i think the easiest solution, that won't piss of everyone and will still give something for whales is to... well quite simply...
don't design a ******* reprint set that prices everyone out
give whales special products like secret lairs, no one really cares if its optional product that just has an alternate art and only comes in foil. no one really cares when its small selection thats able to be ordered direct. the minute you design an entire set - hype it - and then price all but the whales out? you're gonna piss a lot of people off. that's pretty basic.
that said, i do feel all the product changes this year will hurtle them quickly toward regulation. boosters feel like a gamble more than ever before.
As i said ppl have no perspective. Ive seen ppl refer to themselves as whales when they spend 3k a month. Make that 30k and we can talk.
Long story short. Magic is still too cheap
If you're saying a NET outlay of $30,000 per month, I think there are zero people doing that. Anyone putting up that much on Magic is trying to turn a buck.
30k to them is like 300 to you. People like spending. Their daily budget for entertainment is 2k+. I know them
Expect normal packs to double as well
Well I just shared a long post and it got marked as SPAM. So I'll just leave this quote from Jesper Myrfors here:
Back in the old days at Wizards of the Coast, we used to joke about how cravenly greedy it would be to release cards that you could only get with a high purchase price, like only available in a booster box etc. We often said that if we did that it was because we were out of ideas and the grasping suits had totally taken over.
Then we would laugh because we would never allow that to happen.
We called them "chase" cards and we knew their single purpose was to squeeze even more money out of obsessed players. Even back then we understood 100% that it was in effect taking advantage of people with certain mental disorders and that it was the wrong thing to do.
We knew that many players would see it for what it was, a sign of a total loss of respect for our players all for a pathetic short-term gain. Those cards would have been aimed squarely at benefiting shareholders, not to benefit the players. It would have been disgusting.
That is why we never did it, though it was discussed.
I think it's especially odd that this discussion is being provoked by Double Masters. If there's two rares and two foils in each pack, and some pack filler commons are being pushed out, then the higher price is justified. You're basically buying two packs for every pack, and two boxes for every box (including two box toppers per box.) If you spend a certain amount of money on MTG, there's no change. The change is that it takes you half as long to open packs, so if you have more free time at the store, maybe you're buying more product and spending more money. There's also an impact if you've fallen into a habit of preordering a box for every set or something, or a certain amount of boxes. The one-box guy is paying more. But he's also getting twice the product, right?
Drafts cost more for this set, but Ikoria is a great draft format, so you don't need to draft this one if you don't want to. Or, draft it half as often as you would have a new Masters set, which means you pay around the same. In return you get a draft format with crazily stacked boosters. Well, okay, let's see the spoilers for the set first, but there's probably some good stuff here, right?
I don't think Double Masters is as predatory to whales as something like one-day sales for premium products, blatant attempts to trigger "fomo" in people that fear regretting doing nothing. They're not bad products if you don't have tiny timing windows for sales. But when I look at Double Masters, what do I see? It's like ordering a footlong at Subway. If they came out with a double footlong that was double the price, I don't think people would need to be mad about it, even if it was silly, because the footlong is already double the 6".
I will offer solutions but I am confident that most all would be ignored by WotC/Hasbro.
1. WotC acknowledges the Secondary Market.
2. MSRP comes back for ALL products.
3. Said MSRP drops on a booster pack from $4 to $3. Bundle MSRP $35. Theme boosters MSRP $6.
4. Boosters have 2 rares/and or mythics, 4 uncommons, 8 commons and a foil in each pack.
5. Print one dedicated Reprint Set every year, NOT draft supported as every other release has draft in mind, large set 800 cards focusing on Eternal formats and EDH.
6. For every high end Secret Lair Drop offer a low cost Drop of something else as well (less than 20 USD).
7. Bring back Tournament Packs at $10 MSRP. (45 cards, 6 rares, 12 uncommons, 26 commons, 1 foil, no lands)
8. Give/Relinquish Bannings/Restrictions to an outside entity, like in Commander.
9. Get rid of Pre-release, just have a RELEASE and be done with it.
10. Give players an option to buy direct from WotC on some products, skipping distributors and predatory finance buyers.
11. Offer a paper redemption option. Ex.) Send in 1000 commons and receive your choice of 10 rares from a preset list.
12. Start a players advisory board. Limit the amount of "pros"/"sharks"/"whales"/finance members and include a majority of just players/"average joes" on the board.
Again I don't think they would try a single thing from my list. They are entrenched and at this point nothing short of regulation or death of the game will change the path they are on.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
We all know that buying randomized product is not a viable way to get the cards you need to play the game, even with Standard legal sets. So why is it that people are upset with the pricing?
I look at it like this, let someone else play the lottery, while you benefit financially from lower secondary market card prices.
We all know that buying randomized product is not a viable way to get the cards you need to play the game, even with Standard legal sets. So why is it that people are upset with the pricing?
I look at it like this, let someone else play the lottery, while you benefit financially from lower secondary market card prices.
I started this thread over my frustration regarding where the game seems to be headed.
I remain frustrated. Whatever anger has been felt and expressed over DoubleMasters and FOMO marketing howeverwill likely be soon forgotten by most players a few days from now amidst the hype surounding Core 2021. If you plan to politely notify WotC of your discontent in any way over this, might as well do it now.
Feeling annoyed over accessibility within a game though by no means diminishes the fact that there are more serious concerns to also be had right at this moment.
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Wizards. listen. The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
Buying cards on the Secondary Market does not occur in a vaccuum.
Raise the price of packs that mark the "point of entry" for a buyer, then they pass that along to the next person on the chain. If usually it costs some Secondary market seller 10,000 dollars to buy boxes or sealed product for X amount to be broken into sell-able singles, then it costs them 12,000 the next go around they are going to sell those X amount of singles at an inflated price each.
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():
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I am kind of confused by this argumentation, especially the reference to Garfield's Manifesto. He is taking a shot at games whose business model is to get huge amounts of money from a small percentage of players.
That is not the MTG business scheme. Everyone pays for products. They want less enfranchised players to become more enfranchised and spend more money. You are right that more recently they are targeting people who spend a lot on magic - because some people love getting alternate frames, full-art, etc. But you can get the same cards without spending large amounts of money. This is more akin to cosmetic microtransactions in video games and mobile games.
Of course, some people spend more than they should. FOMO and competitive play drive many to spend more than they should. There is also an inherent gambling issue - I have seen too many kids trading their rares for packs hoping to open a money card (probably so they can get more packs). But parents should not give kids freedom to spend money as they do not have the maturity to be smart investors. Magic is addicting for many reasons.
You should also remember that what you invest in a mobile game is not tangible and often gives you a short-term gain. It's like exclusively eating at the most expensive restaurant in your city - it's fun, but at the end of the day your ***** is still *****. You don't get anything of long-term value.
When you buy Magic products, you get something with resale value. I know that at any time I can sell my collection and recover most of what I have spent (or even make a profit).
I would like to think that whatever I spend on new product will, on average, be worth about 60% of what I spent should I resell/trade within a year. If I am willing to hold onto it long-term, the value eventually goes up and can be worth what I spent or even more.
I am kind of confused by this argumentation, especially the reference to Garfield's Manifesto. He is taking a shot at games whose business model is to get huge amounts of money from a small percentage of players.
That is not the MTG business scheme. Everyone pays for products. They want less enfranchised players to become more enfranchised and spend more money. You are right that more recently they are targeting people who spend a lot on magic - because some people love getting alternate frames, full-art, etc. But you can get the same cards without spending large amounts of money. This is more akin to cosmetic microtransactions in video games and mobile games.
Of course, some people spend more than they should. FOMO and competitive play drive many to spend more than they should. There is also an inherent gambling issue - I have seen too many kids trading their rares for packs hoping to open a money card (probably so they can get more packs). But parents should not give kids freedom to spend money as they do not have the maturity to be smart investors. Magic is addicting for many reasons.
You should also remember that what you invest in a mobile game is not tangible and often gives you a short-term gain. It's like exclusively eating at the most expensive restaurant in your city - it's fun, but at the end of the day your ***** is still *****. You don't get anything of long-term value.
When you buy Magic products, you get something with resale value. I know that at any time I can sell my collection and recover most of what I have spent (or even make a profit).
I would like to think that whatever I spend on new product will, on average, be worth about 60% of what I spent should I resell/trade within a year. If I am willing to hold onto it long-term, the value eventually goes up and can be worth what I spent or even more.
the changes over the course of the past year demonstrate that this has very clearly become magic's business model. i don't think you can look at whats going on and not make the claim that they're trying to suck as much money out of people as possible, especially whales, with little regard to the rest of the playerbase. there have just been too many rapid aggressive changes that promote spending vast amounts of money while also pushing the FOMO idea really aggressively. i mean ****, they came right out and said they wanted to make opening boosters fun again. that right there says they want to create an environment that promotes nothing more than consumption... and who consumes the most?
you're quick to blame kids for being exploited with the gambling side of things, but i've seen a huge array of adults get suckered in too. not just trading in cards to get more packs in the hopes of something expensive, but also just dumping tons of money every week in the hope of getting that alt art foil whatever that doesn't even come close to what they've spent on the packs to open. its a real problem that shouldn't just be dumped off as a problem exclusive to kids. that you can even acknowledge its a problem for kids is well exploitative. thats a practice that needs to end. if it takes advantage of children in any way then it needs to end. also stop and think about all of those kids that grew up. its a problem. a big one that grows bigger every release.
we like to think our collections are worth fortunes and that they hold so much retail value, but the fact of the matter is almost everything is actually worthless unless its in demand or sold in bulk. you spend $4 on a pack and you open junk. in a lot of cases you can't even give it away. i have seen players literally leave an entire garbage pack on the table including the rare and people don't even take it when its free. that you're paying for a product with resale value is a total farce when all of that value is tied up in a very small selection of cards, but we keep eating that line of thought. we keep believing it. go to a store sometime and let them pour through your boxes and see what they actually want to take, what they'll actually pay you for, its very little. no one is going on ebay and buying playsets of flux either.
on top of that, a huge portion of players never even make the attempt to sell. they hoard and hoard and claim they have gold. their stuff is worth so much, but it really just sits in a binder and rots. prices fluctuate dramatically and rapidly, especially when new products come out with better cards or cards are aggressively reprinted. nothing new is ever safe and the majority of your purchase should automatically be viewed as a loss the second the pack is opened. we see this all the time. commander precons being a recent example. we like to think its such a bargain, 100 cards for whatever price but the majority of those cards are not things that people actually want, not things people will actually buy, but so many factor it into the price to justify what they're spending.
edit: also i think another way to combat the problem is to be more aggressive with reprints in standard legal sets, and to go back to the old 3 rarity model. if the secondary price of cards is spread across more cards you end up with more rares in the 5 dollar range (this is how it use to be) and now you're likely to get the cost of your pack back instead of it being a total loss if you didnt open extended art foil alternate art mythic. all of their changes recently have reduced the EV of packs dramatically, which in turn increases the gambling side of things because you're not getting dick unless you're super lucky now.
If you guys want to donate $5 a month to cockatrice. You can play magic for $60 a year. Totally online. Right now. Then you never have to care about paper magic or Double Masters or Masters Gold Edition Deluxe version 15x again. You can keep complaining about the price if you want to but it won't do anything. It's a luxury paper product made for people with large amounts of disposable income.
There are many examples of this in life. Deck of playing cards $5. vs Magic booster case of a new set $600. In one you get everything you need the other you don't.
Acqua di Cristallo Tributo a Modigliani – $60,000 Per 750ml OR Tap water for .03 a gallon.
Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita ($4.8M) OR Chevrolet Spark $14,095
$60 board game you can play for forever until you get bored of it OR Lots of Money on Magic.
Due to Corona Virus I'm buying no magic cards at all. I can get another hobby if magic goes under.
I think I'm spent on this topic after that.
Quite.
For someone so easily annoyed by 'rainbow communist opinions' I'm confused why you thought folks interested in problematizing WotC's predatory business practices and rising product costs would be receptive to your argumentation.
Thanks for reading my signature. No one has ever commented on it before.
They don't have to be receptive to my argument. I already knew they will most likely never listen.
If anything facts in this thread don't matter.
The main reason I posted in this thread is because it's fun. Maybe someone gains something from my posts. Maybe I sway an opinion. Maybe all of our lives get better from 1/100,000 people no longer having a communist belief system because of me. Maybe nothing happens at all but it was still fun posting it.
Thanks SpeedGrapher I have never been a political guy, but with your post I going to have to join the communist party. Luckily for me in Chile the communist party is pretty strong. In fact not even the pinochet dictatorship was able to destroy it.
We all know that buying randomized product is not a viable way to get the cards you need to play the game, even with Standard legal sets. So why is it that people are upset with the pricing?
I look at it like this, let someone else play the lottery, while you benefit financially from lower secondary market card prices.
And in many free-to-play mobile games, for instance, the most viable way to play the game is to be careful with where you spend your money as well, yet it is still widely considered to be a bad thing the way those games offer the opportunity for people to spend indefinite amounts of money for ultimately little gain. A game offering choices for spending that are traps is not okay because we can recognise they are traps and avoid them. Because not everyone will avoid them. That's why they are there, and they are designed to seem enticing. People absolutely do spend significant amounts of money buying randomized booster products for MtG. The fact that it is not more affordable to build decks this way is problematic because it makes it a trap.
Regardless, other avenues of buying into Magic are affected by the affordability of booster products. Namely, buying singles is often more affordable way to play, but the price of singles is significantly dependant on the price of booster products. People would be willing to sell singles for less if they didn't have to pay as much for booster products in order to get those singles into circulation in the first place.
A premium reprint product like this is a perfect opportunity for WotC to keep affordability of singles within some kind of reasonable bounds. It makes sense that it would be somewhat more expensive than standard legal 'premier' sets, even though the added value of the product is purely artificial, but there is a limit of how much it can be inflated before WotC is just further creating and profiting from artificial scarcity and not significantly increasingly affordability. WotC does not need to rely on keeping singles expensive in order to make a profit. They aren't the ones selling singles, and while selling packs for less would make less, it would increase sales in turn because more people could afford to buy it, and help drive a larger healthier player base in general by making the game more accessible.
The main reason to use this current model is it's a very easy way to make money. Focusing more on affordability would involve more careful balancing of print runs, cost and value in products, and relies on player enthusiasm. The way they've been doing products like the Secret Lairs and Double Masters is basically just printing money. Some people will buy it, and WotC makes a huge return of artificially inflated prices for bits of cardboard. And the way artificial scarcity and randomness is combined creates a potentially exploitative feedback loop where people buy pack and pack, box after box, digging for those super high value cards, potentially losing track of just how much money they've spent along the way to where they've spent more to get what they wanted in the end than they'd ever be willing to spend on those cards directly in a single purchase.
The recent 'booster fun' alternate art scheme they've introduced is clearly designed to increase the amount of booster chasing for cards by further increasing the amount of artificially high value cards but in a way that doesn't actually increase affordability of the actual game pieces. At least in that case, they've only added it to what was already there, so for a lot of people it's actually good. But it shows WotC's commitment to this larger model of monetisation.
I'd say Double Masters is less so a problem, than it is a missed opportunity. Singles are expensive and people have been complaining for a long time. This and products like it are ostensibly aimed at providing some relief on that front, but they have often been quite ineffective at doing so and double masters look set to be similarly ineffective. Double Master is likely not to be the worst, but there's a certain fatigue that sets in where people tire of such products being released which fail to live up to their promises as far as affordability goes.
No one should be paying hundreds of dollars for cards that are necessary game pieces for common formats. I'm certainly not going to, and that's a shame, because I might play more formats, and more MtG in general, if it wasn't so expensive to do so. I'd rather they kept the secret lairs and made products like this more affordable, such that people are buying the secret lairs as a collector's item, not just in order to get the cards they need to play the game.
They are just going up and up to see where is the limit.
The solution for me would be the collector boosters, premium reprint sets as masters could be a bit more expensive than standard set, maybe the double but not 300 for a box. Keep the fancy art only in collectors boosters sop the whales can have an incentive to go for them.
I heard valid arguments on all sides. Professor for example said without MSRP the box price could swell beyond affordable, makes it even more difficult for people with smaller wallet to play the "game". Since there will always be people buying these boxes, it'd encourage WotC to continue this price gauging without regulation. Otherwise, he actually likes the content of Double Master.
On the other hand, MTGGoldfish argued that because there will always be enough people buying and opening boxes, it would result in more abundant supplies of key cards in secondary market, so most people could just wait for a month or two for the price to go down accordingly, as seen in some of the previously successful Masters.
Another said that because each box comes with two toppers, and each booster comes with two rare/mythics, it's likely that one would immediately get the entire cost back, no matter if they bought a box or just a few boosters.
Personally, I will test my luck with boosters and avoid the box.
I'm sorry, but MaRo's "it's only fair we cater to whales too" is total BS. Sure, whales want nice things. But I guarantee you no one gets excited that they're paying 3+x for products that cost a trivial amount extra to make. Expeditions and masterpieces catered to them. $16 15-card booster packs exploit them.
I'm sorry, but MaRo's "it's only fair we cater to whales too" is total BS. Sure, whales want nice things. But I guarantee you no one gets excited that they're paying 3+x for products that cost a trivial amount extra to make. Expeditions and masterpieces catered to them. $16 15-card booster packs exploit them.
I want to call bull on this because no one considers how much it cost to make something when buying it. And yes people do get excited buying expensive products. You can be upset at this reality but to deny it is simply plugging your ears. Heck some people are more excited with more expensive items rather than “rarer” items. Only true whales can buy the limited super expensive cards while anyone could open a masterpiece.
I'm sorry, but MaRo's "it's only fair we cater to whales too" is total BS. Sure, whales want nice things. But I guarantee you no one gets excited that they're paying 3+x for products that cost a trivial amount extra to make. Expeditions and masterpieces catered to them. $16 15-card booster packs exploit them.
I want to call bull on this because no one considers how much it cost to make something when buying it. And yes people do get excited buying expensive products. You can be upset at this reality but to deny it is simply plugging your ears. Heck some people are more excited with more expensive items rather than “rarer” items. Only true whales can buy the limited super expensive cards while anyone could open a masterpiece.
That and the reprints we want are gonna be somewhat more affordable depending on playable in eternal formats or/and how scarce they were before the last reprint
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don't design a ******* reprint set that prices everyone out
give whales special products like secret lairs, no one really cares if its optional product that just has an alternate art and only comes in foil. no one really cares when its small selection thats able to be ordered direct. the minute you design an entire set - hype it - and then price all but the whales out? you're gonna piss a lot of people off. that's pretty basic.
that said, i do feel all the product changes this year will hurtle them quickly toward regulation. boosters feel like a gamble more than ever before.
30k to them is like 300 to you. People like spending. Their daily budget for entertainment is 2k+. I know them
Expect normal packs to double as well
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Back in the old days at Wizards of the Coast, we used to joke about how cravenly greedy it would be to release cards that you could only get with a high purchase price, like only available in a booster box etc. We often said that if we did that it was because we were out of ideas and the grasping suits had totally taken over.
Then we would laugh because we would never allow that to happen.
We called them "chase" cards and we knew their single purpose was to squeeze even more money out of obsessed players. Even back then we understood 100% that it was in effect taking advantage of people with certain mental disorders and that it was the wrong thing to do.
We knew that many players would see it for what it was, a sign of a total loss of respect for our players all for a pathetic short-term gain. Those cards would have been aimed squarely at benefiting shareholders, not to benefit the players. It would have been disgusting.
That is why we never did it, though it was discussed.
Drafts cost more for this set, but Ikoria is a great draft format, so you don't need to draft this one if you don't want to. Or, draft it half as often as you would have a new Masters set, which means you pay around the same. In return you get a draft format with crazily stacked boosters. Well, okay, let's see the spoilers for the set first, but there's probably some good stuff here, right?
I don't think Double Masters is as predatory to whales as something like one-day sales for premium products, blatant attempts to trigger "fomo" in people that fear regretting doing nothing. They're not bad products if you don't have tiny timing windows for sales. But when I look at Double Masters, what do I see? It's like ordering a footlong at Subway. If they came out with a double footlong that was double the price, I don't think people would need to be mad about it, even if it was silly, because the footlong is already double the 6".
1. WotC acknowledges the Secondary Market.
2. MSRP comes back for ALL products.
3. Said MSRP drops on a booster pack from $4 to $3. Bundle MSRP $35. Theme boosters MSRP $6.
4. Boosters have 2 rares/and or mythics, 4 uncommons, 8 commons and a foil in each pack.
5. Print one dedicated Reprint Set every year, NOT draft supported as every other release has draft in mind, large set 800 cards focusing on Eternal formats and EDH.
6. For every high end Secret Lair Drop offer a low cost Drop of something else as well (less than 20 USD).
7. Bring back Tournament Packs at $10 MSRP. (45 cards, 6 rares, 12 uncommons, 26 commons, 1 foil, no lands)
8. Give/Relinquish Bannings/Restrictions to an outside entity, like in Commander.
9. Get rid of Pre-release, just have a RELEASE and be done with it.
10. Give players an option to buy direct from WotC on some products, skipping distributors and predatory finance buyers.
11. Offer a paper redemption option. Ex.) Send in 1000 commons and receive your choice of 10 rares from a preset list.
12. Start a players advisory board. Limit the amount of "pros"/"sharks"/"whales"/finance members and include a majority of just players/"average joes" on the board.
Again I don't think they would try a single thing from my list. They are entrenched and at this point nothing short of regulation or death of the game will change the path they are on.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I look at it like this, let someone else play the lottery, while you benefit financially from lower secondary market card prices.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
Thats what I would like to know
I remain frustrated. Whatever anger has been felt and expressed over DoubleMasters and FOMO marketing howeverwill likely be soon forgotten by most players a few days from now amidst the hype surounding Core 2021. If you plan to politely notify WotC of your discontent in any way over this, might as well do it now.
Feeling annoyed over accessibility within a game though by no means diminishes the fact that there are more serious concerns to also be had right at this moment.
The Vorthos community will await the consequences of the Eldrazi Titans' deaths/sealing. We will keep the watch.
“The wind whispers, ‘come home,’ but I cannot.”
— Teferi
Raise the price of packs that mark the "point of entry" for a buyer, then they pass that along to the next person on the chain. If usually it costs some Secondary market seller 10,000 dollars to buy boxes or sealed product for X amount to be broken into sell-able singles, then it costs them 12,000 the next go around they are going to sell those X amount of singles at an inflated price each.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
It may not be $100
https://news.toyark.com/2020/05/22/magic-the-gathering-double-masters-with-vip-collector-box-information-388935
It's $35-$40 but the price will vary
That is not the MTG business scheme. Everyone pays for products. They want less enfranchised players to become more enfranchised and spend more money. You are right that more recently they are targeting people who spend a lot on magic - because some people love getting alternate frames, full-art, etc. But you can get the same cards without spending large amounts of money. This is more akin to cosmetic microtransactions in video games and mobile games.
Of course, some people spend more than they should. FOMO and competitive play drive many to spend more than they should. There is also an inherent gambling issue - I have seen too many kids trading their rares for packs hoping to open a money card (probably so they can get more packs). But parents should not give kids freedom to spend money as they do not have the maturity to be smart investors. Magic is addicting for many reasons.
You should also remember that what you invest in a mobile game is not tangible and often gives you a short-term gain. It's like exclusively eating at the most expensive restaurant in your city - it's fun, but at the end of the day your ***** is still *****. You don't get anything of long-term value.
When you buy Magic products, you get something with resale value. I know that at any time I can sell my collection and recover most of what I have spent (or even make a profit).
I would like to think that whatever I spend on new product will, on average, be worth about 60% of what I spent should I resell/trade within a year. If I am willing to hold onto it long-term, the value eventually goes up and can be worth what I spent or even more.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
the changes over the course of the past year demonstrate that this has very clearly become magic's business model. i don't think you can look at whats going on and not make the claim that they're trying to suck as much money out of people as possible, especially whales, with little regard to the rest of the playerbase. there have just been too many rapid aggressive changes that promote spending vast amounts of money while also pushing the FOMO idea really aggressively. i mean ****, they came right out and said they wanted to make opening boosters fun again. that right there says they want to create an environment that promotes nothing more than consumption... and who consumes the most?
you're quick to blame kids for being exploited with the gambling side of things, but i've seen a huge array of adults get suckered in too. not just trading in cards to get more packs in the hopes of something expensive, but also just dumping tons of money every week in the hope of getting that alt art foil whatever that doesn't even come close to what they've spent on the packs to open. its a real problem that shouldn't just be dumped off as a problem exclusive to kids. that you can even acknowledge its a problem for kids is well exploitative. thats a practice that needs to end. if it takes advantage of children in any way then it needs to end. also stop and think about all of those kids that grew up. its a problem. a big one that grows bigger every release.
we like to think our collections are worth fortunes and that they hold so much retail value, but the fact of the matter is almost everything is actually worthless unless its in demand or sold in bulk. you spend $4 on a pack and you open junk. in a lot of cases you can't even give it away. i have seen players literally leave an entire garbage pack on the table including the rare and people don't even take it when its free. that you're paying for a product with resale value is a total farce when all of that value is tied up in a very small selection of cards, but we keep eating that line of thought. we keep believing it. go to a store sometime and let them pour through your boxes and see what they actually want to take, what they'll actually pay you for, its very little. no one is going on ebay and buying playsets of flux either.
on top of that, a huge portion of players never even make the attempt to sell. they hoard and hoard and claim they have gold. their stuff is worth so much, but it really just sits in a binder and rots. prices fluctuate dramatically and rapidly, especially when new products come out with better cards or cards are aggressively reprinted. nothing new is ever safe and the majority of your purchase should automatically be viewed as a loss the second the pack is opened. we see this all the time. commander precons being a recent example. we like to think its such a bargain, 100 cards for whatever price but the majority of those cards are not things that people actually want, not things people will actually buy, but so many factor it into the price to justify what they're spending.
edit: also i think another way to combat the problem is to be more aggressive with reprints in standard legal sets, and to go back to the old 3 rarity model. if the secondary price of cards is spread across more cards you end up with more rares in the 5 dollar range (this is how it use to be) and now you're likely to get the cost of your pack back instead of it being a total loss if you didnt open extended art foil alternate art mythic. all of their changes recently have reduced the EV of packs dramatically, which in turn increases the gambling side of things because you're not getting dick unless you're super lucky now.
Thanks SpeedGrapher I have never been a political guy, but with your post I going to have to join the communist party. Luckily for me in Chile the communist party is pretty strong. In fact not even the pinochet dictatorship was able to destroy it.
And in many free-to-play mobile games, for instance, the most viable way to play the game is to be careful with where you spend your money as well, yet it is still widely considered to be a bad thing the way those games offer the opportunity for people to spend indefinite amounts of money for ultimately little gain. A game offering choices for spending that are traps is not okay because we can recognise they are traps and avoid them. Because not everyone will avoid them. That's why they are there, and they are designed to seem enticing. People absolutely do spend significant amounts of money buying randomized booster products for MtG. The fact that it is not more affordable to build decks this way is problematic because it makes it a trap.
Regardless, other avenues of buying into Magic are affected by the affordability of booster products. Namely, buying singles is often more affordable way to play, but the price of singles is significantly dependant on the price of booster products. People would be willing to sell singles for less if they didn't have to pay as much for booster products in order to get those singles into circulation in the first place.
A premium reprint product like this is a perfect opportunity for WotC to keep affordability of singles within some kind of reasonable bounds. It makes sense that it would be somewhat more expensive than standard legal 'premier' sets, even though the added value of the product is purely artificial, but there is a limit of how much it can be inflated before WotC is just further creating and profiting from artificial scarcity and not significantly increasingly affordability. WotC does not need to rely on keeping singles expensive in order to make a profit. They aren't the ones selling singles, and while selling packs for less would make less, it would increase sales in turn because more people could afford to buy it, and help drive a larger healthier player base in general by making the game more accessible.
The main reason to use this current model is it's a very easy way to make money. Focusing more on affordability would involve more careful balancing of print runs, cost and value in products, and relies on player enthusiasm. The way they've been doing products like the Secret Lairs and Double Masters is basically just printing money. Some people will buy it, and WotC makes a huge return of artificially inflated prices for bits of cardboard. And the way artificial scarcity and randomness is combined creates a potentially exploitative feedback loop where people buy pack and pack, box after box, digging for those super high value cards, potentially losing track of just how much money they've spent along the way to where they've spent more to get what they wanted in the end than they'd ever be willing to spend on those cards directly in a single purchase.
The recent 'booster fun' alternate art scheme they've introduced is clearly designed to increase the amount of booster chasing for cards by further increasing the amount of artificially high value cards but in a way that doesn't actually increase affordability of the actual game pieces. At least in that case, they've only added it to what was already there, so for a lot of people it's actually good. But it shows WotC's commitment to this larger model of monetisation.
I'd say Double Masters is less so a problem, than it is a missed opportunity. Singles are expensive and people have been complaining for a long time. This and products like it are ostensibly aimed at providing some relief on that front, but they have often been quite ineffective at doing so and double masters look set to be similarly ineffective. Double Master is likely not to be the worst, but there's a certain fatigue that sets in where people tire of such products being released which fail to live up to their promises as far as affordability goes.
No one should be paying hundreds of dollars for cards that are necessary game pieces for common formats. I'm certainly not going to, and that's a shame, because I might play more formats, and more MtG in general, if it wasn't so expensive to do so. I'd rather they kept the secret lairs and made products like this more affordable, such that people are buying the secret lairs as a collector's item, not just in order to get the cards they need to play the game.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
The solution for me would be the collector boosters, premium reprint sets as masters could be a bit more expensive than standard set, maybe the double but not 300 for a box. Keep the fancy art only in collectors boosters sop the whales can have an incentive to go for them.
Everyone would be happy.
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#BLM
#DefundThePolice
On the other hand, MTGGoldfish argued that because there will always be enough people buying and opening boxes, it would result in more abundant supplies of key cards in secondary market, so most people could just wait for a month or two for the price to go down accordingly, as seen in some of the previously successful Masters.
Another said that because each box comes with two toppers, and each booster comes with two rare/mythics, it's likely that one would immediately get the entire cost back, no matter if they bought a box or just a few boosters.
Personally, I will test my luck with boosters and avoid the box.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
That and the reprints we want are gonna be somewhat more affordable depending on playable in eternal formats or/and how scarce they were before the last reprint