If CFB wants to host every event it can only mean it's profitable to do so. Which isn't surprising considering entry fees have doubled in a few short years.
It's a real shame what's happening to the game.
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If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how much glow-in-the-dark stuff we have, and how we take it for granted.
Is CFB actually going to be able to set the prices? While this could be a sign of monopoly for CFB, it could also be a sign that Wizards is going to take a more direct role in future tournament stuff and basically squeeze everyone, including CFB eventually, out. Seems similar to what Blizzard did with a lot of tournaments back in the day.
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Cyme we inne frið, fram the grip of deaþ to lif inne ðis smylte land.
I think people need to look up the definition of Monopoly.
One vendor gets all Grand Prix for an entire year, no competition and as far as we have been told, nothing to regulate them in any way. If you want to play a Grand Prix for an entire year, you have to play by their rules. If this is not a monopoly on.Grand Prix, hoe EXACTLY do you define it?
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
I think people need to look up the definition of Monopoly.
One vendor gets all Grand Prix for an entire year, no competition and as far as we have been told, nothing to regulate them in any way. If you want to play a Grand Prix for an entire year, you have to play by their rules. If this is not a monopoly on.Grand Prix, hoe EXACTLY do you define it?
A one year contract (if that's what it is) isn't monopoly, a lot of companies outsource work on a yearly contractual basis and they're not monopolies. People are freaking ridicules about this, talking about regulations and monopolies. Seriously? First you have to prove they are the only one permitted to hold MTG tournaments, I think TCG Player and SCG might have something to say about that. Next you'd have to prove that this supposed monopoly is artificially inflating a price of a service or product. Given that SCG charges $50 for their events but pays out less than half that of a Grand Prix, you have a hard sell on artificial inflation.
Bottom line is that CFB is only doing Grand Prix events. SCG will still be having big events.
Seems like a monopoly, now there won't be any competition and price gouging will continue. CFB has always been on the higher end of GP prices. I could see GP's being $100 by the end of 2018.
Well, that's because SCG pretty much spat upon everyone on the west coast a couple years ago and then there was the huge leak last year where several judges were suspended or banned from hosting DCI events.
Then the blatant cheating during sealed GPs where by the time people go to register their decks they resemble standard decks.
Seems like a monopoly, now there won't be any competition and price gouging will continue. CFB has always been on the higher end of GP prices. I could see GP's being $100 by the end of 2018.
Well, that's because SCG pretty much spat upon everyone on the west coast a couple years ago and then there was the huge leak last year where several judges were suspended or banned from hosting DCI events.
Then the blatant cheating during sealed GPs where by the time people go to register their decks they resemble standard decks.
From what I heard from a judge, SCG simply didn't want to do Grand Prix events anymore. They are more than happy running their own. I think that if SCG wanted in, they'd have some of the Grand Prix events. This isn't a monopoly, SCG just didn't want to do anymore events.
I think it's about SCG wanting to run their own show instead of someone like Wizards telling them what to do. If they wanted to run GPs, they would have imprinted their own style/template which conflicts against Wizards' interests.
Besides, SCG has their own line of secondary products like tokens and dices. So yeah, they've invested their alternate mtg products. They believe in their branding and I guess it's in their best interests to do so.
They wanna promote SCG through magic, not magic through SCG.
Excuse me, but if one person or institution has access to all of a commodity or service, and the others none, then that means that person or institution has a monopoly. It doesn't matter if it's for two weeks, a month, a year, or indefinitely. A monopoly is a monopoly.
If we look at the characteristics of a monopoly (taken from Wikipedia):
Profit Maximizer: Maximizes profits.
Price Maker: Decides the price of the good or product to be sold, but does so by determining the quantity in order to demand the price desired by the firm.
High Barriers: Other sellers are unable to enter the market of the monopoly.
Single seller: In a monopoly, there is one seller of the good, who produces all the output.[5] Therefore, the whole market is being served by a single company, and for practical purposes, the company is the same as the industry.
Price Discrimination: A monopolist can change the price or quantity of the product. He or she sells higher quantities at a lower price in a very elastic market, and sells lower quantities at a higher price in a less elastic market.
First of all, there isn't a high barrier. There was a tender which CFB has won, but it's a contract with a limited lifetime, which means competitors can enter the "market" again when the contract ends. Also, contract can be terminated. Saying this just means CFB has a monopoly for a year is really weird, because they are clearly beholden to certain demands from WotC. How can it be a monopoly for CFB when they don't, ultimately, call the shots on every decision pertaining GP's?
Secondly CFB can't change the quantity of the product. It's WotC who determines how many GP's there will be and where they will be held. Presumably WotC has some power over CFB in regards to pricing as well, as one of the caveats in the contract is undoubtedly that GP's need to be accessible to all players, i.e. affordable to an extent. Jacking up the price so much that it leads to significantly lower attendance will probably entail a breach of contract on CFB's part, so I doubt CFB is effectively entirely free to set the price of admission for GP's as well.
From an economic standpoint, there is no monopoly here. If I buy equipment from a supplier (let's say a pump), and this pump has a unique feature that only this supplier can provide, they still do not have a monopoly on the pump market. They have a niche feature that only they can provide, and therefore if I want that niche feature, I must buy from them. It doesn't stop me from going to other pump suppliers if I determine the niche feature is not worth it. WOTC is the only provider of Grand Prix tournaments for Magic the Gathering because they are the manufacturer of Magic the Gathering. They have decided to single source the Grand Prix tournament hoster. This may cause price variance, as they (WOTC) determine the market can bear. If you, as the consumer, don't like how much the price changes, you can decide to not play Magic the Gathering and pursue other CCGs. They are not the only CCG supplier in the region, much less the world, and therefore do not have a monopoly on CCGs. And even within Magic the Gathering, they are not the only tournament provided (SCG, for example, hosts many tournaments a year).
Monopolies deal with a manufacturer or service provider having sole control and (effectively) ownership of a particular market. This causes no competition and a high barrier of entry for those who want to enter into competition, allowing the company to price set to their heart's content, often at the detriment to the consumers. CFB having sole ownership of hosting GPs is far from the definition of a monopoly. It is not even a single source, which would be WOTC choosing the GP TO without going to any other company. WOTC bid out the job, awarded the bid to the company of their choosing, and set limits on the contract. This is actually a solid business practice and should be applauded, not derided, as it forces companies to price compete, which in turn benefits us the consumer. When the contract is up for renewal, if WOTC decides to bid it again, CFB will have to sharpen their pencil and determine how to reduce the price of GPs (as opposed to the fear that they will jack the prices up) if they want to keep the contract.
Considering I live in WV and SCG is based out of Roanoke, VA, I highly doubt I'll be going to a GP next year anyways.
I'm within 3-4 hours to a lot of major Magic cities that SCG hosts in regularly (Columbus, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Cincy, Cleveland, Baltimore, Charlotte, and a couple that's 4-5 hours away -Indy and Knoxville)
So if SCG bumps up their Open weekends to near GP level as far as side event offerings/vendors/etc and keeps prices at around $50 for the Main Event, there's no reason (other than if Wizards got John Avon to come back to a GP, for me to ever go to one again
For anyone who has gone to a CFB GP, what's the usual value of a ticket in their prize table? How much do currently-in-print boosters or sealed decks go for? And what if any premuim stuff do they offer?
For anyone who has gone to a CFB GP, what's the usual value of a ticket in their prize table? How much do currently-in-print boosters or sealed decks go for? And what if any premuim stuff do they offer?
in short - their value was lower at the CFB GPs than at the SCG ones, by quite a lot.
example breakdown:
SCG:
- most important factor is a side event pass got into every side event. you could enter a sealed event, decide to drop but keep the boosters if you wanted, play modern all weekend, or mix it up with drafts and legacy. there wasn't a barrier and it was an awesome experience.
- many different boosters available from historic sets to new ones (selection was insane)
- many different premium, promo or limited edition product available (commander/foil boosters/duel decks etc)
- many different playmats, deckboxes and similar (creature collection and historic GP mats)
- actual singles available for prize wall tickets (super important)
booster in standard set = 20 tickets
desirable historic booster (alara, mirrodin, innistrad) = 30-50 tickets
expensive and desirable booster (Worldwake, Future Sight, legends, alliances) = 80-100 tickets
mega expensive booster (Revised/unlimited) = 120-300 tickets
playmats = 50-300 tickets depending on what it was... some were really rare!
prize structure (most events were identical in prizes but I played just Modern): score 2-2, 40 tickets. score 2-1-1 (draw in final round) 110 tickets, score 3-1 was like 200 ish(?), 3-0-1 was 250 or 350 and 4-0 was crazy like 400 or 500.
I came away from SCG with a fat stack of boosters from historic sets for a huge chaos draft. The exact value of "10 tickets" wasn't so important as the prizes on offer and what their prices were. The boosters were decently priced by my humble estimates.
ChannelFireball:
- most important factor was that your (expensive) side event pass only got you into one type of event. for me that meant I played modern and only modern for an entire weekend (which is fine, but really it limits people to what they can do without spending tonnes more money to enter on-demand events).
- very small selection of boosters. just a handful of sets and nothing really good for my chaos draft collection.
- only a small selection of foil singles (literally one fat-pack box of stuff, not even full, first come first served on what was in there and it emptied pretty quickly - unbelievable!)
- basically one or two kinds of playmat or deckbox (channelfireball logo ones)
- a small selection of ancillary products like commander decks etc.
prize structure was worse: prize ticket payout was about the same (if nit identical?) but booster prizes were comparatively more expensive (and with fewer options) so despite going to the GP with the hopes of filling out our chaos draft box some more, we ended up reluctantly blowing our prize tickets on foil lands and stuff that they had in their box. I got some decent cards, but it was more of a "what can I find to blow my tickets on that isn't terrible" rather than "omg there's this amazing thing i really want and it's right there, I just need to win enough tickets to get it". It was still possible over the course of a weekend to blow all your tickets on the latest cheapest standard set, and come away with a booster box (or more) but that didn't interest me much. it still worked out as a worse deal than the SCG prizes, by quite a noticeable margin.
my experience of the two companies and their organisation of the events (ESPECIALLY their prize support) was quite different
Worth mentioning that the ticket prices for individual boosters was probably about the same? Just that there wasn't a good selection.
Thanks.
Their side event table:
4-0-0 (12 Match Points) – 500 Prize Tix
3-0-1 (10 Match Points) – 350 Prize Tix
3-1-0 (9 Match Points) – 200 Prize Tix
2-1-1 or 2-0-2 (7-8 Match Points) – 110 Prize Tix
2-2-0 (6 Match Points) – 20 Prize Tix
Made me a bit suspicious since it's the first time I saw so many tiple digit prize payouts since the table for the local company that used to run our GPs went from 4 to 120 but each ticket was exactly equal to a dollar and the prices of stuff were close to what you mention of SCG.
Well I guess I won't have much temptation to force myself to play every single event (Legacy at 11am? Don't they realize the people who can afford Legacy are either working or pass out party drunk at 10am FRI & SAT?), and WotC wonders why event attendance dwindles.
Seems like a monopoly, now there won't be any competition and price gouging will continue. CFB has always been on the higher end of GP prices. I could see GP's being $100 by the end of 2018.
Yeah and the diehards have to pay because there isn't anywhere else to play. They can have team CFB will always be on-camera games to help promote the store. I generally don't care for GPs but it does suck for those who grind a ton for points.
It's a real shame what's happening to the game.
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One vendor gets all Grand Prix for an entire year, no competition and as far as we have been told, nothing to regulate them in any way. If you want to play a Grand Prix for an entire year, you have to play by their rules. If this is not a monopoly on.Grand Prix, hoe EXACTLY do you define it?
A one year contract (if that's what it is) isn't monopoly, a lot of companies outsource work on a yearly contractual basis and they're not monopolies. People are freaking ridicules about this, talking about regulations and monopolies. Seriously? First you have to prove they are the only one permitted to hold MTG tournaments, I think TCG Player and SCG might have something to say about that. Next you'd have to prove that this supposed monopoly is artificially inflating a price of a service or product. Given that SCG charges $50 for their events but pays out less than half that of a Grand Prix, you have a hard sell on artificial inflation.
Bottom line is that CFB is only doing Grand Prix events. SCG will still be having big events.
Well, that's because SCG pretty much spat upon everyone on the west coast a couple years ago and then there was the huge leak last year where several judges were suspended or banned from hosting DCI events.
Then the blatant cheating during sealed GPs where by the time people go to register their decks they resemble standard decks.
They are not the best but still...
From what I heard from a judge, SCG simply didn't want to do Grand Prix events anymore. They are more than happy running their own. I think that if SCG wanted in, they'd have some of the Grand Prix events. This isn't a monopoly, SCG just didn't want to do anymore events.
Besides, SCG has their own line of secondary products like tokens and dices. So yeah, they've invested their alternate mtg products. They believe in their branding and I guess it's in their best interests to do so.
They wanna promote SCG through magic, not magic through SCG.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
If we look at the characteristics of a monopoly (taken from Wikipedia):
First of all, there isn't a high barrier. There was a tender which CFB has won, but it's a contract with a limited lifetime, which means competitors can enter the "market" again when the contract ends. Also, contract can be terminated. Saying this just means CFB has a monopoly for a year is really weird, because they are clearly beholden to certain demands from WotC. How can it be a monopoly for CFB when they don't, ultimately, call the shots on every decision pertaining GP's?
Secondly CFB can't change the quantity of the product. It's WotC who determines how many GP's there will be and where they will be held. Presumably WotC has some power over CFB in regards to pricing as well, as one of the caveats in the contract is undoubtedly that GP's need to be accessible to all players, i.e. affordable to an extent. Jacking up the price so much that it leads to significantly lower attendance will probably entail a breach of contract on CFB's part, so I doubt CFB is effectively entirely free to set the price of admission for GP's as well.
Monopolies deal with a manufacturer or service provider having sole control and (effectively) ownership of a particular market. This causes no competition and a high barrier of entry for those who want to enter into competition, allowing the company to price set to their heart's content, often at the detriment to the consumers. CFB having sole ownership of hosting GPs is far from the definition of a monopoly. It is not even a single source, which would be WOTC choosing the GP TO without going to any other company. WOTC bid out the job, awarded the bid to the company of their choosing, and set limits on the contract. This is actually a solid business practice and should be applauded, not derided, as it forces companies to price compete, which in turn benefits us the consumer. When the contract is up for renewal, if WOTC decides to bid it again, CFB will have to sharpen their pencil and determine how to reduce the price of GPs (as opposed to the fear that they will jack the prices up) if they want to keep the contract.
I'm within 3-4 hours to a lot of major Magic cities that SCG hosts in regularly (Columbus, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Cincy, Cleveland, Baltimore, Charlotte, and a couple that's 4-5 hours away -Indy and Knoxville)
So if SCG bumps up their Open weekends to near GP level as far as side event offerings/vendors/etc and keeps prices at around $50 for the Main Event, there's no reason (other than if Wizards got John Avon to come back to a GP, for me to ever go to one again
in short - their value was lower at the CFB GPs than at the SCG ones, by quite a lot.
example breakdown:
SCG:
- most important factor is a side event pass got into every side event. you could enter a sealed event, decide to drop but keep the boosters if you wanted, play modern all weekend, or mix it up with drafts and legacy. there wasn't a barrier and it was an awesome experience.
- many different boosters available from historic sets to new ones (selection was insane)
- many different premium, promo or limited edition product available (commander/foil boosters/duel decks etc)
- many different playmats, deckboxes and similar (creature collection and historic GP mats)
- actual singles available for prize wall tickets (super important)
booster in standard set = 20 tickets
desirable historic booster (alara, mirrodin, innistrad) = 30-50 tickets
expensive and desirable booster (Worldwake, Future Sight, legends, alliances) = 80-100 tickets
mega expensive booster (Revised/unlimited) = 120-300 tickets
playmats = 50-300 tickets depending on what it was... some were really rare!
prize structure (most events were identical in prizes but I played just Modern): score 2-2, 40 tickets. score 2-1-1 (draw in final round) 110 tickets, score 3-1 was like 200 ish(?), 3-0-1 was 250 or 350 and 4-0 was crazy like 400 or 500.
I came away from SCG with a fat stack of boosters from historic sets for a huge chaos draft. The exact value of "10 tickets" wasn't so important as the prizes on offer and what their prices were. The boosters were decently priced by my humble estimates.
ChannelFireball:
- most important factor was that your (expensive) side event pass only got you into one type of event. for me that meant I played modern and only modern for an entire weekend (which is fine, but really it limits people to what they can do without spending tonnes more money to enter on-demand events).
- very small selection of boosters. just a handful of sets and nothing really good for my chaos draft collection.
- only a small selection of foil singles (literally one fat-pack box of stuff, not even full, first come first served on what was in there and it emptied pretty quickly - unbelievable!)
- basically one or two kinds of playmat or deckbox (channelfireball logo ones)
- a small selection of ancillary products like commander decks etc.
prize structure was worse: prize ticket payout was about the same (if nit identical?) but booster prizes were comparatively more expensive (and with fewer options) so despite going to the GP with the hopes of filling out our chaos draft box some more, we ended up reluctantly blowing our prize tickets on foil lands and stuff that they had in their box. I got some decent cards, but it was more of a "what can I find to blow my tickets on that isn't terrible" rather than "omg there's this amazing thing i really want and it's right there, I just need to win enough tickets to get it". It was still possible over the course of a weekend to blow all your tickets on the latest cheapest standard set, and come away with a booster box (or more) but that didn't interest me much. it still worked out as a worse deal than the SCG prizes, by quite a noticeable margin.
my experience of the two companies and their organisation of the events (ESPECIALLY their prize support) was quite different
Worth mentioning that the ticket prices for individual boosters was probably about the same? Just that there wasn't a good selection.
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vintage-WBdark timesBW
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Fun deck-BBBBKobolds stormBBBB
Their side event table:
4-0-0 (12 Match Points) – 500 Prize Tix
3-0-1 (10 Match Points) – 350 Prize Tix
3-1-0 (9 Match Points) – 200 Prize Tix
2-1-1 or 2-0-2 (7-8 Match Points) – 110 Prize Tix
2-2-0 (6 Match Points) – 20 Prize Tix
Made me a bit suspicious since it's the first time I saw so many tiple digit prize payouts since the table for the local company that used to run our GPs went from 4 to 120 but each ticket was exactly equal to a dollar and the prices of stuff were close to what you mention of SCG.
Well I guess I won't have much temptation to force myself to play every single event (Legacy at 11am? Don't they realize the people who can afford Legacy are either working or pass out party drunk at 10am FRI & SAT?), and WotC wonders why event attendance dwindles.
Those 2 things combined are going to hurt participation numbers bad. Stupid WotC!
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UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar