Amazon officially announced that they're cutting 37.5% MSRP on all new Magic booster boxes to $89.40. Since they're going toward a Direct-to-Consumer business model, you probably don't think it's a bad thing since Amazon's been selling products directly to people for years. However when you buy on Amazon right now and for the last 10 years you bought Magic product from Local Game Stores across the country, they all listed their extra product on Amazon, eBay, or TCGPlayer in an attempt to liquidate and sell the remaining product they have to recoup their capital. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro stepped in and said that we aren't allowed to do that anymore.
So for those who own a Local Game Store or are a staff member at said store should not be paying more than $89.40 MSRP though it's more than likely that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is going to contact Amazon to try to raise that number. So regardless of the Expected Value (EV) of individual cards, $89 to $92 a box is the new MSRP for all Standard Magic boosters moving forward. So the next time you walk into your Local Game Store be sure to tell the owners and staff members that their price on Standard Magic boosters needs to be below the average MSRP. Doesn't matter If they aren't able to make money to keep the lights on or that they're unable to pay $1 thousand for overhead, that's their problem not Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's.
So when these Local Game Stores are paying $4 thousand a month on overhead or even $8 thousand a month depending on the employees, they're only allowed to make $5 a booster box at the most and If they have to sell online then they're required to lose 10-20% of their income as a penalty for buying too much product and it's their fault. So go ahead tell them that it's your fault for ripping them off by convincing them to match their MSRP with Amazon's to ensure that these Local Game Stores won't be around in 12 months by helping them go bankrupt. I wouldn't be surprised If other Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game companies started following suit by partnering with Amazon as well.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro asks: "How come you're not buying our Magic products after we partnered up with Amazon?" Consumer replies: "Well I don't have a place to play Magic as a way to hang out and socialize with my friends." Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro replies back: "Sucks to be you I guess."
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I just love how we're all assuming that all LGS live or die by magic alone and as of right now this is the price I'm seeing on the guilds box Price: $94.85
and scrolling i found :
$90.99
+ $3.99 shipping
Sold by: Channel_Fireball
and after looking at the comparable, the boxes range in prince from the 93 all the way up to 125 on amazon.
shockingly this ALMOST makes me want to apply for the card Get $60 off instantly: Pay $34.85 upon approval for the Amazon Prime Store Card.
I have to wonder what the Survey's are telling Wizards.
I dont buy sealed.
I dont draft.
I dont play at my local.
I buy singles from my local.
I sell singles to my local.
I buy and play 99% of the time online.
Am I the outlier, or the trending increasing %?
They still do surveys??? I am honestly surprised if they do, because I personally thought they just put ether soaked rags on their faces and blurt out things.
Honestly I thought Wizards was just trying to do what they thought was for the best for magic, what they thought would be more fun. Now they are setting fire to the house and flipping off the people who helped them build a nearly 3 decade card empire............ Well I guess maybe it is more fun, for them at least.
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Never forget whose grace and favor led to your success and always give your thanks, otherwise you might be doomed to loose it.
I have to wonder what the Survey's are telling Wizards.
I dont buy sealed.
I dont draft.
I dont play at my local.
I buy singles from my local.
I sell singles to my local.
I buy and play 99% of the time online.
Am I the outlier, or the trending increasing %?
They still do surveys??? I am honestly surprised if they do, because I personally thought they just put ether soaked rags on their faces and blurt out things.
Honestly I thought Wizards was just trying to do what they thought was for the best for magic, what they thought would be more fun. Now they are setting fire to the house and flipping off the people who helped them build a nearly 3 decade card empire............ Well I guess maybe it is more fun, for them at least.
Yes, after ever single (Standard) set preview that I can remember, and with some of the additional ones as well.
I just love how we're all assuming that all LGS live or die by magic alone and as of right now this is the price I'm seeing on the guilds box Price: $94.85
and scrolling i found :
$90.99
+ $3.99 shipping
Sold by: Channel_Fireball
and after looking at the comparable, the boxes range in prince from the 93 all the way up to 125 on amazon.
shockingly this ALMOST makes me want to apply for the card Get $60 off instantly: Pay $34.85 upon approval for the Amazon Prime Store Card.
But is Channelfireball really an "LGS"?
Im pretty sure the OP was talking about places in your town or area where you can sit down and play some magic with your buds. Yeah sure maybe the all the LGSs won't die from this but it will wound them, some mortally I would imagine. This news is kind of a bummer
I just love how we're all assuming that all LGS live or die by magic alone and as of right now this is the price I'm seeing on the guilds box Price: $94.85
and scrolling i found :
$90.99
+ $3.99 shipping
Sold by: Channel_Fireball
and after looking at the comparable, the boxes range in prince from the 93 all the way up to 125 on amazon.
shockingly this ALMOST makes me want to apply for the card Get $60 off instantly: Pay $34.85 upon approval for the Amazon Prime Store Card.
But is Channelfireball really an "LGS"?
Im pretty sure the OP was talking about places in your town or area where you can sit down and play some magic with your buds. Yeah sure maybe the all the LGSs won't die from this but it will wound them, some mortally I would imagine. This news is kind of a bummer
I was just pointing out that the
37.5% MSRP on all new Magic booster boxes to $89.40
was incorrect as far I could find on amazon's website. For myself, we don't have a FLGS, so its either drive to somewhere out of town or order online for our magic needs card wise.
I just love how we're all assuming that all LGS live or die by magic alone
Magic has been the savior of the LGS for the longest period of time. I don't think that it's very easy for the LGS to operate without Magic. The reason why Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games are always having trouble keeping up with Magic is due to how crowded the market is not to mention the hassle of maintaining playgroups to help accommodate sales that the LGS needs especially the risk involved with carrying these products that costs the LGS money. Think of Magic as a safety net for these Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games in order thrive cause without Magic to help pay the cost of overhead for these Local Game Stores, they're going to go out of business unless they diversify their business portfolio to help make up for the loss of overhead.
I think we're going to start to see more Local Game Stores liquidate their assets with closeout sales across the country similar to what we saw with Kmart and Toys R Us If other Collectible Card Game Publishers decide to follow suit with the Direct-to-Consumer business model with Amazon. I hope it doesn't happen however the tell tale signs aren't looking so good. One solution I've thought of is to maybe turn the Local Game Store into a Clubhouse as a way for people to have a place to actually play Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games without having to worry about not having a place to go similar to the YMCA but without limited membership requirements. That way players can still order their products online while still having a place to play without going to someone's house.
I know it sounds like a crazy idea but it just might work.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I just love how we're all assuming that all LGS live or die by magic alone
Magic has been the savior of the LGS for the longest period of time. I don't think that it's very easy for the LGS to operate without Magic. The reason why Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games are always having trouble keeping up with Magic is due to how crowded the market is not to mention the hassle of maintaining playgroups to help accommodate sales that the LGS needs especially the risk involved with carrying these products that costs the LGS money. Think of Magic as a safety net for these Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games in order thrive cause without Magic to help pay the cost of overhead for these Local Game Stores, they're going to go out of business unless they diversify their business portfolio to help make up for the loss of overhead.
I think we're going to start to see more Local Game Stores liquidate their assets with closeout sales across the country similar to what we saw with Kmart and Toys R Us If other Collectible Card Game Publishers decide to follow suit with the Direct-to-Consumer business model with Amazon. I hope it doesn't happen however the tell tale signs aren't looking so good. One solution I've thought of is to maybe turn the Local Game Store into a Clubhouse as a way for people to have a place to actually play Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games without having to worry about not having a place to go similar to the YMCA but without limited membership requirements. That way players can still order their products online while still having a place to play without going to someone's house.
I know it sounds like a crazy idea but it just might work.
MTG is a unique case (although to be fair it is the pioneer of its era). It's pretty much the only TCG that has enabled a LGS to operate while only catering to a single game. I've never seen a LGS that operates on a single game that isn't MTG that could survive for any reasonable amount of time.
But that is all there is to it - a unique case that is starting its erosion to extinction (In recent years I'm seeing more LGS adopt either more card games or tabletop gaming to assist in maintenance) and honestly, I don't blame WotC. There were simply less entertainment choices back then, so people had to move their way to their gaming stores and MTG did a great job establishing itself among its (admittedly fewer) competitors.
Throw in the "lazy evolution of gaming", fact remains that fewer new people are by default walking through the doors and an aging demographic with other life responsibilities might be forced to adopt "lazy gaming" as their entertainment simply due to time constraints. It's unfair to just say WotC didn't push for advertising, they did (and in fairness since its targeted at new player we might simply ignore them most of the time), it's just the entire entertainment industry exploded with so many competitors (especially mobile gaming and their daily production of dozens of soulless games per day alone), WotC simply cannot out-advertise them all.
WotC simply recognizes the death of the LGS system no matter how they try to help because to put it bluntly, everyone's mobile phone is a competitor to the LGS and there's no way WotC is winning this fight. As a business I can't really blame WotC for trying to keep themselves alive by no longer bonding themselves to a system losing in what is probably the most crowded-competitive entertainment industry in history. This is why MTGArena is so important, its success is essentially the best life buoy for WotC for the immediate-to-intermediate future.
Sure, I won't deny that in a direct way, building relationship with major online retailers is WotC spitting on LGS, but at the same time it's the perfect time for WotC to send the message to LGS that they are dying and need to change, because even if WotC kept the status quo, it doesn't change the fact the ship is a sinking one and in some ways a captain keeping that a secret to the passengers isn't exactly right either. Sure, here we have the captain rushing for his own lifeboat which is also no doubt frowned upon, but hey analogies only go so far and WotC isn't actually a ship captain, but a subsidiary that needs to show profits to their bosses, so that kind of selfishness you can't exactly blame anyone specific (I mean no one at WotC wants to lose their job right?)
The system is dying and WotC is essentially telling us that outright through them using their own escape hatch. People (mainly LGS owners) who have their livelihoods affected by this but are only complaining and saying WotC's escape hatch is bad and will fail are just deluding themselves that WotC can save them but refuse to, but in reality WotC can't save them and are trying to save themselves with their escape hatch (if it fails, honestly WotC dies either way then). To be blunt what these people should really be doing is looking for their own escape hatches before the ship completely sinks and they drown. The selfish captain has already left in search for land on his own lifeboat and honestly, he'll rather die failing to search for said land then to go back to the sinking ship and die for sure anyway.
Of course how WotC handles the pro-scene is actually a real problem for them, because it's a relevant factor in both the market they left and the one they're trying to enter. It's like a needle on the lifeboat ready to threaten said captain, but honestly it's an irrelevant topic to the passengers still on the sinking ship (or at least it's not immediately relevant since there's more pressing matters on hand for them).
If you really care for your LGS and your LGS is the kind that relies entirely on MTG, then you might really want to advise the owners on diversifying their businesses at the very least lest the day WotC has been accepted by their new market and the full impact of abandonment hit the LGS. In an ideal world LGS owners are business-savvy enough to see this, but I've seen enough cases even during the system's heyday where there are LGS owners who literally have zero business-sense (and I don't mean the "mean owner" way, there are plenty of examples of nice people who are just terrible businessmen). I mean, sure one can argue if they're that bad at business they would eventually fail anyway, but you'll be surprised that in various industries there are businesses with not-as-bright-but-nice owners that kept afloat throughout because their customer-base is also nice and supportive in return and its that tiny potential subgroup I'm sniping for specifically. A long shot, but better than not saying anything.
When I was talking about how crowded the market was for Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games to keep up with Magic, I was mainly referring to the Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game market itself. I don't believe that they're competing against other gaming genres when they're only trying to compete with the games available in it's own genre. If Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games had been competing against the Video Game Industry with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo then they would've lost a long time ago. It's all just a different avenue for gamers to diversify and expand upon as long as they're having fun.
The only reason why competition seems to matter now is due to ongoing pressure from other gaming genres to publicly advertise more in order to get people to buy their product and that's where most of the difficulty seems to come from. This is why Social Media outlets with YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, reddit, etc. are good for getting this type of promotional advertising across that they normally wouldn't get through by other means. A friend of mine recently suggested that there needs to be more live stream commentaries/podcasts during gameplay matches for Organized Play events being held at the LGS to help generate revenue for these stores.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
When I was talking about how crowded the market was for Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games to keep up with Magic, I was mainly referring to the Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game market itself. I don't believe that they're competing against other gaming genres when they're only trying to compete with the games available in it's own genre. If Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games had been competing against the Video Game Industry with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo then they would've lost a long time ago. It's all just a different avenue for gamers to diversify and expand upon as long as they're having fun.
The only reason why competition seems to matter now is due to ongoing pressure from other gaming genres to publicly advertise more in order to get people to buy their product and that's where most of the difficulty seems to come from. This is why Social Media outlets with YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, reddit, etc. are good for getting this type of promotional advertising across that they normally wouldn't get through by other means. A friend of mine recently suggested that there needs to be more live stream commentaries/podcasts during gameplay matches for Organized Play events being held at the LGS to help generate revenue for these stores.
I have to disagree with you here. Yes, marketing itself is something that is a part of the whole movement/pressure, but while you could catch on that the development of technology (as in social media) had an effect on marketing, you don't seem to acknowledge it from Gaming.
You cannot pretend the TCG/CCG market isn't in competition with video games. Both are forms of entertainment in a "super-genre" and usually any form of entertainment will be fighting for any person's time since its not like people have a lot of time for just entertainment. You are also too hasty in determining that TCGs would have lost immediately against video games, because well, TCGs were in competition even back then and we actually survived (I wouldn't say won) because of various factors, mainly that when both were in their heydays, parents tend to be more skeptical about video games (especially when consoles still cost an initial lump sum money) than the likes of tabletop games. Even handheld consoles are considered luxury items (since they were only used for Gaming).
This is why I say technology has a great impact on the entire gaming industry, regardless of which genre you are in and not only marketing. Now the gaming device is in the mobile phone, no longer considered a luxury item by many but an essential one. Parents don't hesitate as much getting their children a phone and add in the magic that there are endless free-2-play games in there, the kids don't even need permission to get into games. Hence begins their introduction into the world of gaming and let me tell you f2p games are one of worst educators about the industry to young minds.
It's not like only the TCG/CCG industry is affected, even the video game side itself gets affected by the practices of this rising generation. Why buy a console when I get equal enjoyment from my already essential phone? Why spend so many hours working on a $60 game when I can just make a simple but addictive game, throw in microtransactions and make more money with less work? In fact, the later sounds like the TCG industry just warped to video game form, but even towards the TCG industry, it's "why waste time printing cards and then having to resort to bans when I can just create cards instantaneously with no supply problems and I can retroactively nerf cards instead of having to ban them?".
I can smell the counterargument of "but physical cards are fun to collect" even before I started the paragraph and let me tell please don't bother telling me that, as someone who also collects cards among other things I know that very well myself. But I've also pretty much seen the majority of the upcoming generation, already addicted to convenience and instant gratification due to the way they were educated about the industry (by the mobile phone game gateway), the process to them is not fun, but tedious. To them, it's all about pressing "purchase" and proceeding to curbstomp their next opponent in a span of less than a minute. In fact, arguably even the partners WotC are getting might be considered to be "too slow" by some parts of that generation, let alone the unthinkable idea of having to lug yourself to the LGS with no guarantee of finding exactly what you want. They're essentially spoilt by infinite supply on top of convenience.
Most importantly, they make up the majority of the current and upcoming generations of gamers. I can't change your mind if you still think MTG is only competing with other TCGs, but don't be too surprised when the entire genre (not just MTG) just slowly sinks as less and less new players fill in the gaps since they're not interested in TCGs as they are in OCGs (or other mobile games) which align to their style of entertainment. Here's where video games get it easier than TCGs/Tabletops since both use similar technology, making it easier to transit over (which is why so many video game companies love to put their games full of microtransactions). TCGs have the "microtransactions" part down way before time (booster packs duh), but we severely lack the convenience part for the new players to comfortably transit.
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So for those who own a Local Game Store or are a staff member at said store should not be paying more than $89.40 MSRP though it's more than likely that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is going to contact Amazon to try to raise that number. So regardless of the Expected Value (EV) of individual cards, $89 to $92 a box is the new MSRP for all Standard Magic boosters moving forward. So the next time you walk into your Local Game Store be sure to tell the owners and staff members that their price on Standard Magic boosters needs to be below the average MSRP. Doesn't matter If they aren't able to make money to keep the lights on or that they're unable to pay $1 thousand for overhead, that's their problem not Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's.
So when these Local Game Stores are paying $4 thousand a month on overhead or even $8 thousand a month depending on the employees, they're only allowed to make $5 a booster box at the most and If they have to sell online then they're required to lose 10-20% of their income as a penalty for buying too much product and it's their fault. So go ahead tell them that it's your fault for ripping them off by convincing them to match their MSRP with Amazon's to ensure that these Local Game Stores won't be around in 12 months by helping them go bankrupt. I wouldn't be surprised If other Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game companies started following suit by partnering with Amazon as well.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro asks: "How come you're not buying our Magic products after we partnered up with Amazon?"
Consumer replies: "Well I don't have a place to play Magic as a way to hang out and socialize with my friends."
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro replies back: "Sucks to be you I guess."
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
and scrolling i found :
$90.99
+ $3.99 shipping
Sold by: Channel_Fireball
and after looking at the comparable, the boxes range in prince from the 93 all the way up to 125 on amazon.
shockingly this ALMOST makes me want to apply for the card Get $60 off instantly: Pay $34.85 upon approval for the Amazon Prime Store Card.
I dont buy sealed.
I dont draft.
I dont play at my local.
I buy singles from my local.
I sell singles to my local.
I buy and play 99% of the time online.
Am I the outlier, or the trending increasing %?
Spirits
They still do surveys??? I am honestly surprised if they do, because I personally thought they just put ether soaked rags on their faces and blurt out things.
Honestly I thought Wizards was just trying to do what they thought was for the best for magic, what they thought would be more fun. Now they are setting fire to the house and flipping off the people who helped them build a nearly 3 decade card empire............ Well I guess maybe it is more fun, for them at least.
Yes, after ever single (Standard) set preview that I can remember, and with some of the additional ones as well.
Spirits
But is Channelfireball really an "LGS"?
Im pretty sure the OP was talking about places in your town or area where you can sit down and play some magic with your buds. Yeah sure maybe the all the LGSs won't die from this but it will wound them, some mortally I would imagine. This news is kind of a bummer
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
I was just pointing out that the was incorrect as far I could find on amazon's website. For myself, we don't have a FLGS, so its either drive to somewhere out of town or order online for our magic needs card wise.
I think we're going to start to see more Local Game Stores liquidate their assets with closeout sales across the country similar to what we saw with Kmart and Toys R Us If other Collectible Card Game Publishers decide to follow suit with the Direct-to-Consumer business model with Amazon. I hope it doesn't happen however the tell tale signs aren't looking so good. One solution I've thought of is to maybe turn the Local Game Store into a Clubhouse as a way for people to have a place to actually play Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games without having to worry about not having a place to go similar to the YMCA but without limited membership requirements. That way players can still order their products online while still having a place to play without going to someone's house.
I know it sounds like a crazy idea but it just might work.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
MTG is a unique case (although to be fair it is the pioneer of its era). It's pretty much the only TCG that has enabled a LGS to operate while only catering to a single game. I've never seen a LGS that operates on a single game that isn't MTG that could survive for any reasonable amount of time.
But that is all there is to it - a unique case that is starting its erosion to extinction (In recent years I'm seeing more LGS adopt either more card games or tabletop gaming to assist in maintenance) and honestly, I don't blame WotC. There were simply less entertainment choices back then, so people had to move their way to their gaming stores and MTG did a great job establishing itself among its (admittedly fewer) competitors.
Throw in the "lazy evolution of gaming", fact remains that fewer new people are by default walking through the doors and an aging demographic with other life responsibilities might be forced to adopt "lazy gaming" as their entertainment simply due to time constraints. It's unfair to just say WotC didn't push for advertising, they did (and in fairness since its targeted at new player we might simply ignore them most of the time), it's just the entire entertainment industry exploded with so many competitors (especially mobile gaming and their daily production of dozens of soulless games per day alone), WotC simply cannot out-advertise them all.
WotC simply recognizes the death of the LGS system no matter how they try to help because to put it bluntly, everyone's mobile phone is a competitor to the LGS and there's no way WotC is winning this fight. As a business I can't really blame WotC for trying to keep themselves alive by no longer bonding themselves to a system losing in what is probably the most crowded-competitive entertainment industry in history. This is why MTGArena is so important, its success is essentially the best life buoy for WotC for the immediate-to-intermediate future.
Sure, I won't deny that in a direct way, building relationship with major online retailers is WotC spitting on LGS, but at the same time it's the perfect time for WotC to send the message to LGS that they are dying and need to change, because even if WotC kept the status quo, it doesn't change the fact the ship is a sinking one and in some ways a captain keeping that a secret to the passengers isn't exactly right either. Sure, here we have the captain rushing for his own lifeboat which is also no doubt frowned upon, but hey analogies only go so far and WotC isn't actually a ship captain, but a subsidiary that needs to show profits to their bosses, so that kind of selfishness you can't exactly blame anyone specific (I mean no one at WotC wants to lose their job right?)
The system is dying and WotC is essentially telling us that outright through them using their own escape hatch. People (mainly LGS owners) who have their livelihoods affected by this but are only complaining and saying WotC's escape hatch is bad and will fail are just deluding themselves that WotC can save them but refuse to, but in reality WotC can't save them and are trying to save themselves with their escape hatch (if it fails, honestly WotC dies either way then). To be blunt what these people should really be doing is looking for their own escape hatches before the ship completely sinks and they drown. The selfish captain has already left in search for land on his own lifeboat and honestly, he'll rather die failing to search for said land then to go back to the sinking ship and die for sure anyway.
Of course how WotC handles the pro-scene is actually a real problem for them, because it's a relevant factor in both the market they left and the one they're trying to enter. It's like a needle on the lifeboat ready to threaten said captain, but honestly it's an irrelevant topic to the passengers still on the sinking ship (or at least it's not immediately relevant since there's more pressing matters on hand for them).
If you really care for your LGS and your LGS is the kind that relies entirely on MTG, then you might really want to advise the owners on diversifying their businesses at the very least lest the day WotC has been accepted by their new market and the full impact of abandonment hit the LGS. In an ideal world LGS owners are business-savvy enough to see this, but I've seen enough cases even during the system's heyday where there are LGS owners who literally have zero business-sense (and I don't mean the "mean owner" way, there are plenty of examples of nice people who are just terrible businessmen). I mean, sure one can argue if they're that bad at business they would eventually fail anyway, but you'll be surprised that in various industries there are businesses with not-as-bright-but-nice owners that kept afloat throughout because their customer-base is also nice and supportive in return and its that tiny potential subgroup I'm sniping for specifically. A long shot, but better than not saying anything.
The only reason why competition seems to matter now is due to ongoing pressure from other gaming genres to publicly advertise more in order to get people to buy their product and that's where most of the difficulty seems to come from. This is why Social Media outlets with YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, reddit, etc. are good for getting this type of promotional advertising across that they normally wouldn't get through by other means. A friend of mine recently suggested that there needs to be more live stream commentaries/podcasts during gameplay matches for Organized Play events being held at the LGS to help generate revenue for these stores.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I have to disagree with you here. Yes, marketing itself is something that is a part of the whole movement/pressure, but while you could catch on that the development of technology (as in social media) had an effect on marketing, you don't seem to acknowledge it from Gaming.
You cannot pretend the TCG/CCG market isn't in competition with video games. Both are forms of entertainment in a "super-genre" and usually any form of entertainment will be fighting for any person's time since its not like people have a lot of time for just entertainment. You are also too hasty in determining that TCGs would have lost immediately against video games, because well, TCGs were in competition even back then and we actually survived (I wouldn't say won) because of various factors, mainly that when both were in their heydays, parents tend to be more skeptical about video games (especially when consoles still cost an initial lump sum money) than the likes of tabletop games. Even handheld consoles are considered luxury items (since they were only used for Gaming).
This is why I say technology has a great impact on the entire gaming industry, regardless of which genre you are in and not only marketing. Now the gaming device is in the mobile phone, no longer considered a luxury item by many but an essential one. Parents don't hesitate as much getting their children a phone and add in the magic that there are endless free-2-play games in there, the kids don't even need permission to get into games. Hence begins their introduction into the world of gaming and let me tell you f2p games are one of worst educators about the industry to young minds.
It's not like only the TCG/CCG industry is affected, even the video game side itself gets affected by the practices of this rising generation. Why buy a console when I get equal enjoyment from my already essential phone? Why spend so many hours working on a $60 game when I can just make a simple but addictive game, throw in microtransactions and make more money with less work? In fact, the later sounds like the TCG industry just warped to video game form, but even towards the TCG industry, it's "why waste time printing cards and then having to resort to bans when I can just create cards instantaneously with no supply problems and I can retroactively nerf cards instead of having to ban them?".
I can smell the counterargument of "but physical cards are fun to collect" even before I started the paragraph and let me tell please don't bother telling me that, as someone who also collects cards among other things I know that very well myself. But I've also pretty much seen the majority of the upcoming generation, already addicted to convenience and instant gratification due to the way they were educated about the industry (by the mobile phone game gateway), the process to them is not fun, but tedious. To them, it's all about pressing "purchase" and proceeding to curbstomp their next opponent in a span of less than a minute. In fact, arguably even the partners WotC are getting might be considered to be "too slow" by some parts of that generation, let alone the unthinkable idea of having to lug yourself to the LGS with no guarantee of finding exactly what you want. They're essentially spoilt by infinite supply on top of convenience.
Most importantly, they make up the majority of the current and upcoming generations of gamers. I can't change your mind if you still think MTG is only competing with other TCGs, but don't be too surprised when the entire genre (not just MTG) just slowly sinks as less and less new players fill in the gaps since they're not interested in TCGs as they are in OCGs (or other mobile games) which align to their style of entertainment. Here's where video games get it easier than TCGs/Tabletops since both use similar technology, making it easier to transit over (which is why so many video game companies love to put their games full of microtransactions). TCGs have the "microtransactions" part down way before time (booster packs duh), but we severely lack the convenience part for the new players to comfortably transit.