HI guys I am reposting this here since very few people seem to be reading the mtgo exclusiev part of the forums.
What is the relation between the second hand economy and the primary economy on MTGO?
I've been thinking this for a long time, I want to support WOTC as much as I can, but I mostly play constructed (standard, modern and pauper),
Now let's say I buy cards from a trader using my credit card, technically WOTC gets nothing and I am still playing on their software,
BUT I just spend a 100tix on cards, now some drafter or tournament player probably sold those cards that I bought, and drafted or played in a league on MTGO using those 100tix that I paid the trader(minus commission),
so in the end WOTC still got my money minus the commission that the trader takes (11% I guess).
What if I were to pay my order with tickets bought from the MTGO own store instead? Well WOTC would now get all of my money, and I'd have to pay the taxes on top, but other than that commission fee that the trader won't be getting is there a big difference economically whether I buy my constructed cards with tix or credit card from the trader? the way I see it WOTC wins either way.
I also play league matches of course, so that is direct support for the WOTC, but I am trying to figure out how much do they benefit from card traders.
What is the relation between the second hand economy and the primary economy on MTGO?
It's the same as in paper, except with much, much lower transaction costs. Cards enter the economy largely through Limited players dumping their cards to recoup value after events, so much like paper, there are very few non-promo cards that enter the market without Wizards taking a cut somewhere along the line. If you spend $100 on 100 tickets' worth of cards (I know the exact exchange rate isn't 1:1 but we'll pretend it is for this example), then those are cards that Wizards has already taken their cut for. Inflation is kept under control because tickets are taxed out of the economy for their secondary purpose: entry into events. Cards only really leave the economy through redemption or from players quitting.
Also, tickets in the economy were similarly paid for at one point. If you order from a major bot chain with Paypal or another external means of payment, then sure, Wizards doesn't really get any new cut compared to buying tickets from the store (instead of from secondhand sellers undercutting Wizards) and trading them to the bots. But the key thing to remember here is that everything that exists in MTGO represents something Wizards has already taken its cut for.
What is the relation between the second hand economy and the primary economy on MTGO?
I've been thinking this for a long time, I want to support WOTC as much as I can, but I mostly play constructed (standard, modern and pauper),
Now let's say I buy cards from a trader using my credit card, technically WOTC gets nothing and I am still playing on their software,
BUT I just spend a 100tix on cards, now some drafter or tournament player probably sold those cards that I bought, and drafted or played in a league on MTGO using those 100tix that I paid the trader(minus commission),
so in the end WOTC still got my money minus the commission that the trader takes (11% I guess).
What if I were to pay my order with tickets bought from the MTGO own store instead? Well WOTC would now get all of my money, and I'd have to pay the taxes on top, but other than that commission fee that the trader won't be getting is there a big difference economically whether I buy my constructed cards with tix or credit card from the trader? the way I see it WOTC wins either way.
I also play league matches of course, so that is direct support for the WOTC, but I am trying to figure out how much do they benefit from card traders.
What do you guys think about the topic?
It's the same as in paper, except with much, much lower transaction costs. Cards enter the economy largely through Limited players dumping their cards to recoup value after events, so much like paper, there are very few non-promo cards that enter the market without Wizards taking a cut somewhere along the line. If you spend $100 on 100 tickets' worth of cards (I know the exact exchange rate isn't 1:1 but we'll pretend it is for this example), then those are cards that Wizards has already taken their cut for. Inflation is kept under control because tickets are taxed out of the economy for their secondary purpose: entry into events. Cards only really leave the economy through redemption or from players quitting.
Also, tickets in the economy were similarly paid for at one point. If you order from a major bot chain with Paypal or another external means of payment, then sure, Wizards doesn't really get any new cut compared to buying tickets from the store (instead of from secondhand sellers undercutting Wizards) and trading them to the bots. But the key thing to remember here is that everything that exists in MTGO represents something Wizards has already taken its cut for.
1) Buying $100 worth of cards with Paypal (or even 100 preexisting tickets): Nothing new enters the economy. Cards simply move around.
2) Buying $100 worth of cards with 100 fresh tickets: 100 new tickets enter the economy, so Wizards gets its cut of those.
If you look at it from the standpoint of "is anything new being created?" then the nature of each transaction becomes clear.