This has been on my mind for a while. I've been F2P since 2015 but recently spent a little bit on the beginner's bundle and the Year of Dragon bundle. I never spent money because I thought it was too expensive but then I realized that I used to spend like $2-3 for one pack of YGO, MTG, and Poke cards back in middle school, and I didn't even have a job then. So why am I being stingy with my money now that I work and earn my own money? It made no sense.
Sure one can argue that you only get 5 cards for $1.50-1.16 in HS vs a pack of YGO/MTG pack that contains like 10 cards for triple the price. But in HS, you have the crafting/dust system which I think outvalues paper duplicates that you can't do anything with. If you wanted certain competitive cards in YGO/MTG, you have to spend a lot more (usually the price of a whole box of booster packs) to get one specific card whereas in HS, you just craft them at a fraction of the price (dust) without having to spend $70 for a "box" of 60 packs. Which in that case, you'd probably pull more than what you were originally aiming for and end up with a better value.
The pre-order bundle prices at $60 and $80 while at first glance seems a lot, even if you don't get the legendaries you need, the amount of golden cards you pull are enough to turn to dust for crafting. I probably opened about 200 free DoD packs during the lead up to launch and got enough goldens to dust for legendaries.
TL;DR I'm going to pre-order bundles from now on and other value bundles, not the current mage bundle which is a rip-off
I feel what you're saying. Back in the days I played The Eye of Judgment on playstation, which was the first physical cardgame which worked through scanning codes with the PS camera and it was awesome!
Buying a big ordner to store all the cards and try to keep them in mint condition is a true valuable addittion to a game.
On the other hand, that game only had 3 expansions and a total of like 600 cards or so? Hearthstone has much more cards and you might lose sight on what you actually have eventually.
I don't mind paying €60,- for an expansion on Hearthstone, as long as you get fun for in it return. As I mainly play priest and the latest edition of the expansion really sucked, I did feel the pain of the money I spent but you never know if these cards will get more value in future expansions.
It's a lot more complicated than that. With physical card games, you can buy singles of exactly the cards you want from the aftermarket. Also, you own your cards and can sell them for real money. How much everything costs and how much you can make in return, of course, varies a lot.
That said, if you like a game, sure, spend some money on it, regardless of whether it is digital or physical or even a card game at all.
For Hearthstone, adventures used to be the best value you could get, and Galakrond's Awakening continues that trend: you get a lot compared to the gold price and you are guaranteed to get all the goodies you pay for, whereas with packs you can easily open 50 of them and get nothing good in return.
Physical cards rise in value over the years, especially MTG cards, they are literally an investment for the future, like old porcelaine, postage stamps or old money
Absolutely. Granted, this is the most extreme case, but Google black lotus. Back when I played in 2005-2010 era, it went for about 7-8 grand.
Another, and perhaps the most famous, is tarmagoyf. I literally remember sifting through the $1 box at my local card shop, and it being full of em. Fast forward 1-2 months, $70 card.
Note that hearthstone isn't a card game. It only simulates one.
If I play flight simulator lm not a pilot in real life.
Hearthstone expansions should be priced at 20 dollars, but becaus people are willing to pay for it, or are invested so strongly, they can charge whatever.
You're a piece of an algorithm that has determined the optimal price for maximum user retention
I collected MTG cards in 1997... My mom moved in 2000 and my Magic cards got thrown out, or otherwise got lost. I was recently looking at a price list of old Magic cards and nearly cried... I didn't have any of the crazy valuable ones but I had many, MANY cards now worth $50-200. I imagine my collection would be worth at least $5000 now.
Neither is a particularly good investment in real financial terms. But if you're considering utility and the amount of enjoyment you derive, there's something to be said for being able to get home from work, turn on your PC, and be queued up within a minute or two. I won't discount the joy that opening packs and having physical cards can bring because that's pretty subjective, but it's certainly a hell of a lot harder to actually use your cards given the logistics involved.
Note that hearthstone isn't a card game. It only simulates one.
If I play flight simulator lm not a pilot in real life.
Hearthstone expansions should be priced at 20 dollars, but becaus people are willing to pay for it, or are invested so strongly, they can charge whatever.
You're a piece of an algorithm that has determined the optimal price for maximum user retention
Is not it basic of economical system? If somebody is willing pay this much, why not sell it for this much?
Note that hearthstone isn't a card game. It only simulates one.
If I play flight simulator lm not a pilot in real life.
Hearthstone expansions should be priced at 20 dollars, but becaus people are willing to pay for it, or are invested so strongly, they can charge whatever.
You're a piece of an algorithm that has determined the optimal price for maximum user retention
Is not it basic of economical system? If somebody is willing pay this much, why not sell it for this much?
Not for communists... Or, wait, Marxists believe that the value of labour is near irreplaceable, so maybe hearthstone devs don't make enough money, so they should charge more... but, Blizzard shouldn't make anything... so maybe they should charge less... but the employees should make more.... so.... but...
This has been on my mind for a while. I've been F2P since 2015 but recently spent a little bit on the beginner's bundle and the Year of Dragon bundle. I never spent money because I thought it was too expensive but then I realized that I used to spend like $2-3 for one pack of YGO, MTG, and Poke cards back in middle school, and I didn't even have a job then. So why am I being stingy with my money now that I work and earn my own money? It made no sense.
Sure one can argue that you only get 5 cards for $1.50-1.16 in HS vs a pack of YGO/MTG pack that contains like 10 cards for triple the price. But in HS, you have the crafting/dust system which I think outvalues paper duplicates that you can't do anything with. If you wanted certain competitive cards in YGO/MTG, you have to spend a lot more (usually the price of a whole box of booster packs) to get one specific card whereas in HS, you just craft them at a fraction of the price (dust) without having to spend $70 for a "box" of 60 packs. Which in that case, you'd probably pull more than what you were originally aiming for and end up with a better value.
The pre-order bundle prices at $60 and $80 while at first glance seems a lot, even if you don't get the legendaries you need, the amount of golden cards you pull are enough to turn to dust for crafting. I probably opened about 200 free DoD packs during the lead up to launch and got enough goldens to dust for legendaries.
TL;DR I'm going to pre-order bundles from now on and other value bundles, not the current mage bundle which is a rip-off
I feel what you're saying.
Back in the days I played The Eye of Judgment on playstation, which was the first physical cardgame which worked through scanning codes with the PS camera and it was awesome!
Buying a big ordner to store all the cards and try to keep them in mint condition is a true valuable addittion to a game.
On the other hand, that game only had 3 expansions and a total of like 600 cards or so? Hearthstone has much more cards and you might lose sight on what you actually have eventually.
I don't mind paying €60,- for an expansion on Hearthstone, as long as you get fun for in it return. As I mainly play priest and the latest edition of the expansion really sucked, I did feel the pain of the money I spent but you never know if these cards will get more value in future expansions.
It's a lot more complicated than that. With physical card games, you can buy singles of exactly the cards you want from the aftermarket. Also, you own your cards and can sell them for real money. How much everything costs and how much you can make in return, of course, varies a lot.
That said, if you like a game, sure, spend some money on it, regardless of whether it is digital or physical or even a card game at all.
For Hearthstone, adventures used to be the best value you could get, and Galakrond's Awakening continues that trend: you get a lot compared to the gold price and you are guaranteed to get all the goodies you pay for, whereas with packs you can easily open 50 of them and get nothing good in return.
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Physical cards rise in value over the years, especially MTG cards, they are literally an investment for the future, like old porcelaine, postage stamps or old money
You can never get that from digital stuff.
do magic cards really appreciate?
Absolutely. Granted, this is the most extreme case, but Google black lotus. Back when I played in 2005-2010 era, it went for about 7-8 grand.
Another, and perhaps the most famous, is tarmagoyf. I literally remember sifting through the $1 box at my local card shop, and it being full of em. Fast forward 1-2 months, $70 card.
Note that hearthstone isn't a card game. It only simulates one.
If I play flight simulator lm not a pilot in real life.
Hearthstone expansions should be priced at 20 dollars, but becaus people are willing to pay for it, or are invested so strongly, they can charge whatever.
You're a piece of an algorithm that has determined the optimal price for maximum user retention
I collected MTG cards in 1997... My mom moved in 2000 and my Magic cards got thrown out, or otherwise got lost. I was recently looking at a price list of old Magic cards and nearly cried... I didn't have any of the crazy valuable ones but I had many, MANY cards now worth $50-200. I imagine my collection would be worth at least $5000 now.
Oh, no!!! We are just a piece of an algorithm to Blizzard!!! I thought they loved their playerbase, but they are just using us to earn money!!! :(
Guess what, bro??? Nobody cares. ;)
Neither is a particularly good investment in real financial terms. But if you're considering utility and the amount of enjoyment you derive, there's something to be said for being able to get home from work, turn on your PC, and be queued up within a minute or two. I won't discount the joy that opening packs and having physical cards can bring because that's pretty subjective, but it's certainly a hell of a lot harder to actually use your cards given the logistics involved.
Is not it basic of economical system? If somebody is willing pay this much, why not sell it for this much?
Not for communists... Or, wait, Marxists believe that the value of labour is near irreplaceable, so maybe hearthstone devs don't make enough money, so they should charge more... but, Blizzard shouldn't make anything... so maybe they should charge less... but the employees should make more.... so.... but...
physical card games don't crash every 10 minutes, so.....