[Icehouse] Monochrone Stashes - LAST CHANCE TO BUY

[swandive78 at email.com]

 Thanks for your comments.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Alan Anderson"
  To: "Icehouse Discussion List"
  Subject: Re: [Icehouse] Monochrone Stashes - LAST CHANCE TO BUY
  Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 02:29:21 -0400


  On Aug 2, 2007, at 12:36 AM, swandive78 at email.com wrote:

  > ...[five tubes instead of four] could be anywhere from ten to
  > forty dollars more than I might spend on a particular project
  > with the stash system.

  First, that's only true if your project requires full old-style
  stashes. One game I've been noodling around with uses only two of
  each color/size combination. In contrast with your concern, I'd
  have to pay a lot more with the stash system than with Treehouse.

  True.  However, how long have they been promoting stash-based games? 
  Treehouse-based sales are often  user-unfriendly to the old system.

  Second, ten dollars is the suggested retail price. Who pays that
  these days?

  Lots of people. 
  Otherwise, why would they worry about making so many point-of-sale
  Treehouse sets?

  If you're that concerned about cost, you don't have to
  buy direct from Looney Labs. A collection of five Treehouse sets
  of both varieties cost me $60 two months ago. I just checked, and
  they're still going for $5.99 a tube (advertised as a 33%
  discount, so it's possible that it will increase to $6.33 soon).

  Not the whole truth.  When you add shipping...

  Third, how could you possibly have to spend an extra forty dollars?
  If you just need one stash, it seems to me that color would not
  be important.

  Perhaps not to you. 
  What about adding one color to a present collection of stashes?
  And there is also the question of aesthetics, you see...

  > what if I wanted to make two sets of "zero pip" pyramids?

  Then you might actually be better off with Treehouse than with
  single- color stashes! Two Treehouse sets can give you *five* sets
  of ZPIPs, one of each color, with a single pyramid of each color
  left over. A pair of monochrome stashes will only yield ZPIPs of
  those two colors, with much more left over.

  Point taken.  I surrender to overwhelming truth in this case.

  > ...[the difference between having Icehouse pyramids for sale
  > and...not] has not been "demonstrated" at all.

  Okay, it's been "strongly implied" then.

  Yes, it has, by the people who want us to accept the Treehouse sets.
  The gap between "implied" and "demonstrated" is vast.

  Treehouse sells enough to be worth offering. Single-color stashes do
  not. That was the
  expectation behind the change, and it's obviously been validated.

  Obviously?  No.  Let's be honest; Treehouse sets sell more than
  stashes, is what has been validated.
  "Single -solor stashes do not sell enough to be worth offering" is a
  bit of a leap.  It seems to have made them money in the past; it's
  just not making as much as Treehouse.  In that case, why not make the
  only product they sell Fluxx?

  Again, where is the "hippie" in this decision?  Go for the money, and
  forget our roots?  The Looneys have been proud to proclaim themselves
  as the Hippie game company for a long time.  I'm just asking if it's
  true, or if the tie-dye has become a suit?

  Most recently, as Kristen stated, "...demand for the monochrome
  stashes has reduced to a trickle, and it does not make sense to
  keep them around forever. Please join us in being excited that
  the shift to Treehouse means the pyramids are finally selling well
  in stores!"

  I am excited.  I want them to be able to be financially secure enough
  to continue to make more games.  I challenge the thinking that
  rejects the offering of monochrome stashes as "not making sense." 
  Where's the alternative thinking?

  > In the long run, not offering single stashes does not, in itself,
  > make more money for them.

  I suppose it depends on your point of view.

  Not at all.  Note the phrase, "in and of itself."  Why not an
  alternative route?

  I don't know the
  specifics of Looney Lab's finances, but I can call on my experience
  with electronic components. It costs more to supply them --
  significantly more, since there are so many different colors of
  monochrome stashes to maintain, in contrast to only two Treehouse
  varieties. Not supplying them might not literally make them more
  money, but it obviously lowers expenses.

  Again, is it ALL about money?  
  Then why aren't they having the pyramids made in China?
  When do ideals become marketing strategy?

  I think I'm coming to understand your concerns better, though.

  Thanks; I appreciate the empathy. 
  There seems to be a sense on this thread that it's not okay to voice
  my opinion if it runs against the current paradigm.

  You prefer to buy your colors in bulk, perhaps because that's how you
  learned to use the Icehouse system. But the longer I think about
  it, the more it seems to me like wanting to buy only the clubs
  from a deck of cards, five of each card at once. :)

  Not really.  If a deck of cards was created that had eleven (did I
  leave any out?) suits, and you got to pick which four you used, it
  would be a better analogy.  However, in the Treehouse world, someone
  else suddenly tells you that they're picking which four suits you
  will be able to buy, and with what you get in a "minideck," you only
  get to play the games made for the current minideck, unless you want
  to buy more minidecks to construct a full deck to play the old
  games.  Do you see it a bit more clearly now?

  I'd like to tell all of you listening that I don't think Treehouse is
  evil.  I don't care for the flagship game (I don't find it to be the
  "killer ap" many think it is), but I think the idea of a subset of
  the Icehouse set is a great, economical idea, (more people will try a
  ten or eleven dollar game that is new to them than a forty-dollar
  game with no rules included) and I hope to see a lot of great games
  come out of it.  I think Martian Coasters is a better game, for
  example.  I think two-player Homeworlds is a good game, and a bit
  cheaper bought in the Treehouse system than in the stash system. 
  What I don't want is the abandonment of the stash system that they
  sold me on for so long.  Which is not evil, either.
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