Features proposed: - Custom artwork
- Custom packaging
- Coloured cards depending on rank (bronze, silver, gold etc)
- Rare cards (holographic)
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Possibility of a online trading game based on Bitcointalk which links up with the cards
I'm wondering what the interest would be in creating some unofficial Bitcointalk trading cards. These would primarily be made for collectors, although a game system would likely be included. Very much like other trading cards where they have different health, attack etc, but instead we base it on merit, posts, and activity. Possibly, even working with Vod, and his BPIP's data.
I've looked around, and even started to do some mockups on some of the cards, but honestly if I were to do this I'd get an artist to do custom artwork as my artwork leaves much to be desired. Cards would be based on the avatar of the user, and include something noteworthy as their description. This could be from big involvements they have in the forum or quotes by them.
The issue with using users avatars is copyright. If these cards were to be sold we would have to custom design the avatars to represent that user rather than their actual avatar. I believe this can be done, and certain users like Vod would have to have a completely custom artwork. It would likely be of a character licking his boob still, while wielding a "scammer whacker" mallet or something, but certainly not anything that resembles content which is copyrighted.
I've priced up different options, and the cheapest by far would be normal poker sized cards or cards similar to "top trumps". This would be around 2.75 to 2.5 inch. However, for truly rare users I believe holographic cards should be used like these (which would bump up the price):
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FlPrBfsQ.jpg&t=665&c=osM25EpaZClgcg)
[img source=https://www.makeplayingcards.com]
This gives a truly rare feel to the cards. These cards would only be used for the users that are on the top recognized over at BPIP (at the time of creation, all data would be taken from the same date)
There are two business model proposals:
1: Random cards This business model means that you buy packs, and you receive a certain amount of cards in each pack some being rare, and some being 'normal', and they are completely random which means you could very well get duplicates. This is without the doubt the most fun, and rewarding experience. Although, I'm not sure if its the
best way of going about this, and whether there would be enough interest in this approach.
My ideas on how this would work:
- 30 cards per pack
- 1-3 rare cards (holographics from users who are on the most recognized)
- Any new users who reach the top 100 (using BPIP's most recognized) will be added to future editions, same as those that dropped from rare to normal cards.
- Future editions released every 6-12 months
Unfortunately, because we aren't mass producing these ourselves, and would need to outsource them, get custom artwork done, and offer worldwide distribution these would likely be fairly expensive for trading cards. Compared to the likes of Pokemon cards for example. Especially, if there's only a handful of users interested in these. So, for things to realistically be worthwhile we would need to make these in a rather large quantity.
Top 100 approach Alternatively, we make the top 100 most recognized of the year, and distribute them. All of those being holographic. Whenever, a new year comes around we'll update the list so others have a chance of getting their hands on new users that enter the top 100. This would likely appeal to less people, but ultimately keep the cost down as artwork only needs to be designed for 100 cards per year (less than that because you can reuse the artwork of many of the users), and although all of these would be holographic (rare) there would be much less demand on printing them. I imagine users will only be interested if they're included within the pack.
A few of us have had several discussions about this in the past, but nothing ever comes to fruition, and we haven't really got an idea of how popular these things would be. What do you guys think? Would you be interested? I understand its a concept which you wouldn't really expect for a forum to have, but I think it would be a cool gimmick more than anything else.