Value Boosters in Bloomburrow.
With the discontinuation of the draft booster, there was a void in the market for a cheaper booster product. Play boosters typically cost between 4 dollars and 6 dollars, depending on the set, and that is actually quite expensive for a casual experience. The audience has been demanding a cheaper booster product because people like the thrill and excitement of cracking packs. The adrenaline is quite addictive and that experience can not be matched by opening a preconstructed starter deck or commander deck. Even so, they did attempt to put a taste of opening packs into commander decks in the form of the collector booster sample pack. Wizards of the Coast's market research must show that adding the collector booster to commander decks leads to more people going out and buying more product. The sample pack is not meant to be a free include but is meant to mimic the, "first one is free," drug mentality that gets so many people hooked. The starter decks and commander decks do a great job, value value, of giving players a product that they can play right out of the box and upgrade over time. Yet, you need to know your market! Of course, you should buy the singles you need and not risk your money on what is essentially a mystery box. However, that is simply not the reality of our world. People want to open pack. Players want to experience the rush of tearing the pack open and smelling the new cards. The sense of excitement as you flip through the cards. Your anticipation builds as you get closer to the pack hit. The, either you hit big and want to relive the experience or you miss and you feel the urge to open more packs until your body feels the reward chemicals released into your body. The value boosters are merely a product meant to prey on our emotions and desires using research to maximize squeezing money out of groups of people. That can not be replicated by buying cards on the secondary market. Wizards is selling a feeling. Other companies like card kingdom or tcgplayer sell cards. It is possible to sell emotions for a reasonable price but these products typically target people with addictive personalities and are exploitative. Do I think this new value booster is any more exploitative than any other random booster product? Currently, there are are a lot of unkowns. First, the price of a pack, or even an approximate price, has not been stated. There is no more msrp but they sometimes include an approximate cost. In the very short article that introduces this product, there is no discussion of the price. It is only stated that this is a more budget-friendly option for players that just want to open cards. The price is going to matter. Sometimes I would see pokemon or yugioh cards in family dollar or dollar tree. These packs were only a dollar and less than two dollars. As a parent, shutting my kid up with a one dollar pack while I shop could prove worth it. How many times did you beg your parent for something in a store as a kid that you didn't even really want? Getting mtg cards into these dollar stores will widen the audience that is exposed to the game. Now, kids will start to recognize mtg from a younger age because they see the products alongside pokemon cards. If the price of a pack is less than 2 dollars, I will say that the value pack will be a success. It is a cheap way to get cards into the hands of a younger audience. Society is typically much more ok with spending a buck or two on something rather than 5 dollars. Wizards of the Coast is releasing this new product to widen the brand and not really to sell more cards. These value packs are meant to expose children to mtg when they are young as an on ramp to the game when they are a little older. if I have mtg cards as a kid and then I see a crossover with my favorite franchise, then these marketing strategies are meant to continuously draw people back into the game. Expose someone to something when they are young and you may have hooked them for the rest of their lives.
