Does WotC Have a Responsibility to Keep this Game Affordable?

General forum

Posted on July 8, 2019, 10:32 p.m. by DemonDragonJ

Some cards in this game are expensive, and that statement should not surprise anyone who has played it for more than a year. I know that some cards will never be reprinted because of how powerful they are, but there are plenty of other cards that are in high demand that are very expensive, and I shall not bother to mention any specific cards by name, since there simply are too many.

Therefore, I wonder if WotC should be responsible for ensuring that this game is affordable, or if that is not their concern but the concern of the players. What does everyone else say about this? Do you believe that WotC should be responsible for ensuring that this game is affordable?

Last_Laugh says... #2

Reprint equity sells sets. Card values rising also makes the secondary market money (which includes your local game stores). Without sets selling or a healthy secondary market the game dies. WotC will never do anything to jeopardize this... nor should they.

July 8, 2019 10:40 p.m.

Caerwyn says... #3

Last_Laugh hit on two critical points--Wizards needs to make money and needs to ensure LGS stay in business. I think Wizards does a pretty decent job at ensuring there are enough budget options for Tier 2 or 3 decks, while, every so often, reprinting chase rares that will sell boosters and keep non-RL costs from going too out of control.

The game is expensive, and I can see how that can alienate new players and cause other issues; but there's no game if Wizards is not profitable, and no place to play if LGS go out of existence.

July 8, 2019 10:47 p.m. Edited.

Sarkhan420X says... #4

i disagree entirely with the 2 people above. first of all, sets would still sell even without $100+ cards in them. the secondary market doesn't make wotc money. i actually think the cards being cheaper would make wotc more money because more packs would sell. if copies of a particular card become scarce on the secondary market, players become forced to buy packs and then the secondary market gets filled with cards again.

as for keeping the LGS in business, that notion is actually laughable. if wotc cared about the LGS, then that would be the only place where packs are available. they wouldn't be available at every single Walmart and Target and every other store. think about it. why make a separate trip to the LGS when i can go to Walmart and do my grocery shopping and get packs in the same trip? i mean i personally would because i love my LGS, but its easy to see how many people are more concerned about their own convenience. not only that, but a game store should have much more to rely on to keep them afloat than simply selling packs.

the idea that wotc has to card values high on a market that doesnt even make them money is just silly. a good reprint set would sell like crazy. high card prices are a huge hurdle to new players, and its not hard to grasp the idea that making the game accessible to more players increases profits.

in conclusion, i'm in total agreement its wotc's responsibility to keep the game affordable.

July 8, 2019 11:29 p.m.

Last_Laugh says... #5

Says the dude with 420 in his name lol.

"The secondary market doesn't make wotc money." - The secondary market doesn't directly make WotC money (outside of product sales to the LGS' distributors)... but a healthy environment for tournament and casual play does make them money by supporting that type of environment where people gather.

"I actually think the cards being cheaper would make wotc more money because more packs would sell." - This would incentivize a player to buy singles which would actually hurt pack sales thus cutting into WotC's slice of the pie.

"If wotc cared about the LGS, then that would be the only place where packs are available. They wouldn't be available at every single Walmart and Target and every other store." - Why would using a major distributor constitute not caring about local game stores? You said yourself some people like the convenience... why miss out on that entire demographic?

"The idea that wotc has card values high on a market that doesnt even make them money is just silly. A good reprint set would sell like crazy." - This would cause WotC to actually lose reprint equity for a short term gain which is very shortsighted. What do they do going forward to sell packs?

July 9, 2019 12:04 a.m.

enpc says... #6

Cards being more expensive are actually more profitable for WotC. Because they don't make any money off the secondary market (i.e. they make money off sealed product/preconstructed product), having staple cards be expensive (see Tarmogoyf ) means people will be more inclined to buy seal product in the hopes that they pull one rather than just buy a playset.

It's how an OG zendikar booster will go for many times more than a standard booster since you could pull a fetch land from it but the second you open it and realise the rare, chances are the sum of the cards in the pack is not worth the price paid for it.

Not to mention, you need the secondary market to be more expensive than booster packs. Because having individual cards worth more money encourages more packs being openned which in turn puts more cards into circulation, which then helps reduce the price of said cards. Self regulating supply and demand.

Artifically driving down the price of the singles would mean that people would be more likely to just buy the cards that they needed, thus openning less packs and therefore driving the prices back up due to a lack of said supply. Because why would stores crack packs to put singles into circulation when there's a guarantee that they will make a loss by doing that. Because overheads.

July 9, 2019 12:09 a.m. Edited.

Boza says... #7

The game is affordable - there are so many ways to play at so many different price points that it is insane to think that the game is not affordable. Play a 15$ draft, play a cube for 0$, instead of spending 1000+ $ on a competitive modern deck, and suddenly the game is affordable. But a thought experiment - would the game be better if every single card cost 1 cent in the secondary market?

No, the price of the cards does not affect which cards would be played more. The inverse is true. The cards that are played more are the more expensive ones. Noone is stopping you from playing with draft chaff. But you should complain if the draft chaff deck loses in a tournament - there is a barrier to entry for just that.

July 9, 2019 3:40 a.m.

pizzagod13 says... #8

I mean, there are plenty of budget options available. People can still play the game and have fun on a budget.

Additionally, decks can easily still be powerful on a budget. A player could probably build a competitive mono-red burn modern deck for like 50~ dollars.

So, I have to disagree WOTC has made the game affordable, Witt numerous budget options being available for those who can’t or aren’t willing to afford the expensive stuff.

July 9, 2019 9:54 a.m.

pizzagod13 says... #9

Also, forgot to say this, magic online is another way to play magic on the cheap as cards are very affordable on there, for the most part at least.

So basically what I am saying, is that cheap options of playing magic and still being competitive are available.

July 9, 2019 9:56 a.m.

Sarkhan420X says... #10

Last_Laugh: if you're gonna quote me, be man enough to tag me. the 420 in my name is irrelevant.

  1. a "healthy environment" is not dependent on card prices being expensive. what exactly is your point?

  2. if packs contain reprints, people buy packs. you also misquoted me by deliberately leaving out the rest of my statement. read the next sentence after the one you quoted.

  3. only selling packs to the LGS does not miss out on ANY demographic. i literally already explained how allowing Walmart to sell packs hurts the LGS, and i did so in great detail. re-read.

  4. is this a serious question? how do they go forward selling packs? quite obvious. different sets reprint different cards. different products for different formats. like they've been doing.

July 9, 2019 8:26 p.m.

Sarkhan420X says... #11

Boza: $15, $0, $1000+*. its insane to think the game "is" affordable. just because you "technically can" play with draft chaff doesn't mean anyones going to have fun losing with it. competitive play is currently not affordable. there should not be an "entry barrier" to competitive play based on what cards you can afford. competition should be about skill, not about your wallet.

July 9, 2019 8:30 p.m.

enpc says... #12

Sarkhan420X: While it's a nice notion, there is a price barrier to entry in ANY hobby when moving into more competitive circles.

Take for example video gaming - to get decent preipherals you can be looking at $100+ for a mouse, $150+ for a keyboard, $400+ for a good screen and that's before I have even mentioned the cost of the comptuer itself. Do you need these to play? No. Do they increase performace, of course they do.

Or take Cycling. You can buy a pushbike for $400 which is perfectly adequate. But the second you want to get at all serious about riding, you can be easily looking at spending thousands to tens of thousands for a decent setup.

If you don't have a lot ot spend on the game, that's fine, however you should be engaging with likeminded (or like budget at least) indiviaduals. Or you you can look at alternate routes to playing more competitive games, like proxying. But if you want to play competitive magic at sanctioned events, then yes, you have to spend the money to buy the cards. That's just how real life works.

July 9, 2019 9:19 p.m.

Sarkhan420X says... #13

enpc: i never said there "isnt" a price barrier, i said there "shouldn't" be one. your other examples are completely irrelevant, because those use fundamentally different equipment that actually function and perform differently. in magic, its all just cards. paper cards. that are all made exactly the same. its not comparable to computer equipment at all. an expensive computer uses very different components than a cheap computer, yet in magic the expensive cards are made exactly the same as the cheap cards. so don't tell me how "real life works" and then make wild analogies that aren't even relevant to the situation at hand.

July 9, 2019 9:51 p.m.

dingusdingo says... #14

Sarkhan420X must be an actual high schooler, because his comprehension of how markets work is laughable.

"the secondary market doesn't make wotc money."

Secondary market helps generate and maintain interest, which gives more people incentive to purchase boosters than without a secondary market. Wizards makes more money with the secondary market existing than if the secondary market didn't exist.

"i actually think the cards being cheaper would make wotc more money because more packs would sell."

While cheaper goods may move more overall product, it doesn't mean the profit would be higher. 10 people buying a $100 profit product is better than 100 people buying a $5 profit product. This is a really basic business idea, and this is why I think you're a high schooler.

"as for keeping the LGS in business, that notion is actually laughable. if wotc cared about the LGS, then that would be the only place where packs are available. they wouldn't be available at every single Walmart and Target and every other store."

LGS' put on Magic events, which maintains and acquires customers. LGS also offer players a venue to talk, trade, and play, Walmart doesn't offer these choices. Having players stay engaged in weekly events helps sell a looooooooot of boosters. The LGS benefits from Wizards being able to give them an easy selling and strong product for them to use as dependable sales. The relationship is symbiotic.

"the idea that wotc has to card values high on a market that doesnt even make them money is just silly."

This sentence is an absolute trainwreck. I think you're talking about Wizards trying to maintain the dollar cost of cards on the secondary market. Wizards does have an incentive to keep card costs high, and its so that players with high cost cards don't get angry and leave. Players with expensive collections are the ones who buy the most cards buddy. Reprinting those cards without respect to the current pricing would result in a huge burst of short term sales, and a massive drop in the later sales as dedicated fans leave after investing a large amount of real life dollars and having them lose so much value. It also destroys the trust of the overall playerbase in the staying power of expensive cards. Why spend $100 on a playset of tournament staples if they could easily drop to $10 for a playset overnight?

"a good reprint set would sell like crazy."

They do sell well, remember all the Masters sets? And Wizards made the boosters $10 a pop, they still sold, and the expensive cards proliferated while taking slight dips in value.

"in conclusion, i'm in total agreement its wotc's responsibility to keep the game affordable."

Oh really? Are they responsible for this because you voluntarily play their game and voluntarily purchase cards from a secondary market?

"a "healthy environment" is not dependent on card prices being expensive. what exactly is your point?"

Go play tournaments for free on Cockatrice. Or maybe realize that this is a collectible trading card game, and that tangible items have real life dollar costs. If you're concerned about tournaments suffering, there are tournaments happening digitally for free.

"if packs contain reprints, people buy packs. you also misquoted me by deliberately leaving out the rest of my statement. read the next sentence after the one you quoted."

Reprints sell, but reprints that shit on people who hold original prints cause customers to leave. See above.

"only selling packs to the LGS does not miss out on ANY demographic. i literally already explained how allowing Walmart to sell packs hurts the LGS, and i did so in great detail. re-read."

LGS acts as a place for people to go to and "do Magic", whereas Walmart acts as a place for people to acquire cards. LGS also get promotional items, they have a wider selection, and they usually offer a small secondary market themselves, all create incentives for purchasing cards there. It is undeniable that Walmart does take sales, but Wizards does have no responsibility to generate sales for LGS. As I said above though, the relationship is symbiotic, so helping LGS is actually helping themselves. That's why they do promotional items, tournament bonuses, etc. etc.

"is this a serious question? how do they go forward selling packs? quite obvious. different sets reprint different cards. different products for different formats. like they've been doing."

There are a finite amount of customers that will each buy a finite amount of cards. By restricting card access, you're raising demand, which raises prices. The key is to finding the price point and demand which sells the most cards at the highest possible price for maximum profit. Wizards has been very careful about doing this, but also generates $10 off a booster on reprint packages. Old cards having high value and high scarcity actually lets them sell more expensive boosters. Its to Wizards benefit that these cards are expensive BECAUSE it lets them sell more expensive boosters. More economics for you buddy.

July 9, 2019 9:59 p.m.

Last_Laugh says... #15

@Sarkhan420X - Are you just an internet troll? Your refusal to budge from such shortsighted views has to be a ruse right? If it's not, let me offer an honest piece of advice... never open a business of your own, it 100% won't be successful.

It's been broken down for you using simple economics and you still want to bash long-term business acumen as 'irrelevant', 'insane', 'silly', and 'laughable'. I'm unsubscribing to this topic... good luck.

July 9, 2019 10:12 p.m.

Boza says... #16

Sarkhan420X - you can even play the game with the best cards ever, without spending much of anything - just print all the cards you want as a proxy! The only thing you cannot do with those is participate in DCI events, but there is a way to play the game with any card you want for basically free and even compete with those proxies at a self-organized level.

I played a Legacy event recently that allowed for up to ten proxies - I got to play against the best decks in the world and most of my truly expensive pieces were free. IF you proxy 10 dual lands, you are basically saving 3000$ there and then.

Magic is the game with one of the lowest barriers to entry, because there a plentitude of barriers to entry at all levels.

July 10, 2019 2:58 a.m.

Gleeock says... #17

Wow. I mean there can be some moderation to viewpoints right? When my local playgroup is noting average values rising to the point of adopting proxies for everything something is going on. Then again, I am one of those "other demographics". I mean WOTC originally synthetically priced several cards UP with the retardo-reserved list. In this current age where EACH SET has approximately 2x $30 cards & multiple >$10 cards do we need synthetically updriven reserve lists. Why hate on Laissez Faire play? I do think some of the onus is on the consumer though, I mean at a certain point just don't buy... My playgroup has gotten quite friendly with proxies & we're not really looking back, maybe less of an optiion if you spend a lot of time at the LGS though.

July 10, 2019 9:04 a.m.

multimedia says... #18

My concern for Magic right now are the ever growing costs of playable manabases.

I think Wizards does have a responsibly to start printing affordable playable manabase options because lets face it all decks need a good manabase. Wizards is price gouging to the point I've never seen in this game before with the price of playable lands. It's unethical and needs to stop! The problem right now outside of Commander is we're stuck with only expensive playable land options because all playable lands are rares. Being rares makes it too easy to drive the price of cards way up on the secondary market. When everyone needs the same lands for their decks and they're all rares it's too easy to take advantage and Wizards is doing just that.

In Standard the total price for a playable manabase is ridiculous, it's too much. It makes brewing and wanting to play any deck that's more than two colors too much of an investment just for the manabase. This is mostly because Shock lands are played in Modern which is increasing the price of these lands because players have to buy them for both Standard and Modern. In the future I hope the main playable land cycle that's in Standard is not played in Modern. This will help to keep the price of those lands much less.

July 10, 2019 9:47 a.m.

Boza says... #19

But reprinting expensive lands in a standard set is a great way to tank the price of a land! The only reason shock lands are more expensive now is that they are not being drafted. If you got shock lands at release of a Ravnica set, you got them at their cheapest.

You have a point - manabases are the most expensive part of any deck. The lands are crucial though, they are called a mana BASE for a reason, as they form the BASE of your deck.

On the other hand, if you focus on acquiring good mana, everything else is cheaper. Like Jund in Modern costs 4 digit sums, but 60-70% of that is the mana base, the rest of the deck is comparatively cheap.

Finally, lands are printed at rare for limited reasons - lands rarely help your 2 color, most-if-not-all-basics limited deck. They exist for constructed purposes. You want your key limited cards at common and uncommon, while key constructed cards are rare and mythic mostly.

July 10, 2019 10:11 a.m.

dingusdingo says... #20

Wanted to touch on a few points made here.

Reserved List - Magic was originally and still is sold as a trading card game. There's a collectible aspect to it, and these cards have real world value. The reserved list is both great and a giant bummer. It helps protect old and valuable cards from losing value, but it also artificially insulates the value from ever going down. I was fortunate enough to acquire a handful of cards on the reserved list before the buyouts, which have gone up a lot in value, but at the same time, its much harder to acquire new reserved list cards because of price. Seeing as these cards are used in the oldest and priciest formats, I think the biggest bummer is to collectors. Once again, just proxy up with friends, there is no reason to spend $4000 on a deck that will never see a tournament when you could proxy it for $0.30.

Lands - These cards are pretty much the reason to buy boosters. Wizards knows that, so they put good lands in weak sets to help sell them. The Tarkir fetchlands are a great example of this. Its an unfortunate reality that good decks need flexible and mana diverse lands, but once again, unless you're going to be playing tournaments, use proxies. I also can't recommend Pauper as a format enough. You get fun, cheap games with interesting and wacky decks.

July 10, 2019 2:48 p.m.

Gleeock says... #21

I feel that the synthetic price boost is a dinosaur relic that could go, but again I am Laissez Faire & I play the game to play the game - not lord over anyone about the OG/reserve cards I have (I have a good chunk of them). Just pointing to the indication that the pricetags of a whole bunch of random goodstuffs are above a good chunk of reserve list items & will likely be so for the long-haul. One-offs on reprints only seem to have a short-term price suppression on cards at best anyway before they peak & plateau at a similar range. Utilitarian & functionality-wise I agree.. Proxy it; however, with the average prices on so many cards now there is also that danger of bubble-bursting & players just saying "why don't I just proxy entire decks?" -- Fine for me, but for other players, especially of that new demographic or new entries to the game there is a breaking point that I would think WOTC would prefer to avoid, LGS usually would be less concerned about this group... 2 Weeks ago my buddy returned to the game just was like: "what the hell happened, I guess I will proxy 2 new decks for my monthly games" - Usually, he would be a slow stable revenue mark for a pack here and there & a few singles, but why bother at the current pricepoint... AND ESPECIALLY accounting for the manabase.

July 10, 2019 7:46 p.m.

sylvannos says... #22

I don't care how inexpensive cards are, so long as it means more people playing the game. This notion of putting the game behind a paywall is nonsense.

The entire purpose of separating MtG into Type 1 and Type 2 is because Black Lotus hit $100 on the secondary market. While it's more profitable for WotC to make chase cards to sell booster boxes, it's harmful to FNM and other event attendance. I'm worried most about prices for Standard, Legacy, and Vintage.

For Standard, new players can't play the format meant for new players when it costs $400+ for most competitive decks. The two cheapest decks in the format are RDW and White Weenie, which are roughly $150 to $200, depending on the build. Even that is a steep price for people who just want to try the game out.

For Legacy and Vintage, the Reserved List is going to kill those formats. Obviously, the people who play those formats aren't concerned about prices. What they are affected by is the fact speculators and investors are buying up RL cards so they can hold them while their prices increase. Every time someone buys an Underground Sea to speculate on its price to try and flip it for profit, that's another Underground Sea that will never be played. This puts a hard cap on the number of Legacy and Vintage players.

So long as there aren't any viable decks that can be built for cheap using cards not on the RL, Legacy and Vintage will continue to shrink as players can't find cards because buying those cards up and sitting on them is more cost effective than using those cards to play in events.

July 11, 2019 6:09 p.m.

Boza says... #23

sylvannos:

  • Type 1 and 2 were not created because Lotus hit 100$. They were created so that people will have to buy the newer, inferior cards too. Rules were flimsy back then, markets and knowledge about the genre were flimsy as well, since information was so light. You cannot compare what happened 20 years to what is happening now.

  • It costs 400$ for new players who want to compete, keyword compete, in tournaments. There are a myriad of options of how to play Standard without being competitive and events geared towards new players like open house or the first 20 hours on Arena, most of which people on this forum have not focused on. If you are part of a forum for Magic, you are probably an enfranchized player.

  • The RL is not going to kill the formats. While it is stopping the influx of new players, it is not made for said new players. These formats are a celebration for super-enfranchized players and mostly, players who played 20 years ago and still have those old cards. The only impactful cards on the RL are 10 dual lands - everything else on the list is barely present in Legacy.

  • Death and Taxes is tier 1 Legacy deck that plays 0 RL cards. 5 color humans is often played with 0 RL cards in Vintage.

July 12, 2019 2:42 a.m. Edited.

Boza says... #24

And one more thing:

  • Underground Sea is not the card you want to "flip for profit" as a speculator. What you want to target is cards with extremely low supply where one person or group can scoop up the whole supply at once - like Moat for example.

Literally no-one plays moat. It is a 1-of in some sideboards at best and a decent commander card. But it jumped 500% in a week due to a buyout. However, Moat is not worth 1000$ - nobody is buying at that price (people are barely buying it at the 800 it is currently) - it is simply due to supply shortage and speclative offerings that it costs as much.

This is entirely different from Underground Sea - people play the dual lands. The price for them is a combo of short supply and extremely high demand. Not due to speculation.

July 12, 2019 5:42 a.m.

Boza says... #25

And one more thing:

  • "The two cheapest decks in the format are RDW and White Weenie, which are roughly $150 to $200, depending on the build. Even that is a steep price for people who just want to try the game out."

If you go to RDW on MTGoldfish right now and click on the Card Kingdom link to buy the whole deck, you will get it for just 77$. The most expensive card is 3 Legion Warboss at 17 dollars in the SB and you can just pop in Krenko instead and get the deck for nearly 50 bucks.

Regardless of that, competitive standard events are not for "people who just want to try the game out". People trying out the game probably do not know it well enough to even be able to participate in a competition. There are a whole bunch of rules that do not exist on the kitchen table. The whole statement is very demeaning to any standard tournament player - "any player should be able to come up and compete with you" - no, they should not.

There is a barrier to entry for any competitive event - it is kind of the point of the whole thing. You cannot go to the Olympics Committee and declare you will participate in 100m Dash in the next Olympics. You have to go through the qualifications and probably train to run fast. These are barriers to entry and Magic is no different.

July 12, 2019 5:57 a.m.

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