(S24) - PT 5 - Trade Ya

[Troen]

This past week saw the premiere of Dotts, the ISFL’s official trading card series. The cards are still in their infancy but there is a lot of room to grow, especially with new cards and special packs. In 200 words or more, write about any number of additions you would make to the current catalog. This can be anything from a Fair Rubs Club series, older awards, special Ultimini winning teams, or even Gimmy Jarappolo’s religion. What other systematic changes would you make to improve the Dotts experience?

My suggestions for changes tot he Dotts cards really depend on what the goal of the program is. I haven't followed any of the presumed planning/discussion about implementation, so I will speculate. From past suggestions on things to change about the league, it seemed like a lot of people wanted more to do with money. So, I'd assume that a likely reason for the card series is to act as an optional money sink but one that has minimal or no effect on in-sim performance. Drawing on lessons from abusive game patterns, the optimal way to draw out more money is probably to create different limited series with exclusive cards that can only be gotten at that point in time. For example, having an Ultimus winning series of cards which can only be gotten in the offseason after the Ultimus in question. Including those people with the biggest bank accounts as chase cards could be another way to help drive demand.
While possibly effective, I could see strategies like that could also get people to rebel against the cards as too exploitative. I also assume that the goal of the league is not to act like an exploitative game company, and so maximizing short term cash drain is not the primary goal. So, to that end, I think it's important to have a system that will be sustainable. Ensuring that new cards keep entering circulation to give long-time participants needs to be balanced against the possibility of giving players starting to collect 5 or 10 seasons down the line a chance to get the cards they want. Options like throwback packs or offering cards as an additional bonus for activities (maybe instead of bonus media week pay?) could help as well.