Feels Bad, Man

I've been alive long enough to have learned that not everything is for me. That's OK: There should be something for just about everyone (except Nazis...well, I guess prison for them) but since I am not the center of the universe, it should not cater to me.

And this is a case where something is not for me: Transformers: Energon Edition.

There are multiple issues for me here: first, at $200, that is a lot of money. For someone like myself, who has been playing the game since it debuted, here are the items from this set that matter to me:

Characters:
Cliffjumper, Renegade Warrior
Slipstream, Strategic Seeker

That's it. That's the list. Bumblebee, the other super rare character I don't have, I could purchase if I needed it: It's retailing for around $30 on the secondary market. Nemesis Prime is going for about $44. With both those cards, however, I have a chance to just open them in a booster pack-that's how I got Nemesis Prime.

But Cliffjumper and Slipstream, combined, are going for around $200. This is because they were exclusive cards to the San Diego Comic Con last year and never made available for purchase anywhere else. They are good cards, and the artificial scarcity of them has driven prices up, conveniently making it possible for WotC to market this product as if it was priced at a reasonable level. It is not; but people compare the prices (and trust me, marketing researchers know that this is what we do) and we think: but we're getting such a deal!

This is the part where I remind people that WotC "does not" (and maybe for legal reasons cannot admit to?) recognize the secondary market and its prices. I repeat: the marketing department knows that we are looking at the secondary market and justifying this $200 price tag based off of two cards.

Now for anyone who missed out on Wave 1 and cannot get it or hasn't invested: this is pretty dang cool. You get a box of Wave 1 boosters, plus a guaranteed six useful, awesome character cards (seriously, there isn't a bad one there) with new art and on plastic instead of paper. That's slick.

If you are in that rare group of people who cannot get Wave 1: awesome, I think this is still overpriced but you could justify it without too much difficulty. A box of boosters is going for around $90.00, so that's a chunk of your costs already.

There are also 18 reprinted battle cards with new art and of those, Start Your Engines is the most useful-but there is a sharp decline from there. I'm not even going to dignify the dice with the notion of being cool: there is nothing interesting or thematic about them.They're colored dice-you can literally find them at any game store in this country. But it's all very weird, because instead of bringing us copies of the San Diego Comic Con battle cards (All Out Attack and Tandem Targeting System) they go with the "thematic" battle cards, yet give us dice we could find in the seat cushion of a gaming store.

Then there's the display box. Because that's what people who play a game want: to put things on display instead of playing with them.

Which is where the rubber meets the road: the display box tells you everything you really need to know. If you've been supporting this game already, then Energon Edition is the glory of cool things. It's to separate you from your money for a "cool" product, but not one that makes the game more accessible or improves our experience as players.

This isn't something to thank people who've been playing and promoting the game, it's priced such that it is not an on-ramp product for people who missed out. It's just expensive, and it feels very much like a treat being waved in front of me that I cannot have. It is for what the industry calls "the whales": people who will spend a lot of money on a game, especially for "premium" product.

I don't object to this per se, what I object to is being manipulated-as whales often are-to spend money. You can see it in the reactions to this product too: everyone is talking about how cool it is, but not how useful or helpful. People talking about how they want to put it on display-to show it off! It's a trophy, not a game. That's what is being sold.

If this product cost $150, then it starts to sound reasonable. If they were just going to sell me the characters, battle cards and dice for $50, I'd be on this in a heartbeat! Hell, why haven't they tiered this product? Why not give people who have been playing since 2018 the opportunity to get characters they were denied for a reasonable price? Why aren't the SDCC battle cards in there to give us more accessible things?

Because it isn't for us. It's for people who want to look cool, not people who want to play a game. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Finally: if you are new to the game, $200 will get you not only a box of Wave 1, but a Rise of the Combiners box (Wave 2) and leave you with enough money left over to get the Metroplex box set.

It's up to you if you want this, but it's a hard pass for me.