Deckstarter BS

[vmagic]

So if you were one the so-called "lucky" ones, you may have gotten an email today from Deckstarter/Art of Play, to go buy their new Deckstarter deck. It is "supposed" to be for the lucky 500 who signed up and you are "supposed" to be limited to one per person, says so in the email and an artofplay.com BUT you can actually checkout with as many as you want and ANYONE can go and buy these on artofplay.com. To top it off these lame beauties cost $15 each! Just why do Dan & Dave think they can continue to jack up prices of cards and pump out crap time and time again?

[CBJ]

"Thanks for your interest in DeckStarter. We can't wait to share it with you! As we continue to develop the site in preparation for release this March we invite you to take part in this exclusive offer.

Be 1 of 500 lucky owners of our Limited Edition Deck of Playing Cards. Printed for promotional purposes, these will not be available for sale to anyone else.

Your support will greatly enhance the overall quality and success of DS.


Please make your purchase within 24 hours of this email to guarantee ownership of the DeckStarter deck. Limited to one deck per customer. Please do not share the link. Thanks!"



My open letter to Dan and Dave


"I can not express enough how disappointed I am with your latest promotion for the "deckstarter" deck.

Your company send out these e-mail telling people how lucky they are to be one of the 500 that will be able to buy this deck... and it's limited to one per person.

But.. ANYONE can buy, and you can buy MULTIPLE decks.

I really don't understand the logic behind a blatant lie like this. I could always overlook some of your other questionable sales tactics ( "no more s&m deck", insanely priced nail clippers, etc ), but this idiotic false sales scheme has pushed me over the limit.

I have nearly 700 different decks in my collection, and you have now lost me as a customer.

point blank... I'm insulted"

[bhong]

I wish, in order to promote, Deckstarter they had done a beautiful deck and not something that took 20 minutes at most on Photoshop.

I'm quite welcome to being charged more for something as long as its worth it. I know it's not cheap to hire a good artist/designer/illustrator to design a deck, but create something amazing and people will gladly pay the price for it.

[piegoesmoo]

edit: I found the link to them. If you want to, it's not very difficult to guess. Here are the pictures.

[Anthony]

Ya, I got the email earlier today and just finished my rant to a friend, I mean really, do they think people are that stupid? I mean it's just such a blatant slap in the face. They must really think we're special..........special kind of idiots.

I truly hope nobody falls for this BS.

[CBJ]

D&D responded to my open letter


"You are completely incorrect. We are limiting the orders. Anyone can see the page and add to their carts, but you must have only 1 DeckStarter deck in your cart to check out. Shopify does not allow us to limit the product to certain people, but we will be checking and refunding those that are not one of the 500. This is a limited release and only one is available to each person. We are doing our best to be good on our Word. Before you post slanderous material on our wall and in public, please feel free to check with us in private if you have a problem. We would appreciate you removing this status, since you are publicly incorrect."


For now, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.  But I do know someone who was able to order more than 1 in a single order


CBJ

[Anthony]

Ok, well you can't check out with more than one....now. 15 or so minutes ago I was able to put in and proceed to the step before actual payment without any issue. NOW...if you put in more then one, it says to lower your quantity.

Slander aside....still not worth $15.00, even with a 500 deck run.

[Anthony]

...oh and so much for the chosen few 
Not to mention when you click on the item you get the same, "If your reading this...." blah, blah, blah

[piegoesmoo]

They appear to have fixed visibility issues. But like I said, it's not hard to find the link.

[badpete69]

For one I am not sure why everyone is taking this so personally. It's only a deck of cards. You don't want it don't buy it period. I got the email earlier, bought the deck and didn't think nothing of it hehehe.  Have a cold beer guys it's not the end of the world. But then again  I am a card slut.  I must have 1 of everything that exists 

[Don Boyer]

It's got more to do with the "intriguing" way that some of D&D's products have been marketed in the past.

So, they fixed the "more than one deck" glitch.

Supposedly, they'll be going over the orders and only letting those on the mailing list get a pack.  Only time will tell if any of this is to be believed, since it does sound a wee bit far-fetched.

As far as cardistry, they're great.

As far as a great selection of magic in their shop, particularly in print, they're hard to beat.

As far as their cards, the most exciting thing I've seen them put out in perhaps a year or two are two reprint decks.  That's it.  To me, they'd be a better company if they just got out of the cards business.

BTW: you do realize what this whole Deckstarter thing is supposed to be, right?  It's D&D's answer to Kickstarter - they want to start making other people's decks.  To be more accurate, they're a mix of Kickstarter and HOPC.  Would you want to make a deck with these guys?

On a positive note, it's one way to insure their deck designs are more interesting - let other people design them!

[Nurul]

It's not exactly limited to one per person, per se. Technically speaking, if you purchase their new autumn/winter variety box, it come with a deckstarter deck. That's not really staying true to their word if they're offering it in a variety box that anyone can purchase, even if it is only 144 available.

[Don Boyer]

It's not exactly limited to one per person, per se. Technically speaking, if you purchase their new autumn/winter variety box, it come with a deckstarter deck. That's not really staying true to their word if they're offering it in a variety box that anyone can purchase, even if it is only 144 available.

The Variety Box is a different product.  Not the same offer.

Been looking over the Art of Play website.

OK, $500 for a pack of Jerry's from a retailer isn't beyond the pale.  $100 for a pack of red or blue Rounders is pushing your luck.  But $88 FOR A PACK OF FULTON'S CHINATOWN?!?  The 5,000-deck print run that took them over four months to sell out?  It's all I can do to keep from laughing my ass off.

Having said all that, if you can weed through the crazy-stupid offers, their pricing isn't all that bad for much of the rest.  Plus they have a few hard-to-find decks at decent prices.

[Anthony]

It's not exactly limited to one per person, per se. Technically speaking, if you purchase their new autumn/winter variety box, it come with a deckstarter deck. That's not really staying true to their word if they're offering it in a variety box that anyone can purchase, even if it is only 144 available.

The Variety Box is a different product.  Not the same offer.

Been looking over the Art of Play website.

OK, $500 for a pack of Jerry's from a retailer isn't beyond the pale.  $100 for a pack of red or blue Rounders is pushing your luck.  But $88 FOR A PACK OF FULTON'S CHINATOWN?!?  The 5,000-deck print run that took them over four months to sell out?  It's all I can do to keep from laughing my ass off.

Having said all that, if you can weed through the crazy-stupid offers, their pricing isn't all that bad for much of the rest.  Plus they have a few hard-to-find decks at decent prices.

I think over all AoP is fine, they do offer some decent pricing on some harder to find decks as you stated Don, but yes they do have  a deck or two you just kind of scratch your head on. Especially things like the Fraggle Rock deck for $25.00 when they are still available from Spare Room for much less. But then on the Flip side, you can still get v1 Legends at a decent price and their shipping rates are more than fair. It just seems at times that certain products and how they are marketed seem very contrived and comes across as a bit misleading.

[bhong]

It's not exactly limited to one per person, per se. Technically speaking, if you purchase their new autumn/winter variety box, it come with a deckstarter deck. That's not really staying true to their word if they're offering it in a variety box that anyone can purchase, even if it is only 144 available.

The Variety Box is a different product.  Not the same offer.

Been looking over the Art of Play website.

OK, $500 for a pack of Jerry's from a retailer isn't beyond the pale.  $100 for a pack of red or blue Rounders is pushing your luck.  But $88 FOR A PACK OF FULTON'S CHINATOWN?!?  The 5,000-deck print run that took them over four months to sell out?  It's all I can do to keep from laughing my ass off.

Having said all that, if you can weed through the crazy-stupid offers, their pricing isn't all that bad for much of the rest.  Plus they have a few hard-to-find decks at decent prices.

I think over all AoP is fine, they do offer some decent pricing on some harder to find decks as you stated Don, but yes they do have  a deck or two you just kind of scratch your head on. Especially things like the Fraggle Rock deck for $25.00 when they are still available from Spare Room for much less. But then on the Flip side, you can still get v1 Legends at a decent price and their shipping rates are more than fair. It just seems at times that certain products and how they are marketed seem very contrived and comes across as a bit misleading.

I think the best way to look at it is that it's "good business" and they're only really taking advantage of those that aren't willing do that little bit more of a research to see if they can find the deck else where, especially for something like the Fraggle Rock deck. It's like those that buy a Blue JAQK off of eBay instead of searching and seeing that JAQK cellar's own site still sells the T11 version of the Blue JAQK. You get what you pay of when you don't bother to try that little bit more.

[badpete69]

My deckstarter deck came in today.  It's all wrapped in  black D&D paper with a seal

[jwats01]

Mine came in yesterday also. I'm wondering if they wrap all their orders like that. I'd ordered a 2nd deck, and the 2 decks were wrapped together.

Was your DS deck in cellophane or no? Mine was not.

[badpete69]

My deck is wrapped in cellophane and sealed. Then covered in that black D&D paper wrap with a custom seal.  Weird is there different types of decks?

[Anthony]

Art of Play uauallt wraps all there decks in tissue-like paper with the AoP Spade logo seal....was there a different seal on your decks? Just curiuos.

[Wilko]

Got my deckstarter deck today. Ordered with a couple of HMNIM decks!
They came nicely packaged, in great condition (no dings). The best part is the speed. I ordered on Friday, they dispatched on Saturday and they arrived in the uk today using there cheapest international shipping option.
Decent service.

[badpete69]

Already one listed on ebay for $80

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DeckStarter-Limited-Edition-Playing-Cards-Only-500-Available-Dan-Dave-Buck-/151235349671?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2336544ca7