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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delta" data-source="post: 3754573" data-attributes="member: 40269">They're thinking they can make more money. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Randomized playing pieces solve a bricks-and-mortar inventory problem, but they do more than that: They entice people to buy more, hoping for the big score, something like a lottery. Also, they contribute to a tighter community by requiring people to seek each other out and make trade arrangements.Consider "Magic: the Gathering Online". Even though it's online and has zero marginal production costs, they still sell the virtual cards in randomized packs. There's no attempt made at giving codes in physical Magic packs to unlock the same stuff online. It's still good business because of customer behavior; of course, they charge nothing to play the game other than cost of cards. (Full disclosure: I worked as a software engineer at a company that did the same thing predating Magic the Gathering Online, so I saw the business model up close, about 8 years ago. As a side note, all the 3D models for our Star Trek-branded game were made by a single artist over about 3 months time.)<a href="http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=81&p_created=1109812931&p_sid=_aUZPYKi&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD03NzAsNzcwJnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1" target="_blank">http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=81&p_created=1109812931&p_sid=_aUZPYKi&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD03NzAsNzcwJnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9ubCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1</a>So basically Wizards is thinking if they can sell randomized digital stuff in Magic the Gathering Online, why not the D&D Game Table? Of course, the fact that there's also a monthly subscription fee in addition pushes this into uncharted territory, but personally I wouldn't be surprised if enough gamers are willing to swallow even that to make it marginally more profitable.</blockquote>

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