TOPIC: "Ghosting" a run for Treasure - Changed at GenCon?

Ro-gan wrote: So yeah, you were talking about plastic and metal tokens, right? Get a grip, people.

Here's a further question...

How many of you would encounter the homeless in Indy and help them out? Over the years at GenCon I've often given them my second Pop Tart of the two-pack or a water bottle or even some money. Sticking your hand in a treasure box once or a hundred times and arguing about it?? Stupid.

Ro-gan, I can understand your frustration. Seeing people argue about Treasure Farming seems trivial when there's other things going on in the world much more deserving of our time & attention. In the grand scheme of things, it is trivial. But we're gamers: We obsess about things. Whether it's Treasure Farming or the wording on a particular Relic being created or the merits of D&D 5e over 3.5 or the fact that Pokemon Go should fix their "sightings" feature... we obsess and we argue and we brainstorm.

As for 'get a grip' .. have you considered that perhaps this is how some people get a grip, after a long hard day battling depression, or caring for a sick loved one, or being on the streets helping the homeless, or volunteering at a soup kitchen, or just having a rough day at the office? Some people relax & ground themselves by doing needle point, some people go to the gym, some people play D&D, and some people obsess on forums. it's as valid a pastime as anything else.

I think, too, that most people commenting on this thread aren't lobbying for, "I want more treasure! Gimme Gimme!" or "Hey, get your grubby hands out of my treasure!" but instead, "This is/could become a problem and we don't want to see other people's fun game impacted by our own greed, so let's think up some possible solutions for it before it becomes a (worse) problem.

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Assuming that the treasure mix is consistent across Cons, it is already profitable to do this at the smaller cons, and possibly at GenCon.

I think people who think this aren't thinking things through. If you calculate "is the value of treasure in excess of the value of a ticket" the answer is "probably."

But...

Your convention badge isn't free.

And you must pay to get to the con.

And you must pay for lodging at the con.

And you must pay for food at the con.

And, if you are lawful, you must obtain and pay for a business license, and spend time doing accounting and paying taxes on your profit.

And the time you spend in TD, and marketing your goods, and packaging them and shipping them could be spent at a retail job making $10 an hour.


I don't think it's "profitable" in any real sense.

It might not be profitable, but it still could have a negative impact on a game we all love. I think that we all can agree we want what is best for TD to last a long time. What we disagree on is how to do that.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Assuming that the treasure mix is consistent across Cons, it is already profitable to do this at the smaller cons, and possibly at GenCon.

I think people who think this aren't thinking things through. If you calculate "is the value of treasure in excess of the value of a ticket" the answer is "probably."

But...

Your convention badge isn't free.

And you must pay to get to the con.

And you must pay for lodging at the con.

And you must pay for food at the con.

And, if you are lawful, you must obtain and pay for a business license, and spend time doing accounting and paying taxes on your profit.

And the time you spend in TD, and marketing your goods, and packaging them and shipping them could be spent at a retail job making $10 an hour.


I don't think it's "profitable" in any real sense.

Uh, Kirk runs his tavern as a business and reports it for taxes.

(Mainly it means he can count a lot of his Con expenses as tax-deductible since they are business related).

Incognito wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Assuming that the treasure mix is consistent across Cons, it is already profitable to do this at the smaller cons, and possibly at GenCon.

I think people who think this aren't thinking things through. If you calculate "is the value of treasure in excess of the value of a ticket" the answer is "probably."

But...

Your convention badge isn't free.

And you must pay to get to the con.

And you must pay for lodging at the con.

And you must pay for food at the con.

And, if you are lawful, you must obtain and pay for a business license, and spend time doing accounting and paying taxes on your profit.

And the time you spend in TD, and marketing your goods, and packaging them and shipping them could be spent at a retail job making $10 an hour.


I don't think it's "profitable" in any real sense.

Uh, Kirk runs his tavern as a business and reports it for taxes.

(Mainly it means he can count a lot of his Con expenses as tax-deductible since they are business related).

Me too!

And I lost money on treasure pulls this year.

Not counting the thousands of dollars I spent getting to GenCon and staying there (I fly in).

I wouldn't wish my "profit" from treasure pulls on anyone here.

jedibcg wrote: It might not be profitable, but it still could have a negative impact on a game we all love. I think that we all can agree we want what is best for TD to last a long time. What we disagree on is how to do that.

I'm not disputing that.

I'm just trying to bring some perspective to the idea that ZOMG I get 17 pulls worth $5 each and the ticket only costs me $40 that's $45 profit per ticket I'm gonna be rich WHOOHOO!!!!

There are expenses beyond the ticket price to the dungeon.

I agree that to the extent we chase away new players it's bad, and to the extent these dynamics make players have a bad time it's bad. Not saying there aren't any problems. I just don't think I'll be watching infomercials on late night TV about how to get rich selling TD tokens by a guy with a Lamborghini and an in ground pool any time soon.

WYC has no badge cost, and is local for myself in other gamers....just saying.

Incognito wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Assuming that the treasure mix is consistent across Cons, it is already profitable to do this at the smaller cons, and possibly at GenCon.

I think people who think this aren't thinking things through. If you calculate "is the value of treasure in excess of the value of a ticket" the answer is "probably."

But...

Your convention badge isn't free.

And you must pay to get to the con.

And you must pay for lodging at the con.

And you must pay for food at the con.

And, if you are lawful, you must obtain and pay for a business license, and spend time doing accounting and paying taxes on your profit.

And the time you spend in TD, and marketing your goods, and packaging them and shipping them could be spent at a retail job making $10 an hour.


I don't think it's "profitable" in any real sense.

Uh, Kirk runs his tavern as a business and reports it for taxes.

(Mainly it means he can count a lot of his Con expenses as tax-deductible since they are business related).

Matt brings up good points, and Incognito is correct, however I do pay plenty (in my opinion) of taxes as a result of TD Tavern, so it serves more than a way to expense my GenCon trip.

Now you guys have tempted me to run the numbers. Absolutely best case somebody could run 8 runs per day Thur-Sat and 2 on Sunday. That's 26 runs, or 260 tickets, or 4,940 treasure draws, 260 10-packs, 260 uncommon, and 260 rare completion tokens. If you look at some fairly conservative values (assuming treasure draws stay the same as they were this year):

260 10-packs @ $3/ea = $780
260 uncommon completion tokens @ $3/ea = $780
260 rare completion tokens @ $2/ea = $520
4,940 treasure draws @ $4/ea = $19,760
Total revenue: $21,840

Fixed Costs:
10x Charms of Avarice worth about $10,000

Expenses:
$14,560 for the tickets
$150 for badge
$2,000 for hotel & travel
$1,000 cost of capital for CoAs

Profit: $4,130

If you assume 52 hours for the runs, 10 hours for prep, and 40 hours to sell/ship everything, that works out to about $40/hour. Which isn't bad at all. But it would pretty much ruin your GenCon. I assumed pretty low prices here, possibly you could get better value out of the loot in exchange for more time spent trying to sell them.

Kirk Bauer wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Assuming that the treasure mix is consistent across Cons, it is already profitable to do this at the smaller cons, and possibly at GenCon.

I think people who think this aren't thinking things through. If you calculate "is the value of treasure in excess of the value of a ticket" the answer is "probably."

But...

Your convention badge isn't free.

And you must pay to get to the con.

And you must pay for lodging at the con.

And you must pay for food at the con.

And, if you are lawful, you must obtain and pay for a business license, and spend time doing accounting and paying taxes on your profit.

And the time you spend in TD, and marketing your goods, and packaging them and shipping them could be spent at a retail job making $10 an hour.


I don't think it's "profitable" in any real sense.

Uh, Kirk runs his tavern as a business and reports it for taxes.

(Mainly it means he can count a lot of his Con expenses as tax-deductible since they are business related).

Matt brings up good points, and Incognito is correct, however I do pay plenty (in my opinion) of taxes as a result of TD Tavern, so it serves more than a way to expense my GenCon trip.

Now you guys have tempted me to run the numbers. Absolutely best case somebody could run 8 runs per day Thur-Sat and 2 on Sunday. That's 26 runs, or 260 tickets, or 4,940 treasure draws, 260 10-packs, 260 uncommon, and 260 rare completion tokens. If you look at some fairly conservative values (assuming treasure draws stay the same as they were this year):

260 10-packs @ $3/ea = $780
260 uncommon completion tokens @ $3/ea = $780
260 rare completion tokens @ $2/ea = $520
4,940 treasure draws @ $4/ea = $19,760
Total revenue: $21,840

Fixed Costs:
10x Charms of Avarice worth about $10,000

Expenses:
$14,560 for the tickets
$150 for badge
$2,000 for hotel & travel
$1,000 cost of capital for CoAs

Profit: $4,130

If you assume 52 hours for the runs, 10 hours for prep, and 40 hours to sell/ship everything, that works out to about $40/hour. Which isn't bad at all. But it would pretty much ruin your GenCon. I assumed pretty low prices here, possibly you could get better value out of the loot in exchange for more time spent trying to sell them.

Although, the next convention you've already accounted for the cost of the CoAs, so that would add $10,000 to your profit per convention.

Kirk Bauer wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Assuming that the treasure mix is consistent across Cons, it is already profitable to do this at the smaller cons, and possibly at GenCon.

I think people who think this aren't thinking things through. If you calculate "is the value of treasure in excess of the value of a ticket" the answer is "probably."

But...

Your convention badge isn't free.

And you must pay to get to the con.

And you must pay for lodging at the con.

And you must pay for food at the con.

And, if you are lawful, you must obtain and pay for a business license, and spend time doing accounting and paying taxes on your profit.

And the time you spend in TD, and marketing your goods, and packaging them and shipping them could be spent at a retail job making $10 an hour.


I don't think it's "profitable" in any real sense.

Uh, Kirk runs his tavern as a business and reports it for taxes.

(Mainly it means he can count a lot of his Con expenses as tax-deductible since they are business related).

Matt brings up good points, and Incognito is correct, however I do pay plenty (in my opinion) of taxes as a result of TD Tavern, so it serves more than a way to expense my GenCon trip.

Now you guys have tempted me to run the numbers. Absolutely best case somebody could run 8 runs per day Thur-Sat and 2 on Sunday. That's 26 runs, or 260 tickets, or 4,940 treasure draws, 260 10-packs, 260 uncommon, and 260 rare completion tokens. If you look at some fairly conservative values (assuming treasure draws stay the same as they were this year):

260 10-packs @ $3/ea = $780
260 uncommon completion tokens @ $3/ea = $780
260 rare completion tokens @ $2/ea = $520
4,940 treasure draws @ $4/ea = $19,760
Total revenue: $21,840

Fixed Costs:
10x Charms of Avarice worth about $10,000

Expenses:
$14,560 for the tickets
$150 for badge
$2,000 for hotel & travel
$1,000 cost of capital for CoAs

Profit: $4,130

If you assume 52 hours for the runs, 10 hours for prep, and 40 hours to sell/ship everything, that works out to about $40/hour. Which isn't bad at all. But it would pretty much ruin your GenCon. I assumed pretty low prices here, possibly you could get better value out of the loot in exchange for more time spent trying to sell them.

Neat! Thanks for doing this.

Why do you hate rare completion tokens

Kirk Bauer wrote: Matt brings up good points, and Incognito is correct, however I do pay plenty (in my opinion) of taxes as a result of TD Tavern, so it serves more than a way to expense my GenCon trip.

Now you guys have tempted me to run the numbers. Absolutely best case somebody could run 8 runs per day Thur-Sat and 2 on Sunday. That's 26 runs, or 260 tickets, or 4,940 treasure draws, 260 10-packs, 260 uncommon, and 260 rare completion tokens. If you look at some fairly conservative values (assuming treasure draws stay the same as they were this year):

260 10-packs @ $3/ea = $780
260 uncommon completion tokens @ $3/ea = $780
260 rare completion tokens @ $2/ea = $520
4,940 treasure draws @ $4/ea = $19,760
Total revenue: $21,840

Fixed Costs:
10x Charms of Avarice worth about $10,000

Expenses:
$14,560 for the tickets
$150 for badge
$2,000 for hotel & travel
$1,000 cost of capital for CoAs

Profit: $4,130

If you assume 52 hours for the runs, 10 hours for prep, and 40 hours to sell/ship everything, that works out to about $40/hour. Which isn't bad at all. But it would pretty much ruin your GenCon. I assumed pretty low prices here, possibly you could get better value out of the loot in exchange for more time spent trying to sell them.

You could decrease the fixed costs slightly if you went with the HoP+RoR+CoGF.

And over time, you will pay off the capital costs for the CoA's (or equivalents) which should significantly increase your profit.

Alternatively, for some people the CoA's are sunk costs if they already have them.

Nice break down on numbers but there are some things off.

You are pricing the uncommon completion token less than the rare. Though reversing the numbers won't change your results.

I also think your travel and hotel costs are too high. You don't need to stay downtown which would lower your hotel costs and increase your travel cost and travel time.

$150 for a badge is high, because obviously you are planning ahead and would get it at the pre-sale price. Your ticket price though is probably too low because I would wager there is going to be another ticket price increase, but maybe not.

Ruining your Gen Con (two words people please) I doubt is a priority for anyone that would actually considering farming. Remember they are doing it to make money not to have fun.

There are better ways to make money without a doubt, but that still doesn't mean someone won't try it at some point.

WYC tickets (which have been easier to get) cuts down your ticket price by almost 30 percent. There is no badge cost, hotel is cheaper. Travel is the same. You get in less runs, but if we are talking dollars per hour it goes up significantly, does it not?