Thought I'd share this again from Rudy of Alpha Investments:
Quote from Alpha Investments »
Are mass box openings dead? Obviously there's a couple of ways to address this. We can discuss this in respect to sets like Modern Horizons which are specialty sets or we can address the mass box openings with Standard products. Now in the past, mass box openings were normally done by Local Game Stores (LGSs) by using Standard sets cause that's when customers would come in and want to be able to have inventory on all the new Standard releases especially with the big Secondary Market values and that's where they would recoup a lot of their money with cash transactions at their local store. Mass box openings were not really invented or targeted or supposed to be for specialty sets like Modern Horizons or Masters sets in the past, Conspiracy / Battlebond type sets. Aside from that lets talk about Strixhaven. So because we're on the back of the new Dungeons & Dragons set for Magic: The Gathering I know a lot of the regular player base is very happy that sealed product is very cheap and expected value is very low.
The player base segment of the game is very happy with it. Now of course everything in life is a teeter totter, the more they're happy with it that means the prices are very cheap. The cheaper you tilt that way that means well unfortunately stores are aware of that and stores are ordering less of it from their local distributors and they're also not cracking boxes at the rate they used to which is also not absorbing as much of the supply. This has been one of my theories for awhile that Wizards of the Coast not only do they notice less stores are cracking the boxes and stocking card singles in their inventory, I feel this is one of the many long list of reasons that they're using Amazon as the future for selling card singles via direct-to-consumer online. It's complicated. The original idea was to keep Standard cheap and insert really high end lottery cards or really high end chase cards that would help dilute the value of the base set and keep the players happy by keeping it cheap.
That was the original intention of like Expeditions and Masterpieces and Invocations. I was actually very critical of that at first. I looked back at that and got that wrong. I think that was actually the right way to go about it. I wish they would return to that business model because I think that's healthy, it adds more excitement, and it provides an incentive for stores to really go back to cracking lots of boxes to REALLY hunt for those 1 in 1,0001 to 2,000 booster pack type of chase cards. I do think Wizards of the Coast will return to that eventually. Unfortunately again it takes a very long time for them to react because I don't think they're very happy with the overall sales of Draft Boxes. I think as they continue to push all this to Set Boxes because again they charge more wholesale and they put less booster packs in. So they get paid more per box as there's less cardboard in each box so they "win" on both ends of the spectrum. So for them that's a positive financially sound decision.
I really think the reason as to why the market isn't factoring it in enough is because people aren't cracking boxes and flipping card singles, the economy behind a Standard legal booster box is VERY VERY weird. This could be caused by the Set Boxes and the Collector's Edition Boxes diluting, there's a lot of variables that go into it as I don't have an easy clean answer to how to solve something like this. You can argue in so many different ways I'm just presenting to you all as to what I see going on. One of the ways that Mass Box Opening Stores' Secondary Market has remained very healthy for a long time was the Foil Multiplier. Back in the day getting a foil Rare or a foil Mythic was two or three times the price. If you had a $10 Mythic you could sell the foil version for like $30 which could pay for half a box 10 years ago. It was very different because now not only is there almost a zero foil multiplier or a premium for a foil price of a specific card variant (etched foils, extended arts, showcases, and retro frames).
It's so much now that even people selling the cards actually have a hard time identifying which type of card they're selling, buyers are upset because they're getting the wrong version or the wrong variants and the wrong types of foiling, it's so extreme now that to me it's just feels and I HATE to use this analogy where it feels like the Sports Card World of the 90's where it's becoming so many versions of the same Baseball card and so many versions of the same player. There's so many special versions that they're all useless. I think Wizards of the Coast will adjust unlike the Sports Card World where 20 different companies were printing the same Baseball card player. The only printing in Magic: The Gathering is by Wizards of the Coast so we're not gonna go in the same direction as the Sports Card World because the dynamics and the number of companies printing is very very different. Still doesn't mean we can't have a different problem with a type of crash as far as that particular example.
For Standard legal sets I wouldn't recommend anyone doing mass box openings. I just don't see the point in why you would engage in that much risk and labor and time to lose money or break even or to even have less than minimum wage style returns. Not to mention the rising cost and problems associated with online selling like on eBay and TCGPlayer in regards to their fee structure AND the actual shipping costs which continue to go up. I've been starting to hear rumors now that we're going to have a FOURTH price increase from the United States Postal Service in August 2021. A fourth price increase within 12 months. This is the fastest rate of increase for shipping costs in HISTORY! So I also expect Wizards of the Coast is going to continue to raise prices on all their Paper Magic products. I am expecting to see more super high end $100+ booster packs coming. Overall I think mass box openings are dead. As of in the current environment it's dead.
Now when we have specialty products like this Modern Horizons. Now Modern Horizons 2. I feel like they were so concerned with the high price they were attaching to it with the fear of an Iconic Masters type of erosion or crash that they overdid it. They overdid it so much that If you open 30 or 60 boxes of Modern Horizons 2 Set Boxes or Draft Boxes that people were averaging from $400 to $500 Expected Value (EV) where the box prices are dropping and the singles for the set aren't. I don't know how long it's going to stay this way. So do I think Wizards of the Coast really cares about mass box openings in this new era? I don't. All they're focusing on is the sales numbers and I don't think we're going to see a return to that. The way I see this going is very bearish and a little aggressive. So recently there's been a drop in supply for Strixhaven and Mystical Archive products. Is it out of print or is there a supply problem?
What's going on with some of the card prices for Strixhaven for certain single cards and Mystical Archive that's holding up good while the supply is going down? Well I think it's a combination of Local Game Stores (LGSs) not cracking booster boxes. Why? Because they're tired of losing money opening new Paper Magic products being diluted so much that stores are not updating their card singles inventory whenever there's a new set release. After this initial release where all the money has been made during and shortly after Pre-Release Weekend, nobody's opening boxes anymore. Therefore Local Game Stores are not ordering as many booster boxes unless it's just to sell sealed to customers and whales but they're not actually cracking and stocking Standard card inventory. This is leading to the slow erosion of the quantity of card singles that are available online because as the Local Game Stores sell them they're not restocking the Card Singles even by refusing to accept Buylist orders for them.
Wizards of the Coast limits their Standard product releases very tightly to make sure that the set releases for them goes smooth, to make sure that the cards within the Secondary Market don't collapse, and they really bottleneck that to make everyone feel that the set was a success. So don't get the wrong idea right now, just because you see the quantity of a certain card in Standard dropping be aware that it's not because the card is rare or out of print it's probably because the Local Game Stores and the employees who work there just aren't touching the product. Magic: The Gathering isn't dying, it's doing very well, it's just that we don't like the direction in which they're implementing it. But they are doing very well. Final thoughts though? The more things change the more things stay the same. The trend will ALWAYS be our friend.
I don't know about you all but I've also been noticing this problem in specialty products not just Standard products at my own Local Game Store (LGS) recently. After Zendikar Rising there was this sudden shift of behavior with the employees there where when I tried to pick up the card singles I was wanting to purchase from Modern Horizons 2 I'd assumed they'd crack boxes of it during Pre-Release Weekend but they didn't have the cards available yet apparently. Little did I know that they were only relying on people actually placing Buylist orders to carry the new card singles from these sets instead of doing mass box openings to place them in stock which I found to be very suspicious. I'm guessing it had to do with the EV of Modern Horizons 2 tanking in price to where Local Game Stores didn't think they'd get any money selling card singles for it.
There is one factor that Rudy forgot to mention for why Local Game Stores aren't as reluctant to do mass box openings for carrying card single inventory nowadays and that's because a lot of competitive players are patiently waiting for the next Standard rotation before these stores feel more "incentivized" to do mass box openings again. As we all know Standard is a mess right now due to all the unchecked power creep from Ikoria onward with no one being able to play In-Person due to the global pandemic which has also caused a lot of Local Game Stores to go belly up and out of business for good. What Local Game Stores don't realize is that while they may be losing more money doing these mass box openings they're still helping out players who play in other formats outside of Standard with EDH / Commander being the most popular format in the game.
Not only are they making it hard for EDH / Commander players to get the card singles they need but they're making acquiring these singles less convenient by forcing their customers to purchase most of their card singles online via eBay or TCGPlayer where they have to wait weeks on end to get the cards they need instead of having instant access toward it. They're under the assumption that the majority of EDH / Commander players play at home more than at their Local Game Store (LGS) where it's much easier to meet up with playgroups without having to rely on Social Media without getting associated with the everyday toxicity we see on Facebook and Twitter. Local Game Stores don't want to live with the reality that EDH / Commander is the new lifeblood of their business more so than Standard nowadays and that's what frustrates them the most.
Only problem is that without Standard you won't have as many new players entering into Paper Magic with less interest of them getting into other formats like EDH / Commander, Modern, and Pioneer to a lesser extent. Arena is already causing an exodus of players not wanting to have anything to do with other formats outside of Standard for In-Person play at Local Game Stores probably because the sound of a digital card game not being tied to a Secondary Market appeals to them more which is understandable I get it. If Richard Garfield had designed Paper Magic what that future aspect in mind 30 years ago knowing that his game would stand the test of time then we could've seen an alternate version of Magic: The Gathering that's more consumer friendly that doesn't cater solely to those who only want to play the stock market or treat the collectibility of the game as a 401k retirement plan.
"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
As far as I can tell the only formats anyone plays anymore is Commander. Players only need 1 of a card and not 4 of and there is a lot of interactive cards that are necessary for standard but are just worst than older cards so are never played in commander.
As far as I can tell the only formats anyone plays anymore is Commander. Players only need 1 of a card and not 4 of and there is a lot of interactive cards that are necessary for standard but are just worst than older cards so are never played in commander.
Commander is and always was for casuals.
Even cEDH is still a casual format (just for people that want to build competitive decks regardless in a casual environment).
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PowerCreep is pretty real in magic right now, what Legacy complains the most about .. as WotC doesnt really design "new" cards, they just upgrade existing ones with more and more abilities that are flat out better than the version better, so existing decks just get stronger, further pushing any remote new deck idea into the realm of unplayable in power level.
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The stores that still open a lot of packs sell them online and are quite competitive with each other.
For customers it doesnt matter if there are 100+ of retailers selling them cards, or just 1 giant company that does it.
WotC sells cards directly by themselves with SecretLairs , and that business model is disgustingly profitable for them, as they quite literally produce almost nothing and sell it for massive amounts of money.
Long gone are the times the game and its boosters where a means to draft and play.
The entire argument for booster packs not being illegal gambling was that the cards themselves have no actual value, and the Boosters are sold as "Draft" packs to play with.
Now they sell packs that are not for playing at all, they are just massive gambling for money, open the crazy expensive card and keep going, or fail and lose money ... Magic mutated into a massive gambling addiction for some people that still buy sealed product (the whales that spend actual big money on sealed packs), while the vast majority of people cannot effort that (especially not children without a monthly allowance of 100+ bucks).
Even the LGS have trouble selling sealed boxes, as the margin of profit is so low, you need to flip a lot of them to make it worthwhile (or sell single booster packs in large quantity, to make more out each box, but thats all very very little profit for the time and space investment).
Selling singles has a larger profit range, if people buy a lot of them, and selling singles online is as simple as ever.
Any LGS that wants to keep its head above water is basically forced to sell online and flip large amounts of stuff. Problem is, that requires also large amounts of investment, and if people dont buy it up in the first week or month, you cant just sit on 10000$+ of investment , you have to pay rent for the store and such, so prices are further pushed down, as people need money back.
WotC is not helping any of these issues, they just keep making it worse ... and increase the prices of all product continually (for an eternity the prices for booster packs was the same, minimal increases in large time frames, and LGS could cover the increase and keep the price for packs the same, but now its extreme).
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Super expensive singles of really old cards are a market that just a few can really do, as you need knowledge, a store cannot just take a low-payed dude to sell high value product, its way too dangerous (even for theft, these super expensive things need to be put in a secure safe, its a risk to just have a store with that much expensive stuff without proper security, thats a heavy cost for a LGS, while just a storage for online sellers its not an issue, as people dont run around in your storage).
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Yea, its a rough time, LGS are in a bad place and theres really no light at the end of the tunnel, just more misery and hellfire.
If the LGS die out, the game will most likely slowly bleed out and fizzle away, at least in paper form.
PowerCreep is pretty real in magic right now, what Legacy complains the most about .. as WotC doesnt really design "new" cards, they just upgrade existing ones with more and more abilities that are flat out better than the version better, so existing decks just get stronger, further pushing any remote new deck idea into the realm of unplayable in power level.
They do this for Standard legal sets so that there are functionally identical cards to replace them with for when set rotation hits which tends to backfire for those who are wanting something different in eternal formats where it mostly comes from a specialty product or a Commander Pre-Con for example. EDH / Commander is arguably the only eternal format in Paper Magic that doesn't have as high of barrier of entry compared to Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Pioneer however that's becoming a lot harder now given how fast the format has gotten in recent years due to the influence of cEDH.
The stores that still open a lot of packs sell them online and are quite competitive with each other.
For customers it doesnt matter if there are 100+ of retailers selling them cards, or just 1 giant company that does it.
WotC sells cards directly by themselves with SecretLairs , and that business model is disgustingly profitable for them, as they quite literally produce almost nothing and sell it for massive amounts of money.
It's not just through Secret Lairs. It seems as though they've been undercutting Local Game Stores by sending second or third print runs exclusively to Amazon by forcing these stores to restock on product. Less money for Local Game Stores by cutting the local distributor completely and more money going to Wizards of the Coast and Amazon. Those LGSs would've had those second or third print runs If Wizards of the Coast gave them enough product for mass box openings to sell card singles for. By doing this LGSs end up taking the blame for Wizards of the Coast choosing not to work with local distributors.
Also I was going to mention this on Rudy's Amazon Rant video but it got auto deleted on YouTube though I was wondering, what If the U.S. Government managed to split Amazon into two separate companies since they have WAY too much power over brick-and-mortar retail? How much would that impact Wizards of the Coast's relationship with them in regards to selling Paper Magic direct-to-consumer? Would that be enough to wake Wizards of the Coast to stop having to increase their profit margins for Hasbro? Also how would that impact Card Single sales for Local Game Stores?
Super expensive singles of really old cards are a market that just a few can really do, as you need knowledge, a store cannot just take a low-payed dude to sell high value product, its way too dangerous (even for theft, these super expensive things need to be put in a secure safe, its a risk to just have a store with that much expensive stuff without proper security, thats a heavy cost for a LGS, while just a storage for online sellers its not an issue, as people dont run around in your storage).
That's one of the main reasons why my Local Game Store keeps these valuable cards away in their inventory from their showcase where they mostly just display cards that are Standard legal currently. High end cards such as the one's on the Reserve List are rarely ever sold or kept in inventory unless it's a cheap card that's less than $40 on the Secondary Market. You won't find any Power Nine cards normally sitting around at a Local Game Store unless it's at a convention style event like MagicFest. Thanks to the current pandemic we may never see another one ever again.
"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 another big problem that prevented stores from opening packs was the whole covid 19 pandemic. People weren't able to play in paper events such as Magic Fests, FNM or the like. So less of a reason to buy cards, which gave stores less of a reason for stores to open packs.
I feel that with many places returning to in store play, sales of cards should (hopefully) increase again. In my opinion there will always be a demand for singles as long as Magic is around, due to there will always be people who would rather just buy the card they need rather than chance opening it in a pack
I think another big problem that prevented stores from opening packs was the whole covid 19 pandemic. People weren't able to play in paper events such as Magic Fests, FNM or the like. So less of a reason to buy cards, which gave stores less of a reason for stores to open packs.
I feel that with many places returning to in store play, sales of cards should (hopefully) increase again. In my opinion there will always be a demand for singles as long as Magic is around, due to there will always be people who would rather just buy the card they need rather than chance opening it in a pack
Speaking of which I recently contacted one of the Local Game Stores or rather Comic Book Shop that I used to frequent on Friday nights 15 months ago and the owner recently told me that she closed down the eBay store for her business. The reason was more pandemic related rather than having to do with taking a risk on selling new Paper Magic products that may or may not have been sold. They did announce a Take Home Pre-Release for Strixhaven and briefly talked about the Retro Frame cards from Time Spiral Remastered on their Facebook page though they haven't really gotten around to updating their online presence afterward. I assume they still have all their old Paper Magic singles still catalogued in set / expansion binders which beat having to wait to place card orders for building decks at the other and only Local Game Store I go to nowadays.
They even used to sell Paper Magic commons in bulk sorted by color and colorless back in the day though I don't know If they still do that anymore. The overhead is REALLY small there compared to the other Local Game Store I frequent on Saturdays where there's 3 floors of play space and a soda fountain with snacks on the go. Saturdays were mostly dead up at the Comic Book Shop since most of my friends have to work during the weekends where Friday nights are normally their busiest. Right before the pandemic hit we were still having trouble being able to get enough players to fire for Standard tournaments due to the popularity of EDH / Commander of course though I think the real decline with FNM started when Wizards of the Coast got pissed at LGS owners selling promos for tournaments they lied about hosting. Of course this was back when Khans block was still Standard legal.
"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
Visited a couple of LGS while our family was on vacation recently in the town around our rental. One had a huge assortment (tens to hundreds of thousands) of singles from commons up to rare/mythics. Got to riffle through thousands of C/UC sorted by color searching for certain cards. The other had singles in a case and a smaller assortment but even this is in a small city area of around 30K people. Nobody wearing masks in either which was nice. Also visited a larger LGS in a local metro area over the weekend with my son. Again a huge assortment (tens to hundreds of thousands)of singles of all rarities (good prices on the C and UC at 10 cents each as well).
The singles market isn't dead. It may be contracting but players like myself will always want paper cards.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Now that you mentioned it an LGS owner from Arizona visited my LGS last Saturday and we got in a pretty good game of Commander. He told me that he's trying to sell custom Commander deck boxes completely 3D printed for $30 each which seems like a pretty good deal If you ask me since most LGSs hardly carry good Commander Deck Boxes like Dragon Shield which are becoming harder to find nowadays even online as well. It even seems like a lot of the Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game product manufacturers like Ultra Pro, Dragon Shield, Ultimate Guard, etc. aren't producing and distributing as much product due to the pandemic still. Some of the stuff that I expected my LGS to restock on they've chose not to buy from their local distributor because they didn't think it would sell even with their online presence only being good for buying and selling card singles.
I think they're expecting customers to come into their physical store to buy most of their non-Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game products rather than also having it available online through their website. The Comic Book Shop I used to frequent had those kind of items for sale on the owners' eBay store though she didn't want to list more of what she had in her inventory because she still wanted customers to come into her physical store which is understandable. If you're a business like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, TCGPlayer, ChannelFireball, or Star City Games then you don't care about being open to the public In-Person. It's kind of this teeter totter of persuading customers to come to your physical store where they have more access to your inventory (AND to play of course) as they wouldn't have as much solely shopping online where there's not as many items to purchase.
"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
It even seems like a lot of the Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game product manufacturers like Ultra Pro, Dragon Shield, Ultimate Guard, etc. aren't producing and distributing as much product due to the pandemic still.
Quite true. Trying to find Deck Boxes and sleeves at any of my local Big Box stores and/or LGS is becoming increasingly difficult. You can tell these items production has been cut during the last year and a half. Just like there is a shortage of new cars to purchase and also adult bicycles. There are definite shortages of certain items in my area (and countrywide).
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
The singles market isn't dead. It may be contracting but players like myself will always want paper cards.
It's only contracting due to competitive pricing where buyers care more about saving as much money on the card singles they purchase rather than paying a premium by directly supporting Local Game Stores which is now more important than ever even in the age of COVID. To us players we don't care about how much we're paying for these cards as long as the prices are reasonable and affordable unlike the majority of high-end Reserve List cards where you're spending two to three times as much on cards that potentially have functionally identical versions of themselves that are much easier to afford and obtain. In a format like EDH / Commander sometimes being forced to play something that's inconsistent won't cut it even If restriction breeds creativity though it really depends on the cards themselves I guess.
Now when it comes to Local Game Stores buying and selling card singles, players apparently don't like the idea of selling card singles to make store credit to help purchase the card singles they need for their decks from the Local Game Store's inventory. They could ultimately decide to quit the game entirely and are only looking for cash to spend elsewhere instead of using the store credit from the card collection they sold to buy items from the Local Game Store that they're mostly uninterested in. Then you have a scenario where the Local Game Store might not have enough money from their cash registers to pay the seller the full amount of how much the card collection being sold is actually worth thus hurting their business overall especially when it comes to cash prizes for winners at In-Person events.
So unless the Local Game Store has an online presence to actually move the card singles from the card collection sold then they're basically stuck with card singles they lost money on and won't have enough money to pay rent in order to keep the lights on for their business. This is how Local Game Stores are making less money on MTG because they don't have enough cash flow to properly satisfy these collection sellers AND themselves. So the collection sellers are forced to get the money they need online because most of these buyers aren't tied to a brick-and-mortar retail store where they don't have enough money to support BOTH the buyer and the seller as it's really dependent on how much income these online vendors actually have. Bottom line is that sealed product sells faster than card singles.
Players don't like this because they'd rather pay more for individual cards they want by buying card singles rather than buying sealed product where they run the risk of losing as much as they spent by playing the lottery. So in the mindset of the LGS, the less inventory they have the more items they can add to sell more of as long as it's something that doesn't sit around for long. Though I really don't mind the Local Game Store adapting an equivalent toward the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) that we commonly see in Public Libraries for storing their card singles inventory, it can be really hard when you're a store trying to multitask card singles for various Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games simultaneously even when you have customers waiting in line for their card single orders to be pulled.
"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
Wizards is shifting towards the normalization of nonphysical products, which will be prioritized over paper magic at an increasing rate over the next 1-3 years. By 2025 most players will be online exclusively. This is their goal.
Wizards is shifting towards the normalization of nonphysical products, which will be prioritized over paper magic at an increasing rate over the next 1-3 years. By 2025 most players will be online exclusively. This is their goal.
I'm guessing one of the higher ups at Hasbro told you this? This decision was probably based on an assumption that In-Person Play and Events at Local Game Stores (LGSs) will NEVER be what it once was before COVID-19, so they're taking extra precaution by forcing players to play online exclusively because they don't like the idea of players continuing to play Paper Magic In-Person at their Local Game Store (LGS) for public health reasons. It apparently puts the company in a bad light so it's easier for them to isolate more players for a less desirable MTG experience while trying to reduce the risk of getting sued for potential damages looking out for their own bottom line of course.
If this really had been an issue you'd think that Wizards of the Coast would've made a public statement about this already so it has to be something else for why they would be wanting to do away with Paper Magic for good. The Secondary Market itself would be my next guess since it's gotten unsustainable to the point where Wizards of the Coast constantly has to reprint specific money cards to make them affordable for players however it's only good for a short period before they spike back to the same demand they had before. By discontinuing Paper Magic certain expensive cards outside the Reserve List will be treated as another Reserve List for collectors with players wanting to purchase the cards to play them being priced out of the game entirely.
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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
Reprints can be used to get cards that I need especially even Yu-Gi-Oh.
Except the problem with reprints are in how much of them are currently available and are circulating throughout the Secondary Market not to mention how much of a supplementary product should consist of reprints as opposed to brand new cards in the hopes that these brand new cards will make up most of the money that's potentially lost without reprints. There's also the danger of a supplementary product having too many reprints causing the products themselves to be too expensive to purchase sealed even with MSRP as opposed to card singles themselves which are normally cheaper on demand. When these types of Masters sets are released you only have a short window of opportunity to obtain these cards before they're either out of print or the whales keep the supply dried up by keeping them sealed until they're ready to flip online to make a profit.
Unless your Local Game Store (LGS) has people who are generous enough to Buylist these types of cards instead of going to an online vendor like TCGPlayer then you're forced to purchase these card singles on eBay or from other online vendors. The more lucrative reprints are the more they're going to be instantly bought out for EDH / Commander decks never to be sold back into the Secondary Market again unless another reprint comes around. The only time popular singles in EDH / Commander get sold is whenever it gets banned but is still playable in other formats where they're legal in and since there's no set rotation in EDH / Commander like there is for Standard and Modern it makes it really difficult for these cards to move and be widely available. Now unless there's players who've already quit the game and sold off their collections then that's a different story entirely.
"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
Oh hey I have experience with this. Essentially this is the Riot Games business model.
You agree to a EULA and TOS that essentially states that you don't own anything, and you only have access to the digital content that you receive.
These two binding documents also have ironclad frameworks that give the company full discretion over your account data & access to their game, which is also active at their discretion and they can terminate accounts for any reason at any time. They're also essentially immune to lawsuits.
Not only that, the main reason for this is that once everyone is online, they won't need foundries or anything like that to actually output product, they don't need distributors, they don't need anything like that for much of the game. What that means is that instead of selling essentially nothing to people for *****loads more than it costs to produce, they'll be switching to *actually* selling *nothing* but access to lines of code.
[quote from="Fully Loaded Shaman »" url="/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/822919-the-supposed-death-of-card-single-sales-at-local?comment=11"]This decision was probably based on an assumption that In-Person Play and Events at Local Game Stores (LGSs) will NEVER be what it once was before COVID-19, so they're taking extra precaution by forcing players to play online exclusively because they don't like the idea of players continuing to play Paper Magic In-Person at their Local Game Store (LGS) for public health reasons. It apparently puts the company in a bad light so it's easier for them to isolate more players for a less desirable MTG experience while trying to reduce the risk of getting sued for potential damages looking out for their own bottom line of course.
Even Bushiroad players and game stores in other countries made playing in person consistently accessible with no reports of covid spread to speak of because they followed guidelines before and after vaccinations. Wizards could encourage IPP with just a few suggestions and people could return to stores.
There's no reason it would never return to normal ROFL
Oh hey I have experience with this. Essentially this is the Riot Games business model.
You agree to a EULA and TOS that essentially states that you don't own anything, and you only have access to the digital content that you receive.
These two binding documents also have ironclad frameworks that give the company full discretion over your account data & access to their game, which is also active at their discretion and they can terminate accounts for any reason at any time. They're also essentially immune to lawsuits.
Not only that, the main reason for this is that once everyone is online, they won't need foundries or anything like that to actually output product, they don't need distributors, they don't need anything like that for much of the game. What that means is that instead of selling essentially nothing to people for *****loads more than it costs to produce, they'll be switching to *actually* selling *nothing* but access to lines of code.
Kinda reminds me of this YouTube video posted by YongYea:
Even Bushiroad players and game stores in other countries made playing in person consistently accessible with no reports of covid spread to speak of because they followed guidelines before and after vaccinations. Wizards could encourage IPP with just a few suggestions and people could return to stores.
There's no reason it would never return to normal ROFL
tl;dr hasbro sucks dude
I don't know If you'd call Remote Play "consistently accessible" having to shell $300+ for a webcam for an experience that's nothing more than playing Video Games online. At that point you're probably better off just playing Arena or some other Digital Exclusive Card Game like Shadowverse or Legends of Runeterra where it's cheaper to play with no Secondary Market strings attached.
"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
Online singles; Preorder price points continue to gouge customers by default for singles. Stores set the intitial prices, and they greedily set them way too high, you saw this and mentioned it when MH2 came out, right bear? So of course people are not going to preorder singles all that much. Can't complain when you don't sell a badly priced product. People would prefer to trade for their Ragavans.
As for Commander players. You might think they only need 1 of a card, but commander players often have many decks. With Modern/Standard you can get away with 1-3 decks, but with Commander you generally bring 12 to 20. A big chunk of those decks are likely to want a Mana Crypt and a Sensei's Divining Top. When a new card comes on the scene that makes it into multiple Commander decks, the price on it goes pretty wild.
Online singles; Preorder price points continue to gouge customers by default for singles. Stores set the intitial prices, and they greedily set them way too high, you saw this and mentioned it when MH2 came out, right bear? So of course people are not going to preorder singles all that much. Can't complain when you don't sell a badly priced product. People would prefer to trade for their Ragavans.
As for Commander players. You might think they only need 1 of a card, but commander players often have many decks. With Modern/Standard you can get away with 1-3 decks, but with Commander you generally bring 12 to 20. A big chunk of those decks are likely to want a Mana Crypt and a Sensei's Divining Top. When a new card comes on the scene that makes it into multiple Commander decks, the price on it goes pretty wild.
The reason why Local Game Stores (LGSs) are setting the initial price for card singles too high is because they're forced to go by how much it costs in terms of shipping and state taxes since MSRP doesn't count toward card singles like it used to for sealed product. Part of Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's contract agreement with Amazon was to end MSRP for sealed product altogether so that they wouldn't have to deal with the kind of pricing entanglements that Local Game Stores (LGSs) go through. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro technically isn't allowed to sell used card singles direct-to-consumer If they're in lightly, moderately, or heavily played condition because that would get them in legal trouble by directly tampering with the Secondary Market which is why they can only sell card singles direct-to-consumer as brand new cards via Secret Lair. This is also why they tend to avoid selling Near Mint condition card singles direct-to-consumer straight from product releases that you'd normally find at Local Game Stores (LGSs) including Walmart and Target.
For high end Reserve List card singles, Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro usually leaves that stuff to Channel Fireball and Star City Games however they just recently ended their Buylists for these expensive cards because no one except millionaires have the ability to purchase them as it would take forever to move compared to card singles that are WAY cheaper and more obtainable. Since Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is in the business to make money ASAP when it comes to Paper Magic they don't really have the patience for people to buy used Reserve List card singles direct-to-consumer when Secret Lair drops can accumulate as much as these high end Reserve List card singles or even more depending on how successful they are. I remember hearing a rumor one time that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro were going to put actual ABU Duals as box toppers in sealed product for one of the Zendikar sets being released but knowing how risky that was they wanted to dramatically increase the odds of getting these Duals in sealed product.
"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 If you'd call Remote Play "consistently accessible" having to shell $300+ for a webcam for an experience that's nothing more than playing Video Games online. At that point you're probably better off just playing Arena or some other Digital Exclusive Card Game like Shadowverse or Legends of Runeterra where it's cheaper to play with no Secondary Market strings attached.
Why are you spending $300+ for a webcam? I spent $30CDN on one from Amazon and it works perfectly fine.
I don't know If you'd call Remote Play "consistently accessible" having to shell $300+ for a webcam for an experience that's nothing more than playing Video Games online. At that point you're probably better off just playing Arena or some other Digital Exclusive Card Game like Shadowverse or Legends of Runeterra where it's cheaper to play with no Secondary Market strings attached.
Why are you spending $300+ for a webcam? I spent $30CDN on one from Amazon and it works perfectly fine.
I just assumed that most webcams are too expensive to afford but I didn't know that there's some that are much cheaper. Thanks for clearing that up.
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
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I don't know about you all but I've also been noticing this problem in specialty products not just Standard products at my own Local Game Store (LGS) recently. After Zendikar Rising there was this sudden shift of behavior with the employees there where when I tried to pick up the card singles I was wanting to purchase from Modern Horizons 2 I'd assumed they'd crack boxes of it during Pre-Release Weekend but they didn't have the cards available yet apparently. Little did I know that they were only relying on people actually placing Buylist orders to carry the new card singles from these sets instead of doing mass box openings to place them in stock which I found to be very suspicious. I'm guessing it had to do with the EV of Modern Horizons 2 tanking in price to where Local Game Stores didn't think they'd get any money selling card singles for it.
There is one factor that Rudy forgot to mention for why Local Game Stores aren't as reluctant to do mass box openings for carrying card single inventory nowadays and that's because a lot of competitive players are patiently waiting for the next Standard rotation before these stores feel more "incentivized" to do mass box openings again. As we all know Standard is a mess right now due to all the unchecked power creep from Ikoria onward with no one being able to play In-Person due to the global pandemic which has also caused a lot of Local Game Stores to go belly up and out of business for good. What Local Game Stores don't realize is that while they may be losing more money doing these mass box openings they're still helping out players who play in other formats outside of Standard with EDH / Commander being the most popular format in the game.
Not only are they making it hard for EDH / Commander players to get the card singles they need but they're making acquiring these singles less convenient by forcing their customers to purchase most of their card singles online via eBay or TCGPlayer where they have to wait weeks on end to get the cards they need instead of having instant access toward it. They're under the assumption that the majority of EDH / Commander players play at home more than at their Local Game Store (LGS) where it's much easier to meet up with playgroups without having to rely on Social Media without getting associated with the everyday toxicity we see on Facebook and Twitter. Local Game Stores don't want to live with the reality that EDH / Commander is the new lifeblood of their business more so than Standard nowadays and that's what frustrates them the most.
Only problem is that without Standard you won't have as many new players entering into Paper Magic with less interest of them getting into other formats like EDH / Commander, Modern, and Pioneer to a lesser extent. Arena is already causing an exodus of players not wanting to have anything to do with other formats outside of Standard for In-Person play at Local Game Stores probably because the sound of a digital card game not being tied to a Secondary Market appeals to them more which is understandable I get it. If Richard Garfield had designed Paper Magic what that future aspect in mind 30 years ago knowing that his game would stand the test of time then we could've seen an alternate version of Magic: The Gathering that's more consumer friendly that doesn't cater solely to those who only want to play the stock market or treat the collectibility of the game as a 401k retirement plan.
"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
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
Commander is and always was for casuals.
Even cEDH is still a casual format (just for people that want to build competitive decks regardless in a casual environment).
----
PowerCreep is pretty real in magic right now, what Legacy complains the most about .. as WotC doesnt really design "new" cards, they just upgrade existing ones with more and more abilities that are flat out better than the version better, so existing decks just get stronger, further pushing any remote new deck idea into the realm of unplayable in power level.
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The stores that still open a lot of packs sell them online and are quite competitive with each other.
For customers it doesnt matter if there are 100+ of retailers selling them cards, or just 1 giant company that does it.
WotC sells cards directly by themselves with SecretLairs , and that business model is disgustingly profitable for them, as they quite literally produce almost nothing and sell it for massive amounts of money.
Long gone are the times the game and its boosters where a means to draft and play.
The entire argument for booster packs not being illegal gambling was that the cards themselves have no actual value, and the Boosters are sold as "Draft" packs to play with.
Now they sell packs that are not for playing at all, they are just massive gambling for money, open the crazy expensive card and keep going, or fail and lose money ... Magic mutated into a massive gambling addiction for some people that still buy sealed product (the whales that spend actual big money on sealed packs), while the vast majority of people cannot effort that (especially not children without a monthly allowance of 100+ bucks).
Even the LGS have trouble selling sealed boxes, as the margin of profit is so low, you need to flip a lot of them to make it worthwhile (or sell single booster packs in large quantity, to make more out each box, but thats all very very little profit for the time and space investment).
Selling singles has a larger profit range, if people buy a lot of them, and selling singles online is as simple as ever.
Any LGS that wants to keep its head above water is basically forced to sell online and flip large amounts of stuff. Problem is, that requires also large amounts of investment, and if people dont buy it up in the first week or month, you cant just sit on 10000$+ of investment , you have to pay rent for the store and such, so prices are further pushed down, as people need money back.
WotC is not helping any of these issues, they just keep making it worse ... and increase the prices of all product continually (for an eternity the prices for booster packs was the same, minimal increases in large time frames, and LGS could cover the increase and keep the price for packs the same, but now its extreme).
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Super expensive singles of really old cards are a market that just a few can really do, as you need knowledge, a store cannot just take a low-payed dude to sell high value product, its way too dangerous (even for theft, these super expensive things need to be put in a secure safe, its a risk to just have a store with that much expensive stuff without proper security, thats a heavy cost for a LGS, while just a storage for online sellers its not an issue, as people dont run around in your storage).
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Yea, its a rough time, LGS are in a bad place and theres really no light at the end of the tunnel, just more misery and hellfire.
If the LGS die out, the game will most likely slowly bleed out and fizzle away, at least in paper form.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Also I was going to mention this on Rudy's Amazon Rant video but it got auto deleted on YouTube though I was wondering, what If the U.S. Government managed to split Amazon into two separate companies since they have WAY too much power over brick-and-mortar retail? How much would that impact Wizards of the Coast's relationship with them in regards to selling Paper Magic direct-to-consumer? Would that be enough to wake Wizards of the Coast to stop having to increase their profit margins for Hasbro? Also how would that impact Card Single sales for Local Game Stores? That's one of the main reasons why my Local Game Store keeps these valuable cards away in their inventory from their showcase where they mostly just display cards that are Standard legal currently. High end cards such as the one's on the Reserve List are rarely ever sold or kept in inventory unless it's a cheap card that's less than $40 on the Secondary Market. You won't find any Power Nine cards normally sitting around at a Local Game Store unless it's at a convention style event like MagicFest. Thanks to the current pandemic we may never see another one ever again.
"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 feel that with many places returning to in store play, sales of cards should (hopefully) increase again. In my opinion there will always be a demand for singles as long as Magic is around, due to there will always be people who would rather just buy the card they need rather than chance opening it in a pack
They even used to sell Paper Magic commons in bulk sorted by color and colorless back in the day though I don't know If they still do that anymore. The overhead is REALLY small there compared to the other Local Game Store I frequent on Saturdays where there's 3 floors of play space and a soda fountain with snacks on the go. Saturdays were mostly dead up at the Comic Book Shop since most of my friends have to work during the weekends where Friday nights are normally their busiest. Right before the pandemic hit we were still having trouble being able to get enough players to fire for Standard tournaments due to the popularity of EDH / Commander of course though I think the real decline with FNM started when Wizards of the Coast got pissed at LGS owners selling promos for tournaments they lied about hosting. Of course this was back when Khans block was still Standard legal.
"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 singles market isn't dead. It may be contracting but players like myself will always want paper cards.
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 think they're expecting customers to come into their physical store to buy most of their non-Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game products rather than also having it available online through their website. The Comic Book Shop I used to frequent had those kind of items for sale on the owners' eBay store though she didn't want to list more of what she had in her inventory because she still wanted customers to come into her physical store which is understandable. If you're a business like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, TCGPlayer, ChannelFireball, or Star City Games then you don't care about being open to the public In-Person. It's kind of this teeter totter of persuading customers to come to your physical store where they have more access to your inventory (AND to play of course) as they wouldn't have as much solely shopping online where there's not as many items to purchase.
"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
Quite true. Trying to find Deck Boxes and sleeves at any of my local Big Box stores and/or LGS is becoming increasingly difficult. You can tell these items production has been cut during the last year and a half. Just like there is a shortage of new cars to purchase and also adult bicycles. There are definite shortages of certain items in my area (and countrywide).
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."
Now when it comes to Local Game Stores buying and selling card singles, players apparently don't like the idea of selling card singles to make store credit to help purchase the card singles they need for their decks from the Local Game Store's inventory. They could ultimately decide to quit the game entirely and are only looking for cash to spend elsewhere instead of using the store credit from the card collection they sold to buy items from the Local Game Store that they're mostly uninterested in. Then you have a scenario where the Local Game Store might not have enough money from their cash registers to pay the seller the full amount of how much the card collection being sold is actually worth thus hurting their business overall especially when it comes to cash prizes for winners at In-Person events.
So unless the Local Game Store has an online presence to actually move the card singles from the card collection sold then they're basically stuck with card singles they lost money on and won't have enough money to pay rent in order to keep the lights on for their business. This is how Local Game Stores are making less money on MTG because they don't have enough cash flow to properly satisfy these collection sellers AND themselves. So the collection sellers are forced to get the money they need online because most of these buyers aren't tied to a brick-and-mortar retail store where they don't have enough money to support BOTH the buyer and the seller as it's really dependent on how much income these online vendors actually have. Bottom line is that sealed product sells faster than card singles.
Players don't like this because they'd rather pay more for individual cards they want by buying card singles rather than buying sealed product where they run the risk of losing as much as they spent by playing the lottery. So in the mindset of the LGS, the less inventory they have the more items they can add to sell more of as long as it's something that doesn't sit around for long. Though I really don't mind the Local Game Store adapting an equivalent toward the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) that we commonly see in Public Libraries for storing their card singles inventory, it can be really hard when you're a store trying to multitask card singles for various Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games simultaneously even when you have customers waiting in line for their card single orders to be pulled.
"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
If this really had been an issue you'd think that Wizards of the Coast would've made a public statement about this already so it has to be something else for why they would be wanting to do away with Paper Magic for good. The Secondary Market itself would be my next guess since it's gotten unsustainable to the point where Wizards of the Coast constantly has to reprint specific money cards to make them affordable for players however it's only good for a short period before they spike back to the same demand they had before. By discontinuing Paper Magic certain expensive cards outside the Reserve List will be treated as another Reserve List for collectors with players wanting to purchase the cards to play them being priced out of the game entirely.
"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
Unless your Local Game Store (LGS) has people who are generous enough to Buylist these types of cards instead of going to an online vendor like TCGPlayer then you're forced to purchase these card singles on eBay or from other online vendors. The more lucrative reprints are the more they're going to be instantly bought out for EDH / Commander decks never to be sold back into the Secondary Market again unless another reprint comes around. The only time popular singles in EDH / Commander get sold is whenever it gets banned but is still playable in other formats where they're legal in and since there's no set rotation in EDH / Commander like there is for Standard and Modern it makes it really difficult for these cards to move and be widely available. Now unless there's players who've already quit the game and sold off their collections then that's a different story entirely.
"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
You agree to a EULA and TOS that essentially states that you don't own anything, and you only have access to the digital content that you receive.
These two binding documents also have ironclad frameworks that give the company full discretion over your account data & access to their game, which is also active at their discretion and they can terminate accounts for any reason at any time. They're also essentially immune to lawsuits.
Not only that, the main reason for this is that once everyone is online, they won't need foundries or anything like that to actually output product, they don't need distributors, they don't need anything like that for much of the game. What that means is that instead of selling essentially nothing to people for *****loads more than it costs to produce, they'll be switching to *actually* selling *nothing* but access to lines of code.
Even Bushiroad players and game stores in other countries made playing in person consistently accessible with no reports of covid spread to speak of because they followed guidelines before and after vaccinations. Wizards could encourage IPP with just a few suggestions and people could return to stores.
There's no reason it would never return to normal ROFL
tl;dr hasbro sucks dude
I don't know If you'd call Remote Play "consistently accessible" having to shell $300+ for a webcam for an experience that's nothing more than playing Video Games online. At that point you're probably better off just playing Arena or some other Digital Exclusive Card Game like Shadowverse or Legends of Runeterra where it's cheaper to play with no Secondary Market strings attached.
"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
As for Commander players. You might think they only need 1 of a card, but commander players often have many decks. With Modern/Standard you can get away with 1-3 decks, but with Commander you generally bring 12 to 20. A big chunk of those decks are likely to want a Mana Crypt and a Sensei's Divining Top. When a new card comes on the scene that makes it into multiple Commander decks, the price on it goes pretty wild.
For high end Reserve List card singles, Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro usually leaves that stuff to Channel Fireball and Star City Games however they just recently ended their Buylists for these expensive cards because no one except millionaires have the ability to purchase them as it would take forever to move compared to card singles that are WAY cheaper and more obtainable. Since Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is in the business to make money ASAP when it comes to Paper Magic they don't really have the patience for people to buy used Reserve List card singles direct-to-consumer when Secret Lair drops can accumulate as much as these high end Reserve List card singles or even more depending on how successful they are. I remember hearing a rumor one time that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro were going to put actual ABU Duals as box toppers in sealed product for one of the Zendikar sets being released but knowing how risky that was they wanted to dramatically increase the odds of getting these Duals in sealed product.
"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 are you spending $300+ for a webcam? I spent $30CDN on one from Amazon and it works perfectly fine.
"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