darkSpyro

Two days ago I was wondering what the price might be if I were to buy all the characters in skylanders. Even though I despise the game I felt that it was something I needed to get out of the way.

Prices may vary and who knows what else might happen, so this is nothing more than a rough approximation as to what the total cost might be.

There is a total of 32 characters in the game you can play as, now let's assume that we start out by buying the starter pack containing 3 characters. The starter packs can vary between [59.99$-69.99$]

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I've noticed that they have currently released 4 packs that contain 1 character and then additionally they have 4 packs that contains 3 characters. Both cost 20$ each so doing the math leaves this:

4 x 1 character 20$ each = 4 characters 80$
4 x 3 characters 20$ each = 12 characters 80$

So far you will have spent between [219.99$-229.99$]

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Single packs as I've seen costs about 7.5$ so let's assume you can buy the final 13 for 7.5$ each.

13 x 1 character 20$ each = 13 characters 97.5$

So for all 32 characters you have spent between [317.49$-327.49$]

But it doesn't stop there, there's also the matter of the sidekicks. I haven't been able to find anything official but I heard something about 5$ and there's 4 of those.

Add that and you have spent close to 350$.

Now i got to ask, how does a game go from costing [60$-70$], to cost about 5 times that price? I think it's ridiculous, I mean what if the develepors of tekken all of a sudden decided that you had to BUY each character? Just imagine the amount of money they can make that way and honestly should this be the future of gaming? Soon you'll have to buy the next stage in the game in order to advance through it, it doesn't feel like you own the game at all. Now I know I don't have to buy all the characters but my point stands that this is really stupid and as far as I can see, it can only cause more problems in the future.

Finally, what are your thoughts on this? Will you buy every character now that you have an overview of what the cost might be? Share your thoughts, I'd love to know. I also have a video of this on youtube, but it's just the same thing I've said here.

For sidekicks, the total for each is about $8, since you have to buy the chips for $6 and $2 S&H.

Quite honestly, you can beat the game by itself with just the 3 characters you get. Other than that, you need one character of each element to unlock all the extra doors and whatnot. So you're looking at something around $100.

Really its more about the collecting aspect of it than anything. I don't care that the characters are already in the game. The sculpts on a lot of the figures are really nice, especially considering that some other series (for instance, the Star Wars figures) run out to be much more, if not equal to the price of the Skylanders (which now are about $9.99 everywhere)

I guess arguably, the characters are more DLC. I feel better buying a physical statue of the character for a game than I would just downloading a new map or weapons or something from an online store where you DON'T get anything.

EDIT: Oh, and yes, I bought all 37. I believe a good number of people here have as well actually. I think most of the fandom is split though for Giants. Some plan on dropping it entirely, or only collecting certain things. I've settled on collecting just the 8 new Giants (which run at $14.99 each, minus the one in the starter pack), the new Battle Packs (similar to the Adventure Packs, @$19.99) the new LightCore figures (8 @ $11.99) and the 8 new characters ( each @$9.99 minus the ones in the starter packs). As of now, I probably won't get the reposed Skylanders, which consists of 28 of the original 32 in new poses and new powers.

the developer isnt making you buy anything. people buy them because they want to. you can finsh the game with just 8 skylanders. so you only really have to buy 5.
this is a new style of game, with characters that interact with it. and its the first of this kind of game thats become so popular.
DLC is beginning to be the norm. but i need to ask. why? companys dont sell things that people wont buy. so people are buying DLC more now then ever. so that means its selling more then ever.
instead of complaining about the ridiculousness of buying plastic figures to complete a collection on a game (when only completists need to have all 37 + whatever else). Why dont you complain about the people that spend 5-10 dollars for a single weapon for a ps3/360 game. at least with skylanders you get a cool looking toy. With those DLC you just are allowed to have something thats probably already on the disc, so its just digital information, or the right to unlock it, for that price.
im more worried about the DLC that has no real benefit but still costs money, or like you said, dlc that you pay for just to go to the next level. a lot of games have become "free to play" but you have to pay for every little thing in the game "microtransactions" then i'm worried about x y z company making their games the same as skylanders. remember if people dont buy things, companys dont make them.

but anyhow, thanks for the math.

My kids play the video game, play with the characters as toys, and have developed a card game with those enclosed with the figure. I am saving money with this game!

There's many ways to look at this and of course I won't look at people in a bad way who prefers this kind of DLC. I wrote what I did, mostly because I feel that you don't really own the game if there's a lot of DLC content to pay for on the side and if said DLC becomes necessary in order to complete the game, that's my true fear. I guess my math mostly came because I'm soon going to handle my own economy and I figured that probably there was a poor soul out there who hadn't thought about it

It can be even more intensive than you listed. You have not included sales tax or shipping costs. ANy additional expenditures for variants. Not only were that a bunch of variants in this game five of them were technically in game variants.

This game is something different than DLC. Its comparitive but different. With DLC you are only buying the game content. Here you are also buying a figure that has play, collectable and novelty value. This difference is subjective and difficult to get a solid monetary assessment to.

Let's assume you want to buy a complete set of 37 playable in game characters for the one of the main systems and walk into a TRU to do it.

For ease we'll assume you are doing it in a sales tax free state like NH

Right now if you buy the game for $70 you also get all 4 legendary exclusives and the starters. The three packs will run you $25 a piece here assuming they have all 8 non exclusive 3 packs, you just spent $200. There are 4 adventure packs for $25 each and a single WhamShell for $9.99 to buy also.

This means that you just spent $380 and you still may decide to buy a Dark Spyro and Volcanic Vault. You could theoretically get the game to 100% complete wit about $120 investment but deep inside you know tere is more to unlock.

Giants is going to be about $700 plus in investments. I am scared to do tis math quite yet.

Don't forget collectors are likely to buy two of everything AND extra for a Dark Spyro Single and the variants as well. Now Series Two and LightCores will also be out, plus the Giants and eight new characters...
Even the general player would need to spend at least $500 if they wanted both games and all the characters. AND they cost $15 and $30 here as well plus if collectors outside of the US want the exclusive variants and sidekicks they're forced to pay extra.
This thing was always going to become a thousands of dollars of investment franchise. It's a good thing that Universe exists, because it adds a lot more value than you get from the standard editions... Personally I would leave without it.

There are a lot of sales and things. If you're smart, you can complete it for half of that. I spent 150 dollars getting all 37 characters. I can understand why you'd bash the game for this, but have you never seen the absurd amounts of DLC in some games? To buy all of it could easily surpass 350 in games like Tekken and Street Fighter. At least you get a neat figure in Skylanders.