A few days ago I was doing some searches on Twitter to see what people were saying about cards. Anything cards. The topic I found a lot of people talking about was UpperDeckU. The product was announced a month ago. I hadn’t heard of it before then.

UpperDeckU is a virtual world targeted at kids. Created by Upper Deck in an attempt to get them collecting and thinking about cards, Upper Deck is also hoping that it will drive sales. I think it is a cool idea. They are definitely thinking outside the box.

The focus of UpperDeckU is to promote sports card collecting amongst kids. Something that definitely is needed. But is it going to be enough? Maybe. Maybe not. I do know that when I was a kid, card collecting was fun for me and I didn’t have a virtual world to keep me interested. Packs were between $0.50 – $1.00 for the most part. I had lots of friends that collected cards as well. We would talk cards and trade often. Personally, I think the industry has to approach this problem a bit differently.

That being said, virtual worlds can be fun. I have a few ideas on what can be done with virtual worlds and cards to tie them together and make collecting even more fun. It can’t come from one of the card manufacturers though. Perhaps a consortium amongst the manufacturers. Clearly, Upper Deck has a business model behind UpperDeckU, as they should (source: InsideSocialGames).

1. Upper Deck will still continue selling the cards, but within the packs, collectors will find “Insider Access” codes that can be utilized within UpperDeckU. These codes will then allow users to access new features within the virtual world (i.e. team merchandise that can be used for room decoration).
2. In addition to the physical cards, users will also be able to purchase virtual sets as well.
3. Finally, micro-transactions, via the purchase “Gold Coins” (an in-game currency), are expected to come online at some point. They will allow users to buy any number of “special items.” Unfortunately, what exactly these “special items” are remains unknown.

I didn’t sign up and try out the product. I may in the future. I’m interested to see what happens. How popular it gets? If it drives more sales to Upper Deck? If they generate a revenue stream from it? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.