Packs are too expensive for non tangible goods

Community Discussion
1

i wanted to share a point i found with the game and it was the high cost of the card packs . currently the game packs goes as follow in CAD ( i cant speak on the USD prices since i dont know if USD is just a straight up conversion or other facors also affect the price )

2 : 3,75$ ( 1.87$ each ) (0.37$ per card )
7: 12.49$ ( 1.78$ each ) ( 0.35$ per card )
15 : 24.99$ ( 1.66$ each ) (0.32$ per card )
40 : 62.99$ ( 1.57$ each ) ( 0.31$ per card)
60 : 87.99$ ( 1.46$ each ) (0.29$ per card )

the reason i was breaking down the numbers on this is to make a comparison with a card game i used to play a while ago and for some reasons the prices are still about the same as when i left. ( yu gi oh )

yu gi oh pack came in packs of 9 cards and one of those was a rare or higher .
those packs were usually sold for about 4-6$ a pack, breaking down to about 0.44$-0.66$ per card depending of which pack you were purchasing.

yu gioh cards, has to be printed,cut, sorted by a machine by rarity , randomized , packed , sealed, boxed, sent oversea , to be then sold to the merchant who will then base his price on it before reselling them to a buyer.

the yu gi oh cards as well a MTG cards are physical items, something that you own by purchasing it. you can collection them and trade them if you want, and each card will have its own market price as well and they ( usually ) wont be changed , one a card is printed, you keep your copy and its yours, unless they decide to print a new copy with a updated effect, your card doesnt change ( some player i know rather play classic in which we used the printed effect and not those found on the newer ones on internet , made everyones life easier )

the reason im bringing that point up is if we compare with the hearthstone cardsā€¦

  • you cannot trade them
  • they do not require manufacturing aside from programming them
  • they do not require upkeeping costs by continually printing more of them
  • they do not require shipping costs
  • are not sold to merchants before being purchased by the general public

the issue this also cause is that , you do not own the cards .
meaning activision blizzzard can simply decide to nerf your card the next day of your purchase and now your "investement " litterally went down the drain .

further more, if for any reason your account gets banned, you are not provided money back for your purchases you made in the past, that money is gone and you have nothing to show for.

the other thing as well is that all card packs are sold the exact same price even though the yearly rotation take place for the standard and wild packs, wild pack s do not decrease in value since they cannot be used in standard anymore since each of those cards utility in play mode litterally was cut by 50% , but not its price.

now if we compare the yu gi oh packs vs the hearthstone packs.
at the cheapest they would compare to about 0.44$ vs 0.37$ or 0.66$ on a 6$ purchase. this mean that vs its physical counterpart, those digital packs are charged 0.07$ less per card up to 0.29$ if we take the most recent packs .
the other thing to keep in mind is that one provided 9 cards while the other only provided 5.

if the hearthstone pack prices were cut down by 50% , it would by significantly more attractive for customers to purchase because not everyone has access to buy 100$ worth of card in order to get a good price on it since the 3$ are still pricey for what they provide.

my suggestion would look as follow.
2 : 1.87$ ( 0.93 each )
7: 6.24$ ( 0.89$ each )
15 : 12.49$ ( 0.83$ each )
40 : 31.49$ ( 0.78$ each )
60 : 43.99$ ( 0.73$ each )

wild pack s would have a reduction of 25% on these prices so the prices would range from 1.40$ for 2 packs up to 32.99$ for 60 packs

these number , even though they are significantly lower then the current ones, would cause 2 things,
1- it would encourage the first time buyers / irregular buyers , much more and would make them much likely to try buying a few packs here and there making more profit then not having them purchase anything at all to begin with.
2- the other thing is , the regular buyers would be much more likely to buy more often since the price is much more affordable.

when it comes to item pricing its important to understand what the products has to offer and in this case , yes blizzard has to maintain servers and all, but the cost of maintaining digital cards is quite minimal in comparison to real life cards.

my though is simply if the over all cost of hearthstone purchases would be cut by 50% and a additional 25% on wild item, it would cause more constant stream of purchases and not keep away potential buyers because they see the high prices on an item they cant even own.

sorry if this whole thing was pretty long but it was just my thought on the matter, im not sure if my oppinion is shared among others or not but still i felt like sharing it.

10 Likes
2

Yes, because network infrastructure is free. Sure, HS isnā€™t the most demanding of games, but you still gotta pay to keep the servers running.

3

@OP
We can go back and forth on the cost; however, Iā€™ll bring the counterpoints to your post.

  1. Since the game is digital I can play it at 2pm and 1am from my house without having to organize people (and their schedules) to play. For me personally this is the biggest advantage as with a family and work playing at my local card shop (or w/e) isnā€™t really the easiest thing

  2. You canā€™t trade the cards, true, but you can convert bad cards into something. A card like Millhouse Manastorm, for instance, is worthless on an open market and you could --never-- trade 4 (or 1 foil) for DK Gulā€™Dan for instance.

  3. Organization is somewhat nicer in digital looking through cards. The boxes upon boxes from Magic days ><;

There is a trade-off; however, I can look at MtG:A and tell you, in that game, what the trade-off actually looks like for Magic. I have spent $100 in Magic Arena and between those packs and my play time (roughly 1 pack a day) I have ~$1,000 in decks if the cards were physical. If I account for crossover cards it is probablya round $600 or so of cards.

Most (not all, but most) cards lose value once they rotate out of Standard in Magic (and it would in HS) so to maximize price you need to sell cards when you, yourself, would also want to use it if you like that style of deck. So it is a catch-22 to a degree on selling cards.

1 Like
4

First off, let me congratulate the OP for making an actual argument rather than just puking out a salty rant. Far too many of the Price Whiners do nothing but spit up pointless emotional bile rather than trying to make a rational argument. So - bravo for beginning your position with a method that is superior to 99.99% of your peers. For this you are to be commended.

That being said, Iā€™ll disagree with some of your conclusions. To the substanceā€¦!

You arguments that dCCG cards should cost less is flawed because it examines only the drawbacks of the genre without acknowledging the strengths of the electronic platform.

So while it is true that you cannot ā€˜tradeā€™ digital cards, players can dust/craft from them in a way that physical cards cannot. For example, if you open a box of paper cards you will never get a penny back from the piles of Commons & Uncommons ā€¦ but in Hearthstone you can dust all those cards and use them to craft new things. In many ways, this makes dCCGs superior to pCCGs because the pool of cards is not finite. You may never be able to buy a Black Lotus because thereā€™s only so many of them in existence ā€¦ but if you dust enough commons you can always craft a new Ragnaros. So to claim d-cards should be cheaper because there is no aftermarket is not accurate.

Likewise while digital cards do not have a manufacturing and shipping costs, they certainly are not free to make. There are programmers, artists, engineers, and designers that all need to be paid - not to mention the servers that have to be bought and maintained. To imply that digital cards should be free simply because no physical paper is involved is not a valid argument because it ignores the costs of an entire world of digital architecture.

The argument that the player ā€œdoes not own the cardsā€ is not valid either. Simply because an item is digital does not mean it has no real-world value. We live in an information era now, and digital purchase has as much (or more) value than physical goods. Entire industries are based on digital purchases, streaming, subscriptions, or other markets ā€¦ and no one says that they should be cheaper simply because there is no physical exchange. The concept that a digital purchase must be less expensive than a physical one is invalid and ignores the actual market reality of modern technology.

The argument that lower costs would increase purchases is debatable at best. Economics and pricing is a complicated matter, and believe it or not lowering the price on goods does not axiomatically mean that purchases would increase. The dCCG marketplace is generally at a parity in pricing. 50 bucks will by you ā€œXā€ amount of Hearthstone cards, and generally about the same amount of MtGA, Gwent, or Shadowverse stuff. So the market leader (Hearthstone) lowering its costs below the accepted market value does not automagically mean sales would increase - to say nothing about profitability (which is a different matter).

Your argument that Wild Pack pricing should be lower than Standard may have some merit, but the overall argument that digital card sales should be lowered is not justified.

1 Like
5

Personally, I would be happy if they just made it so I could buy Wild packs for Gold in game. I know people may get confused and purchase non standard packs by accident, but make a different tab or something so people can choose which they want.

5 Likes
6

duel links and mtg arena are as" physical "as HS

and
did you check duel links prices ?and they dont have a craft system for cards on the packs

dont know why people forget they should be comparing digital card games to digital card games

7

HS packs are overpriced for sure but if u buy with amazon coins its basically 1$ a pack. i do that and im ok with paying that much for digital packs, in general.

what i dont like, and what is very unlikely to change, is that the cards are not really mine. i cant trade or sell them and if i quit, i cant do anything with my account that would be legal.

i think to sweeten this situation it would be very appropriate of blizzard to extend the legendary duplicate rule to epics as a compromise. if u could only get 2x of an epic before u could get no more that would make shelling out money for packs a lot less painful imo.

8

I completely agree. The worst part is that you donā€™t keep your cards forever. Eventually hearthstone servers will go down - physical cards do not. As far as Iā€™m aware, we pay the highest card to dollar ratio vs. all the other digital and physical card games.

For anyone who honestly believes that servers cost more than a couple of thousand a month are living on a different planet or know nothing about server costs (but stupidly pitch in).

9

if HS being digital bothers you so much
stay away from Steam ā€¦or youll lose your mind

10

I did the calculation on a box set vs. the largest bundle you can buy in HS normally (60 packs for $70 if memory serves, you need to use a browser to see itā€¦ or at least you did) and the price is about the same between MtG Booster box and HS booster bundle.

In the digital realm, from my experience w/ MtG:A and what I have heard on others HS is the most expensive dCCG. I havenā€™t done the math on MtG:A vs. HS but from my experience I would say MtG:A is less expensive by a slim margin.