How much is that Mythic bundle worth to you?

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Comments

  • majincob
    majincob Posts: 732 Critical Contributor
    edited November 2016
    Drycha wrote:
    I have to agree with OP and most people here, the prices of these bundles are astonishing.
    Despite that, I am guilty of buying A LOT of them, as well as paying for crystals to unlock special Planeswalkers.
    I think so far I've bought Emrakul, Giselaa and Liliana The Last Hope... and at £30 a pop I'm not proud of it.

    I don't even want to think about what I've spent in total so far playing a free game when I add up the crystals for Planeswalkers and card packs. If it was like any other normal mobile game where the microtransactions are 99p to £7ish I'd feel much better and probably buy far more often. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder what state the game would be in if everyone always owned the latest mythic on sale...
    Drycha wrote:
    I hope it's not perceived as rude or the wrong place to ask- but have we ever been told the reason for in-app purchases being so highly priced?

    I'm guilty of buying an embarrassing amount of £30 Mythic Card bundles and Mana Crystal packs in the short time that I've been playing the game. I just can't help but think that I would feel a lot better about purchases if they were at a similar price range to normal mobile app microtransactions and not the full price of a new game on Steam...

    Second quote from dev. thread.

    The reason for the high price is because you, me, and plenty of players like us pay at that price (I've purchased 2 exclusive cards). It's a business and they will charge as much as is optimal to get the highest amount of money in total. I don't have the metrics, but I'm sure D3 spends plenty of time calculating the maximum amount of money they can get from IAP.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Drycha wrote:
    If it was like any other normal mobile game where the microtransactions are 99p to £7ish I'd feel much better and probably buy far more often. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder what state the game would be in if everyone always owned the latest mythic on sale...

    To add on to majincob, if we just take your spending into consideration, if each card were 7 pounds and you willingly paid 30 pounds each, it has left 23 pounds on the table as consumer surplus. Research into IAP has repeatedly shown that players who are willing to spend any amount of money at all are more willing to pay more, compared to players who usually spend nothing unwilling to pay anything at all no matter how sweet the deal. As an interesting tangential example, a charity I donate to recently informed me I can now only donate in amount denominations fixed by the organization. This operates on the same principle.

    Furthermore, assuming you bought 3 cards at 30 pounds each, you spent 90 pounds. D3go would need to sell you about 13 cards at 7 pounds each to make the same amount. And for most people, they wouldn't spend the 7 pounds either even if the cards fell in price.

    There aren't even 13 cards in a set put aside to be sold as exclusives, so naturally D3go would need to put aside a lot more cards to sell as exclusives to make the same amount of money from you. That, or start charging for power ups or entry fees to events.

    This is why complaints about high pricing for chase exclusive mythics bug me. Not only does complaining turn people away who would otherwise have paid for the card (subsidizing your own free game), even if you succeed you're in essence begging them to make even more mythics exclusive. If your complaint is also that games shouldn't be pay2win, that's just a step in the wrong direction.

    Basically what it boils down to is this:

    The price structure is designed so that the game can be very accessible to players who don't pay a cent. To do so, they have to make it very top heavy, so players who don't mind paying end up covering for a lot more free players than games with the usual small micro transactions. You'll notice in those low priced games, free players just don't stand a chance in the rankings at the top levels. If you're a low paying or free player complaining about the high prices, be careful what you wish for.

    As one of the players who play for free, thanks for making this game great.
  • Corn_Noodles
    Corn_Noodles Posts: 477 Mover and Shaker
    majincob wrote:
    I'm sure D3 spends plenty of time calculating the maximum amount of money they can get from IAP.
    I wonder how much they go after repeat purchasers vs. new players. I don't see a lot of new players dropping money on the mythic bundles since 1 card is not going to do much for you if you don't have enough of the staples to build around it.
  • blacklotus
    blacklotus Posts: 589 Critical Contributor
    Corn Noodles wrote:
    majincob wrote:
    I'm sure D3 spends plenty of time calculating the maximum amount of money they can get from IAP.
    I wonder how much they go after repeat purchasers vs. new players. I don't see a lot of new players dropping money on the mythic bundles since 1 card is not going to do much for you if you don't have enough of the staples to build around it.

    it will be interesting to know how many new players download the app to play each month, and how many continue to log in after a month or two.
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,259 Chairperson of the Boards
    Ohboy wrote:
    Drycha wrote:
    If it was like any other normal mobile game where the microtransactions are 99p to £7ish I'd feel much better and probably buy far more often. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder what state the game would be in if everyone always owned the latest mythic on sale...

    To add on to majincob, if we just take your spending into consideration, if each card were 7 pounds and you willingly paid 30 pounds each, it has left 23 pounds on the table as consumer surplus. Research into IAP has repeatedly shown that players who are willing to spend any amount of money at all are more willing to pay more, compared to players who usually spend nothing unwilling to pay anything at all no matter how sweet the deal. As an interesting tangential example, a charity I donate to recently informed me I can now only donate in amount denominations fixed by the organization. This operates on the same principle.

    Furthermore, assuming you bought 3 cards at 30 pounds each, you spent 90 pounds. D3go would need to sell you about 13 cards at 7 pounds each to make the same amount. And for most people, they wouldn't spend the 7 pounds either even if the cards fell in price.

    There aren't even 13 cards in a set put aside to be sold as exclusives, so naturally D3go would need to put aside a lot more cards to sell as exclusives to make the same amount of money from you. That, or start charging for power ups or entry fees to events.

    This is why complaints about high pricing for chase exclusive mythics bug me. Not only does complaining turn people away who would otherwise have paid for the card (subsidizing your own free game), even if you succeed you're in essence begging them to make even more mythics exclusive. If your complaint is also that games shouldn't be pay2win, that's just a step in the wrong direction.

    Basically what it boils down to is this:

    The price structure is designed so that the game can be very accessible to players who don't pay a cent. To do so, they have to make it very top heavy, so players who don't mind paying end up covering for a lot more free players than games with the usual small micro transactions. You'll notice in those low priced games, free players just don't stand a chance in the rankings at the top levels. If you're a low paying or free player complaining about the high prices, be careful what you wish for.

    As one of the players who play for free, thanks for making this game great.

    I'd say this is dead on for the most part. They're not going to change the exclusive model, and any attendant drop in price would just mean they make more of them exclusive and unavailable in packs--which would thus make any pay2win accusations more true/valid than they are now.

    What I do wish, however, and what I think is reasonable, is to sell cards from, say, 3 expansions ago at a discounted rate. In addition to the normal whales who wound pounce at the opportunity to buy cards they missed, I bet a lot of non-whales would love to fill in their collection--and being able to buy 5 cards at 7 pounds each is more likely to happen than 1 at 30.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Match Maker
    Well gosh now I feel stupid for paying.
  • blacklotus
    blacklotus Posts: 589 Critical Contributor
    Drycha wrote:
    Well gosh now I feel stupid for paying.

    don't worry too much about it as long as u didn't use your meal money to buy a virtual card.

    I bought Gisela thinking it was a great card. Then in the first game I use her in Nahiri vs an old subpar story mode Chandra, I lost. icon_e_biggrin.gif

    Moral of the Story: a card is only as good as the player playing the game. icon_e_biggrin.gif
  • jetnoctis
    jetnoctis Posts: 128 Tile Toppler
    blacklotus wrote:
    Drycha wrote:
    Well gosh now I feel stupid for paying.

    don't worry too much about it as long as u didn't use your meal money to buy a virtual card.

    I bought Gisela thinking it was a great card. Then in the first game I use her in Nahiri vs an old subpar story mode Chandra, I lost. icon_e_biggrin.gif

    Moral of the Story: a card is only as good as the player playing the game. icon_e_biggrin.gif

    And even then, all the skill in the world will serve you nothing without luck in this game! icon_e_biggrin.gif
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    jetnoctis wrote:
    blacklotus wrote:
    Drycha wrote:
    Well gosh now I feel stupid for paying.

    don't worry too much about it as long as u didn't use your meal money to buy a virtual card.

    I bought Gisela thinking it was a great card. Then in the first game I use her in Nahiri vs an old subpar story mode Chandra, I lost. icon_e_biggrin.gif

    Moral of the Story: a card is only as good as the player playing the game. icon_e_biggrin.gif

    And even then, all the skill in the world will serve you nothing without luck in this game! icon_e_biggrin.gif

    This works in real life too. All the training to learn the skills you have is simply preparation so you're ready to seize the opportunity when luck comes.
  • jackvett
    jackvett Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    Ohboy wrote:
    You misunderstand.

    The whales are our patrons. They subsidize our game by paying the bills to keep the company in business.

    Insulting whales like you did is just bad for everyone. Words matter, and feelings fester. Which is why I'm always cutting shteev off or Yunnnnn off when they start ranting about whales spending money.

    Take fiddler for example. He built his top tier deck overnight because he spent thousands on the game. We know because he posted statements.(and he went from supplying free frag decks to tough ones in one event) If people didn't constantly litter the forums with comments implying buying gold to buy boosters was stupid, he would probably still be spending thousands. But he's not anymore. Who would, if people tell him he's being stupid? What do these comments serve to do anyway? It's not going to change in the way you want it to. Driving whales away on the other hand will have a big effect on the fragile economy.

    If the people who pay for this game to exist start to feel hated or resented, they'll find another game to play. This just hurts everyone. The game shuts down.

    Before making a suggestion publicly and raising an angry mob, it's best to consider the end game. Many of the angry rants here are so short sighted someone has to cut them off. Yes, some of these suggestions sound great for the players...and I would love for them to be implemented. But they won't be because they just lead to revenue dropping for d3go. Someone has to head off that angry mob yelling demands that will never get met and I really wish it wasn't always me.

    When the events first started, I had a sizable advantage because I play this game a lot. I was always comfortably in top 5 in the top tier. Then people started paying obscene amounts of money to catch up. I should really be the person complaining the most.

    But I'm not. Because I recognize it's good that the revenue got boosted. A lot of players either forgot or don't know that crystals used to be hard to come by. Duplicates? Hard to have dupes when you only have 6 mythics after half a year of play. The fact that crystals becoming very easily available coincides with exclusive cards getting sold more isn't lost on me.

    So yeah, I play the bad guy. I see a suggestion that's great for everyone to fill out their collections at the expense of revenue stream, and I say that's stupid. Because someone has to. It's not because I don't like a full collection. It's because I remember the days when having 6 mythics took months to get.

    You newer players have it so great. Stop rocking the boat. You're not going to get a better deal than we have right now.

    I'm not in a top 10 coalition by choice(coalition of friends) , and I don't like the fact that top 10 coalitions get mythics every event(because why would new players spend on the game if they can just join a top 10 coalition and get mythics anyway? Game AI is bad enough you don't need exclusives to prosper). But you guys bragging about having all the mythics in a set 2 weeks in, and complaining that you're getting dupes as rewards because of it... Seriously? Do you guys not recognize that you're having problems because d3go gave you too great a deal? Shush and hope it lasts! You're guaranteed a full set of mythics in every new set from now on out. Like I said... Acting against your own interests.

    So yeah, I end up sounding like a d3go shill most of the time. And I'm always pointing out stupid suggestions and going against the community. Because I'm more concerned about the future of the game than the group of elites having first world problems. I like this boat. Stop rocking it.
    Guys stop talking or else Ohboy will hit your inbox with one of these on a Monday morning. Whew!
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
    jackvett wrote:
    Guys stop talking or else Ohboy will hit your inbox with one of these on a Monday morning. Whew!

    His post is spot on. I'm surprised he took the time to write that given your repeated troll posts. Nice guy.
  • jackvett
    jackvett Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    Steeme wrote:
    His post is spot on. I'm surprised he took the time to write that given your repeated troll posts. Nice guy.

    I'm really sorry if you can't take someone disagreeing with you, and have to rationalize that as trolling. Good luck being an adult, it's a scary scary world out there!

    I believe you called me an idiot most recently? Yeah I totally care that you agree
  • span_argoman
    span_argoman Posts: 751 Critical Contributor
    jackvett wrote:
    Steeme wrote:
    His post is spot on. I'm surprised he took the time to write that given your repeated troll posts. Nice guy.

    I'm really sorry if you can't take someone disagreeing with you, and have to rationalize that as trolling. Good luck being an adult, it's a scary scary world out there!

    I believe you called me an idiot most recently? Yeah I totally care that you agree
    And I'm really sorry that you can't see their point. They're right. Good luck to you too.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Steeme wrote:
    jackvett wrote:
    Guys stop talking or else Ohboy will hit your inbox with one of these on a Monday morning. Whew!

    His post is spot on. I'm surprised he took the time to write that given your repeated troll posts. Nice guy.

    Why... Did he request I bring the conversation to pm if he was going to repost it in the thread?
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
    Ohboy wrote:
    Steeme wrote:
    jackvett wrote:
    Guys stop talking or else Ohboy will hit your inbox with one of these on a Monday morning. Whew!

    His post is spot on. I'm surprised he took the time to write that given your repeated troll posts. Nice guy.

    Why... Did he request I bring the conversation to pm if he was going to repost it in the thread?

    He has.... "issues". Although I give him a bit of credit for posting it because it was a good read.

    What some people don't "get", is that "whale" is just a derogatory term. 99% of the time it's out of jealousy. I skipped multiple grades in school, worked my buns off to get where I am, and continue to work my buns off to generate mass amounts of additional income. It's not easy, and 99% of the population can't do it. If I choose to dump a couple hundred bananas into a game, or a couple thousand bananas into a game, it just means I've worked that hard to be able to throw mass amount of money at anything I choose.

    Take a look at Star Citizen. There are many many software engineers that work in the USD and make an average of 150K per year. Consequently, a lot of software engineers are drawn to that type of game. That's why there are packages for 15K USD bananas, and that's why they sell like hot cakes.

    Dropping 30 USD on a mythic in this game? For some people it is pocket change. Calling them "whales" is just derogatory.
  • khurram
    khurram Posts: 1,090 Chairperson of the Boards
    Totally agree with ohboy's point of view on this issue.
  • span_argoman
    span_argoman Posts: 751 Critical Contributor
    Steeme wrote:
    What some people don't "get", is that "whale" is just a derogatory term. 99% of the time it's out of jealousy.
    I never knew "whale" was a derogatory term. As far as I know it's a term used to refer to high rollers at a casino and there's no derogatory connotation there. It's just being transplanted to the video gaming world to refer to high spenders no?
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    span_argoman wrote:
    Steeme wrote:
    What some people don't "get", is that "whale" is just a derogatory term. 99% of the time it's out of jealousy.
    I never knew "whale" was a derogatory term. As far as I know it's a term used to refer to high rollers at a casino and there's no derogatory connotation there. It's just being transplanted to the video gaming world to refer to high spenders no?

    No one actually calls a high roller a whale to their face in the casino do they?
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
    Ohboy wrote:
    span_argoman wrote:
    Steeme wrote:
    What some people don't "get", is that "whale" is just a derogatory term. 99% of the time it's out of jealousy.
    I never knew "whale" was a derogatory term. As far as I know it's a term used to refer to high rollers at a casino and there's no derogatory connotation there. It's just being transplanted to the video gaming world to refer to high spenders no?

    No one actually calls a high roller a whale to their face in the casino do they?

    Bingo!

    (By the way, what's up with the Rep system? I just wanted to thumbs up with a comment, but it won't let me).
  • paralistalon
    paralistalon Posts: 153
    Freemium games are by definition unfair. The more money you have, the more bonuses you get. There is always a careful balance in order to keep the revenue coming in. For example, you need free players in the community so that spenders can feel that they have an advantage by comparison. You need to create the perception of value. This can also be accomplished by having an item you can buy immediately that would otherwise take countless hours of grinding for a free player to get.

    MagicPQ is actually a lot less exploitive than most freemium games. Can you imagine the outcry is overpowered planeswalkers like Kiora and Nahiri were random mythic pulls from packs? A free player actually has a good chance of competing at the same level as a whale in this game, mostly because the value of spending money is so low. You could spend a thousand dollars and still not get that Crush of Tentacles you desperately wanted to make your Kiora deck even more unstoppable. But you might get a Tyrant of Valakut, and that might prompt you to build a Sarkhan deck to replace your Koth deck, which might only give you a marginal increase in win rate.

    If I'm to be honest, I find that the excitement I get from opening a mythic comes down to that feeling of having gotten lucky and getting a card that other people have spent a ton of money hoping to get. I wouldn't be as happy (although I'd still smile) if I opened Gisela from a pack. I mean, everyone already has her, so that makes her less special in my eyes. Also, it's not like you have true PVP, so when I beat someone, I don't get that added jolt of reinforcement that comes from feeling like my deck or in-game account was recognized.

    And about whales... you really can't stereotype them. There are spoiled rich kids, and there are responsible entrepreneurs. I have my master's degree and have worked in counseling/social work for the past 5 years. We don't make big money like the engineers or computer science folk, so my perception of the cost of a big box is probably different than people that do make six figures.

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