Which is more important, having a big player base or making a good profit?

[yamas11]

Let's assume that a CCG is able to go into one of these situations after a year:

Massive player base, moderate profit overall (Due to the game being inexpensive and highly accessible this way)

OR

Small player base, huge profit overall (Due to the game being extremely expensive and is only accessible to those who can afford it)

Which situation would be better for a CCG after 1 year?

[Tokimo]

Massive player base.

Huge profit can only be reached through massive player base. If you try to get a hefty profit on each card you'll lose players, lose revenue, production costs won't diminish significantly, and then you'll lose profit. No one is going to buy a game that's significantly more expensive than other CCGs.

[BrotherM]

Huge profit can only be reached through massive player base.

+1

I don't see how you could feasibly have a big profit with a small player base.  Either the cards would have to be extremely expensive, or your smaller base would have to buy tons and tons of them.  Either way, players won't be interested for very long.

Do you have any examples of a highly profitable game with a small player base?

[yamas11]

No, I don't know of one, I was just asking this question to ponder about the opinion of others. So let's say that the numbers are something like:

5,000 active players, $40 average from each active player.

OR

500 active players, $500 average from each active player.

The 1st game having it be cheaper to get a good amount of cards to use and having a bigger player base, then there's the 2nd game with obtaining specific cards being extremely hard or expensive and thus appealing only to a certain niche of players who love the game so much and are willing to spend that much.

[Tokimo]

Small price increases have to happen as art, development, and printing costs increase. Trying to increase profit through a large price increase will just cut your player base which is a death spiral. You might increase profit for one set, although I doubt it. You will kill the game this way. You would drop your player base into unsustainable levels.

Now I don't know where you are in CCG design but I want to point out something: CCGs are not as profitable as you are thinking. You're not going to get $40 from the average player, and your CCG will die a horrible death if you can't get well above 5K players. (If you want a casual fun profitless CCG, you can make this with less than 5K players, but a commercial CCG is dead long before it drops below 5K)

If you are thinking about making a CCG for financial gain, I would suggest you give up. You should only make a CCG if you want to make a CCG. You might be able to make a game you can play with friends, you might be able to publish a game, but don't expect profit or you will be disappointed. It's a very difficult market that has only a small handful of winners.