The Upper Deck Bounty Program Explained [Video]

[creasecollector]

Hey all,

Just found this video of Upper Deck explaining their new UD Bounty program about to make its debut in their 16-17 SP Authentic release. A nice shot of some of those new Spectrum FX cards, including the Matthews (card #100) to complete the Spectrum FX set.



Anymore thoughts on UD's newest program?

I'm interested to see what they'll bring moving forward next season, and where this one will lead.

[sedinfan]

I'm not a fan, especially with the way UD tried to spin it in the recent Beckett article as their effort to bring "healthy collecting habits" to the hobby.

Essentially this is a base set... a hundred cards with a mix of veterans and shorter printed rookies, nothing really special about this set to distinguish it from the couple of dozen other base sets they put out every year - only a couple of which attract any significant amount of set builders. Without the bounty program, this would be just another meaningless set that no one would build... so I really question why it suddenly is supposed to be a desirable set to build now that you only have to do 99% of the work only for UD to 'generously' give you the final card.

Sure there's the gold parallel set that goes to the first 50 people to collect the set, but that feels like a real half-hearted attempt at a reward... "Here, as your reward for completing this set that almost no one wanted in the first place, have a gold version of the same set."

Oh but it gets better, in order to claim your rewards you have to scratch off the 99 cards that you put together... according to UD: "There are some difficult decisions for people to make to get the bounty, but we wanted the bounty to have some serious implications". Really? We need to make 'difficult decisions' that have 'serious implications' in order to enjoy 'healthy collecting habits'? When did having fun while enjoying a hobby become so difficult?

Reading between the lines, UD says in the future you shouldn't need to scrath off your cards (thus defacing them), and in future products you'll probably be able to just see the code printed on the back and I'd imagine enter it into ePack and thus trade the virtual version that way. Sounds like they couldn't get that implemented in time, but feeling the heat of the negative feedback around removing an auto from SPA boxes they felt the need to rush something else that they could claim as box hits into the product.

I'd be a lot more impressed if UD put a bit more effort here rather than mailing it in. They claim it's all a out the health of the hobby, encouraging people to collect sets - well my suggestion is make a product that people want to collect, instead of rolling out a self-serving gimmick. There seem to be a lot of collectors who would love to see a trul spectacular 90's style shiny set, or game-dated memorabilia cards that are specific about when a jersey was worn, or something else a bit more special. Maybe make the reward for the first 50 to comple the set something more exciting like a Made to Order card like ITG used to do. Make the cards good enough to be worthy of collecting ('if you make it, we collectors will come') and don't resort to cheap tricks to try to get collectors chasing a glorified base set that they don't even want.

[creasecollector]

I agree with your statements here, as I too feel it was a rushed attempt by UD to get something together in time for this SPA release. The 'reward' doesn't seem like much of a reward, as they'll end up completing your set for you if you choose to do so, otherwise the Matthews isn't attainable in packs for the casual collector, which bothers me a little.

I like that UD are trying new things, but I feel like this would have been better if they shelved it for a while in order to bring new ideas to this Bounty Program before releasing it to the public. Things like increasing the reward, make the program more available for the casual collectors instead of a competitive race favouring the multi-case breakers who will get there first, etc.

[YoungGuns1988]

If anyone nabs a Matthews and wants to part with it, please contact me. I can't imagine I'll be able to obtain the whole spectrum set! Cool idea though!