Early this week, I posted my thoughts on Promoted Trades. I was admittedly critical of this new set of features. Today one of my major fears became reality when I read that the feature was now fully deployed, and Promoted Trades was live for all cards. Being cautious about this change, I decided to promote a few simple lands I needed for game day. Since promotion, I have received commitments of half the lands I need.
While I was writing the original post, I reached out to some of my Patreon partners for input. Someone suggested that I obtained a quote from Eric about my concerns prior to posting. I felt that this could have the effect of swaying the sentiment of my original post. I wanted it to be honest and show how I truly felt without anyone thinking I had any affiliation with Puca Trade. The truth is, I have no business investment in Puca, other than being a paying member. I support the product and staff because I believe in the mission and I have faith in the members of the Puca Team.
Since making my own impact on the community I have forged a relationship with Eric where we do chat when time permits on Discord. I felt this was a great topic to try to get a response from him for the site and he agreed to address my concerns with a statement that I could share with the readers of the site. Below is the unedited response from Eric:
Hey Jeremy!
First off, I’d like to thank you so much for all of your thoughtful and insightful feedback. Promoted Trades are a new feature that we’re all very excited about, and I was really glad see that you also thought it would have a net positive effect on the Puca community.
It looks like you have three main concerns with Promoted Trades, which we can look at one-by-one.
The first concern is that Promoted Trades might create a climate where “there is little or no incentive to send a card that is highly promoted to anyone but the users offering a massive bonus.” During the initial rollout of this feature, this was something I was looking at very closely. I was very curious to see how many trades would be conducted for cards that were actively promoted. What I saw was that trades that were promoted trades did tend to occur with a higher velocity, but by no means did they bring all trade for the same card to a halt. This seems to be consistent with what we’re seeing today, on the first day of the full release where all cards can now be promoted. Today, for example, we’ve facilitated about 8,300 trades, and about only 100 of them have been Promoted.
Your second concern was that this might be bad for PucaTrade from a financial standpoint (since it may cause people to purchase fewer points). We’re not really worried about that. Point-sales make up a relatively small portion of our revenue these days and we think it’s far more important to take the measures necessary to boost demand for Points, which is something that this feature is already accomplishing.
Lastly, you pointed out that Promoting Trades isn’t something you’re interested in because you already get a substantial number of trades without bounties or promotions. This is great! I’m so happy to hear this. I think you’re someone who understands the power of networking, and someone who enjoys the social aspects of trading. I think many people in the discord community feel the same, and that forging relationships with other people in the PucaTrade community (whether on Discord, Facebook, at your local LGS, or anywhere else) has always been the most effective way for people to get more trades. I really believe that this feature is a win-win, because people who are not interested in networking now have another tool in their belt, and at the same time people who are not interested in promoting trades benefit from the lower supply of points and the corresponding increase in demand for those points).
Again, thanks so much for your insightful feedback! I really enjoy your article series and look forward to the upcoming posts.
Give and Let Give,
Eric Freytag
Give and Let Give.
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Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com