23 replies to this topic

[ikeebear]

@ikeebear: After 2 minutes of thinking this is what I came up (without changing the prices of the components, which I think are slightly overpriced):

 

Change the rule, so that you can only have each card with a dice only onte time in your deck (including no elite characters) and then sell a box of 10 dice and  50 cards for 30 $ every quarter of the year.

 

The current CCG model isn't sustainable in the Long run and a strict distribution cycle is mandatory (which FFG isn't known for).

 

There's something to be said for making more money if you sacrifice a bit of margin to attract more customers ... but you're suggesting FFG be satisfied with sales of a maximum $120 per year for each player compared to, say, $450 per year if the same number of people on average only bought two boxes per release (although I'd say the average consumption in my meta is definitely higher than this). 

I just don't think that's viable, even if this model attracted three times the number of players.

 

Furthermore, Destiny is a pretty luck-heavy game. Every roll and reroll has six potential outcomes. Limiting die-cards to one-ofs increases the randomness. As a player, I think Destiny has just the right amount of randomness and I don't think I'd enjoy more of it. 

 

And again, we wouldn't have a die/card pool that remotely resembles what we had immediately after release until 12 months have past (by which time, with the CCG model, we'll have three times that).

 

A case could be argued that FFG could have, maybe even should have, settled for a lower quality of dice to reduce costs. I think they really wanted to differentiate this game from Dicemasters. I love the dice quality, but that's one of the only places I can see that they could have gone differently.

[Ignithas]

There's something to be said for making more money if you sacrifice a bit of margin to attract more customers ... but you're suggesting FFG be satisfied with sales of a maximum $120 per year for each player compared to, say, $450 per year if the same number of people on average only bought two boxes per release (although I'd say the average consumption in my meta is definitely higher than this). 

I just don't think that's viable, even if this model attracted three times the number of players.

 

Furthermore, Destiny is a pretty luck-heavy game. Every roll and reroll has six potential outcomes. Limiting die-cards to one-ofs increases the randomness. As a player, I think Destiny has just the right amount of randomness and I don't think I'd enjoy more of it. 

 

And again, we wouldn't have a die/card pool that remotely resembles what we had immediately after release until 12 months have past (by which time, with the CCG model, we'll have three times that).

 

A case could be argued that FFG could have, maybe even should have, settled for a lower quality of dice to reduce costs. I think they really wanted to differentiate this game from Dicemasters. I love the dice quality, but that's one of the only places I can see that they could have gone differently.

That's the bottom line, the CCG distribution is the distribution model with the highest margin. I don't understand what you mean with viable, both models would probably end in a net win, but the CCG makes certainly more money in a small amount of time.

 

The luck component could be reduced either by card design or by letting you chose your starting hand.

 

The distribution of the LCG would be slower, you are right with that.

 

We will see if people will play Destiny for a long time. There are a lot of things FFG made right with Destiny, but there are also some things that are extremly risky and could shake out pretty bad. The prices of the second market are insane for a new game and no further reprints of sets will affect those prices..Distribution and balancing difficulties/errors will lead to a heavier hit in CCGs than in LCGs and the speed at which they plan to release expansions will alienate young people with non-playing parents.

[ikeebear]

I don't think either of us can know what the return on investment for any of FFG's games looks like, so we're both guessing. I'm just basing my guess on the fact that dice, especially THOSE dice, would cost a lot more to produce than cards alone. As a business they would be used to a certain ROI for their products, so assuming they aren't 'gouging' on the LCGs, I think we should assume that a game like Destiny NEEDS to make a lot more money to be commercially viable (i.e. generate a ROI in line with their expectations, which presumably would align with what they make on LCGs).

 

As a fan of Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn, I certainly understand that luck could be decreased through design for a game like Destiny. So, I'm not completely disagreeing with you. 

 

I also broadly agree with your thoughts for the future. Destiny certainly looks like a game that could burn very bright for a short-ish period of time and then go out pretty quickly. It really is fiendishly expensive if you have desires to have most or all of the cards. I've heard a lot of players suggest they want to reduce their investment in the game with future sets ... if they can resist the temptation and that proves to be a widespread trend, it would likely affect the viability of the game medium to long term.

 

One of the things I was observing at the weekend was that it's a very hard game to ease someone into. Unlike Magic or other similar CCGs, where a dedicated player could give their plentiful leftovers to a prospective player and they could actually play the game, Destiny kind of requires someone to at least buy in a bit. I've got a stack of spare commons, but even players who have very modest collections don't really want them because they have most of them already. I've given away what I'd estimate is close to a box worth of rare die-cards too (I even found a guy who split a box with me 50-50 and I just took the legendaries) ... but even that isn't enough to create a truly decent deck.

[normanh]

It's my understanding that Destiny is one of their best, if not THE best, selling game in their portfolio in 2016. And it was out for a month. I'm pretty sure they know how to get a return out of that. :-)