For those of you who didnt play Bunt, you are likely wondering what is up with the VIP program that was announced yesterday. Its something that all us Bunt-transfers have been waiting for, and I am glad it is structured very similarly to the sister program.

What is VIP?

This program is a reward program for the people who spend real money on the app. Think of it as a customer loyalty program like your credit card has. Spend enough real money and get some perks for doing so. Instead of airplane tickets and shopping sprees, they offer coins and special cards.

How Do You Become a VIP?

Well, to put it simply, spend some cash. Not just a 9.99 bundle here and there, but a good amount. Many of the Diamond VIPs (top level) can spend up to $1500 per month on Bunt, and Im not even joking. On huddle, I expect the spending to be down, but I doubt its by much. I can pretty much predict who the Diamond VIPs will be this month, and I would guess 3 or 4 is the number that will eventually qualify.

For Black, you are looking at a few hundred dollars to qualify, and that might even be low if the Bunt standards hold. The Black VIP is realistically the highest level someone can attain without really having an online sales strategy in place.

For gold, the cutoff is usually around a 500k to a million coins purchased, but it fluctuates just like every level does on a monthly basis. These levels are something that you should shoot for on a monthly basis, as the perks help out A TON with the gameplay.

What do you get?

Diamond VIPs get 5M coins delivered over the four weeks in installments. I would guess that is about 25% of their investment. Realize that they are not going to give you back more coins than you purchased, so keep that in mind. They also get a 1/1 card of their choice, access to a special pack with only inserts, and the other cards given to gold and black.

Black VIPs get 1M coins delivered over the four weeks, as well as access to a black VIP pack and the gold all pro card. They also get a black 3x boost that is determined by points for the month. These boosts in Bunt are some of the best cards in the game, and is a main reason why people go for these VIP statuses.

Gold VIPs get 250k coins (again about 25% of the investment to become gold) delivered over the four weeks, as well as access to a gold VIP pack with all golds. They get a gold All Pro card as well.

Lastly, there will be a VIP sig that will be released to the VIP packs, and everyone is rejoicing that this is the case after going most of the season in Bunt without this type of card. There may be other VIP exclusive inserts along the way too, but those have yet to be announced. In Bunt, they were special Bowman diamond cards.

Responding to criticism

I know that there are a lot of people that are likely unhappy that a program of this type exists, but with any pay to play player, they know its definitely a great perk. I mean seriously, do you really not expect them to take care of their best customers, especially with all the trouble that they go through each week? Cmon.

The other part of this stems from the fact that many pay to play players would still spend some of the money without the VIP program, and that this is an incentive to support the game more. It is really freaking expensive to run a game like Bunt, Huddle and Kick, and without the pay to play players, its likely the games would be a small fraction of what they are now.

Making money off the app allows for more players, more inserts, better design and more support. Although people complain about the many card releases and the customer service, imagine what it would be like  with no money flowing into the app. Not only would the service team be non-existent, but the game would have no flair. The VIP program repays the favor SLIGHTLY, and is a good way to generate more revenue.

You may be thinking, man who the hell is spending 1500 per month on this game? Well, there are people who have made this into a business and can make back a good portion of that money. Others have enough disposable income to make it work, and more power to them. I have mentioned previously that you can still have fun without spending money on the game, but it gets a lot better when you do. Its the same way with the actual cards you can buy in a store. This is a collecting based game, and whenever significant value is involved, spending money to be at the top is going to be a requirement. It is not mutually exclusive with playing along, and you can talk to users who have reached the top of the leaderboard through other means. It does require a ton of time, and many people dont want to deal with that.

Additionally, when VIP coins are sent, the people all tend to use them immediately. This means that for those couple of hours, the pack pulls are usually much more impressive. It should be easier to pull the rarer cards with more people opening, especially those gold cards that everyone has been chasing.

VIP Tips

Here are a few tips on making the most of your money:

• Plan out your spending
• Keep track!
• Buy bigger bundles and get more for your money
• Look for sales on Apple Gift Cards (target, eBay, etc)
• Trade for the cards if you dont want to buy in
• Buy the packs with the best odds
• Target a specific month for VIP if you dont want to go all out for every month

Again, this is a program you can make work for you if you want it to, but it is not essential. It just helps out a ton when you get your VIP coins and there are really good packs in the store.