Gods Unchained - The Genesis Problem

After reading Teatime's reddit post about why he has sold his Gods Unchained collection, a post well worth reading by the way. The link to it can be found below. I was inspired to try and tackle the Genesis Problem. And if you are unaware of the problem so to say. This is definitely the post for you.

What is the Genesis Problem?

If you are familiar with the different card sets that exist in Gods Unchained the name Genesis should ring a bell. And that is because that is the name of the very first card set for the game, Genesis. And as the name implies it is the origin of the game, its starting point. It is the set that literally made the game. The presale of the set was used as a way to fund the development of the actual game. Without it and its success is highly questionable if we would have a Gods Unknown today.

Clip is taken from this blog post.

So what or how is that a problem? Well, the problem with the set is not so much with the sale of it. The problem lies in the promises that the Gods Unchained team made along with the set. The first promise they made is that they will never reprint the cards in the Genesis set. The second promise is that "Genesis is an “evergreen” set, always in meta and playable on the ranked ladder". And it is in these two promises the problem known as the Gensesi Problem lies. Let me try and explain in more detail what and how this is a problem.

When you have these two promises interact with each other like they do here you get something very close to a perfect storm. And that is a set of cards that is very rare, as it was only sold during a limited run. And these cards have to be playable at all times no matter what cards you make in the future. This severely limits what the design team is able to do in the game. As any new cards they make can not be too powerful or they would supplant the Genesis cards. And due to the cards' rarity, they are very hard to come by and if you are trying to buy some of them you will definitely need to pay a premium compared to virtually any other card or set.

This means you now are stuck with a powerful set of cards, that very few people have. But they are more or less essential if you want to be able to compete on the highest level in the game. And In case you are wondering what cards I am talking about Demogorgon is a prime example of a very much needed card in a majority of decks.

To make things worse, this problem will only grow in size as the game grows as well. Because a bigger player base means increasing odds of it being that one player willing to pay an arm and a leg to get a pair of Demogorgons. While this is great for everyone who owns the card, it pretty much stinks for everyone else.

Is there a solution to the problem?

Let us take a look and see if we can find a solution to this problem. The first thing that would be possible to do is to simply make very similar cards to the cards that are in the Genesis set. And make some of the cards slightly more powerful and some less so than the original. Or all of them a tiny bit less powerful. That way both promises would technically still be kept. But I very much doubt that this would go over particularly well with the players that hold Genesis cards, and presumably not so well with the rest of the player base either. With the current small player base this is almost the same thing as committing suicide. And I would argue making copy cards with another name and picture would be just as bad. To some degree, some of the Genesis cards have had similar cards come out. But as far as I know, these cards were never super essential to the top decks. And that's why I think no one really has made any fuzz over it.

I have heard the argument that you could add extra Genesis cards to the game, and just give x copies of the card and give them to the people who already have the cards. This would technically not impact the value of the cards, or I should say it does not affect the total value of all the cards. Technically it cuts the value of every card in x. If you give out 5 new cards for every existing card you now have devalued each card by a factor of 5. This is similar to how stock splits are done. This would presumably solve one of the problems, the limiting factor. That is if the players holding the card will be willing to sell them at the new price. And that is something that is very far from guaranteed. Sure some players might see this as an opportunity to get some of their investment back. But I feel some people might just as well be inclined to play the long game. They now have more valuable cards to sell. Do they care if they sell all at once? Presumably not, so they will just keep feeding the market slowly keeping the prices higher than they should be. Or they might simply save the cards and wait for the next split to have enough to upgrade them. Also, this does nothing to address the problem for future sets. Sure the players would most likely not be as upset over this option. But I think it only maybe solves one problem but has the potential of creating a slew of other problems.

Now there is perhaps the most obvious solution, and that is to simply go back on your word. And reprint the set or allow new sets to supplant the Genesis set. But this I would argue is probably the worst way to fix the problem. As this would both upset every player as well as tarnish the reputation of the Gods Unchained team. This would mean we never can trust anything they say again. So as far as I see it it is the absolute worst solution, a classic example of a loos and loos more solution.

The last thing I can think of would most likely be the best for the game in the long run. As this would remove the Genesis Problem entirely. But as with most things it has its own drawbacks. What I am talking about is simply removing the Genesis cards from the game. And before you dust off your keyboard and start typing and letting me know how dumb I am, hear me out. Removing the cards can be done in several ways. And finding the right way is probably the key to making it work, and sting as little as possible. Right off the bat, it is clear that you probably technically could just delete the cards or not allow them in the game anymore. This option is not going to sit well with the players who own these cards. One way to solve this would be to buy or trade the cards back. The Gods Unchained team could buy all Genesis cards back for a reasonable price. And this the cards would no longer be in the game. The buyback could be done through crypto, or by giving the players new packs from an upcoming expansion or a combination of both. Presumably, the option chosen will be a combination of both. As that would mean the smallest financial hit for the Gods Unchained team.

I think that that is the only real solution to the Genesis Problem, every other solution or fix I have seen has its own clear drawbacks or new problems that can arise. And sure some players will definitely be upset about this solution as well. But as the saying goes there is no way to please everyone. And on the internet, there is always someone complaining about everything. But as I see it, removing the Genesis cards is the only solution I can see that completely solves the problem, and is causing the least amount of problems or angry people. And more importantly, opens up the game completely.

I would really like to hear if you have given the Genesis Problem any thought and if you perhaps have a possible solution to it that I have missed. But of course, I also would love to hear your thoughts on the different solutions to the problem. Do you agree with my conclusion or do you think I have made some wrong assumptions? If so I would love to hear what and why. Please sound off in the comment section below.

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Resources

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/GodsUnchained/comments/151dak9/why_i_sold_my_gu_collection_by_teatime_current/