This I can agree with. As a collector its lost most of its shine for me. I also feel with the focus on cards and not new material the whole reason hes a selling point dissipates a bit. So if you give up on creating new effects then the cards should be able to speak for themselves, which in this case has not happened.
I'm also surprised that "this is the more profitable option."
I would have imagined that producing some new material, even if its put on DVD, which they can produce themselves, would be a fraction of the cost. Yes sure some people will by 12 decks or more, but only one DVD. But the dvd might only cost 50c each to produce and bring in $25 or more each. Plus then people would want whatever cards were in said DVD. (which is why I always think its funny to see people using private reserve etc instead of what they have for sale.)
If you make it a small 5 minute download, then only hosting and payment processing is a cost really, even though it might only be $5-$10 per download its a license to print money.'
So I guess IMHO there would have to be better business practice in releasing material as the primary goal and cards, with far better designs, are supplemental to that. Less often and better designed.
I know the prohibition decks were charged at a pretty decent premium. But I imagine if they put the lions den in a small twin pack limited edition box, they would sell out pretty quick, then used the prohibition decks as standard they would have sold squillions! Doing it this way made the prohibition decks cooler, and I would be very, very surprised if the first 5000 lions den didn't "sell out" in a week. But I can't see them selling many more after that initial "must get before anyone else does" phase runs out.
My biggest surprise and disappointment was that they lead with this as the black clubs first "free deck". Also as a mystery deck. Which I think was a waste.
I don't think people will be "hanging out" for the next one currently. If they had, as first cab off the rank, used something really spectacular, really breathtaking, and those mystery packages had really sparked interest, they would have set themselves up for the rest of the year, created buzz for the future releases, and probably sold a truckload more black club memberships.
As it stands you start the negativity its very hard to swing back the other way. This might mean for the rest of the year instead of getting "This new release is a pretty cool deck" they might be battling, "at least its better than the Lions Den deck".
I am almost hesitant to put this out in the open for people to read. I should write it in an envelope, post it to Don and ask him to open it in a couple of months time, when Victor is reviewing one of the new decks and "TaDaaaa" a 3 month multi national, cross global prediction trick!
(Sorry Vic, but you know its gonna happen mate
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