TOPIC: Factory Sealed

Wow, so much for thinking that Douglas just had a pretty face he ot smarts too!!! :O<br /><br />And thing John this all started cause you wanted everyone to know about the factory sealed packs heh!!!<br /><br />OK check this out everyone!!!!!<br /><br />this is how a thread should go!<br /><br />A.) Start a topic.                  Getting off topic!<br />B.) Talk about the topic.              :laughing4:<br />C.) If someone gets off topic Ignore them!<br />D.) Continue talking about .....*Gives up*<br /><br />Hey all how about the ratio of monsters HP to players HP in any given dungeon? Balanced?<br /><br /><br />Just my 2 cents!! :bs:<br /><br />*thanks to DD I got beat to the punch*<br />

I think one NEW thing of note...token trading sure has taken on an increased audience and an increased value on the UR and more useful items.<br /><br />I recall when 10-15 REDS was hard to fathom for an UR - now we are seeing high 20's for the big items.<br /><br />

I got a awesome deal!!

<br />What was this topic about again?  hehehehehe :evil6:<br />

<br /><br />Haha, yeah.  First it was Common distributions in Factory Sealed packs.  Then it migrated to the importance of Commons in light of a "maturing" True Dungeon population.  Then it moved to whether or not there were fewer "new players".  And then moved to a discussion about the philosophy behind new vs. returning customers.<br /><br />Talk about thread hi-jack!  =D  But I'm entitled to a couple a month, right Joyus?  =)

Hey I'm just glad to see I'm not the only one!  =D<br />Please thread-jack away with my blessing. <br />Um but do watch yerself about weavers threads. *meep* *flits back off to work*

<br />Wow, so much for thinking that Douglas just had a pretty face <br />

<br /><br />Um, pretty face??  :puke:

Doug, I think you have an admirer.

<br />Mike,<br /><br />Thanks for the feedback.  It’s an interesting philosophical topic.  Here are some more thoughts:<br /><br />Certainly there are many reasons that a person might not come to GenCon from year to year.  That’s taken into account.  But look at the extremes.  It would not be healthy if new players made up 100% of the players in any given year.  This would be extremely concerning as it means that you have zero customer retention.   At the other extreme if 100% of the players were returning players, this would be concerning as well, but less so.  It would mean that there is zero growth and attrition would eventually take its toll on ticket sales.<br /><br />So given that both extremes are not good, this means that there exists an ideal percentage of new players.    A lot of research has been done on this in business schools and the ideal percentage depends on the Business Model for a given company.<br /><br />But ultimately the goal is to grow and then maintain a healthy customer base.  This is done through customer retention (a quality event and availability) and growth of the customer base through a stream of new players (advertising and word of mouth).  True Dungeon is odd though in that there are a fixed number of slots.  So we need to look at the percentages of new customers (among other things) to gauge growth and health of the customer base.  But it is a mistake to draw the conclusion that faster sales means an increase in this customer base.  People hear about quick sales and people are afraid of getting shut out.  So they try harder and earlier to get the slots they and their friends want.  <br /><br />So what is the ideal percentage?  I don't know.  But think of it this way.  As the player base grows, the need for growth decreases.  In the beginning, businesses need rapid growth but when you are producing at capacity like True Dungeon is doing now, it is retention that becomes more important.  <br /><br />So yes, of course True Dungeon wants a player base larger that the capacity provided because there are reasons why a certain percentage of the existing player base will not play each year, can't get time off work, can't afford it, other events going on, etc.  You can also leverage the size of your customer base and increase prices (if Jeff wanted to go that route).  But when there are 10,000 players who want to play True Dungeon, do we need a significant percentage of players to be new?  Only in so much as that it counters attrition to the customer base.  Beyond that, an increasing percentage of new players should be a warning sign.<br /><br />-Douglas<br />

<br /><br />Hi Douglas,<br /><br />Thank you as well for the interesting thoughts.  <br /><br />I agree with much of what you're saying.  Of course 100% new players for an event that is several years old would be bad, as would 100% returning players.  You do need a mix, and I don't think anyone has determined what the ideal mix for True Dungeon would be for new and returning players, nor do we have firm numbers on how many new players we have had on each year (other than 2003 of course, when it was 100% new players).  So, it's impossible to debate with any accuracy whether the current percentage of new players is healthy or unhealthy given that we don't have accurate data on what the ideal state is or what the current state is.<br /><br />I also agree that it would be a danger sign if the percentage of new players was markedly increasing each year - but we don't know that is the case, as we have no numbers as to how many new players there have been each year.  And there are other factors that come into play, for instance it would not be surprising that there might be more new players in 2006 than in 2005, since 2005 had two unique dungeons and 2006 just had one.  <br /><br />As far as ticket sales go, True Dungeon is equally healthy whether the percentage of new players is higher or lower as long as the tickets sell out, and will continue to sell out for the foreseeable future, which I believe they will.  On the other hand, True Dungeon's financial health is dependent upon more than one revenue stream.  Ticket sales is one revenue stream, while token sales is another very important revenue stream.<br /><br />Certainly it is important to retain the hard-core True Dungeon fans that are big spenders each year on tokens.  On the other hand, it could be argued that True Dungeon token sales will remain healthier in the long run if there is a large influx of new players each year, who start collecting treasure tokens each year.  With just a static pool of True Dungeon fans buying tokens, eventually the market will be glutted with tokens.  If you have new people coming into the hobby each year buying tokens, that provides a larger base of token buyers.  It would be interesting to see studies of token spending broken down by how many years they had played True Dungeon.  <br /><br />You mention that it would be a mistake to assume that faster sales means more people wanting to play.  I agree that you can't make that definitive conclusion without more data - but it would be an equally big mistake to assume that the faster sales doesn't mean there are more people wanting to play.  One of the most obvious reasons why tickets are selling out faster each year could be that the base of people wanting to play is growing, and competition for the fixed number of tickets is increasing and resulting in faster sell-out times.  You can certainly conclude that the current state of True Dungeon is extremely healthy given that there are so many more people wanting to play than there are available slots.  <br /><br />Now, if we ever did see some real figures on percentages of new players each year, the demographics of token buying, etc., we could have discussions on the topic grounded in facts, which would be fascinating.  <br /><br />Thanks!<br />Mike

Is there a question on the feedback card at the end of the dungeon regarding if you are a new player or not?<br /><br />Kim

I imagine that True Dungeon has some of that data, in fact if you look at the experience database you could probably derive a very detailed analysis of what percentage of players each year are 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year, etc.  You could also do some interesting analysis on how many players quit after one year, two years, etc., and how many skip one or more years and then come back to play.  I'd love to see some studies like that.  True Dungeon probably also has raw data from which could be derived numbers such as how many people do multiple runs each year, and how many multiple runs they do.  Looking at the various years you might be able to make a connection between how many multiple runs people do when Hardcore is introduced, when there is a single dungeon, when there are multiple unique dungeons, and when there are multiple identical dungeons.  <br /><br />Mike

<br />I think one NEW thing of note...token trading sure has taken on an increased audience and an increased value on the UR and more useful items.<br /><br />I recall when 10-15 REDS was hard to fathom for an UR - now we are seeing high 20's for the big items.<br /><br /><br />

<br /><br />I think there are several factors here, four of which are:  <br />- creasing number of "big spenders" on loads of tokens.<br />- The Token Exchange where you can get a Random Purple for 25 Rares.  If that happens, it seems to say that a Chosen Purple should be valued higher.<br />- fear of bidders - "if I don't bid high enough, I'll be out-bid"<br />- Of course, something that should devalue the purpls is this year's Pre-order special and continuing "buy $250 in tokens and get a Random Purp" deals.<br /><br />I'm sure we could start (or continue a previous thread's discussion) an entire discussion simply on the value of Purples and what's behind their current rates.<br /><br /><br /><br />JKW