What is the point of foil badges?

[Zach]

I know that this question is a bit rhetorical given that normal cards themselves don't do much either, but after completing my first foil set I'm really not seeing the point in collecting them.

The experience you get for completing a foil set is laughable, especially when the cost and ammount of cards required to make up a foil set can greatly exceed the cost of simply upgrading the normal set to a higher level. It doesn't seem that there's much of a difference in your chances of items from a foil badge craft either (in my case, I received literally the exact same profile, emoticon, and summer card as I had with the original badge). You could say that it still has some value purely in the bragging rights, but even in this scenario the foil badges do not actually identify themselves as foil unless you know the games badges in question or look at the badge within the showcase/badge areas of a persons profile.

I'm not really complaining, but I do think it's odd that foils are set up to be even more pointless than regular cards right now. Valve as a company would most likely want to keep foils at a valuable status, as the market transactions for them net them in some profit for both themselves and other developers. Is there something more I'm missing to foils that is in the works?

[Homelander]

its more about e-penis. IMO they need to make it more worth while to keep the foils instead of selling them instantly.

[Gus the Crocodile]

The experience you get for completing a foil set is laughable, especially when the cost and ammount of cards required to make up a foil set can greatly exceed the cost of simply upgrading the normal set to a higher level.

Well yes, and the additional function you get from an unusual hat in TF2 is laughable compared to the extra cost. But people buy them anyway.

You have it right; the rarity is the point, same as has always been the case with foil (physical) cards.

[Zach]

Originally posted by Sithsylar:

its more about e-penis. IMO they need to make it more worth while to keep the foils instead of selling them instantly.

The problem is it doesn't even seem to be good at doing that. Maybe its on a game by game basis but most of the foil badges arent even that discernable from normal badges unless you're actively hunting badges for that game. They don't make it clear that its a foil either when it is displayed in a showcase or under a persons name. It seems odd to make a item to be collected for the sake of bragging rights and then have the item show little that does the bragging.

[KeplersConjecture]

The point? It is to make something 'rare' so it can go on the community market place and make Valve lots of money. You could just as well ask what is the point of Badges or Levels all together. After all most of what they do is purely cosmetic except, to my knowledge, larger friends lists.

Cards are just a way for Valve to make money out of nothing. Its a classic marketing trick, as Pokemon said "gotta' catch 'em all" and it works. Rare badges just feed into that desire to get a complete set, or to one up your friends. Exactly the same as Platinum trophies on PSN or the XBL equivalent, except they cost money.

[Gameware]

They should mail us a physical badge that we can iron onto our denim jackets.

[Zach]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

The experience you get for completing a foil set is laughable, especially when the cost and ammount of cards required to make up a foil set can greatly exceed the cost of simply upgrading the normal set to a higher level.

Well yes, and the additional function you get from an unusual hat in TF2 is laughable compared to the extra cost. But people buy them anyway.

You have it right; the rarity is the point, same as has always been the case with foil (physical) cards.

I agree with you partially, but I think that there is some difference between the tf2 unusuals and this. A tf2 unusual is indeed a only slightly modified item that is valuable due to its rarity, but it is also in part due to the identity of an unusal. People can typically tell when someone is wearing an unusual compared to a regular hat. In this scenario, ever badge level has a different image. People who have not started collecting cards for a specific game are not going to be able to tell the difference between a foil badge and a high level normal badge, and the setup of the badges seems to hide the fact that its special to anyone who isnt actively looking at your profile or collecting the badges in question.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Naoto Shirogane:

Valve as a company would most likely want to keep foils at a valuable status, as the market transactions for them net them in some profit for both themselves and other developers

Originally posted by UnknownUser:

The point? It is to make something 'rare' so it can go on the community market place and make Valve lots of money.

This is a tangent, but I'd be interested to see how much money Valve makes overall on rare/high-priced items compared to cheaper ones. As I see it, the fees minimise at one cent (in my currency), so for three-cent sales (the cheapest possible), Valve's cut is actually 33%, which is an awful lot higher than the cut they get on expensive items. They'll be getting an increased percentage of the cut on anything priced below what, twenty cents (5% = 1c)? Which seems to be most cards at the moment. So it may be that they really don't have that much incentive to keep the prices high.

[Zach]

Originally posted by UnknownUser:

The point? It is to make something 'rare' so it can go on the community market place and make Valve lots of money. You could just as well ask what is the point of Badges or Levels all together. After all most of what they do is purely cosmetic except, to my knowledge, larger friends lists.

Cards are just a way for Valve to make money out of nothing. Its a classic marketing trick, as Pokemon said "gotta' catch 'em all" and it works. Rare badges just feed into that desire to get a complete set, or to one up your friends. Exactly the same as Platinum trophies on PSN or the XBL equivalent, except they cost money.

I know that a large appeal to the system is to provide developers and the steam platform a new source of income, that much is obvious by the way that card sets are handled (half given, half traded/bought). What I don't understand is why the reward they put on obtaining foil sets is worse than the value of normal sets which net them less profit. Surely they would rather have me buy a set of 10 cards at 1-4 dollars per than spend a tiny fraction of that upgrading a normal badge to the point where its reward is greater than a foil sets.

[Zach]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

This is a tangent, but I'd be interested to see how much money Valve makes overall on rare/high-priced items compared to cheaper ones. As I see it, the fees minimise at one cent (in my currency), so for three-cent sales (the cheapest possible), Valve's cut is actually 33%, which is an awful lot higher than the cut they get on expensive items. They'll be getting an increased percentage of the cut on anything priced below what, twenty cents (5% = 1c)? Which seems to be most cards at the moment. So it may be that they really don't have that much incentive to keep the prices high.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. even if the percentage cut is lower on higher priced sale, the value of the cut is still higher after any sort of processing fees for higher priced items than with lower priced items, right? If Valve is making somewhere between 10-30 cents per foil transaction per person, and each set of cards can range from 5 to 13 in a set, wouldn't they be making more by these transactions than the transactions of normal cards? At the moment, one only has to upgrade a badge to level 2 to receive a higher reward than foils are giving. It still doesn't seem to make sense, at least from my perspective.

[Gus the Crocodile]

I mean over all transactions that occur. There will be a hell of a lot more low-priced transactions going on than high-priced ones. Low-price sales are enough of a money-spinner on that principle already (Valve clearly knows this, it's a big part of what made Steam so popular, and the reason they're having a big sale at the moment), and that's without factoring in an increased cut of any sort.

[KeplersConjecture]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

This is a tangent, but I'd be interested to see how much money Valve makes overall on rare/high-priced items compared to cheaper ones. As I see it, the fees minimise at one cent (in my currency), so for three-cent sales (the cheapest possible), Valve's cut is actually 33%, which is an awful lot higher than the cut they get on expensive items. They'll be getting an increased percentage of the cut on anything priced below what, twenty cents (5% = 1c)? Which seems to be most cards at the moment. So it may be that they really don't have that much incentive to keep the prices high.

So would I. I have considered writing an API to track price and volume of sales better than their graph, so I might look into it a bit more.

Originally posted by Naoto Shirogane:

I know that a large appeal to the system is to provide developers and the steam platform a new source of income, that much is obvious by the way that card sets are handled (half given, half traded/bought). What I don't understand is why the reward they put on obtaining foil sets is worse than the value of normal sets which net them less profit. Surely they would rather have me buy a set of 10 cards at 1-4 dollars per than spend a tiny fraction of that upgrading a normal badge to the point where its reward is greater than a foil sets.

I think they figure they will make it up in volume. For every person who would buy 10 foil cards, you probably have 100 people who would not consider spending $1 per card, so the normal cards sell in HUGE volumes at low costs. It really is the same psychology as the sale itself. People might blanch at spending $1.50 on a single card, the price of a drink or burger or whatever, but find it very easy to spend 10¢ on 15 cards. By having two different card types you can capture both the impulse-buy people and the collector-type people. That is why you can only get about half the cards in drops, because you are more likely to try to 'complete the set'.

Valve has a trained economist they pay serious money to keep around. You can bet they have all this figured out.

[Zach]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

I mean over all transactions that occur. There will be a hell of a lot more low-priced transactions going on than high-priced ones. Low-price sales are enough of a money-spinner on that principle already (Valve clearly knows this, it's a big part of what made Steam so popular, and the reason they're having a big sale at the moment), and that's without factoring in an increased cut of any sort.

Okay, I see what you mean. This makes sense on that scale, particularly in that rare items are also less abundant and as a result the few people that are willing to do transactions in a period of time may not be able to all do so within as quick of a time frame as people buying common, cheap items. The market is capable of allowing both to exist, though, which brings us back to the question of why there is such a weak reward to achieving foils as they currently exist. It might be more reasonable if the prices of foils were indeed cheaper, but the rarity that pretty much exists as their current most appealing feature is also a characteristic that prevents them from reaching a more comparable price with normal cards.

I've heard that they intend to add more features, though I'm not sure what the features are or how they could relate to foils. I was wondering if anyone knew more about the topic that might be able to shed some light on changes or future uses to the foil sets.

[KeplersConjecture]

Originally posted by Naoto Shirogane:

At the moment, one only has to upgrade a badge to level 2 to receive a higher reward than foils are giving. It still doesn't seem to make sense, at least from my perspective.

I suppose because the people who the foil cards are aimed at dont care that much about the reward, they just want to have the badge itself. The fact that it exists, and they probably have one or two cards for the set, is enough to make them go out and buy the others. The foil badges are just better to some people. For everyone else, Valve is happy to sell them lots of cheap cards to grind for XP and Levels.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Naoto Shirogane:

It might be more reasonable if the prices of foils were indeed cheaper, but the rarity that pretty much exists as their current most appealing feature is also a characteristic that prevents them from reaching a more comparable price with normal cards.

Yeah, but they are in a market after all - if the market decides buying foils is more reasonable at a lower price, then the price will go down. If the rarity prevents it from doing so, the price will stabilise higher. I'm sure Valve is interested in seeing what happens too.

But yeah, there could well be more layers to the system coming if Valve wants to see them more highly prized - what you say about them not being particularly "highlighted" on people's profiles seems an obvious start. It's only new and I'm sure they'll continue to expand it one way or another.

[Zach]

Originally posted by UnknownUser:

I suppose because the people who the foil cards are aimed at dont care that much about the reward, they just want to have the badge itself. The fact that it exists, and they probably have one or two cards for the set, is enough to make them go out and buy the others. The foil badges are just better to some people. For everyone else, Valve is happy to sell them lots of cheap cards to grind for XP and Levels.

Fair enough. I think i'll just stick to the normal cards from now on, or until something changes otherwise. Even if its just a matter of purchasing the cards for cheap off the market, something about the current set up (to me) makes level 5 badges seem more rewarding and a bigger accomplishment to boast about.