Upper Deck ePacks

[MattDMC]

Welp my second eBox sucked just as much as my first eBox, got the following YGs: Lindbergh, De La Rose, Berube, Samuelsson, Condon, Sprong, and a Quick jersey.

So 3 Physical boxes, 2 eBoxes, 2 Blasters, 3 Tins, and 4 epacks and still no McDavid, Larkin, or Domi's for me yet.

On the plus side the epaks are addicting, just bought a 3rd box and am getting ready to crack it... GIVE ME SOMETHING THIS TIME!!!!

[MattDMC]

*Update*

3rd eBox still sucked lol.

YGS
Prince
Arvidsson
Noesen
Slepyshev (Only need 3 more for a foil lol)
Janmark
Subban

Rinne Jersey

Still no Larkin, Domi, or McDouble with cheese (Which is about all my hits would buy me lol).

And yet I know I'll still buy at least one more ebox in the next week. Is there any way you can have yourself banned from the epack site like you can have yourself banned from a casino? Lol.

[mq13]

*Update*

3rd eBox still sucked lol.

YGS
Prince
Arvidsson
Noesen
Slepyshev (Only need 3 more for a foil lol)
Janmark
Subban

Rinne Jersey

Still no Larkin, Domi, or McDouble with cheese (Which is about all my hits would buy me lol).

And yet I know I'll still buy at least one more ebox in the next week. Is there any way you can have yourself banned from the epack site like you can have yourself banned from a casino? Lol.

Do you need a McDavid?

[MattDMC]

Do you need a McDavid?

Don't need one but it would be nice to pull one at least and finally have a box that I can make something off of. So far for 6 boxes (3 real and 3 eBoxes), my best box has had a $20 return and thats because it had a Panarin, the other 5 boxes have had a less than $10 return each.

[hang time]

As easy as it is get wrapped up in this I have to say I think this is going to be bad for the hobby. Eliminating the card shops from the equation. Sure it's only a few products this year but where does it end?

I also think it's total Bs that they hold back Numbered cards such as high gloss and exclusives from hobby boxes. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I assumed that the full compliment of each card was available upon release. Apparently that's not the case at all. Maybe that information should have been released before hand?

[RGM81]

As easy as it is get wrapped up in this I have to say I think this is going to be bad for the hobby. Eliminating the card shops from the equation. Sure it's only a few products this year but where does it end?

I also think it's total Bs that they hold back Numbered cards such as high gloss and exclusives from hobby boxes. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I assumed that the full compliment of each card was available upon release. Apparently that's not the case at all. Maybe that information should have been released before hand?

Some halfwit wrote an article about the "held back" cards - worth a read here: http://bit.ly/UDePack
Proportionally, all the cards were there across the spectrum and insert ratios were not changed by the allocation of physical/e-Pack distribution.

[hang time]

Some halfwit wrote an article about the "held back" cards - worth a read here: http://bit.ly/UDePack
Proportionally, all the cards were there across the spectrum and insert ratios were not changed by the allocation of physical/e-Pack distribution.

I just read your article. Well done. That being said, it still bothers me that this information was not released prior to the product being released in November.

In the long run, I have a bad feeling for the card shops. It may take a while but this could be the beginning of the end for them. ultimately ud could sell all their products online exclusively, eliminating the middleman altogether. This might not be a viable strategy right now but it will surely spread beyond series one and two (and whatever the mystery product is) in the future!

So I guess the question becomes how loyal is ud to the common Lcs and how loyal is that customer to his or her Lcs? UD ultimately controls the prices of a pack on their site and in store...

[RGM81]

I just read your article. Well done. That being said, it still bothers me that this information was not released prior to the product being released in November.

In the long run, I have a bad feeling for the card shops. It may take a while but this could be the beginning of the end for them. ultimately ud could sell all their products online exclusively, eliminating the middleman altogether. This might not be a viable strategy right now but it will surely spread beyond series one and two (and whatever the mystery product is) in the future!

So I guess the question becomes how loyal is ud to the common Lcs and how loyal is that customer to his or her Lcs? UD ultimately controls the prices of a pack on their site and in store...

Thanks for the feedback.

The lack of advanced information is my main gripe too. There was a one-line reference to a future digital platform for Series 1 at the end of the main press release for Series 1 back in November. I don't think anybody really anticipated this large of a platform.

That said, I've tried it. I think it's cool. It gives you something to do each day with the free packs. If you've got a spare $6CAD in your PayPal account, it's worth the occasional shot. But I can't envision this replacing the traditional experience. In a world where I can access virtually any song or any movie or any TV at any time using a tiny computer I hold in my hand, I still like DVD's and CD's and even vinyl. There's a lot of things that we can replace with an app, but you can't replicate the experience of doing a real thing and sharing that experience with real people.

[RGM81]

Question for y'all: in the coming weeks UD is going to be launching the trading platform on e-Pack, and it will be peer-to-peer.

What are your thoughts on us setting up a special sub-forum in the Hockey Card Trading area for e-Pack want and trade lists?

[Gallinator]

Richard: Definitely a well-written article. I read it twice. However, at the risk of appearing obtuse, I must question this passage:

Those collectors who felt “cheated” that there are only 7-9 High Gloss cards available from the physical release instead of the full ten may not have had that indignation had they been made aware of the program and its structure when Series 1 was released in November. While some understand that proportionally all the hit ratios and likelihood of hitting any individual SSP card remained unaffected by the reduced allocation, others simply view not having all cards in the physical product as problematic.

a) Certainly the feeling of being "cheated" would have been lessened or entirely negated had the program been thoroughly explained in November.
b) The problem with the second sentence is that we cannot know that proportionality has been maintained unless we get confirmation from Upper Deck that this is so. Specifically, let's say 20 Exclusives and 2 HG of each Young Gun were withheld from the Hobby distribution to supply the ePacks - 20 percent of the run. Proportionality is therefore maintained ONLY if the ePacks produced equal 20 percent of the total print run. If not, then those cards are either more concentrated (if ePacks are less than 20 percent of the total print run) or less concentrated (if ePacks are more than 20 percent of the total print run). Does that make sense? While UD says the ePacks will eventually sell out, we have NO information on how many are or will be produced. Even if there is an initial "production" run for ePacks (production used loosely for this mostly-virtual product), UD has a strong financial incentive to extend the supply of ePacks should the program prove to be a hit. Sure, they would run out of supply for the SP and SSP numbered cards, but who outside the company would know this? One would have to buy multiple cases late in the supply cycle to even suspect the supply of SP and SSP cards had been exhausted. We cannot trust UD to do the right thing, given their less than stellar record of transparency.

This problem is still only ancillary to the absolute fact that people who thought they were chasing any one of 100 Exclusive and 10 High Gloss McLarkinDomi cards were, in fact, only chasing 80 and 8 (or whatever the actual number is) and must now allocate additional funds to ePacks if they want a shot at those cards that were withheld from Hobby distribution - funds that were already allocated to previous purchases. In other words, if I felt comfortable entering a group break on a case of UD1 and paying $300 for Edmonton, a certain portion of that amount is to cover the possibility that I am going to hit one of the 100 Exclusive or 10 High Gloss McDavids (as I did back in 13/14 with MacKinnon). However, if I had known that I was only chasing one of 80 or 8 of those cards, I might have only paid $270 for that group break spot - and so on down the line for various amounts for various RC on various teams. Therefore, individually and in the aggregate, the REAL EXPECTED VALUE of any one group, case or box break - and therefore the expected value of the Hobby release as a whole - has been decreased by whatever percentage was withheld for ePacks, but the PERCEIVED EXPECTED VALUE was not accordingly adjusted simply because UD did not notify collectors in advance with any sort of actionable information.

This is certainly a breach of trust by UD and could be considered a fraudulent action if intent could be proven. I think they just didn't think about the ramifications of their actions. Did this aspect of it come up at all in your conversation with Chris Carlin?

Note I don't really have a dog in this fight, as I've only spent about $200 on UD1 this year and $28 on ePacks. I just think this is such an obvious case of improper action on UD's part that they shouldn't get a free pass on it.