This post is a direct reply to the post "The Case for Conclave Arcana pack prices at 4,000 DEC".
I'll go through the original post point by point, as many questionable assumptions made in the post are stated as fact.
@jedielf/the-case-for-conclave-acana-pack-prices-at-4000-dec
When I say 'the author' in this article, I'm referring to the author of "The Case for Conclave Arcana pack prices at 4,000 DEC" post.
Many players recognize that current cost barriers are unrealistically high, and act as a significant deterrent to prevent a considerable amount of players from participating, as well as having pushed other enthusiastic and long term players out of the game.
I’ll go point by point to be fair and show there is agreement on some points, this is not just disagreeing as a general rule, as has been claimed in the past.
Many points have also been expressed in discord discussion by the author to show us where the author is coming from, and understanding this is vital for understanding the author's motivation behind the argument for high prices. Much of this seems to stem from the publicly expressed belief that new players should not/will not be buying packs, that opening packs is literally not fun but stressful(!), that credits typically are not/should not be used to buy packs, and that DEC should be arbitraged for huge purchases of several thousands of dollars to get discounts. This can be detailed in a follow up post if necessary.
‘New Player Affordability Concerns’
1: “New players have various options, but they are free to spend as little or as much as they want on cards on the secondary market, which can be purchased in-game. Many cards are available at a fraction of a cent.”
Packs are part of the fun, a vital feature of the game, something that hooks new players. We cannot rely on the ‘secondary market’ for new players to buy cards. While the secondary market is a vital part of the game and ecosystem, sale of packs to MOST players, including new ones, needs to be a priority. Also, the ‘many cards are available for a fraction of a cent’ relates only to CL and CLR commons. Not a practical ‘solution’ for new players, especially since CL will not be playable in modern once CA is released. In fact, one of the stated reasons the company is launching Survival Mode is specifically to try to get these super cheap cards off the market. And it looks like that will be released BEFORE the new players get here.
2: “There will be either the $5 25 card packs or $1 5 card packs, for new players with common & rare cards and no Gold foils. These include summoners and therefore everything they need to get started.”
While a great addition, this eliminates the jackpot chance and reduces the ‘fun’ of opening packs considerably. And while a welcome and practical addition, It is not a substitute. A big part of this is the 'jackpot' chance for an Epic, Legendary or Gold Foil card, something we do not have in the $1 starter packs. (These starter packs should be scaled down in price if we do end up selling standard boosters at $2).
The starter card packs also put new players at a disadvantage since they will never be getting any of the powerful cards like Epics and Legendaries needed for competitive gameplay from these packs.
3: “Purchase of a Spellbook will soon come with a pack/s”
Excellent! Giving players packs with a spellbook purchase is a GREAT idea, one I fully support. Matt mentioned these being CL packs though, which makes no sense if we want new players to play modern, the stated goal. Let’s give new players REAL packs of the CURRENT EDITION!! If a spellbook is purchased in between sets, give them a few packs of the latest edition. Ie if a player buys a spellbook today, give them a few RB packs! This will also serve to help get them HOOKED on opening packs!!
4: “The new player campaign mode will also contain SB cards that new players can use to start building their deck”
The campaign mode with a designated starter card set is also a great idea!! BUT Matt specifically said these will be ‘worse cards’, again putting players at a disadvantage when they are thrown into ranked. The stated goal is to force them to then buy ‘real cards’ to play/win, but if cards are too expensive and they lose with the starter cards, many players will likely just leave.
One solution would be to make the starter cards actually 'good cards', decent to compete with, but they only level up to say silver. In any case, players will need an affordable option after the starter cards if we want player retention.
5: “The free-to-play options have also been expanded.”
Excellent! We NEED more FREE to play, hopefully practice mode becomes the KTGMFA we have been asking for!!! Free to play is supposed to showcase the game at ALL levels, especially the top, and incentivise players to buy/rent real cards to play, earn, and climb the ranks.
6: “All accounts have ghost starter cards.”
Ghost cards are only Cs and Rs, not a very fun way to start the game. Plus Matt has expressed his desire to eliminate ghost cards and replace them with the starter deck.
7: “There are other options such as allowing Manual play in Wild without a season pass fee, which would also present a very affordable starting point for new players without increasing card numbers”
Excellent! I like this idea, but it was put in place to prevent the pure ‘extraction’ people talk about… it’s not a black and white issue but I might be in favor of removing the wild fee, even though it is a good DEC sink. Maybe reducing it? But again, the stated goal is to get players to play in modern…
Also, do we think throwing new players into wild is a good idea? Facing hard to beat bots with OP cards like Yodin, Kitty etc that will be completely out of reach to these new players?
‘Analysis of actual pack price’
1: “Packs are priced in DEC and therefore, when DEC strays away from peg pack prices are discounted. During full crypto cycles it's possible that DEC could stray to half price for example”
Yes, DEC strays from peg, and the author has made it clear that arbitrage is the “real game” for him. To be clear, there is nothing at all wrong with this! But let's also be clear, this is a biased perspective and to assume all/most players, especially new players, will purchase packs this way is incorrect.
These statements help us to understand where the author is coming from, and really sheds light about what his perspective is and how he bases these pricing arguments.
This is important to understand, as one of the author's assumptions and key motivating beliefs seems to be that most players will/should always arbitrage DEC to get deals. Assuming that perspective, the argument has validity, that packs are 'on sale' when DEC is under peg.
The reality, however, is that the real pack price for most players is the listed credit price.
While arbitrage is good to take advantage of, most new players will NOT be jumping through these hoops, and this is not a representation of market reality. The reality is MOST new players will not arbitrage the price of DEC, and will see the listed credit price as the price of a pack. If a pack is $4 in credits, which most (if not all) new players will be using to buy, the price is effectively $4 out of pocket, regardless of the DEC arbitrage price.
Heck, even Azircon has been bidding on Heloise in CREDITS because he says DEC is too much of a hassle!!! If one of the biggest whales in the game does not arbitrage DEC, how can we expect new players to? Packs are simply the price they are sold for in credits for non whales. Not just in reality for most players, but the psychology of numbers/pricing also says players think of packs as this price - the listed price in credits.
This also shows how too many 'top level' players simply cannot seem to relate to the lower level players, the place where we NEED to focus. This whole thing is not about the handful of players who will be spending a few thousand dollars at a time. It's about the low level player and new player (and a LOT of them) being able to buy a few packs at a time, most of which will be in credits, and those players seeing the price tag on packs and deciding if they will participate or not.
2: “During the Rebellion sale the bulk discounts plus DEC discounts brought pack prices below $2.50, which did not trigger an immediate surge in pack sales. This indicates that there is not a significant number of price-sensitive buyers as is being claimed. Most likely, many that wanted the cards bought early to get the full benefit of the airdrops, but many players decided not to buy them as they were able to manage sufficiently well using only the Chaos Legion cards, which are around 1/10th of the price, many being near burn value. Clearly, when Chaos Legion rotates out of modern, that situation changes in Modern”
See above, players did not buy RB ‘at a discount’ because many do not arbitrage DEC vs FIAT and many simply think of a pack as being the listed price in credits. When it’s in their mind that a pack is too expensive to buy, they simply do not buy.
And saying that “many players decided not to buy them as they were able to manage sufficiently well using only the Chaos Legion cards” is another false assumption. Many players I know are also collectors, who WANT the RB set, and already HAVE the CL set. They did not buy RB because the PRICE prevented them. SO many players have literally come out and said this. I am one of them.
How many players saying they are being priced out and leaving the game will it take to believe them?
3: “If packs are priced at 2,000 DEC, these price swings could bring pack prices down to near $1, which is far too low and caused a major ongoing oversupply problems for Chaos Legion when packs were sold that cheap”
Again, see above. Plus CL was unique in that HUGE bulk discounts/sales/competitions were offered along with major promo card giveaways via sales. This will NOT be happening moving forward, so there will not be incentives to buy packs just to get the promo cards or bonuses or leaderboard placement. Sales will be made according to demand, even if DEC dips we will still not see the overbuying like we did with CL. As is, SPL is way too risky to speculate on packs as an investment at this point anyway. We’re still losing players, not growing our playerbase.
‘Impact on Modern’
1: “If packs are half the price we would just see more players lower down with higher-level decks. A problem that is currently caused by super cheap Chaos Legion cards and is a problem that many players would like addressed”
This problem is not caused by ‘super cheap CL cards’ but imo by the currently broken ranked play system, the removal of leagues, and the awful season resets that force players back a league with higher cards than ‘where they belong’. Bringing back leagues and letting players choose where to play fixes that issue. It’s got little or nothing to do with card prices.
2: “Chaos Legion rotating out in combination with existing pack prices should result in the return of classic bronze, silver and gold style decks with a healthy environment for new players with very small incomplete collections or bronze-level decks. Halving the pack price will impede this development”
This is pure speculation and an opinion I do not agree with at all. Bringing back leagues with level caps will result in the return of classic bronze, silver and gold style decks with a healthy environment for new players with very small incomplete collections or bronze-level decks. And again, halving pack prices will not affect the return of these lower level decks. In fact, halving pack prices will allow more players access to the game, and can arguably result in the return of even MORE of these lower level decks as more and more players participate in the game at a place they can afford to play and maintain a competitive deck.
‘Wider impacts on the ecosystem’
1: “Cheap cards will result in many more cards entering the ecosystem, which dilutes the utility of existing cards overall. It stores up DEC debt for later on in the form of the burn value of these cards”
The author is making the erroneous statement that $2 packs give us ‘cheap cards’. The reality is that $2 packs, as seen in Alpha through Untamed, do not give us ‘cheap cards’ by any stretch of the imagination. RB was ridiculously OVER priced and expensive, and this has literally pushed away a considerable % of our player base. We have to stop using RB as the 'standard' for card pricing. I
Untamed saw a much more reasonable pricing structure, yet not anywhere near what one could call ‘cheap’ for a GAME! Yodins were often $12-$16 bcx when in print, sometimes getting up to $22-$24. $132 - $264 for a maxed card, even a Legendary summoner, is not CHEAP. Mimosa was $9-$12… $99-$132 maxed. Again not CHEAP by any stretch, but certainly more realistic. RB, because of pack pricing, was demanding $25-$30/bcx for most L summoners while in print. $275 - $330 is a ridiculous ask and a HUGE turn off for most potential players. In fact, we are seeing the market 'marketing' as we speak, and many RB summoners are dropping much closer to Untamed prices, which is at this point a huge drop for those who invested early in RB. The market wants to see lower prices for cards. Not CHEAP, but more reasonable. $2 packs is, again, NOT CHEAP but way more realistic of an ask than $4 packs and the card prices $4 packs force on the market when in print.
Many good Untamed Cs and Rs were in the $30-$40 range while in print, a price range we are now with RB as cards ‘settle’ in to the reality of the market.
2: “Once we get card excesses in the ecosystem, they are very difficult to get rid of cost-effectively”
Yes, this is true. But $2 packs will not flood the market with ‘cheap cards’, we have the history of three very successful sets (Alpha, Beta and Untamed) to show us this. CL was an outlier b/c of the ridiculous bulk deals, sales, promos and giveaways.
3: “There will likely be a significant impact on the value of Rebellion cards and packs, centred on this utility angle. This will likely help negatively impact the value of Rebellion cards on rotation to wild in particular. So far Rebellion has been a success exactly because the supply accurately matches the demand. It would be a great shame to undermine that when Conclave Acana is released, both for existing holders and buyer confidence generally”
To me, this makes no sense at all. With RB and CL in modern, and CL being a MASSIVELY overprinted set vs actual demand, and offering cheap (yes actually CHEAP) cards to use in modern, we still saw high prices for RB cards when in print, with BOTH sets in modern. How would CA being priced at $2 devalue RB?? If RB is much more rare because circulating supply is low, that 'should' keep RB prices HIGHER than the next set, regardless of a $2 or $4 pack sale point for CA. This is true even if CA matches CL for circulating cards. And if we do match CL circulation rates, it will most likely be because of an expanding player base buying and USING the cards, and based on ACTUAL DEMAND with far fewer cards on the market, not a flooded and devalued market/set due to sales, contests and giveaways like we saw with CL.
And no, RB supply does NOT match demand…many longtime players who wanted RB were priced out of buying RB. And as a result (along with the insane prices for the Hall of Legends promo cards) many players just left. Many who stayed still do not have full RB sets.
‘Gross sales needed to fund Splinterlands game development’
1: “The plan for 2025 is very exciting and looks very promising for attracting new players. Hopefully, after this year, the game will surge and never look back. However, pricing can't assume that we see a flood of new players that are spending heavily”
True. But as any successful company that sells a product knows, price discovery and correctly pricing their product facilitates sales, while setting the cost too high hinders sales.
2: “The company received sufficient funds during the last year through a mixture of just over 1 million pack sales, the promo sales event, and DAO funding requests. For Conclave Acana I believe the intention is for there to be a main set and a mini-set. However, if pack prices are halved with the apparent lack of buyer price insensitivity, Gross sales would be significantly less overall, all things being equal, which could create very avoidable fundamental problems”
Untrue. The company did NOT receive sufficient funds last year. They had to cut more employees and even ask the DAO to pay the salaries of several developers. This is not a company getting sufficient funds, this is a company downsizing and also asking for help from a supportive community to keep the lights on.
The author is also making the incorrect assumption that we sell the same number of packs regardless of price. We know this is simply not true, as we have existing players telling us daily that they do NOT buy packs at $4 but DO buy packs at $2. Some simply refuse to let this fact sink in. We will certainly sell more packs at $2 vs $4
‘Inflation’
1: “Alpha & Beta packs were sold for $2 each”
True
2: “The 4,000 DEC price was originally set for Chaos Legion cards in 2021, which actually ended up selling for nearer $25 per pack with the voucher, and yet this was one of the most successful sales.
Riftwatchers were then sold for $5 a pack”
This is comparing apples to oranges. We were at the ATH of the last bull cycle, and crypto gains were everywhere. We were also seeing players earning $5 - $8 in DEC PER MATCH in champ!! This type of payout justified a higher pack price… you could actually spend thousands for the set and still come out ahead on ROI. Add into that reward cards being real NFTs and sellable at the time, with reward cards like O’Shanus selling for $50/bcx.
We have eliminated much of the ROI in ranked play, and there is absolutely NO justification to charge that much again. RB sales were incredibly low, and we need to understand that pricing was a HUGE factor in the poor sales. We also need to consider the insane $25 voucher was a result of the leader board race for players to make their own summoner, that’s it. Vouchers dropped immediately after the presale was over and the LBs winners had been decided.
3: “Riftwatchers were then sold for $5 a pack”
True. Mini sets historically sold for $1 more per pack than the main set.
4: “Rebellion was sold for 4,000 DEC per pack”
True
5: “It would seem very strange indeed to halve pack prices at this stage, 3 years later to a price that would be less than Alpha or Beta as they were priced in USD not DEC, which could itself drop in price by half at times during the full crypto cycle”
It is not strange AT ALL for a company that is struggling with sales to adjust pricing accordingly in order to improve sales. $2 was a sweet spot, we even have team members admitting this publicly.
6: “Inflation since the Chaos Legion launch has actually risen around 20% officially and probably much more in reality. This would make the case for increasing the cost of packs to around $5, rather than a reduction. So I see maintaining the price at 4,000 DEC as a form of compromise”
I would argue that overall economic inflation should make us WANT to go back to $2 packs that players can afford! It was a sweet spot for sales, and if people are going to be squeezed harder than ever for real world expenses, an optional ‘luxury’ item like SPL cards needs to be within economic reach for millions of players. Raising prices, as the author suggests, would be putting up price walls that would exclude the overwhelming majority of our potential player base.
And while I do appreciate constructive ideas like ‘no fee to play wild’ as an ‘option’, this does nothing to address the real issue: cost of participation for players and what funds the company - pack sales. Suggesting that a $1/week 'tax break' to play in wild will compensate for a multi thousand dollar price barrier misses the point entirely.
I hope the above helps provide insight into the discussion.