DISCLAIMER: This post's objective is not to encourage excessive microtransactions, but to put matters into perspective.
Much has been discussed in the last 24 hours about the new expansion pass for The Price of Power and I would like to analyze the situation considering past expansions:
(Sidenote: For the expansions for which they were more than a single pre-order pack, I’ll only consider the most expensive.)
- Crimson Curse (40 USD)
• 1 leader
• 1 cardback
• 40 standard kegs - Novigrad (40 USD)
• 1 cardback
• 20 premium kegs - Iron Judgment (50 USD)
• 1 leader
• 1 cardback
• 1 game board
• 25 premium kegs - Merchants of Ofir Caravan Pack (50 USD)
• 1 leader
• 1 cardback
• 10 premium kegs
• 12 premium stratagems - Master Mirror (50 USD)
• 1 leader
• 1 evolving cardback
• 1 title
• 10 standard kegs
• 25 premium kegs - Way of the Witcher (55 USD)
• 1 premium legendary card (Alzur)
• 1 cardback for each faction
• 1 game board
• 1 title
• 10 Journey levels - Price of Power (60 USD)
• 1 leader
• 1 cardback
• 1 game board
• 1 coin
• 18 avatars
• 117 premium cards (Equivalent to 23 premium kegs, give or take)
Despite this bundle being the most expensive one the game has ever seen; we must consider the following:
1. Even without kegs in the offer, the 117 cards that will be introduced along the 3 installments, are equal to 23 premium kegs (117/5=23.4), with the great difference that no duplicates will be obtained and we’ll have the legendary cards that hardly show up in standard kegs. This makes it easier for those who still haven’t completed their collection to focus their resources better, this being scraps or meteorite powder. Although that wouldn't solve the problem of excessive scraps some of us would suffer.
2. During the first installment of the expansion, 26 new cards will be introduced: 4 for each faction and 2 neutrals for a total of 40 in the individual package. Which means there’ll be 6 legendary cards, 6 epic cards, 7 rare cards (x2) and 7 common cards (x2), being required to transmute them a total of 7,320 meteorite powder.
And how much real money does this amount of meteorite powder represent? To answer this question, one just has to check the in-game store and observe the price tag of each offer. For this, I’ll use the last one: 16,500 meteorite powder for 45.90 USD (which represents the best value option). Buying the meteorite powder separately, the minimum cost for transmuting those cards alone would be 20.3 USD, a third of the total offer of 60 USD.
3. This pack, as the past ones, offers 1 leader skin, 1 game board and 1 cardback. But this time 18 avatars and an exclusive coin are also included.
4. The price tag on the expansion pass is 60 USD and it says we save 30% from the total price of the three separate packs. So, what’s the total price of each expansion pack? If we consider that 60 USD is the 70% of the total price, then a simple rule of three yields a result of 85 USD. If we divide said number into three expansions, we get 28.5 per package (practically half of the offer for just one of the installments). Burza mentions in the announcement video that the packs for each installment will be available separately with different price tags, so we can assume the price for each pack in its most complete form will be around 25 and 30 USD.
In conclusion, while 60 USD is a considerable amount of money (even more so if we remember it is the price of a full game on its launch day), it is actually a fair deal considering past expansions and that this time all new cards are guaranteed from day one.
Nevertheless, this is still a F2P game in which we can get all the content necessary by just playing constantly without ever spending a dime, so paying 60 USD for merely aesthetic items may seem as a joke on consumers. Fortunately, this is entirely optional (due to Gwent being free of pay-to-win mechanics so far) and will be up to each one of us to buy it or not. At the end of the day, it is our money and no-one can tell us how to spend it.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/nkpjqd/thoughts_on_the_price_tag_of_price_of_power/
