And sometimes bad ideas are just bad ideas, and pulling the "well we're only brainstorming" card is an easy out. If one wants to seriously discuss something, one should at least bother to think through the basic issues involved.

Limited edition comics are economically unfeasible as loot prizes for a redemption system for VS. This is pretty much a given, unless you make "limited edition" so meaningless as to be besides the point. Regular comics are quite feasible, though, and merit further discussion. Like, trade paperbacks, or single issues, or what? Which ones? Et cetera.

Holographic EAs - I want to see a new Spiderman that's swining out of the card!

Some super long stackers too - like the new ones from DLS.

Good to see the contribution. I agree on several of your latter points. (particularly with regard to trade paperbacks/short series)

With regard to the first part:

1. Some ideas have more merit than other. I agree.

2. Most ideas could be more thought out before their
presentation. Again, I agree.

3. When ideas you believe to be "just bad" are presented, you must immediately stifle them to the utmost of your ability, making sure not to invest any effort into understanding where they came from, lest they catch on and lead to the apocalypse....

An obvious exagerration, yes.
Nonetheless it contains my point. I don't deny that there are baaaad ideas. In fact I agree adamently, they happen all the time. Everyone has them, although not everyone puts pen to paper with them.
While they may not seem to add anything to a discourse, what little they do offer vastly overshadows the contribution, or rather lack thereof, contained within comments like "That's a stupid idea!"....

http://www.threedown.com/backgrounds/ambulance.png

(Man, when did people on the internet get so CHICKEN?)

Yep, you've got me dead to rights there.....

Wow.

Way to deliberately avoid the point.

Moving on....

Lemme see if I can be a bit more verbose for you, then. The phenomenon of boldness in internet-based semi-anonymity is well-documented. (Fairly inapplicable in my case because people who know me in real life can attest to me being just as mouthy and combative in person as I am in text, but that's me. I wonder how lesser people do the whole "meek" thing...)

I am thus wondering what happened to said phenomenon in your theory, which relies on people running home and crying to mother that the bad person was all dismissive at them, rather than what usually happens on the Internet, which would be comparing me to Hitler or something.

I wouldn't rule out Godwin's appearance just yet.

Here's some internet boldness for you chdb - UNCLENCH. Having that constant stick up your *** must be really painful.

At least you admit that some type of loot-card system would help the sales of VS... which was the point of bringing up my comic book idea in the other thread.

Regardless of what will be not so "lousy" or cool... anything that gets people to buy VS (whether they play it or not) will still have a positive effect.

Do you actually think that all the people who bought Pokemon or Yugioh actually PLAY that game?

If I was unclear about my feelings regarding reward systems, I apologize. Let me be clear: reward systems are fine. They're good marketing tools to retain customers. They're pretty lousy for attracting new ones, but that's not what they're for.

And "limited edition comics" - which is what you proposed - have a limited use in customer retention because not all VS players buy comics, and thus the expense in making them available would almost certainly outstrip the potential benefit.

Again: your estimation of the number of potential customers who will buy lots of VS just to get a lousy friggin' "exclusive comic" seems, to me, to be dramatically high. The people who buy but don't play Pokemon and YGO aren't buying the cards for any reason other than they like the cards - but they're still buying the cards for the cards.

chdb has tons of good points a lot of the time, even if he is playing Eeyore to stu's Pooh.

You've gotta understand that the bashing each other isn't helping, guys. I love seeing both of your inputs. Many users do. Keep the personal commentary to yourselves though and present great arguments for and against topics instead please. That makes it so much easier to follow your thought patterns in the long run.

And as a guy that gets hard to follow, I know something on that subject :)

Topic:

Loot cards done correctly might just bring in new consumers who've been hanging around at the edge of the game unwilling to try it out, and it might give existing players another thing to chase after. Original art cards autographed would be the absolute coolness. Imagine for a moment if you will, opening a pack and finding a card, with everything normal except the art box. in the art box, instead of a beautifully colored image of your favorite heroes and villains engaged in fisticuffs, you find a black and white hand drawn image signed by Jim Lee. Or Mark Silvestri, or Mike Mignola, or whoever your artistic wet dream is. Would that make your day or what?

And what if PC points could be awarded like this? The secondary market would be a gold mine for hopefuls and dealers alike! Got a lack of events in your area? Cool, here, buy enough product and get a free invite after all. What about winning a complete foil set of the set in question? Or winning a VIP dinner/lunch/meal with designers or artists or whatever? What about replicas of the awesome gear used by those self same heroes and villains? A life size Captain America's shield, Spider-man's web shooters, or even Iron Man's helmut?

The possibilities are nearly endless, and these are just the easy ideas. Imagine the complex stuff?

Thank God, a soothsayer.

Don't hate, create! Or possibly create with hate, but the point is that there shouldn't be just hate and no create. That's not cool.

I like to read points that are logically explained so that even a monkey without the basic intelligence of how to properly wield a hammer could follow the argument. This is probably why I like WaKo posts, though.

This is a given. The idea was not just for "exclusive comics". The bigger picture was some type of loot card system, comics was just a suggestion of what could be done. This thread gives more and probably better examples.

I still feel any type of increase in sales... short-term or otherwise, will help. The fact is, if the product is not financially viable to produce... UDE will probably stop producing it.

rather than an exclusive comic, how about a card with cool art of Green Lantern and scratch box that contains a code you imput online to get a free mail-order 1 year subscription to Green Lantern? that would be cool, and it would get me a-buying.

Pretty much anything that UDE gives to me I will be happy with (within reason of course). I love the playmats, deckboxes (although the newest one has the creepiest art I have ever seen on the front), shirts, EA's, etc. I would love to see what UDE could come up with that would be different, but VS. related.