Pilaf prices are actually no worse than regular DS prices

So I noticed everyone is freaking out over the pricing on the new, laughably insignificant, Pilaf packs. It got me thinking about how the prices in Dokkan relate to other similar products, and realising these prices are pretty much exactly as inflated as the Dragon Stone prices.

 

I've been a trading card game collector since the 90s, and if you look at Dokkan as a whole, it shares a vast amount of similarities with TCGs. Let's compare it to the most successful trading card game out there, which would be Magic the Gathering, as most other TCGs follow a fairly similar pricing structure to MtG's.

 

In MtG you open booster packs with around 15 cards in them, one guarranteed to be rare or higher, and a chance of a foil card, which can also be rare or higher. Quite similar to how Dokkan's banners work, seeing as how they avarage out to 1 equivalent of a "rare" per multi, and while you're not guarranteed a rare, you are also not limited to just one (or potentially 2 as in MtG) and can get several in one attempt.

 

Another similarity is that in MtG you are only ever really in need of 4 of the same card. Some like to have more because it is convenient when building several decks, but you could swap those around if you wanted to switch decks and use the same card in different ones. In Dokkan we have the dupe system, which pretty much limits us to only ever needing 5, but it's convenient to get more so you don't have to spend Elder Kais.

 

The last point I would like to bring up, before going into some numbers, is secondary market value. MtG, and most trading card games, have a huge secondary market where collectors and players buy and sell between eachother, resulting in fairly reasonable resale value. Dokkan has a very minor one where nothing retains its value even remotely. Not to mention that, if cared for, your MtG cards will last you for life, and Dokkan will shut down and you will at best have saved some screenshots of your box. For Dokkan it is strictly forbidden in the TOS to sell to a secondary market, while the people behind MtG encourage it.

 

All in all, what this tells us is that the two games are very similar in what they provide, with a slight value boost to the physical card games, as they have a secondary market value that actually compares, and relates, to the primary market. This is why Dokkan's pricing in general is completely ridiculous!

 

Let's look at the prices: (I will be using approximations based on local prices of both products)

A Single Booster Pack/Multi Summon
MtG: $3.5
Dokkan: $35  

 

Well would you look at that! Ten times the price of the, arguably more valuable, physical counterpart.

 

As for what this means for the Pilaf's Trove prices, I feel rather safe saying not even whales are going to be buying those packs. Here I'd like to open up the floor for comments of a rage filled hatred with deep, roiling feelings of betrayal nature.

 

My personal opinion is that 20 bucks is laughable for these packs. 2 bucks though? A tenth of the price? Pretty much spot on and reasonable. So once again they seem to be overcharging ten times over.
It has baffled me from the beginning how these incredibly inflated prices could possibly result in a higher profit or better brand image for Banco, compares to cutting it down to a tenth of what we have costs at now, and seeing, what I can only assume would be, a massive increase in purchases from both whales and those who normally wouldn't buy because of the high cost for what you get.
A thousand whales avaraging a thousand dollars in a month each (that's probably way overshooting reality), or a hundred more people per whale avaraging ten bucks in a month, including the whales who probably still spend up towards the same figures. I feel rather safe in saying the latter makes for a more healthy and long lived game.

 

Thanks for listening to me ramble on about this. And to those who would dismiss it by calling us entitled: Dragon Ball is a big deal. It matters a lot to many of us. You can be a successful company without shitting on 99% of your potential customers, and when you're in charge of something this popular you are only hurting your company brand in the long run if you leave all decisions to quickbuckbot.exe