Physical vs Digital: How Shadow Era cost itself $$$

[Killtrend]

I'm not even going to pull statistics. Not going to post personal opinion. Not going to go into the void that could have been filled. I'm just going to post this and an alternate universe for you, and let you chew on it.

Shadow Era announces physical cards! Foils, meet and greets, physical goodies, and sparse IRL tournaments start popping up. Main competitors are MtG, Pokemon, Yugioh. Shelf space is fought for against bigger titles. Tournaments are hard to find, if not impossible. Vendor problems hinder outreach. Future is heavily dependent on community foothold in extremely thin markets.

Shadow Era announces Xbox Live/Playstation title. Possibly motion support. Xbox Smartglass revolutionizes split screen card gaming by hiding hands from opponents playing on the same TV. Main competitors have no real console foothold yet due to lack of customization of decks, giving Shadow Era a major edge. Gaming headsets allow for playful banter, and Clan party chat during games.

I could go on... Just think about it. What would this game be like if the investment was made to further digital rather than paper?

Side note to Kyle - Kickstarter. Request funds to bring Shadow Era to console(s) quoting it as "The MtG killer". Raise 10s of thousands of dollars.

[snow_man]

What would this game be like if the investment was made to further digital rather than paper?

I am not sure why people keep thinking the physical cards are what is hurting this game... If anything, they are reviving it time and time again. The timelines for new cards being launched is not hampered by physical cards. Its hampered by apple updates. (something digital). What would this game be without ios is the real question here.

As Kyle previously stated, they initially wanted to do 50 card launches, but found that balancing would be more painful in small batches, and would mess with DIGITAL tournements. Nothing like a random ios launch mid tourney.

Investments take $$. Physical produced around half a million dollars in the past 18 months just by pre-orders alone. Seeing as they sold all of the rest of their complete play set stock, I would venture that number to be upwards around 1million dollars.

I don't disagree with your point on kickstarter, although it might be a hard sell to place a free to play game on there. While Wulven would lose 5% on sales by placing cards there, I wish they would place their pre-order on that page just for the advertising fact alone.

Going back to my original point, with currency coming in via the physical cards, why such dislike for them?

[The Card Fox]

I am not sure why people keep thinking the physical cards are what is hurting this game... If anything, they are reviving it time and time again. The timelines for new cards being launched is not hampered by physical cards. Its hampered by apple updates. (something digital). What would this game be without ios is the real question here.

As Kyle previously stated, they initially wanted to do 50 card launches, but found that balancing would be more painful in small batches, and would mess with DIGITAL tournements. Nothing like a random ios launch mid tourney.

Investments take $$. Physical produced around half a million dollars in the past 18 months just by pre-orders alone. Seeing as they sold all of the rest of their complete play set stock, I would venture that number to be upwards around 1million dollars.

I don't disagree with your point on kickstarter, although it might be a hard sell to place a free to play game on there. While Wulven would lose 5% on sales by placing cards there, I wish they would place their pre-order on that page just for the advertising fact alone.

Going back to my original point, with currency coming in via the physical cards, why such dislike for them?

The only people who buy physies are A) ones who have othercplayers around and B) ones who actiually have money.
I have neither. Don't turn this into an iOs issue either, both Apple and Android have their setbacks.
Still, IF I HAD money, I'd blow it on the digital version that I know I can actually get some playtime in with. The cards won't crinkle or crease causs..they're digital.

I hope my horrible train of thought was understood.

[Killtrend]

Well, here's a thought: who here has people around them to play with? Of those, who can generate enough traction to get even a basic "Friday Night Magic-esque" tournament up? My friends at the local card shop have no idea what Shadow Era is, but can name half a dozen "Minecraft" D-Rated Xbox copycats.

Console outreach is larger, and smarter if you want the market saturation needed for a card game to go physical. Console Games can go viral overnight. Add in some functionality that's novel like SmartGlass for a console card game and you have just created a foothold(that MtG can't get btw, because they don't give you customizability). Hell, consoles can sell a million dollars for a game via avatar items. What's the ROI for that?

1 million dollars is a drop in the bucket as many who ordered were likely doing it for collection, nostalgia or distribution... Not playability. I don't believe physical is a sustainable business model for SE. But hey, I could be wrong. Maybe I'll see some tournaments pop up here soon.

At the end of the day, this thread was about losing money. Even if physical limps along. I believe the next step for this game was consoles and they jumped the shark. It could have been genre changing.

[The Card Fox]

Wulven is notorious for bad multitasking. I'd like to see them fix the mobile issues and pc issues of SE first and foremost. Once they get that done I have no problem with advocating a PS3 TCG

[Unruler]

First of all you have to understand that SE is a phone game. And that orientation certainly hindering PC version progress because you have to worry about small phone screens and compatibility.

Secondly, yes, physical cards are the second shot in the foot of digital version, things like set locks and no errata policy hampered and in some cases even denied the progress of digital game in terms of balance tweaks and release dates.

Lastly, to enter a console market you need to contract platform owner: Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo and this may involve spending money with no guarantee of success on said market. And now is very bad time to try to approach consoles when next gen is coming and XBox arcade is closing. There are some indications that next Xbox may target more casual auditory (like Wii) and PS 4 is gona be topdog amongst core gamers so maybe there is a point to develop for it instead of Xbox to capitalize on initial small game selection.

However this will do more bad than good because if devs will need to worry about additional compatibility release dates will be pushed even further down the line, especially considering Kyle's love for "simultaneous" releases.

[Ballyworld]

Secondly, yes, physical cards are the second shot in the foot of digital version, things like set locks and no errata policy hampered and in some cases even denied the progress of digital game in terms of balance tweaks and release dates.

Couldn't have said it better. Erratta will hit someday. Just look at the recent bruhaha over FT/SK vs SW/PoU. All the dedication of DT and PFG and test release didn't reveal this relatively small problem. More cards, More permutations will generate an eventual need for errata to earlier cards....

[Unruler]

Couldn't have said it better. Erratta will hit someday. Just look at the recent bruhaha over FT/SK vs SW/PoU. All the dedication of DT and PFG and test release didn't reveal this relatively small problem. More cards, More permutations will generate an eventual need for errata to earlier cards....

Well, as a digital player, I don't care about errata all that much (since I deal with how cards work in the game), I'm more concerned about missed opportunities with rebalancing some old useless cards like Campfire Stories or Selfishness, because flavor-wise they're good.

[Jo3yb0i]

i do agree that physical shadowera is slowing down the game simply because they are trying to do side by side the release of each expansion with physical. I feel that if they focus on one thing, which is digital, they will be able to move at a faster rate then once 4-5 expansions have been released maybe do physical card. Because as of now, its too early for shadowera to compete with the existing TCGs on the market. What is a 450 card list compared to yugioh or mtg 1000-2000 card list.

[Ballyworld]

Well, as a digital player, I don't care about errata all that much (since I deal with how cards work in the game), I'm more concerned about missed opportunities with rebalancing some old useless cards like Campfire Stories or Selfishness, because flavor-wise they're good.

I've stuck to all digital as well and agree that no-errata policy related to physical has hurt some chances to modify earlier cards already as you mentioned.