How my copy of the game (nearly) paid for itself.

[CrashFu]

How?

Short answer: The trading cards for this game are worth a lot. Even if you've never payed attention to any of this trading card business, you should consider throwing yours onto the community market and making an easy buck or two in steam creds, simple as that.

More in-depth answer:

To REALLY get some returns, first you're going to want to make an initial investment of steam cred to buy some "Sacks of Gems". Unpack those sacks, and go to the badges menu and select the Booster Pack Creator (I think that's what it's called). You should be able to craft one booster pack per 24 hours of 3 random Undertale cards for 1200 gems; each sack of gems contains 1000 and usually sell for ~70 cents, while a single pack of Undertale cards is worth more than the cost to create it, and you just may get lucky and recieve a foil card which will be worth a few bucks just by itself. You'll have to wait a few days to sell these, however..

OR what you can do is keep on buying booster packs, opening them, and using the cards to craft yourself some lovely Undertale badges. That will level up your steam account, which is mostly just fluff (although it does increase your chances of receiving free booster packs now and then). More importantly, every badge you craft gets you a random Undertale Emoticon and Wallpaper.

For most games, emoticons are only worth an appreciable amount if they're the super rare ones, and wallpepers of any sort rarely go for more than a few measely cents... with Undertale, EACH of these things are worth A LOT, even the more common ones.

Your mileage may vary, and the market values of things will only go down steadily over time, but just as a frame of reference...

After buying this game for $10 I crafted all 5 ranks of the badge and still MADE a total of $6.40 cents back, that's nearly a 66% rebate.. on top of that I've got some lovely emoticons that would easily push me into the full $10 range if I were to sell them, but honestly I just can't bare to part with them..


Consider this a helpful tip to my fellow players. (and every one of you who crafts a badge is someone else who has played the game getting a free booster pack, and every card that passes through the community market makes extra money for Toby. You could say participating in the trades is one more way to give back to him in thanks, while earning free steam creds for yourself)

You're welcome! And please, share your marketing success stories here, I shouldn't be the only one bragging, ha ha ha.

[Rashef]

How exactly did you get enough cards to craft the 5 ranks and then managed to stay over in the genreal balance of things ?

[CrashFu]

Originally posted by Rashef:

How exactly did you get enough cards to craft the 5 ranks and then managed to stay over in the genreal balance of things ?

The big factor here is that the cost of gems is so much lower than the sell value of any cards you get making booster packs with those gems, and that Undertale emoticons and backgrounds are / can be worth enough to make up for the cards used to make each badge.

(Sans stuff in particular is worth a LOT, not that I would ever sell my emoticon unless I had duplicates. )

There was also an initial investment involved: Technically speaking, I bought $5 worth of steam creds to start with, to buy sacks of gems, and then wound up with $11.40 cents in the end, so... net gain of $6.40 (after buying the game for $10) The $5 initial investment is negligible because I would have spent that on steam games eventually anyways.

[Garlboh]

I've been doing this since release, already paid for the game, and a full set of 5. Now trying to go for the foil set, already got 2 from just opening booster packs.

I didn't say anything in fear of them losing value lmao.

[CrashFu]

Originally posted by Fox?:

I've been doing this since release, already paid for the game, and a full set of 5. Now trying to go for the foil set, already got 2 from just opening booster packs.

I didn't say anything in fear of them losing value lmao.

Haha, but if they lose value then you won't have to spend as much to finish that foil set. And the more people making badges, the better chance you'll get some free boosters! Appropriate use of the Sans emote, though.

Makes you wonder how much an indie dev like Toby pulls in from his share of the card/emote/wallpaper sale "tax", compared to how much he's made from the actual game sales? Hmm..

[That Cryptid Kira]

I spent a few dollars on cards to get a few badge levels, and got so many rare items I made a 30 dollar profit AFTER the cost of the game and cards. (3 rare backgrounds and a rare icon)

[CrashFu]

Originally posted by JoanOfSnark:

I spent a few dollars on cards to get a few badge levels, and got so many rare items I made a 30 dollar profit AFTER the cost of the game and cards. (3 rare backgrounds and a rare icon)

Holy~ ... Talk about "leaving the underground satisfied". If making returns on the community market is a meta-game, you have clearly won it.

[That Cryptid Kira]

I almost didn't buy the game since I'm on family share and my friend has it, but I wanted to support the developer since it's an indie game and all. Definitely got my moneys worth