I have slow internet and I do fine buying rare releases. It is really just too bad for those people then, If you want the deck stay up or set an alarm to get the deck, if they dont that is their problem.
So then you wouldn't mind if the sale took place at 3:15am on a weekday, during a time that your Internet service was down due to a huge storm creating a power outage in your area?
The minute someone says something like "It's their problem", the statements made with it are usually about something that's anything but fair.
The only way to give everyone a fair chance is to do a regular release.
I'll take these an item at a time...
Spend-X to get something just drives the price for the item way up, and only allows people with lots of money to purchase. And it is only good for people who dont own alot from the site
How does it drive the price up? The price of the case remains the same. The fact that you would need to purchase other items as well is a factor, true, but they aren't part of the price of the case. The threshold doesn't need to be up in the sky, really, as far as who can purchase. But still, it's imperfect in that only the first 25 who hit that goal get that case.
Bidding is the worst idea I have ever heard for a release it either screws the buyer or the seller
Agreed. Auctioning would raise cash, but piss off the people without deep pockets - these days, that's a lot of people.
Lottery is stupid because of all the corruption it is prone too and people who dont get a chance to buy will be pissed off.
This I disagree with. Corruption? What incentive does Paul have to run a corrupt auction? Bribery? It's a little ridiculous. You could as easily say all lotteries are awful because of the potential corruption, whether or not such corruption even exists. And who wouldn't be getting a chance? If it's as simple as "buy a deck, get a chance", the only people without a chance are the people who didn't buy a deck, who by the very nature of the customized case would only be interested in it for its potential resale value and have no interest in actually purchasing Paul's primary product, his playing cards.
People just need to stop being whiney when stuff is released and if they get the stuff congrats and if they don't suck it up and hope for luck on the next release.
The ONLY way to release items fairly is on a first-com first-served basis.
I couldn't disagree more on this.
There's one thing that people need to remember about the idea of this little premium product. Paul has probably created it with the intent of having it INCREASE HIS DECK SALES. Letting it go to the first 25 people who log in a purchase, only to see few of them buy his deck and many of them putting it for sale on eBay at pirate's prices, doesn't help his deck sales one bit - if anything, the potential for LOST SALES from frustrated customers is higher in this case.
And don't forget, my idea for this would involve GIVING AWAY the cases rather than actually selling them - in essence, using them as a "loss leader" to get people to buy more decks than they'd originally planned to. In a somewhat modified way, this is what E does with all of their limited-edition decks and other reward items given for purchases of a certain dollar amount - but Paul can't exactly emulate E on this because the cases are beyond rare compared to anything E is offering. There's 5,000 of any rare E deck while there's only 25 Aurum cases.
There are two ways to create "fair" in this case. There's "fair" with near-complete disregard to the sales of Aurum decks, and there's "fair" with the goal of increased sales in mind.
The first version of "fair" would be accomplished if anyone buying anything from him gets exactly one chance, period. It's fair in the sense that everyone has an equal chance, but doesn't aid in the objective of selling more Aurum decks.
The second version of "fair" isn't absolutely fair, but it's a balance of being moderately fair and creating an incentive to buy more Aurum decks, and that's offering people one chance per deck they purchase, then setting a deadline date for a drawing to see who wins the deck cases (and not allowing anyone to obtain more than one case, so someone's winning chance being drawn more than once would simply result in a redraw).
While it's true that people with deeper pockets will purchase more decks and have more chances to get a case, it's also true that their odds won't dramatically increase unless they were buying decks in massive numbers - and in the end, all those decks bought still couldn't result in more than a single case going to that person. Meanwhile, the "little guy" who might normally buy one or two decks still has a shot, and perhaps he'll buy three or four this time instead, with hopes of getting one of those super-rare cases. And he does stand a chance of getting it, and Paul sells a LOT of decks this way. He even can save on shipping costs for his customers, since depending on methods used, it can be as much to send one deck as it would be to ship three to six decks.
