction being 'not AGAIN'... which feels like a slap in the face to many players. Again, showing disconnectedness. Not 'reading the room'. I need to be very clear, I fully believe that pricing SOME promos to be expensive, super rare and elite is a very good idea. But not ALL of them. Even a simple rotation through the rarities where the L is expensive, and a rare or common gets priced so that all players can enthusiastically participate. FIND THE BALANCE!
The fact that we have two cards in wave one, a Legendary and a Rare, BOTH priced ridiculously high, says to many players that they are not ‘feeling it out’ but rather seem to be ‘set in stone’ in their pricing patterns.
Many players have expressed that the constant over pricing is forcing them to NOT participate in sales, even though they DO want to participate. This literally prevents considerable outside revenue from entering the ecosystem when players are WANTING to bring it in!! And this happens over and over. We miss out on a LOT of additional revenue coming in, and suffer from the fallacy that higher prices generate more revenue. It also slowly pushes away our remaining community members. Many have reached out privately to express this to me.
What really bums me out is that the DAO is on the hook with these promos. The team got paid already, so generating sales revenue really does not 'matter', and if it does not go well, they won't 'learn' from this.
Which now begs the question, if the DAO is to be funding things like these promos, full card sets, etc, should the DAO have a say in said pricing?
I'm getting to the point where I won't want the DAO to spend any more $ until the team learns how to market and price appropriately.
Shifting the risk to the DAO along with past pricing history was exactly why I was very reluctant to support funding these promos. I decided to give the team my support and benefit of the doubt, in hopes that they would, finally, learn to ‘read the room’ at this critical time. At this point in time I regret my decision. I can only hope, maybe naively, that the next promo cards sold will be at a much more realistic price point and excite rather than discourage the community.
To address the popular 'let's just see what happens next' point of view... well... we have been doing that...
Zyriel. Bull market price in a deep bear. Company needs revenue badly at this point. Community voices shock and outrage at pricing and sales are subpar. Card does not sell out and substantial $ is left on the table. Ok, let's hope they learn! Then they do it AGAIN, with Baron and Halfling. Community is upset about prices but sales are ‘ok’ because they were mostly selling raffle tickets, not the cards. And now market price of these cards is WAY lower than what they were sold for from the shop.
Now... AGAIN the price is ridiculous and the community is once again angry and discouraged. How many times do we 'wait and see what happens next'? I'd argue that 'wait and see' strategy is what we've been doing, and we see that nothing changes, and lessons do not get learned.
My suspicion is that the team sets a minimum bar to reach, and if they hit that number it's 'good enough' and 'successful'.
This is obviously an assumption, but one based on observation.
I believe we need to set the bar higher and REALLY make some $ on these by selling a lot more copies!! TO BE CLEAR I’m not talking ridiculous underpricing either. The BALANCE needs to be found.
I think community enthusiasm is also (unfortunately) being overlooked as a metric of success for a promo.
I'm also in the camp that thinks a lot more DEC gets burned or sent to the DAO and/or team when price is realistic and more players participate. This is also true for SB unlocking costs and pack prices…but those are topics for another post.
Please share your thoughts on the promo card pricing in the comments below! I’d also love to hear if YOU are going to participate?
Jimmy!!!