I guess my point is that there's still going to be people who are wanting that "fix" when it could've otherwise led them down a path of drug abuse and alcohol addiction leading to more serious health issues (not excluding COVID-19 but you get the point).
Okay? I don't understand how this intersects with covid-19 and LGSes, though.
Well to a lot of players the Local Game Store (LGS) is a form of escapism that under normal circumstances wouldn't harm them as much physically as it does mentally but with COVID-19 in the mix you have a situation where there's both physical and mental harm done to players which makes it more of a Catch-22 scenario. It's a dopamine rush that can potentially cost you your own life If you're not careful about it but even If you are careful about it you're screwed either way.
Organized Play is really the backbone of success for a lot of Local Game Stores (LGSs) that need those finances to provide a physical location for people to play MTG and other Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games. Without it you have less new players getting into Paper Magic, less playgroups to socially interact with, literally to the point where the business is nothing more than a 7-11 Convenience store. This game genre is too dependent on cash flow in order to be successful.
"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 for one can't wait to get back to FNM. The social aspect of the game is fun for me as well as the usual other mtg stuff e.g. deckbuilding. It was rather rude of wotc to ban fires just after I fine tuned my deck Oh well, at least there should be several weeks to build something else (here in Oz).
Understandable concerns. The official advice is for no masks, because they are being rationed for medical professionals. Borders are closed, there are very few flights (charter only) and everyone coming in must quarantine (14 days) and it has been this way since late March. It's not going to come in unnoticed.
Well, I left the house, went into the CBD, and poked my head into my original LGS (it's close to my Alumni) and bought a booster pack of Ikoria like I was a newbie again. There are still store patron limitations and all stores have hand sanitizer on the counter.
Turns out it's going to be a bit longer before my closest LGS allows In-Store Play despite the June 1st deadline Wizards of the Coast had already set. Still need to find out more about table space considering that a lot of LGSs have already minimized them down to help prevent the spread of the virus. Also been following another LGS of mine on their official website and they said they should have Organized Play events back up and running sometime next week so we'll see how that goes though I imagine it's going to look a little different due to social distancing guidelines. I don't think it will be too severe but I'm going to try to find out more information as time goes on.
Business wise both LGSs seem to be doing pretty good right now with the one that's the closest having a tremendous amount of support from our local community so that was good to hear. Haven't really had a chance to play EDH / Commander since March when the pandemic started though I did go out with a bang in my last game with Alela, Artful Provocateur right after one of my friends jokingly said, "Draw your last pathetic card Yugi Motou!" impersonating Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh! of course. Sadly we weren't able to fire any games for other Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games since most of my friends were either still waiting on new cards to be released or had trouble ordering them online.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"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 think a lot of people will look forward to playing in a store again. As said previously, playing Magic once a week often provides many people their only form of social interaction.
I don't know when a lot of stores in my area will allow play again, a lot of places in Canada are just opening up again
At this point I think it's only up to whales who can effectively help support Local Game Stores (LGSs) since they have much more disposable income than those who only work paycheck to paycheck. Now the term "whale" is taken from gambling terminology, not mobile "Gacha" gaming terminology. It's the definition of someone dumping a large amount of money into a game they can never retrieve (consume), as a whale can only consume and not liquidate. MTG is a liquid product because the Paper cards can still be sold within the Secondary Market where as items in "Gacha" products aren't tangible. So I guess that changes the terminology of what is considered a "whale" when it comes to Paper Magic.
A Local Game Store (LGS) probably has a better chance of surviving from a millionaire spending $20,000 to keep that business up and running as opposed to someone who only makes $200 every two weeks or have decided to spend their $1,200 Stimulus Check to support the business for at least a month. If I recall, Local Game Stores (LGSs) need at least $1,000 a month to stay in business or their landlord kicks them out because they weren't able to pay rent. While it's much faster for them to reach that monetary goal by accumulating entry fees for Organized Play events, selling food and drinks, as well as flipping card singles and sealed product, If there's less customers showing up due to social distancing...well...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"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
Sadly I think we're all severely underestimating the possibility of another future pandemic similar to what we've already experienced with COVID-19. Even with a vaccine or proven treatment methods, social distancing protocols will still linger long after. Even with COVID-19 under control, how can any small business owner expect to rebuild within the same industry that can be wiped out overnight by a Government Shutdown? Years after this has all passed we will have ANOTHER public health crisis similar to what we've already experienced with COVID-19 and we'll be shutting down all over again because this is apparently the new normal in our society. If a small business owner has the strength to rebuild, they'll be rebuilding into a pandemic proof business model that is completely void of ALL public interaction. We are literally heading full speed into a digital space against our will.
Tournaments small and large will be forced to be held digitally where no social distancing and geographic restrictions exist. If COVID-19 hadn't occurred there's a good chance that Paper Magic could've kept going on a large scale for awhile longer. With COVID-19 there's no traction for something like MagicFest at least not for many years to come. If Wizards of the Coast, ChannelFireball, and Star City Games plans on keeping MTG going in the meantime then they HAVE to push digital events and sadly that's the only thing they can really offer at this time even though they continue to print new Paper products for the game. There's more support for offline MTG than there is for online MTG so how do you continue to cater to the offline demographic If the cards don't sell with nobody having a Local Game Store (LGS) to go back to just to even play with the paper products?
"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
my local shops put in strict guidelines and aren't doing events yet. most of the owners are rightly concerned with outbreaks from irresponsibility and rushing into it. as a result, no events yet, the small ones are still only doing curbside or appointment browsing, and the large ones have capped occupancy at about 5 people for shopping only while still doing curbside.
i respect them a lot for it, and i've actively been trying to spend exclusively through them. wotc makes it difficult with the way distribution works (commander decks specifically)
personally, while i miss magic and would love to rush out and play edh again... well i'd rather they took their time with it where they can if they can stay afloat, because once its safe i will be in those stores every opportunity there is flopping cards and buying product like mad to make up for lost time
In-person FNM tomorrow whoooo!
We currently have exactly 2 people with Covid-19 in my state (both in quarantine)
Are all players required to wear masks?
Do you know if they'll be using some sort of Plexiglas H-shaped dividers to keep players from potentially breathing towards one another?
I saw something like that at one of my local stores with a small window at the bottom in case a player needs to slide a card across the play area for the opponent to read. It seems practical but may be challenging for players who are low-talkers or have difficulty hearing.
Just curious to know if that's the "new normal" (for the record, I really don't like that term which is essentially being used to normalize abnormal social, or more accurately anti-social if not outright paranoid behaviors)
Personally, I think moving forward every LGS should have a bowl of fresh broccoli, spinach salad, or kale chips for each player so we're all better protected as a recent Dutch study suggests those most and worst affected by covid had vitamin K deficiencies (obviously not including those with preexisting conditions and the elderly who actually died from inadequate care, starvation, dehydration, short-staffing, and poor management at long term care facilities who were ill-prepared to deal with an emergency of this magnitude if and when it was bound to happen, something most people knew was a problem for decades).
Seriously, the body is fragile which we often forget, and we require regular proper maintenance (sometimes this means regularly forcing ourselves to responsibly eat foods we don't necessarily like). Suffice it to say a good diet is always the best defense so we can fight, endure, regenerate, and thrive, so each of us has to be conscious of our inherent human frailty and do our part to ensure we're not malnourished so that we can better fight off this and any upcoming diseases, whenever they emerge, both individually and collectively. We are all in this together and we will beat it!
Remember...Just because Vitamin K is lower down the list or further in the alphabet than vitamins ABCDE, that doesn't make it less important, so we shouldn't deprioritize or forget about it! Also, remember to eat sources of vitamin D regularly as well, because vitamin D helps with the production of certain proteins which interact with Vitamin K for proper carboxylation.
Nope, I mean I was the only person to bring my own hand sanitizer. Although people were reticent to touch each other decks and there were no cash purchases. The hot chocolate resturant across the road had a sign-in process so they can track you down if there is an outbreak. MTG events track everyone in the event so they can find you if there is an outbreak.
We will be having an instore prerelease for M21 (although with limited numbers)
Okay, so the way our lockdown went was Late March into early April we quickly moved into lockdown. State borders closed, forced 14-day quarantine for anyone entering into the state. LGS was closed through April. The store opened again in May for purchases but not play. Then at the start of June, our lockdown was cautiously lifted. There was no increase in cases after 3 weeks.
Because our local authorities acted quickly, late March, we managed to avoid community spread and all cases were tracked. Mostly returned travellers or cruise ship passengers. If you happen to be one of the lucky people in a place where the virus is yet to touch make sure your local authorities are ready to act quickly.
edit: just to brag I also won the draft BG(u) Mutate ramp. Got a Blood crypt in my prize booster. Just had a great night.
So I recently read a Hipsters of the Coast article by Travis Norman titled, "It's Okay to Take a Break from Magic" when I noticed what's really missing from it. Under normal circumstances it's easy to take a break from playing MTG because you always had your LGS to go back to when you came back however due to recent events with the pandemic there's no guarantee your LGS will still be there once you get back from hiatus. What If there's another Government Shutdown where non-essential businesses like the LGS are no longer able to receive funds like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in order to stay in business? We take so much for granted that we don't take the time to realize just how good we had it.
You can support other LGSs through TCGPlayer all you want but If you aren't supporting your own LGSs within your vicinity which is hard to do since their inventory is severely limited then they'll continue to struggle until they're forced to shut down for good. So your only two options are to either quit MTG instead of going on hiatus or you do whatever you can to support your LGSs in the hopes that you'll be able to play MTG again. The LGS cannot afford to lose $1,000 per month before they're able to fully re-open to the public, they just can't. Where are you going to be able to play MTG outside the LGS without any playgroups who know how to play? It's impossible.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"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
Where are you going to be able to play MTG outside the LGS without any playgroups who know how to play? It's impossible.
Do it like we used to do it 25+ years ago. Find yourself some family and friends that play and play at home. If your community has eased restrictions, take that group and go play in public somewhere and you may find individuals that want to play in your group in the future from around the community. Or simply do what we DID NOT have 25+ years ago and use social media for its intended purpose of finding an existing play group or forming one. Use common sense and play places where restrictions have been eased.
Also you can even ask/contact your LGS owner if anyone like yourself would like to play outside the store. Let the owner know that in no means are you wanting to take away business, quite the contrary, you are trying to keep the playgroup alive or expand it for when restrictions ease. Maybe they will put up one of those old school photocopied fliers with the tabs at the bottom with phone numbers (or an email address).
This is how we used to do it. I suppose us "elders" need to teach current younger players how we did it at the beginning. Good luck.
We take so much for granted that we don't take the time to realize just how good we had it.
True words for those who haven't played more than a handful of years. Some of us "lifers" have laid the foundation on how the game is played today. For good and maybe a little for bad, but that's another conversation.
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."
Digital Magic is the only real option we have right now despite how imperfect it is. Prior to COVID-19, playing Paper Magic for your average player was an infrequent at best occurrence. With COVID-19 and zero large scale In-Person Tournaments for a few years, what value can anyone get out of Paper cards for the foreseeable future? Whole Standard sets are going to come and go on Arena / MTGO before anyone can use them in Paper just like how it was with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths and now Core Set 2021 will be the same as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"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
Why does the game have to be a competitive tournament? Why expect prizes and participation goodies? Play for the love of the game, its far more rewarding if you ask me.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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."
Why does the game have to be a competitive tournament? Why expect prizes and participation goodies? Play for the love of the game, its far more rewarding if you ask me.
True though what I really meant was In-Store Play in general.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"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
Overall retail sales in the U.S. are expected to decline 10.5% in 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic , according to a report by eMarketer as reported by Chain Store Age. A sharp divergence between brick and mortar sales and ecommerce is emerging, with online sales expected to rise 18% and offline sales expected to decline 14%, according to the report. Offline sales may take up to five years to return to pre-pandemic levels, the report predicts, and despite increases in e-commerce sales, total retail sales will also take years to recover.
Big increases in sales of groceries and health, personal care and beauty are expected to drive the increases in ecommerce sales. New behaviors like "click-and-collect" (used by many comic and game stores during shutdowns and partial re-openings) have grown dramatically, according to the report.
Keep in mind that this does actually pertain to MTG still and not COVID-19 as a whole since this does impact offline sales for Paper Magic when it comes to the Local Game Store (LGS) as this will more than likely push these businesses to have the kind of online presence that they probably didn't have before the pandemic. Either way you look at it this does seem to have a negative effect on In-Store Play since there will be less people to attend small Organized Play events due to social distancing. In last weekends Core 2021 Pre-Release Event there was only a turnout of 6 players at one LGS.
So in order to try to offset the damage these LGSs will need to charge players with higher entry fees to make up for low player attendance since they're not allowed to have more than 10-15 people at these small events. If these LGSs are charging less than $15-20 to play at a Pre-Release Event or for FNM Standard then that's going to negatively impact their business unless those profits alongside e-commerce sales via card singles and other products are enough to get them to pay rent in order to stay in business. The question is will it be enough to reach that $1,000 a month threshold in order to break even.
"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
The question is will it be enough to reach that $1,000 a month threshold in order to break even.
Where did you come up with that number? Do you mean just for events?
LGS need to take in a lot more money than 1000 dollars a month, its way more than rent.
Rent (unless they outright own)
Mortgage (if they are purchasing)
Property Tax
Insurance
Business License fees
Electric bill
Water bill
Wages (Paying any employees)
Maintenance
Other overhead
Merchandise
Interest on Merchandise (when they borrow to buy stuff)
Advertising (local and/or online)
And I'm sure I am missing other costs as well. If I were to own a gaming store I wouldn't want less than 10,000 a month gross income (between brick and mortar AND online sales) and even then you probably would never even cut yourself a check for your own salary. So yeah, LGS are going to have to up their entry fees in response, they aren't a charity. Problem is then they up it and drive away the small amount of players they may have. It just flat out sucks. I'm not going to go into the politics of reopening. I have to leave it at that.
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."
Seems as though my area is starting to mandate masks out in public with the second wave of coronavirus coming in from recent outbreaks in California, Florida, and Texas. I can see this making it more difficult for people to play Paper Magic at Local Game Stores (LGSs) since they won't be able to breathe as well by messing up their concentration though it's a small price to pay to help save humanity from this public health crisis. Sadly I think we're back to square one again with the phase 1 protocols we dealt with in March this year as a lot of state governments are starting to roll back their re-opening plans which means more herd immunity through social distancing.
So it looks like we'll be seeing round two of government lockdown with more stimulus checks being sent to everyone which means more inflation to make everything three times as expensive as it was before. There were already delays with recent Paper Magic products like Commander 2020, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, and Jumpstart with Double Masters possibly getting delayed due to this second wave coming in. There's definitely going to be a whiplash within the Secondary Market because of these delays and recent inflation woes creating artificial demand for these products with very limited supply. We're already heading into a bear market If not already.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"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
Overall retail sales in the U.S. are expected to decline 10.5% in 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic , according to a report by eMarketer as reported by Chain Store Age. A sharp divergence between brick and mortar sales and ecommerce is emerging, with online sales expected to rise 18% and offline sales expected to decline 14%, according to the report. Offline sales may take up to five years to return to pre-pandemic levels, the report predicts, and despite increases in e-commerce sales, total retail sales will also take years to recover.
Big increases in sales of groceries and health, personal care and beauty are expected to drive the increases in ecommerce sales. New behaviors like "click-and-collect" (used by many comic and game stores during shutdowns and partial re-openings) have grown dramatically, according to the report.
Keep in mind that this does actually pertain to MTG still and not COVID-19 as a whole since this does impact offline sales for Paper Magic when it comes to the Local Game Store (LGS) as this will more than likely push these businesses to have the kind of online presence that they probably didn't have before the pandemic. Either way you look at it this does seem to have a negative effect on In-Store Play since there will be less people to attend small Organized Play events due to social distancing. In last weekends Core 2021 Pre-Release Event there was only a turnout of 6 players at one LGS.
So in order to try to offset the damage these LGSs will need to charge players with higher entry fees to make up for low player attendance since they're not allowed to have more than 10-15 people at these small events. If these LGSs are charging less than $15-20 to play at a Pre-Release Event or for FNM Standard then that's going to negatively impact their business unless those profits alongside e-commerce sales via card singles and other products are enough to get them to pay rent in order to stay in business. The question is will it be enough to reach that $1,000 a month threshold in order to break even.
I think a few things that could impact how much people spend at LGSs right now are (1) the fear of being in "large" groups still, I.E more than 10. In Ontario, gatherings are still limited to 10 people at a time. Which is a really small amount of people entering into events. Even if people were allowed to gather in groups of more than that, is WotC still not sanctioning events or have they changed that?
(2) another thing that I don't see discussed as much is that hobbies like MtG are still hobbies, so people might not be willing to spend as much on their hobbies during uncertain times. Which will impact stores bottom lines during this
Hopefully things are starting to look better but there still is that second wave we need to worry about. I've been fortunate enough to see that none of the stores I play at, even outside my local area have shut down yet
No sane LGS owner is going to renew their lease on a store that went bankrupt when the business model itself was already doomed to fail because it was too reliant on cash flow in order to succeed.
"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
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Look, the model is horrible right now. There will be contraction. Its not game over for all. Listen to some of us that have severeal decades of life experience to share. Don't give up. I'm not sugarcoating what is going on, but try to resist the old Chicken Little addage "The sky is falling". It WILL get better, just not in the short run.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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."
If Konami is postponing In-Store Play Events Indefinitely for Paper Yu-Gi-Oh! then what does that say about how Wizards of the Coast has been handling the situation with COVID-19 for Paper Magic? Most LGSs couldn't even get any of their Core 2021 Pre-Release Events to fire last weekend and even If you paid for a Pre-Release Kit with bonus booster packs at your LGS then what was the point of playing it at home when there's no one to play with? Did Wizards of the Coast expect every MTG player to have access to a $400 webcam with Discord communication to live stream Paper Magic games online or something? At least I saved my $1,200 Stimulus Check for more important things.
I was talking to a Paper Pokémon TCG player a few weeks ago about whether or not If he was supporting his LGS by playing in their online tournaments (assuming he paid the entry fees) where they have Discord servers and frequent Twitch streams to be active on and then told me to **** off immediately after. I asked him what I said that pissed him off but he never bothered replying back to me about it. I got some feedback from some Yu-Gi-Oh! players online though one was suspicious about why I even bothered to communicate with them since I quit Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2004. Whether they like it or not we're supposed to all be in this together since we need LGSs to play our favorite gaming hobbies. Most people don't see it that way anymore.
"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
Seems as though my area is starting to mandate masks out in public with the second wave of coronavirus coming in from recent outbreaks in California, Florida, and Texas. I can see this making it more difficult for people to play Paper Magic at Local Game Stores (LGSs) since they won't be able to breathe as well by messing up their concentration though it's a small price to pay to help save humanity from this public health crisis. Sadly I think we're back to square one again with the phase 1 protocols we dealt with in March this year as a lot of state governments are starting to roll back their re-opening plans which means more herd immunity through social distancing.
So it looks like we'll be seeing round two of government lockdown with more stimulus checks being sent to everyone which means more inflation to make everything three times as expensive as it was before. There were already delays with recent Paper Magic products like Commander 2020, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, and Jumpstart with Double Masters possibly getting delayed due to this second wave coming in. There's definitely going to be a whiplash within the Secondary Market because of these delays and recent inflation woes creating artificial demand for these products with very limited supply. We're already heading into a bear market If not already.
Dude, the inflation rate is DOWN this year. This is understandable if you know anything about how inflation actually works, because when the economy loses money inflation goes down. The stimulus checks were a drop in the bucket and did little to counteract the severe downward pressures on inflation. That doesn't mean that the prices of certain products that are experiencing bottlenecks haven't gone up, but they haven't gone up do to inflation (the relative devaluation of currency over time as the amount of currency grows) but due to scarcity and the resultant price gouging. Many things that add to costs have gone down, such as the price of fuel which reduces the price of shipping, raw materials as producers of those materials are forced to sell for less money as demand plummets, etc. There's no evidence that magic, or the sort of products lgs' sell, are being impacted by scarcity pricing. Neither are rents going to go up as much as they usually do, because landlords face the problem of finding tenants to fill the space at a time when tenants are having trouble paying. Landlords have an incentive to wave rent and write it off as a loss rather than leave the store empty and still not get rent, because they at least keep a tenant that has proved reliable until the pandemic.
This is going to be a hard year and many stores will go under, but it won't be THE END. Also keep in mind that COVID is a perfect storm virus that can be spread easily, is hard to contain, and is dangerous enough to matter. Something like SARS1 or MERS doesn't spread as easily, is quickly noticed and easy to track, and can thus be contained without these kind of measures despite both being far more deadly. These kinds of diseases aren't the new normal, COVID-19 is best though of as a century disease, the sort of thing that will show up about once every hundred years. Medical advances mean any given disease is less likely to be a century disease (flu used to be a great candidate but our knowledge of it and ability to quickly develop targeted vaccines means that even a flu like the Spanish flu is unlikely to rise to the level of COVID-19), but increased exposure to animal sources means our exposure to new diseases has increased and spread is easier due to globalization, so things sort of even out.
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():
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Seems as though my area is starting to mandate masks out in public with the second wave of coronavirus coming in from recent outbreaks in California, Florida, and Texas. I can see this making it more difficult for people to play Paper Magic at Local Game Stores (LGSs) since they won't be able to breathe as well by messing up their concentration though it's a small price to pay to help save humanity from this public health crisis. Sadly I think we're back to square one again with the phase 1 protocols we dealt with in March this year as a lot of state governments are starting to roll back their re-opening plans which means more herd immunity through social distancing.
So it looks like we'll be seeing round two of government lockdown with more stimulus checks being sent to everyone which means more inflation to make everything three times as expensive as it was before. There were already delays with recent Paper Magic products like Commander 2020, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, and Jumpstart with Double Masters possibly getting delayed due to this second wave coming in. There's definitely going to be a whiplash within the Secondary Market because of these delays and recent inflation woes creating artificial demand for these products with very limited supply. We're already heading into a bear market If not already.
Dude, the inflation rate is DOWN this year. This is understandable if you know anything about how inflation actually works, because when the economy loses money inflation goes down. The stimulus checks were a drop in the bucket and did little to counteract the severe downward pressures on inflation. That doesn't mean that the prices of certain products that are experiencing bottlenecks haven't gone up, but they haven't gone up do to inflation (the relative devaluation of currency over time as the amount of currency grows) but due to scarcity and the resultant price gouging. Many things that add to costs have gone down, such as the price of fuel which reduces the price of shipping, raw materials as producers of those materials are forced to sell for less money as demand plummets, etc. There's no evidence that magic, or the sort of products lgs' sell, are being impacted by scarcity pricing. Neither are rents going to go up as much as they usually do, because landlords face the problem of finding tenants to fill the space at a time when tenants are having trouble paying. Landlords have an incentive to wave rent and write it off as a loss rather than leave the store empty and still not get rent, because they at least keep a tenant that has proved reliable until the pandemic.
This is going to be a hard year and many stores will go under, but it won't be THE END. Also keep in mind that COVID is a perfect storm virus that can be spread easily, is hard to contain, and is dangerous enough to matter. Something like SARS1 or MERS doesn't spread as easily, is quickly noticed and easy to track, and can thus be contained without these kind of measures despite both being far more deadly. These kinds of diseases aren't the new normal, COVID-19 is best though of as a century disease, the sort of thing that will show up about once every hundred years. Medical advances mean any given disease is less likely to be a century disease (flu used to be a great candidate but our knowledge of it and ability to quickly develop targeted vaccines means that even a flu like the Spanish flu is unlikely to rise to the level of COVID-19), but increased exposure to animal sources means our exposure to new diseases has increased and spread is easier due to globalization, so things sort of even out.
So how can Local Game Store (LGS) Owners and Employees take the financial risk that you're wrong about this knowing another public health crisis similar to COVID-19 does occur in the near future leading to more government lockdowns? You have to expect people to be practical. There's no way in hell that they would rebuild into an industry that can be wiped out overnight without any safeguards or protections especially when they were already severely limited to what they could do in the first place. Even If the desire to rebuild is there, LGS Owners and Employees can't have any faith, security, or peace of mind ever again. A lot of these businesses especially now have to make the difficult decision to either stay open or go bankrupt without renewing their lease even with a discount because it's simply not worth the risk.
If you open up a Local Game Store (LGS) and you're not wealthy then you're going to get crushed not because of competition but it's really in terms of market share and even during the best of times when no one can make a profit was because you were still competing against online retailers where they're selling a sealed product cheaper. Your competition isn't just necessarily your neighbors, it's also online, that's just how Magic: the Gathering is. Not just online vendors but also Arena. So when you have all these odds stacked against you and the only resource you have in your favor is your community and when that community is actively being told not to go to your Local Game Store (LGS) then you're kind of screwed. That's our current situation right now. I don't think these smaller mom and pop stores without the financial backing and without the bank loans can survive a public health crisis this severe.
After a second government lockdown I pray for these LGSs not being sarcastic here. We all want these stores to survive but not all of them will and even If they do survive then they're just delaying the inevitable at that point even If they do get tons of market share. So when can our MTG community come back to normal? Probably never. The more that you go out in public to play Paper Magic or any other gaming hobby then the worse it will be long term as it will take much longer to recover. That's really the irony of the Local Game Store (LGS) business model where they only have one massive selling point and that's the overall local communities actively supporting them. I don't agree with a lot of people about what the best outcome for this is going to be. It's one thing when one store is open for events while others aren't when it's another to just downsize overhead and shutdown In-Store Play to keep sales going.
"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
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Organized Play is really the backbone of success for a lot of Local Game Stores (LGSs) that need those finances to provide a physical location for people to play MTG and other Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games. Without it you have less new players getting into Paper Magic, less playgroups to socially interact with, literally to the point where the business is nothing more than a 7-11 Convenience store. This game genre is too dependent on cash flow in order to be successful.
"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
Well, I left the house, went into the CBD, and poked my head into my original LGS (it's close to my Alumni) and bought a booster pack of Ikoria like I was a newbie again. There are still store patron limitations and all stores have hand sanitizer on the counter.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Business wise both LGSs seem to be doing pretty good right now with the one that's the closest having a tremendous amount of support from our local community so that was good to hear. Haven't really had a chance to play EDH / Commander since March when the pandemic started though I did go out with a bang in my last game with Alela, Artful Provocateur right after one of my friends jokingly said, "Draw your last pathetic card Yugi Motou!" impersonating Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh! of course. Sadly we weren't able to fire any games for other Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games since most of my friends were either still waiting on new cards to be released or had trouble ordering them online.
"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 don't know when a lot of stores in my area will allow play again, a lot of places in Canada are just opening up again
A Local Game Store (LGS) probably has a better chance of surviving from a millionaire spending $20,000 to keep that business up and running as opposed to someone who only makes $200 every two weeks or have decided to spend their $1,200 Stimulus Check to support the business for at least a month. If I recall, Local Game Stores (LGSs) need at least $1,000 a month to stay in business or their landlord kicks them out because they weren't able to pay rent. While it's much faster for them to reach that monetary goal by accumulating entry fees for Organized Play events, selling food and drinks, as well as flipping card singles and sealed product, If there's less customers showing up due to social distancing...well...
"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
Tournaments small and large will be forced to be held digitally where no social distancing and geographic restrictions exist. If COVID-19 hadn't occurred there's a good chance that Paper Magic could've kept going on a large scale for awhile longer. With COVID-19 there's no traction for something like MagicFest at least not for many years to come. If Wizards of the Coast, ChannelFireball, and Star City Games plans on keeping MTG going in the meantime then they HAVE to push digital events and sadly that's the only thing they can really offer at this time even though they continue to print new Paper products for the game. There's more support for offline MTG than there is for online MTG so how do you continue to cater to the offline demographic If the cards don't sell with nobody having a Local Game Store (LGS) to go back to just to even play with the paper products?
"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
We currently have exactly 2 people with Covid-19 in my state (both in quarantine)
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
i respect them a lot for it, and i've actively been trying to spend exclusively through them. wotc makes it difficult with the way distribution works (commander decks specifically)
personally, while i miss magic and would love to rush out and play edh again... well i'd rather they took their time with it where they can if they can stay afloat, because once its safe i will be in those stores every opportunity there is flopping cards and buying product like mad to make up for lost time
Are all players required to wear masks?
Do you know if they'll be using some sort of Plexiglas H-shaped dividers to keep players from potentially breathing towards one another?
I saw something like that at one of my local stores with a small window at the bottom in case a player needs to slide a card across the play area for the opponent to read. It seems practical but may be challenging for players who are low-talkers or have difficulty hearing.
Just curious to know if that's the "new normal" (for the record, I really don't like that term which is essentially being used to normalize abnormal social, or more accurately anti-social if not outright paranoid behaviors)
Personally, I think moving forward every LGS should have a bowl of fresh broccoli, spinach salad, or kale chips for each player so we're all better protected as a recent Dutch study suggests those most and worst affected by covid had vitamin K deficiencies (obviously not including those with preexisting conditions and the elderly who actually died from inadequate care, starvation, dehydration, short-staffing, and poor management at long term care facilities who were ill-prepared to deal with an emergency of this magnitude if and when it was bound to happen, something most people knew was a problem for decades).
Seriously, the body is fragile which we often forget, and we require regular proper maintenance (sometimes this means regularly forcing ourselves to responsibly eat foods we don't necessarily like). Suffice it to say a good diet is always the best defense so we can fight, endure, regenerate, and thrive, so each of us has to be conscious of our inherent human frailty and do our part to ensure we're not malnourished so that we can better fight off this and any upcoming diseases, whenever they emerge, both individually and collectively. We are all in this together and we will beat it!
Remember...Just because Vitamin K is lower down the list or further in the alphabet than vitamins ABCDE, that doesn't make it less important, so we shouldn't deprioritize or forget about it! Also, remember to eat sources of vitamin D regularly as well, because vitamin D helps with the production of certain proteins which interact with Vitamin K for proper carboxylation.
I used to be a demigod, but now I'm an omnimage
We will be having an instore prerelease for M21 (although with limited numbers)
Okay, so the way our lockdown went was Late March into early April we quickly moved into lockdown. State borders closed, forced 14-day quarantine for anyone entering into the state. LGS was closed through April. The store opened again in May for purchases but not play. Then at the start of June, our lockdown was cautiously lifted. There was no increase in cases after 3 weeks.
Because our local authorities acted quickly, late March, we managed to avoid community spread and all cases were tracked. Mostly returned travellers or cruise ship passengers. If you happen to be one of the lucky people in a place where the virus is yet to touch make sure your local authorities are ready to act quickly.
edit: just to brag I also won the draft BG(u) Mutate ramp. Got a Blood crypt in my prize booster. Just had a great night.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
You can support other LGSs through TCGPlayer all you want but If you aren't supporting your own LGSs within your vicinity which is hard to do since their inventory is severely limited then they'll continue to struggle until they're forced to shut down for good. So your only two options are to either quit MTG instead of going on hiatus or you do whatever you can to support your LGSs in the hopes that you'll be able to play MTG again. The LGS cannot afford to lose $1,000 per month before they're able to fully re-open to the public, they just can't. Where are you going to be able to play MTG outside the LGS without any playgroups who know how to play? It's impossible.
"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
Do it like we used to do it 25+ years ago. Find yourself some family and friends that play and play at home. If your community has eased restrictions, take that group and go play in public somewhere and you may find individuals that want to play in your group in the future from around the community. Or simply do what we DID NOT have 25+ years ago and use social media for its intended purpose of finding an existing play group or forming one. Use common sense and play places where restrictions have been eased.
Also you can even ask/contact your LGS owner if anyone like yourself would like to play outside the store. Let the owner know that in no means are you wanting to take away business, quite the contrary, you are trying to keep the playgroup alive or expand it for when restrictions ease. Maybe they will put up one of those old school photocopied fliers with the tabs at the bottom with phone numbers (or an email address).
This is how we used to do it. I suppose us "elders" need to teach current younger players how we did it at the beginning. Good luck.
True words for those who haven't played more than a handful of years. Some of us "lifers" have laid the foundation on how the game is played today. For good and maybe a little for bad, but that's another conversation.
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."
"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
Why does the game have to be a competitive tournament? Why expect prizes and participation goodies? Play for the love of the game, its far more rewarding if you ask me.
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."
"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
So in order to try to offset the damage these LGSs will need to charge players with higher entry fees to make up for low player attendance since they're not allowed to have more than 10-15 people at these small events. If these LGSs are charging less than $15-20 to play at a Pre-Release Event or for FNM Standard then that's going to negatively impact their business unless those profits alongside e-commerce sales via card singles and other products are enough to get them to pay rent in order to stay in business. The question is will it be enough to reach that $1,000 a month threshold in order to break even.
"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
Where did you come up with that number? Do you mean just for events?
LGS need to take in a lot more money than 1000 dollars a month, its way more than rent.
Rent (unless they outright own)
Mortgage (if they are purchasing)
Property Tax
Insurance
Business License fees
Electric bill
Water bill
Wages (Paying any employees)
Maintenance
Other overhead
Merchandise
Interest on Merchandise (when they borrow to buy stuff)
Advertising (local and/or online)
And I'm sure I am missing other costs as well. If I were to own a gaming store I wouldn't want less than 10,000 a month gross income (between brick and mortar AND online sales) and even then you probably would never even cut yourself a check for your own salary. So yeah, LGS are going to have to up their entry fees in response, they aren't a charity. Problem is then they up it and drive away the small amount of players they may have. It just flat out sucks. I'm not going to go into the politics of reopening. I have to leave it at that.
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."
So it looks like we'll be seeing round two of government lockdown with more stimulus checks being sent to everyone which means more inflation to make everything three times as expensive as it was before. There were already delays with recent Paper Magic products like Commander 2020, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, and Jumpstart with Double Masters possibly getting delayed due to this second wave coming in. There's definitely going to be a whiplash within the Secondary Market because of these delays and recent inflation woes creating artificial demand for these products with very limited supply. We're already heading into a bear market If not already.
"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 think a few things that could impact how much people spend at LGSs right now are (1) the fear of being in "large" groups still, I.E more than 10. In Ontario, gatherings are still limited to 10 people at a time. Which is a really small amount of people entering into events. Even if people were allowed to gather in groups of more than that, is WotC still not sanctioning events or have they changed that?
(2) another thing that I don't see discussed as much is that hobbies like MtG are still hobbies, so people might not be willing to spend as much on their hobbies during uncertain times. Which will impact stores bottom lines during this
Hopefully things are starting to look better but there still is that second wave we need to worry about. I've been fortunate enough to see that none of the stores I play at, even outside my local area have shut down yet
Game Over
"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
(def.)hyperbole
noun
noun: hyperbole; plural noun: hyperboles
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Look, the model is horrible right now. There will be contraction. Its not game over for all. Listen to some of us that have severeal decades of life experience to share. Don't give up. I'm not sugarcoating what is going on, but try to resist the old Chicken Little addage "The sky is falling". It WILL get better, just not in the short run.
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 was talking to a Paper Pokémon TCG player a few weeks ago about whether or not If he was supporting his LGS by playing in their online tournaments (assuming he paid the entry fees) where they have Discord servers and frequent Twitch streams to be active on and then told me to **** off immediately after. I asked him what I said that pissed him off but he never bothered replying back to me about it. I got some feedback from some Yu-Gi-Oh! players online though one was suspicious about why I even bothered to communicate with them since I quit Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2004. Whether they like it or not we're supposed to all be in this together since we need LGSs to play our favorite gaming hobbies. Most people don't see it that way anymore.
"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
Dude, the inflation rate is DOWN this year. This is understandable if you know anything about how inflation actually works, because when the economy loses money inflation goes down. The stimulus checks were a drop in the bucket and did little to counteract the severe downward pressures on inflation. That doesn't mean that the prices of certain products that are experiencing bottlenecks haven't gone up, but they haven't gone up do to inflation (the relative devaluation of currency over time as the amount of currency grows) but due to scarcity and the resultant price gouging. Many things that add to costs have gone down, such as the price of fuel which reduces the price of shipping, raw materials as producers of those materials are forced to sell for less money as demand plummets, etc. There's no evidence that magic, or the sort of products lgs' sell, are being impacted by scarcity pricing. Neither are rents going to go up as much as they usually do, because landlords face the problem of finding tenants to fill the space at a time when tenants are having trouble paying. Landlords have an incentive to wave rent and write it off as a loss rather than leave the store empty and still not get rent, because they at least keep a tenant that has proved reliable until the pandemic.
This is going to be a hard year and many stores will go under, but it won't be THE END. Also keep in mind that COVID is a perfect storm virus that can be spread easily, is hard to contain, and is dangerous enough to matter. Something like SARS1 or MERS doesn't spread as easily, is quickly noticed and easy to track, and can thus be contained without these kind of measures despite both being far more deadly. These kinds of diseases aren't the new normal, COVID-19 is best though of as a century disease, the sort of thing that will show up about once every hundred years. Medical advances mean any given disease is less likely to be a century disease (flu used to be a great candidate but our knowledge of it and ability to quickly develop targeted vaccines means that even a flu like the Spanish flu is unlikely to rise to the level of COVID-19), but increased exposure to animal sources means our exposure to new diseases has increased and spread is easier due to globalization, so things sort of even out.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
If you open up a Local Game Store (LGS) and you're not wealthy then you're going to get crushed not because of competition but it's really in terms of market share and even during the best of times when no one can make a profit was because you were still competing against online retailers where they're selling a sealed product cheaper. Your competition isn't just necessarily your neighbors, it's also online, that's just how Magic: the Gathering is. Not just online vendors but also Arena. So when you have all these odds stacked against you and the only resource you have in your favor is your community and when that community is actively being told not to go to your Local Game Store (LGS) then you're kind of screwed. That's our current situation right now. I don't think these smaller mom and pop stores without the financial backing and without the bank loans can survive a public health crisis this severe.
After a second government lockdown I pray for these LGSs not being sarcastic here. We all want these stores to survive but not all of them will and even If they do survive then they're just delaying the inevitable at that point even If they do get tons of market share. So when can our MTG community come back to normal? Probably never. The more that you go out in public to play Paper Magic or any other gaming hobby then the worse it will be long term as it will take much longer to recover. That's really the irony of the Local Game Store (LGS) business model where they only have one massive selling point and that's the overall local communities actively supporting them. I don't agree with a lot of people about what the best outcome for this is going to be. It's one thing when one store is open for events while others aren't when it's another to just downsize overhead and shutdown In-Store Play to keep sales going.
"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