Pizza Pricing

Hello!

I was looking for a thread discussing the pricing, but couldn't find one (those I did find where concerned with the resets, afaics).

Preamble: I am 40+ and actually did play AD&D back when. Adventures already had the full color fronts, but I still saw those very classic modules that Cardhunter is styled after.

I love Cardhunter! The game system is great, the look, feel and the campy GM brothers are fantastic. And it's free-to-play to boot. Now that I have decided that I want to support it... I have hit a wall.

From my perspective Cardhunter is not a primary game. It's a diversion to play every once in a while. You don't play D&D every night either (at least not at my age ;-)).

In a world where PC Indie games run at $5 to $13.99 (for the most part - I am using Steam as a benchmark, more or less) I'd expect to dish out that amount for a substantial experience.

In Cardhunter at $20 I get 690 Pizza at this point (lovely currency, btw ;-)). For 690 Pizza, instead of gaining weight, I get... 2 months extra loot (hardly worth it, if you are playing irregularly) and an alternative character "figure". Duh. Value for money seems... meh.

Another plan suggested by Tobold in this blog entry tells me I can buy 1 month of club membership immediately (enough to get started), the adventure box, and some gold to buy early chests.

Not satisfied by either, really.

As the club membership currently only gives an extra item, it should be be cheaper.

Extra content, depending on the scope (one adventure with 1-4 battles at 40 Pizza is fine, or 10 of thema at 300 Pizza is okay - that's what I would spend money on). I love the extra "miniatures", but at these prices (ca. $2.50 each) they are too expensive. I'd love to see those or similar ones (with extra classes?) as the reward for a series of adventures you bought and then played through.

I am not as loot oriented as some other players (Diablo or Borderlands never caught on with me for that reason), so chests are overpriced for me.

Lastly I believe the progression up to the whopper $99 level should be updated. I actually charted it out:



The red line is the progression in game currency / real currency. It shows a very even slope (it's not exactly to scale, I know). I compared it to another game I played with a similar appeal, Urban Rivals and I was a bit surprised to see that the slope is very similar (Urban Rivals maxes out at around $50 - rather 39.99€, which is easier psychologically). Of course what you get for your money makes the big difference, and subjectively that was quite a bit in UR.

If I were to invest something as steep as $99 into an indie game, I want more bang for the buck (call me jaded - these days I like to support Kickstarter games and i am very happy with some of the extra stretch goal swag I get there). One thing is to adjust what you actually get by your Pizza (up to a modifier of x4!), or you amp up the yield for higher price tiers, like I suggested with the orange line.

In that example I would get 6000 Pizza for $99 (or 60.6 Pizza / $). Which would make me very much happy because I could buy lots more stuff I really don't need, than by investing a meagre $10 or $20.

I believe this would be extremely beneficial for the game, by substantially raising the average investment by those players who want to support Cardhunter through their Pizza payments (can we have coupons for RL deliveray, please? I am hungry now...).

What do you think?

 

I ponied up for the $50 package, and am happy with the results of that purchase. I paid for a few cosmetics, the treasure maps and two months of Club Membership, the rest went on chests of one sort or another.

However, I probably will not re-use that pizza in the same way once the reset comes and certainly not when the game goes live. This is because I will not be playing everyday and so the Card Hunter Club doesn't give me a valued return, the same as any other Subscription game, for me. I will still buy the treasure hunts and cosmetics and will use pizza to buy chests, though I still think that a 150pz ($5) chest is massively overpriced.

I would support the idea raised in another thread for "Day Tickets" to the Club, for say 12-15pz to maximise my spending / reward ratio. There's also a little twitch in my eye when I see the 330 / 690 numbers that I just know will not divide into neat purchases, which Azuriel goes into much better detail in his blog post, which is mentioned in Tobald's post linked above.

 

Unless im confused a adventure is always at least 2 maps so it would be 2-5 battles. Skins are always expensive in games and while i don't mind them being cheaper before everyone had every skin because they where just that cheap so why not get them all. Which devalues the skin it self for a few reasons and leaves me less attached to my hero if he has 4 different looks.

Do remember that they give you a free skin and a free adventure with the tutorial so unless you plan to get a ton of skins you have a first time deal of two for the price of one kinda. So all in all I'm happy about my value for money and if you don't see the point in spending more than 20$ than you probably shouldn't.

The game is awesome but its also f2p so there really is no need to pay outside of supporting the devs which is why i was one of the first to drop 50$ despite not having plans for more than 500 or so pizza and not planing to do chests.

 

First of all: Sorry for posting in the wrong forum .

@skip_intro: Thanks for the view. I guess the Treasure Maps are a no-brainer (and more of those are coming, I am sure). To me it looks like you are sharing my sentiments exactly and that the internal pricing may benefit from adjusting. Hmm. I do want to throw some money at Blue Manchu, I just don't know my best value for money option. Yet.

@Wozarg: I can agree on the skins - they really are optional after all.

What do think about the Pizza/$ progression I outlined in orange?

 

Hard to say, since my understanding is that most F2P models focus on generating lots of revenue from a handful of "whales" and accepting that lots of people will literally pay nothing. From my perspective, yes, the monthly fee thing is kind of wacky. I can't see myself paying for that at all. On the flip side, the permanent unlock of the adventure packs struck me as a great value - it is why I would definitely buy "some" pizza. I think it really depends on how they have modeled it out. Maybe $20 is a good price point for someone like me - but you do have to leave options for the big spenders to use.

 

Well i think the current one is a tiny bit on the shallow side maybe but yours seem very steep. I do still think that the club membership cost is also on the high side and i would love to see it being something like 200 pizza a month. So don't think I'm not looking for value just as you are. I'm actually tight for money and those 50$ i threw in are basically my game budget for the first half of the year so i also want value for money. To me its more important how they cost things than how much pizza you get as i don't want 5000000 pizza for my 50$. So as it stands right now if i got a little bit more pizza for my money i would be very happy same goes for the price of club going down a tiny bit. But other than that I'm actually happy with how things look.

I'm sure a lot of people don't agree with this but i actually think purple chest should go up in pizza price to make people think twice about buying power and if they still do it they pay up good to the team that made a great game.

 

It's great to see the "red box" around some more. Awesome. Because you're interested, here are some old threads where we hypothesized like crazy about what would be worth buying:

http://www.cardhunter.com/forum/threads/how-would-you-like-to-pay-for-card-hunter.51
http://www.cardhunter.com/forum/thr...ss-and-hopes-for-the-way-it-will-really-be.75

There have been others.

For the chart: as you say, it isn't to scale. I personally teach statistics and therefore I know I cannot use this chart. However, the SENTIMENT is one with which I agree: exponential return for your cash is good.

The issue is that Blue Manchu is still actively considering their system, and here I'm not even talking about the prices (which are under revision, and I'm sure your feedback will be helpful). The content is expanding. So we know from their "bonus" offer in the pizza graphic that they'd like use to spend $50. Is this a good deal for bonus figures which don't even cover the full three character classes? I have my suspicions about this: they just added a cluster of undead figures to the game which DO cover the classes, so if these had been prepared earlier, would they have become the bonus figures? (It could even have been a thematic thing: "Ye olde beta testers risen from the grave to wreak havoc on the full release.")

But nope. And there is no level 15 Treasure Hunt, either, which is the only gap in the sequence.

So even beyond the fact that pizza prices are open to revision, they're still creating the game in the first place, including the things that they'd like us to buy. Chests can easily be rebalanced based on beta results, figures can be drawn as quickly as the artist has time, and the very features of the club can change (they already have changed to make custom scenarios non-exclusive). So yes, I like seeing increasing return for your cash, but I don't yet know what you'd BUY with your hypothetical 6000 pizza.

Smaller comments:

You tossed this out briefly, and I see no one discussing it, so it's clearly not your main point--but I disagree with the idea of "buying entire character classs." Locking out non-paying players from strategic content would lead to rebellion. And I have been arguing (repeatedly) against diluting/destroying a strategic game with too many classes, so I particularly disagree with the idea of buying them.

Depends on your definition. Some might like my Fine Brass Toupee. Then that Orc Painting is pretty good. And I'd just love to get my hands on some Slippogriff Caviar. (From here.) I enjoy Diablo greatly, but the items in it are just tools to me: the question is whether the creators made the items themselves interesting. Sure, I just listed non-usable items, but I think Blue Manchu has done a fine job with everything.

 

I think CardHunter should lower their prices and go for mass appeal. Since there's no trading system there needs to be easier ways for players to get good loot.

The club should be 5 bucks a month, and everything else in the game should be priced around it.

 

It's been a while, but the Red Box was my 2nd RPG (after Tunnels & Trolls), and the first one I actually played as an RPG. Sort of. ;-)

My software didn't do to scale (or I couldn't figure out how to). But it did show what I wanted - a much to linear progression (for my taste). Teaching statistics - any chance you'd like to join a friendly PvE-oriented Hex TCG guild? ;-)

Yes, the system is not done, that's why I bothered posting. Throwing $20 at a game is one thing. But at $50 or even $99 I want to make sure that I get my money's worth out of it. And I tend to be a completist (for some reason I have problems with buying a game that has extensions, and just play the basic game. I like to have the whole enchilada, even if end up never playing the extensions. Character fault, I guess.

If you want $50 out of a customer, I feel you should really offer some swag beyond the $20 investment. In other words: If you scale the number of Pizza (I expect changes to what you can buy with Pizza, too, but I want to keep this ceteris paribus ) more like my suggestion, I believe you will receive a much higher number of initial investment than with the current scale.

My argument is: At this point any given player is much more likely to spend $20 than he is to spend $50 than he is $99. There is no "penalty" for not spending higher, apart from not getting the Egyptian Cleric skin.

In my curve, you have a very good incentive to pay $50 (because you get 48 Pizza / $) or even $99 (60 Pizza / $).

The player spending $20 initially might never make another purchase. Neither may the player who paid $50 - but the net gain for Blue Manchu is $30. Since it's a virtual product, you don't have a lot of cost (paying the artists for more drawings is relatively cheap and you need to expand the world with more adventures anyway to keep the players interest and keep a cash flow going).

Can you follow my argument?

 

This is the very reason I'm not going to spend any money on this game yet. Seriously. I'm happy to support an indie game that's trying something different, and I enjoy playing Card Hunters, but when I'm forced to massively overpay for the subscription? No thanks! That's just far too grabby for my liking. Yes, it makes sense that you should get more pizza when you spend more money, but deliberately curring off the levels right below what you need for the subscription? That's just blatent money grabbing, and I'd be worried about more things like that happening in the future, enough so that I wouldn't want to put any money into the game lest something else like that comes up in the future.

 

i have to disagree with you on this one its not cutting off right before in any way and if you simply remove the bonus pizza it looks even less right before it look between decent and good. If your problem is with the 20 and 5 not making a 3 month subscription then just get the 1 dollar pack and make it 26. Its not like its a massive scam where you have to buy them 10 dollar at a time and can only use 90%.

That said if they lower the monthly just a tiny bit like i wish they would its going to leave you some over and people will complain about that to i bet.

 

You can buy a 1 dollar pack?

 

Totally. Rising value is common in marketing (e.g., "buy in bulk"). I also hope there's something people would want to buy with that extra pizza.

The red box was probably the first bit of magic to enter my gaming household (and I don't mean the card game "Magic"--that was later). Next came solo RPG's like Lone Wolf and The Way of the Tiger. Somewhere in there I got a Commodore 64 and played The Temple of Apshai. I grew up during some nice years.

And I've only heard the name "Hex"; I don't actually know anything about it.

 

Over time I am sure there will be. The potential is there for sure.

I don't even remember playing it that much - my main playing time as a youth was AD&D. I wish I hadn't sold it all so early - my books would have been worth a fortune 3 years after I sold (and Ebay existed).

It's a high-flying attempt to revitalize competitive TCG online. The rules are very close to Magic/WoW, which is not surprising as it is done by Cryptozoic, who currently publish the WoW TCG for Blizzard (IIRC they are a spin-off from some Blizzard guys after Upper Deck lost the license.

What I find cool is that they implement a supposedly huge PvE component - where you take your decks through dungeons and even three-player raids, WoW style.

It's a more or less a classic TCG, though. If you have ever been into those, you know it can be a very costly hobby. Of course theoretically it's Free-to-Play ;-).

www.hextcg.com
www.unnamed-council.com (the relaxed PvE-oriented guild I am in - mostly 30+ people and old geezers like me - 40+)

 

I never considered that a problem as any "leftover" pizza can be converted into gold.

I very much love Card Hunter, but I am realistic enough to know that a relatively challenging turn-based tactical game is *NOT* going to attract millions of players like a Free2Play MMORPG or Facebook game. Therefore I do think that by necessity Card Hunter needs to be more expensive than the typical Free2Play game. Having said that, how to best spend your money/pizza depends on you playing habits. My $20 purchase plan you linked to is based on the idea that somebody is likely to play a new game a lot when he gets it, and a bit less later. So if you buy the extra adventures and one month club membership early on, you'll get the most bang for your buck, as the club membership doubles the guaranteed rares/epics you only get on the first playthrough of an adventure. Furthermore collecting gear has inherent diminishing returns, the more items you already have the less any additional club membership item helps you. But if during one month you only play Card Hunter a few times, the club membership is a lot less interesting, and chests become better, relatively speaking.

 

I just realized that Temple of Apshai had to have come before D&D for me: the character statistics in the computer game were tied to D&D dice rolls, but no one in my family could figure out why. A little amusement there.

Well, good for 'em. I'll be over here getting my Unholy Priest to transform the undead into slushie energy drinks.

 

I think I agree with the point you are making here. When I first played the game I was thinking "I love this game and I want to spend money on it". Then I looked at what I could buy:

• Premium adventures. These leapt out at me as being the thing I wanted. $10 (or in my case about £6.50) for more adventures seemed fair, maybe even generous.
• Figures. These would be nice but at the price they are they feel expensive. On a personal note I also know that if I even bought 1 I'd want to buy 9 to cover male and female options for all races and classes. That comes out near $20. Compared to the $10 for more adventures it just feels... wrong. Maybe they could do deals on figurines, like for x pizza you can get a warrior, a wizard and a priest or three elves of your choice or something.
• The Card Hunter Club. Doesn't appeal to me. It's a boost in terms of loot, but I didn't really feel like I needed or wanted it.
• Chests. See above.

So I was in the curious position of wanting to spend money but feeling like I wasn't going to get good value for the money I spent, which actually put me off spending money!

In the end the Beta test alone has provided me with enough enjoyment, all for free, that I'm simply going to spend the money to support the game. I'm fortunate enough that I have a moderate amount of disposable income so what I anticipate doing is buying $50 of pizza, but most of it will probably remain as pizza in my account (thankfully this pizza doesn't go stale). On the other hand, if I was hard pressed for money there's no way I would consider spending more than $10 given what is currently on offer.

Finally there's the 'issue' of things that are currently free that I would pay for:

• Custom (i.e. user-created) scenarios. This used to be tied to the Card Hunter Club, which I didn't like. For the moment it is free, which I think is crazy awesome. This is really made up of two components:
  • The ability to play custom scenarios. Some very good points were made in another thread about why this should be free. I'll track down the link and edit it in if I have time later.
  • The ability to make custom scenarios. I'm really surprised that this is free and this is definitely something that I would be happy to make a one-time payment of, say, $5-$10 for.

I've been racking my brains trying to come up with other ideas for premium content, but that would probably warrant its own thread if I could only actually manage to come up with something good (maybe a survival mode, they seem common in games at the moment).

As for the dollar to pizza exchange rate, I'm not really sure. Encouraging buying in bulk seems sensible, but I don't feel like there's really enough reason to buy a large amount pizza at the moment. Giving me even more pizza on top of the large quantity of pizza that I already don't know what to do with... well, I'll end in the same way as your quote ends above: meh.

 

I also really loved this game and thought "I would like to spend some money to support it." Then I looked at the prices, and I didn't think any of it looked generous. $50 is a lot to spend on a game, and personally I wouldn't even spend it on a game with much higher production values than this one. You are going to get a few big fans for whom money isn't an issue, but for someone who just wants to throw down a couple bucks to show some support, there really isn't a worthwhile option. I, and two other people I have discussed the game with, all agree that the prices should be at least halved from what they are now. The most successful internet companies haven't done it by catering to rich people, but about pleasing the crowd and getting lots of folks involved. In my opinion, you could probably make more money in the long run with easier buy-in levels, so someone will get beat by superior weaponry and say "well, I guess I'll buy some loot too" rather than "screw this, it's tipped too far in the favor of folks who have money to burn."