So as we all know Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's business partnership with Amazon has been catastrophic for anyone online including local distributors such as Southern Hobby (who just recently merged with another company) that Local Game Stores (LGSs) used to be able to rely on by being forced to charge for their products more allowing Amazon to charge for less by cutting the middleman out completely. It's not just game over for local distributors but also for Rudy's No Employee / No In-Person Play business model and Local Game Stores (LGSs) whose business is open to the public for In-Store Play and Events. People are ALWAYS going to buy what the cheapest items are. When they come to your physical store, they'll buy a booster box from Amazon in the Amazon box, take it to your LGS to try to trade it or sell it in cash to your customers. Local Game Stores are actually making less by ordering from Amazon than from their local distributor despite Amazon being cheaper.
If you're the business owner of a Local Game Store (LGS) you can't compete against Amazon it's just impossible in this current small business climate that seems to be eroding away. You literally have to match prices which you can't with an employee and since Rudy doesn't have any employees who work for his business, he's still good. Any Local Game Store (LGS) with employees the profit margins aren't there because the more they pay the employees the more it hurts the business overall. Less employees to work with means more profit margins for your business which means you'll have enough money to pay rent to stay open. An employee can cost roughly $35,000 to $40,000 a year as most Local Game Stores (LGSs) would need 2 full time employees. If the rent to keep your business open is $200 a month from an empty lot that one of your clients owned then of course you'd be forced to close shop for good. You'd probably need a self-help / staffless store at that point just to compete against online retailers.
One thing you need to realize is that local distributors are always going to behave in their own best interest. They have a lot of product and they'll give you a discount If they don't have much product then they're not going to give you as big of a discount or any discount. They'll even recommend that you buy these products on eBay because it's cheaper that way. A lot of Local Game Stores (LGSs) nowadays are having their products being delivered from Amazon and GameStop cheaper than their local distributors especially during the whole Pokémon TCG scalping craze from last year when the local distributors didn't have any Pokémon TCG products to deliver while Amazon had Pokémon TCG products at a reasonable price. So If Local Game Stores don't need a local distributor why even own a store? The reason is because you want to provide a physical location for people to play their favorite Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Games In-Person with their friends and local community. You also want to get distributing pricing and the pricing isn't what it used to be.
Unfortunately the future of retail is not community based in terms of an In-Person community in which retail stores of course are. It's going to be more YouTube content creators, more mass box openings in terms of "Hey my customers pay me a lot of money to open a box for them" akin to what Rudy does for his Patreon followers or used to anyway. Most YouTubers from Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon TCG, Flesh and Blood TCG, etc. they're not opening their own products as they're opening someone else's products for them. Rudy used to come in as an eBay seller for card singles and of course it's very difficult to sell card singles on eBay. You have returns, you've lost mail, you have all types of things that can go wrong. Conditioning issues right? Angry customers for no reason, however selling sealed products are a little bit better because it's a "fungible" item If you will so you don't have to catalogue different inventory right? Maybe the problem is that the sellers aren't getting enough positive feedback for the items they sell.
The Hasbro business model (based on their recent earnings report) has proven that you don't need a Local Game Store (LGS) to provide a physical location for players to play In-Person. During this period of "growth" there weren't any In-Person Pre-Releases that could be done due to the ongoing pandemic, there were no Channel Fireball Events because they realized they could still make record profits without providing players a physical location to play In-Person. With Arena replacing Paper Standard that's going to make it more difficult for these players to dip their toes into these eternal formats particular EDH / Commander that are more reliant on Paper than in Digital because aside from MTGO there's no consistent way to play these formats and still have the kind of social aspect as In-Person. SpellTable or any other Webcam app doesn't cut it IMO. Deep down we all crave the LGS experience as much as the Amusement Arcade experience from way back when. Of course not everyone feels that way.
"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
Your entire post is just a rant with basically no cohesion. Your point is Amazon is ruining LGS's (which isn't totally untrue) but you spent 5 paragraphs just repeating that over and over. You offered nothing beyond that though and even contradicted yourself. First, Rudy's (from somewhere) business model is no longer viable in the first paragraph and then all of a sudden in the second he will be just fine. If you are going to type this ***** out, at least be consistent with your fearmongering.
This isn't new (and I am positive, because of your penchant and overall desire to be chicken little, that you have brought this up before) so what is the purpose of this post? The cynic in me says that you don't give two *****s about any of this. You are just trying to stir up drama because instead of continuing your existing thread, you made a new one. And this one has far less content than your previous one. Though, to be fair, your previous one had literally 0 content from you as it was just a video (and the one before that was too) and that was still better than the drivel you have come up with here.
I don't really get your end game? Is this simply going to be a monthly post by Card Slinger J where nothing of value is offered and instead it just acts as a (very) thinly veiled advertisement for Rudy's Channel and Patreon? At least the previous threads were a bit more subtle with it where you simply linked to a video but here you not only said "Rudy from Alpha Investments" 4 times (seriously, you could have just said Rudy after that) indicating you wanted to hammer home that he has a business, but you also linked to his Patreon just in case. And, of course, your signature includes a meaningless quote from him (along with some other BS). You seem to be dead set on doing whatever you can to grow Rudy's viewer base for some reason and I am guessing your previous attempts weren't all that successful so you had to be a bit more brazen about it now. I noticed that you never mention any other Youtubers trying to make a living off this game. Only Rudy gets your attention.....
I will admit that there are a lot of things wrong with what is going on with Magic from LGS's being overlooked in certain cases (they do get special Secret Lairs so while not enough for long term, Wizards is trying to engage with them), to the way Arena functions in terms of Wildcards and Arena Only cards, especially with sets like Historic Jumpstart making keeping up nearly impossible, to their apparent disinterest in a Pro Tour, to their overwhelming desire to control the secondary market without admitting there is one with Secret Lairs and "strategic" reprints. Hasbro/Wizards is not infallible but to see someone who focuses entirely on the bad about what is going on in the Magic community is tiresome. Sure, things deserve to be discussed, but basically every thread you have ever created is about how the world is falling apart with Magic. Not simply that something is wrong; that the very existence of Magic is at stake. Which is asinine.
This isn't new (and I am positive, because of your penchant and overall desire to be chicken little, that you have brought this up before) so what is the purpose of this post? The cynic in me says that you don't give two *****s about any of this. You are just trying to stir up drama because instead of continuing your existing thread, you made a new one. And this one has far less content than your previous one. Though, to be fair, your previous one had literally 0 content from you as it was just a video (and the one before that was too) and that was still better than the drivel you have come up with here.
What's wrong with me being concerned about not having a physical location to play Paper Magic at my Local Game Store (LGS)? I know I'm not the only one who feels this way but to those who mostly just play on Arena online they could probably care less. If I didn't give a damn I wouldn't be spending as much of my disposable income on this gaming hobby of Paper Magic. I do it because I care. I care about hanging out with my friends playing EDH / Commander and having a good time. A corporate monopoly like Amazon has no right to take that away from me and anyone else whose spent their hard earned money on Paper Magic as a gaming hobby. Sure it doesn't seem to be having an impact in the short-term but in the long-term there could be potential consequences involved If something isn't done to stop Amazon's takeover of small business retail and Local Game Stores (LGSs).
I don't really get your end game? Is this simply going to be a monthly post by Card Slinger J where nothing of value is offered and instead it just acts as a (very) thinly veiled advertisement for Rudy's Channel and Patreon? At least the previous threads were a bit more subtle with it where you simply linked to a video but here you not only said "Rudy from Alpha Investments" 4 times (seriously, you could have just said Rudy after that) indicating you wanted to hammer home that he has a business, but you also linked to his Patreon just in case. And, of course, your signature includes a meaningless quote from him (along with some other BS). You seem to be dead set on doing whatever you can to grow Rudy's viewer base for some reason and I am guessing your previous attempts weren't all that successful so you had to be a bit more brazen about it now. I noticed that you never mention any other Youtubers trying to make a living off this game. Only Rudy gets your attention.....
Pretty much everybody within the MTG Community already knows who Rudy is as I didn't realize that I was publicly advertising for his business assuming that not many people knew who he was. That was a dumb mistake on my part. The truth of the matter is that Rudy could care less about the Local Game Store (LGS) when he's really good at tricking people into thinking he does through his charismatic personality. It can be real easy to fall for. Part of the reason why I brought up Rudy's business earlier was to give an example as to how his vision similar to Amazon's is ruining the Local Game Store (LGS) business model and why the LGS desperately NEEDS to avoid that trap in the first place. People hate the way he runs his business model sure that I understand completely but as a person he seems pretty down to Earth who actually sometimes knows what he's talking about.
I will admit that there are a lot of things wrong with what is going on with Magic from LGS's being overlooked in certain cases (they do get special Secret Lairs so while not enough for long term, Wizards is trying to engage with them), to the way Arena functions in terms of Wildcards and Arena Only cards, especially with sets like Historic Jumpstart making keeping up nearly impossible, to their apparent disinterest in a Pro Tour, to their overwhelming desire to control the secondary market without admitting there is one with Secret Lairs and "strategic" reprints. Hasbro/Wizards is not infallible but to see someone who focuses entirely on the bad about what is going on in the Magic community is tiresome. Sure, things deserve to be discussed, but basically every thread you have ever created is about how the world is falling apart with Magic. Not simply that something is wrong; that the very existence of Magic is at stake. Which is asinine.
I have taken it a bit too far. I'll do my best to tone it down a bit.
"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 biggest issue are the people themselves and the market changes in a drastic way.
There clearly are a lot of people that just buy product online and never play anywhere outside with other people, just some selected few friends if at all.
That number is increasingly large and these people spend more money in the game.
Also, these people are "hidden" from the people that would seek out the social community of a store.
The "LGS community" is a group of players that is quite sadly dying out.
Its not growing in any big numbers, as the store itself is limited by space.
If people in a LGS dont spend much money there and only invest time, its less profitable.
If a store can ignore all that, including space for playing and just ship the product to a customer and receive cash, thats a much simpler and easier investment, so it pays in high revenue to kill the entire social aspect, as it doesnt bring in big money (while its incredible big for the health of the game to have it in the first place, people that actively want it, will bleed to keep it, but ultimately the entire game is changing away from it into a much more digital world, which frankly, is not the kind of Magic that builds a "strong" local community, its building a more broad de-socialized skeleton community).
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Rudy is not new, and hes dealing with the Magic market in many iterations over the years and is capable to adapt to whatever is the current business model thats profitable. Some of his content videos have a lot of insight in the business that people would never get a glimpse otherwise.
He had a store as it was mandatory, now its just extra cost.
He did sell a lot of singles on ebay, now its much simpler to ship lots of sealed product (to god knows who is buying them, as i frankly dont know any Magic players that buys that many sealed product at all, so it has to go somewhere, but i cant say who exactly consumes it, as a lot of places just buy product to sell it, but someone has to be the actual end-customer to keep the product for good).
In huge areas a lot of people have to just order a bunch of sealed boxes for themselves. its private and hidden, if these players never get out to socialize in a LGS, nobody will know they exist, except the people they pay for the product.
So for a LGS community, these people basically dont exist, and the demands and needs of a LGS community basically dont exist for the hidden individuals, completely isolated groups.
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Digital is quite frankly a different game.
I would argue the game we know as Magic is actually quite different depending on which group is playing it.
Paper Magic with actual cards in a store, has a very social community, new players, new people, for me thats much more important than the game itself.
People that like the game itself, but basically hate other players, also exist, and in the past they couldnt play the game in a LGS, so resorted to MTGO or played something else. Thats a pretty large group of people, the anti-social incels (not as a insult, but a broad description of what that group is made of).
You only really notice the existence of this group in the amount of extra revenue that WotC brings in, as you wont hear from them in a forum or anywhere else, as they actively avoid any social interactions with other people (but consume a lot of Magic online, youtube, twitch and all kinds of websites to generate traffic).
To play Magic in digital has no actual player social interaction, so that really speaks to this group, and thats a large increase of people that a former LGS net of shops simply did not speak to at all.
Tournament players that seek out competition are basically dead now, WotC scrubbed it.
Bigger tournaments in paper basically represented events like concerts, a Grand Prix was an event to meet even more people in person than a LGS.
Today people play digital and cant even know if the opponent is not just a bot, or halve asleep, or goes afk in the middle of the game, its not social at all, its just a time-wasting mechanism like so many mobile games and a lot of the computer game industry shifts into that gear already for quite some time.
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What really boggles my mind is the fact that an LGS even has to go over a distributor at all, its completely avoidable today.
To compete in price tags with Amazon and the like is not working, and a LGS can really only provide one thing that Amazon is not, and thats the space to play the game.
WotC is not providing any support for stores to do that, and they lost any financial incentive to do so as well, and the LGS that still exist either have a extremely strong community with lots of disposable income, or they simply bleed money till they are gone.
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For a lot of people that play Commander you can also cut them into subgroups that have different interests.
The nostalgic players dont really buy new product, just very few singles for a existing deck.
The revenue these players bring in is minimal.
Completely new players at least buy a bunch of product and if they are not aware to efficiently buy singles, they buy a lot of sealed product as they simply dont know better (yet, as very learns at some point, or leaves the game).
So yes, for WotC its much better to simply abandon existing players and seek out new players.
Its long time quite destructive to piss off old players, but the deal is, the old players are not the whale customers.
And then we get the increasingly more expensive "premium" products that is leeching even more money from people.
A lot of people had a mentality of "buy a box of a new set" and thats about it, they never spend more money on a set.
Some of them now buy a collectors box of a set, thats already more expensive and then they buy all Commander decks of a new set, thats like 4x the amount they spend before, and then they order some SecretLair boxes, and what not ... and if any of that money would actually be funneled into an LGS it would help a lot, but its quite simply not cutting, as WotC is at the same time taking customers away from a LGS with their own product (assume you have advertisment for digital in a LGS, like what?).
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So the "endgame" is probably going to be that Magic is losing the LGS and WotC as a game will sell product themselves.
At that point, someone else might take over the LGS, might even be a new card game (which is hard to sell for nostalgia players, as abandoning a game you played for 20years is quite heartbreaking and nothing you just do out of the blue).
We already have new games that are quite profitable already.
Flesh and Blood is pushing in the LGS-market for Magic (but sadly i just dont like the game, so its not for me).
With rent going up for all city-areas having a space to play Magic is expensive.
People play in restaurants, fast-food chains, or anywhere with a table and space.
Its certainly not the same as a central hub LGS that acts like the defacto-go-to location for everyone.
I have mentioned it before in the past but I will bring it up again. At some point when we get through all this covid crap, it would be nice if WotC would sanction a "Seniors" Division in paper that would retain or try to grow paper play in person. Not sure where the age cut-off would be but maybe 40 and up. I could be tempted to spend some of my valuable free time to enter events that I know will be filled with participants near my age. I have ZERO interest in playing against random children, teens and young 20 somethings in a public setting. Family and close friends at the kitchen table is another thing that I AM okay with. I can also imagine the uncomfortability of a very young player sitting down next to an older adult that could be their parent or even grandparent. Companies have blinders on when it comes to recruiting or retaining customers, they only look DOWN in age, not UP. Guess who has FAR more disposable income?
Just a thought. As Magic players age I think some shrewd LGS will attempt this at some point hopefully. Maybe WotC could be ahead of the curve instead of being reactionary as usual.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Wizards is more interested in fooling people into paying more for less physical product.
I would agree with that statement. Sooner or later the player base/buying base will erode to a point where they will have to close up shop. They have no long term game plan that I can tell.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
The biggest issue are the people themselves and the market changes in a drastic way.
There clearly are a lot of people that just buy product online and never play anywhere outside with other people, just some selected few friends if at all.
That number is increasingly large and these people spend more money in the game.
Also, these people are "hidden" from the people that would seek out the social community of a store.
The "LGS community" is a group of players that is quite sadly dying out.
Its not growing in any big numbers, as the store itself is limited by space.
If people in a LGS dont spend much money there and only invest time, its less profitable.
If a store can ignore all that, including space for playing and just ship the product to a customer and receive cash, thats a much simpler and easier investment, so it pays in high revenue to kill the entire social aspect, as it doesnt bring in big money (while its incredible big for the health of the game to have it in the first place, people that actively want it, will bleed to keep it, but ultimately the entire game is changing away from it into a much more digital world, which frankly, is not the kind of Magic that builds a "strong" local community, its building a more broad de-socialized skeleton community).
Social Media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, or in a broader sense Discord haven't helped much in terms of being this potential replacement go to for playgroup meetups instead of at a Local Game Store (LGS). Rather than settle for some inconvenience for more reward most players are too lenient on having as much convenience as possible with little to hardly any reward at all which has caused them to become more asocial In-Person. There's some real life experiences you can't buy when you have to make a considerable effort to actually make it happen instead of settling for less but when you've been in this gaming hobby as long as I have being stuck on a part-time job only making paycheck to paycheck, yeah it can take a mental toll over the years. As much as I hate to admit this the ecosystem and economy built around this culture of Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games and Local Game Stores (LGS) were really built on a house of cards (no pun intended) that's eventually going to collapse. Think of it as being addicted to a Pay-to-Win business model which has now become Pay-to-Play where If you fall behind you'll never catch up to where you once were.
That's how dangerous this gaming hobby of Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games has become especially If you're someone whose had their collections stolen with high-end Reserve List cards or there was a natural disaster like your basement getting flooded where it somehow affected your card collections and you can't even sell them due to the condition being really bad. It's hard to replace something of value If it's no longer available online especially when it comes to discontinued Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games that are completely out of print. Plus it can take years to recoup the losses and damage involved and realistically people just don't have the time for that. That's why this gaming hobby is very high risk / high reward compared to Video Games that are just as susceptible If you happen to lose years worth of data on games you've been grinding in. That being said If you've managed to pull through up to this point then enjoy the ride while it lasts but If you have better priorities in life that are worth pursuing more then that might be a good stopping point to get off the roller coaster. It's very easy to get lost and have regrets later in life for decisions we should've took.
I would argue the game we know as Magic is actually quite different depending on which group is playing it.
Paper Magic with actual cards in a store, has a very social community, new players, new people, for me thats much more important than the game itself.
People that like the game itself, but basically hate other players, also exist, and in the past they couldnt play the game in a LGS, so resorted to MTGO or played something else. Thats a pretty large group of people, the anti-social incels (not as a insult, but a broad description of what that group is made of).
You only really notice the existence of this group in the amount of extra revenue that WotC brings in, as you wont hear from them in a forum or anywhere else, as they actively avoid any social interactions with other people (but consume a lot of Magic online, youtube, twitch and all kinds of websites to generate traffic).
To play Magic in digital has no actual player social interaction, so that really speaks to this group, and thats a large increase of people that a former LGS net of shops simply did not speak to at all.
Tournament players that seek out competition are basically dead now, WotC scrubbed it.
Bigger tournaments in paper basically represented events like concerts, a Grand Prix was an event to meet even more people in person than a LGS.
Today people play digital and cant even know if the opponent is not just a bot, or halve asleep, or goes afk in the middle of the game, its not social at all, its just a time-wasting mechanism like so many mobile games and a lot of the computer game industry shifts into that gear already for quite some time.
Okay first off, anyone who really believes that Arena is supposed to serve Paper Magic CLEARLY has not opened a physical booster pack in the last 5 years. Physical Booster packs for Paper Magic have a promotion for Arena as Arena doesn't have a promotion for your Local Game Store (LGS). I don't believe the whole point of Arena was to funnel new players from Arena onto Paper Magic when it's the complete opposite. Who'd want that? You're going to lose your player base especially If your Local Game Store (LGS) doesn't abide by health and sanitation standards. If someone finds out that air freshener hasn't been sprayed in the men's restroom at your LGS it's over, especially from players and customers where even LGS owners / employees SHOULD be on top of keeping the restrooms clean and not smelly. That's part of their job. It's what they're supposed to do.
Some people in other industries when they interpret the idea of the MTG Community itself then it basically means that they're going to scam you very soon. The physical MTG community has been scammed many times by cheaters, to harassment of many natures, to tournament judges, to drama, and all this stuff that doesn't care about Arena and Paper Magic. You just play the game Online or on Paper, that's it. You're playing the game because you love to play the game not because you love the drama associated with it which a lot of people tend to misunderstand from me when I express my concerns about Paper Magic and it's future. There's so much drama outside of playing MTG involving MTG and very few of it should exist on Arena and Paper Magic. Players have gotten away with so much cheating and stealing in Paper Magic that Arena is designed to make it impossible despite being less physically tangible.
For a lot of people that play Commander you can also cut them into subgroups that have different interests.
The nostalgic players dont really buy new product, just very few singles for a existing deck.
The revenue these players bring in is minimal.
Completely new players at least buy a bunch of product and if they are not aware to efficiently buy singles, they buy a lot of sealed product as they simply dont know better (yet, as very learns at some point, or leaves the game).
So yes, for WotC its much better to simply abandon existing players and seek out new players.
Its long time quite destructive to piss off old players, but the deal is, the old players are not the whale customers.
And then we get the increasingly more expensive "premium" products that is leeching even more money from people.
A lot of people had a mentality of "buy a box of a new set" and thats about it, they never spend more money on a set.
Some of them now buy a collectors box of a set, thats already more expensive and then they buy all Commander decks of a new set, thats like 4x the amount they spend before, and then they order some SecretLair boxes, and what not ... and if any of that money would actually be funneled into an LGS it would help a lot, but its quite simply not cutting, as WotC is at the same time taking customers away from a LGS with their own product (assume you have advertisment for digital in a LGS, like what?).
Another problem is Inside Trading where Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has now made it a whole lot easier to speculate which specific cards will spike in price in said "Return to Previous Plane", in this case being Innistrad and Kamigawa being an example based on the current release schedule before the sets are actually released in Paper and Digital. With players and collectors buying out these cards in advance within their availability in the Secondary Market it leaves those with not as much revenue or are relatively new to the game left in the dust until reprints come along which can take forever. One of the easiest Inside Trader Buyouts recently was Crucible of Worlds right when Zendikar Rising was publicly announced before it was officially released in Paper and Digital. So it got bought out when it was Standard legal due to it's recent reprint in Core 2019.
Cards like Concordant Crossroads never got another reprint after Chronicles for years because Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro chose not to errata "World Enchantment" to just "Enchantment" even though it isn't on the Reserve List. Mass Hysteria is basically the same card which costs 1 R instead of 1 G so I don't see what the problem is. If they can errata Phyrexian as a creature type for cards already printed then I don't see why getting rid of the "World" stipulation on Enchantments with passive abilities is hard for them to do especially when cards like these need reprints desperately. The more cards are reprinted at Mythic Rare the more they'll hold their value after being reprinted compared to being downshifted to Regular Rares like the Enemy Fetches in Modern Horizons 2. Except Fetches will always have a high demand due to their nature.
I have mentioned it before in the past but I will bring it up again. At some point when we get through all this covid crap, it would be nice if WotC would sanction a "Seniors" Division in paper that would retain or try to grow paper play in person. Not sure where the age cut-off would be but maybe 40 and up. I could be tempted to spend some of my valuable free time to enter events that I know will be filled with participants near my age. I have ZERO interest in playing against random children, teens and young 20 somethings in a public setting. Family and close friends at the kitchen table is another thing that I AM okay with. I can also imagine the uncomfortability of a very young player sitting down next to an older adult that could be their parent or even grandparent. Companies have blinders on when it comes to recruiting or retaining customers, they only look DOWN in age, not UP. Guess who has FAR more disposable income?
Just a thought. As Magic players age I think some shrewd LGS will attempt this at some point hopefully. Maybe WotC could be ahead of the curve instead of being reactionary as usual.
You mean like what Pokémon TCG does with the Junior. Senior, and Masters divisions for Organized Play? For Casual I don't see this working since it's extremely difficult to form playgroups in EDH / Commander where everyone is around the EXACT same age group. I never really had a problem socializing with people younger than me but when it comes to people older than me I can sometimes feel a bit intimidated especially since they might have that "elitist aura" about themselves instead of being more laid back. I guess it's a matter of having the courage to step outside your comfort zone and forge new friendships that you'd never would've expected. As long as you aren't feeling like you're playing in what feels like the back alley of the ghetto or slums and more in an inviting atmosphere then you should be okay. It's hard when you're at a Local Game Store (LGS) located in a high traffic setting or the geography isn't as favorable. It's too bad that companies look down on age and not up which is also kind of why we're starting to see Arcade Machines at Casinos to cater more toward the Gen X / Millennial demographic instead of people of ALL ages.
"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 have to say in my old LGS a bunch of people played Arena and then looked out for a paper PreRelease or simply showed up Friday Night and got to draft.
It certainly works in both directions, but the much more extreme is not remove players into digital.
And some people play a lot MORE digital than they would in paper, as its so anti-social, much quicker to leave a game and start another, if you are not winning, just leave (which produces a pretty cancerous daily routine in Arena).
Anyway, its a more approachable MTGO and its "free" to play , especially if people play PreRelease and buy paper product to get the keys to get the digital cards too (which is basically the best value for money in Arena as its just on-top, buying actual packs digital only is mindblowing for me).
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MTG has a real need and its good that they have a digital game.
They did Xbox/playstation and PC games that worked quite well, and basically extended them with Arena.
If this entire covid scenario is over, we will see whats the aftermath of the digital route, a lot of players will rush into paper magic again, as they love it much more, but a bunch will certainly stay digital (and people that excessively play both are basically the spike players to playtest and all that, more of an exception to the rule).
You mean like what Pokémon TCG does with the Junior. Senior, and Masters divisions for Organized Play?
Possibly. I don't follow Pokemon so I would have to check it out. I would rather the delineations be made on age ranges. An 18 year old may be able to sit and play 13 rounds of Magic for 15 hours straight but expecting a 55 year old to be able to handle those same rigors is not what I imagine. Youthful players generally have a physical advantage over senior players in long drawn out tournaments.
There is also the stigma of inappropriateness attached to an older player playing against (non-familial) children/teens/non-adults. I never want to leave myself open to any potential claims of that nature.
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."
With the recent announcement by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio requiring New Yorkers to show proof of vaccination for most indoor events, this means that anyone who owns a Local Game Store (LGS) in New York City will be required for their employees and customers to show proof of vaccination or they'll be kicked off the premises. It's the first of many vaccine mandates as a result of the recent surge of the COVID-19 Delta Variant. So far the number of Americans who've already been fully vaccinated from COVID-19 is now at 70% which is supposed to be the herd immunity goal unless it's actually 100%. I don't see this boding well for the Local Game Store (LGS) business model overall especially when they already have enough problems going on as it is with Amazon and GameStop replacing local distributors to Arena attempting to replace In-Store Play for Paper Magic at Local Game Stores (LGS) as well as many other problems.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Fortunately wide swaths of this country have more sense than those in charge in NYC. They will make it if they are allowed to.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
While admirable, this whole "vaccine hesitancy" campaign has gone on long enough. Be better to get the Government off our backs by taking the vaccine with paid leave to get it done If stuck on part or full time jobs. I still find it very surprising as to how the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines haven't been fully authorized by the FDA yet. I've actually been contemplating on getting the Moderna vaccine since that's what most of my family got when they were vaccinated months ago while some of my other friends have already taken Pfizer for their two shots. The reality is that the more people who are vaccinated the harder it becomes for the virus to mutate into new variants and become less resistant to the current existing vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna (don't trust Johnson & Johnson) we have available to combat COVID-19. For fully vaccinated people booster shots are needed to deal with the current Delta variant though for unvaccinated people they still need the two shots from Pfizer or Moderna before they can receive their booster shot for the Delta variant. So far the booster shot for the Delta variant is still currently under development.
Pharmaceutical companies don't want to go through the painstaking process of having to develop newer vaccines to deal with COVID-19 considering how long it took for the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines to become widely available to the public and If they become less effective from the virus due to less people getting vaccinated then that puts us back to square one like we were in March 2020. Now without getting too off topic, someone mentioned this in another thread here that Hasbro is either trying to fatten Wizards of the Coast enough to sell off the company or do away with Paper Magic by forcing everyone to play on Arena though I don't think they'd do that entirely for those who are fortunate enough to play Paper EDH / Commander on SpellTable. I do feel as though the female demographic of MTG has more of a negative view of playing In-Person at Local Game Stores (LGS) than the male demographic relating to most of the drama we had to deal with in the last few years up to this point which I'd much rather not get into being a sensitive hot button issue and all. It almost reminds me of the toxic work environment at Blizzard between male and female employees.
"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'd just like to remind people to leave politics out of this, as political discussion isn't allowed. Please keep any vaccine discussion related just to LGS/gaming store discussion and the impacts on Magic
My Local Game Store (LGS) won't carry any Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game that isn't Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or Pokémon TCG but they have started carrying sealed product releases for both Final Fantasy TCG and Flesh and Blood TCG mostly because there was an actual demand for the store to sell these products despite not being able to hold events due to well you know. Unfortunately they axed Cardfight!! Vanguard by Bushiroad and the new Digimon CCG by Bandai Namco so me and my friends were forced to get our cards online and from outside sources while at the same time my LGS didn't want to take any risks with MetaZoo which is still what I consider to be a blatant ripoff of the Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil era of Pokémon TCG. Ken Sugimori should sue for plagiarism but I highly doubt he's going to though.
As to how this is affecting Paper Magic in my area? While we finally started doing In-Store Pre-Releases again starting with D&D Forgotten Realms with the next being Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, we've rarely had very many people show up to play EDH / Commander aside from my local playgroup every Saturday. Most of our foot traffic comes from Paper Standard players who are either just waiting for the next rotation in September or are just playing on Arena online exclusively. My question is If the current meta for Paper Standard is THAT horrible then why are players playing the same meta on Arena? It doesn't make sense to me. I think it has more to do with the Historic cards in Arena not to mention the upcoming Digital Exclusive cards that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro seems to be pushing as a way to lure players away from their Local Game Store (LGS). You can play Brawl on Arena but you can't play EDH.
Another reason for lack of foot traffic is that players are going to other Local Game Stores (LGSs) within the vicinity where they don't feel like they're getting ripped off in terms of pricing though it's got more to do with the environmental atmosphere, geography, and where these players feel the most comfortable. Without In-Person Events being held they aren't required to go to Local Game Stores (LGSs) where they might not feel welcome. They've become more comfortable within their own stomping grounds as the LGS owners and employees may or may not be as strict when it comes to the house rules that their own customers and players are required to follow. The more strict the house rules at your LGS are the more you're going to drive away customers and players. I think LGS owners and employees need to deal with the fact that they can't please everybody and it's causing a lot of problems.
You also got to remember that certain Local Game Stores (LGSs) are tailored to demographics for very specific Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games as not all of them cater exclusively toward Magic: The Gathering players and this is growing in increasing number. It's also very dependent on the owner of the Local Game Store (LGS) and what specific Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games they want to market and sell to customers and players as well as what kind of In-Person Events they want to host. They can't have their store rely solely on ONE Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game as we've seen how evident that was in 2020 with A LOT of Local Game Stores (LGSs) solely focused on Magic: The Gathering going out of business. Most of these businesses can't survive without selling products that aren't related to what they mainly focus on.
I think we often times take for granted just how blessed some of us are to still be able to support our Local Game Store (LGS) to sit down and play our favorite Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games with our friends In-Person. While it may seem like a luxury at first I mostly consider it a free right like in the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. You can't really compare this experience to going to a fancy restaurant when you can take your meal home with you which isn't as satisfying as eating with other people you know of kinda like a Thanksgiving get together. The only alternative is that you have no one to socialize with In-Person unless you shell $300+ for a Webcam for a subpar experience but then again where's the fun in that? You get what I'm saying? This is why it's very important to put "The Gathering" back into "Magic" 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
The entire "gathering" thing will be put on trial quite hard for magic especially.
There are less tournaments and basically no Grand Prix / Big events for Magic organized.
Stores will close one after another, as people buy more and more online and get it delivered.
Its a big loss to lose that social aspect of the game, it scaled down a lot to kitchen table and digital streaming (spell-table etc.).
Getting together to play in person and paper is already quite some luxury, and the less stores are around, the more it will be luxury (or gated in some private home, or just a selected few people in a group getting together, which produces a more and more sharp bubble that does not get outside opinions and fresh blood).
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Almost a year ago i would have guessed stores to open in full again ... here we are, stores in Europe still closed and an endless amount of next waves hitting that stretch a potential proper re-opening.
There are people i havent seen for almost 2 years now ... and i formerly did see them at least each PreRelease ...
Thats quite something.
The biggest problem facing Paper Magic right now is that Standard isn't as exciting as EDH / Commander and Paper Magic needs Standard as a "gateway" format to get players into eternal formats like EDH / Commander. Since it's almost impossible to sanction In-Person Organized Play events for EDH / Commander that makes it more difficult to attract new MTG players into Standard when the opposite doesn't work. This is how we as a MTG community have sacrificed competitive play in favor of casual where as Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is trying to keep competitive alive with Arena and Paper Modern since Paper Pioneer is practically dead at this point. So in a sense EDH / Commander pushed Paper Standard to go digital with Arena which has actually done more harm than good to the game overall as it dramatically changed Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's whole business philosophy for In-Person Organized Play entirely.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro used this to their advantage by getting into the Card Singles Market with Secret Lairs to cater to casuals and partnering with Amazon to cut off distributors from Local Game Stores (LGSs) under the false notion that casuals preferred to play at home rather than at their Local Game Store (LGS) when in fact most players prefer to play at their Local Game Store (LGS) as they should. It almost makes it sound like Sheldon Menery had a personal vendetta against Local Game Stores (LGSs) when he invented EDH / Commander back in 2009. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro took advantage of the situation by fueling their own corporate agenda by trying to turn Paper Magic into a Monopoly / Scrabble style board game that you take home and play with your friends when it was never built around that kind of premise. Hasbro doesn't understand the importance of the Local Game Store (LGS) like we do who has more experience in this hobby than they do.
I do think the possibility of another economic lockdown similar to what we saw in 2020 will likely happen again sometime this coming Winter. This means that we could see more Local Game Stores (LGSs) continue to go out of business while having to rely on curbside pickup and direct-to-consumer deliveries similar to Amazon as well as In-Person Play being restricted due to LGSs only operating at 25% capacity. Not to mention more stimulus check handouts resulting in more hyper inflation with the price of goods skyrocketing to the Moon, along with more supply shortages leading to more scalping at big box retailers like Walmart and Target. It's basically a repeat of what we experienced economically within the last 18 months due to continued misinformation and lack of trust between those in power and those that aren't. Fortunately I think we're in a much better position now than we were in Spring 2020 so things might turn for the better this time around.
With the Great Resignation caused by the economic implications of the ongoing pandemic, it's created a major power vacuum for automation, technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to take over more manual labor jobs over the next few years and the idea of living the American Dream pre-2020 is long gone folks. You have the most job openings in recorded history that eventually those jobs will be eliminated instead of being filled because people won't be able to make as much money due to minimum wage not being able to keep up with hyper inflation. This is all going to come at the expense of the next generation of young teenagers and adults especially those who aspire to own or work at a Local Game Store (LGS) to provide a physical location for people to play Paper Magic and they won't be able to do it because of how much the odds are stacked against them economically. Without a job these people can't pay to play Paper Magic unless they get their money elsewhere. You can't live off of Unemployment Benefits as you would 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
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If you're the business owner of a Local Game Store (LGS) you can't compete against Amazon it's just impossible in this current small business climate that seems to be eroding away. You literally have to match prices which you can't with an employee and since Rudy doesn't have any employees who work for his business, he's still good. Any Local Game Store (LGS) with employees the profit margins aren't there because the more they pay the employees the more it hurts the business overall. Less employees to work with means more profit margins for your business which means you'll have enough money to pay rent to stay open. An employee can cost roughly $35,000 to $40,000 a year as most Local Game Stores (LGSs) would need 2 full time employees. If the rent to keep your business open is $200 a month from an empty lot that one of your clients owned then of course you'd be forced to close shop for good. You'd probably need a self-help / staffless store at that point just to compete against online retailers.
One thing you need to realize is that local distributors are always going to behave in their own best interest. They have a lot of product and they'll give you a discount If they don't have much product then they're not going to give you as big of a discount or any discount. They'll even recommend that you buy these products on eBay because it's cheaper that way. A lot of Local Game Stores (LGSs) nowadays are having their products being delivered from Amazon and GameStop cheaper than their local distributors especially during the whole Pokémon TCG scalping craze from last year when the local distributors didn't have any Pokémon TCG products to deliver while Amazon had Pokémon TCG products at a reasonable price. So If Local Game Stores don't need a local distributor why even own a store? The reason is because you want to provide a physical location for people to play their favorite Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Games In-Person with their friends and local community. You also want to get distributing pricing and the pricing isn't what it used to be.
Unfortunately the future of retail is not community based in terms of an In-Person community in which retail stores of course are. It's going to be more YouTube content creators, more mass box openings in terms of "Hey my customers pay me a lot of money to open a box for them" akin to what Rudy does for his Patreon followers or used to anyway. Most YouTubers from Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon TCG, Flesh and Blood TCG, etc. they're not opening their own products as they're opening someone else's products for them. Rudy used to come in as an eBay seller for card singles and of course it's very difficult to sell card singles on eBay. You have returns, you've lost mail, you have all types of things that can go wrong. Conditioning issues right? Angry customers for no reason, however selling sealed products are a little bit better because it's a "fungible" item If you will so you don't have to catalogue different inventory right? Maybe the problem is that the sellers aren't getting enough positive feedback for the items they sell.
The Hasbro business model (based on their recent earnings report) has proven that you don't need a Local Game Store (LGS) to provide a physical location for players to play In-Person. During this period of "growth" there weren't any In-Person Pre-Releases that could be done due to the ongoing pandemic, there were no Channel Fireball Events because they realized they could still make record profits without providing players a physical location to play In-Person. With Arena replacing Paper Standard that's going to make it more difficult for these players to dip their toes into these eternal formats particular EDH / Commander that are more reliant on Paper than in Digital because aside from MTGO there's no consistent way to play these formats and still have the kind of social aspect as In-Person. SpellTable or any other Webcam app doesn't cut it IMO. Deep down we all crave the LGS experience as much as the Amusement Arcade experience from way back when. Of course not everyone feels that way.
"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
Your entire post is just a rant with basically no cohesion. Your point is Amazon is ruining LGS's (which isn't totally untrue) but you spent 5 paragraphs just repeating that over and over. You offered nothing beyond that though and even contradicted yourself. First, Rudy's (from somewhere) business model is no longer viable in the first paragraph and then all of a sudden in the second he will be just fine. If you are going to type this ***** out, at least be consistent with your fearmongering.
This isn't new (and I am positive, because of your penchant and overall desire to be chicken little, that you have brought this up before) so what is the purpose of this post? The cynic in me says that you don't give two *****s about any of this. You are just trying to stir up drama because instead of continuing your existing thread, you made a new one. And this one has far less content than your previous one. Though, to be fair, your previous one had literally 0 content from you as it was just a video (and the one before that was too) and that was still better than the drivel you have come up with here.
I don't really get your end game? Is this simply going to be a monthly post by Card Slinger J where nothing of value is offered and instead it just acts as a (very) thinly veiled advertisement for Rudy's Channel and Patreon? At least the previous threads were a bit more subtle with it where you simply linked to a video but here you not only said "Rudy from Alpha Investments" 4 times (seriously, you could have just said Rudy after that) indicating you wanted to hammer home that he has a business, but you also linked to his Patreon just in case. And, of course, your signature includes a meaningless quote from him (along with some other BS). You seem to be dead set on doing whatever you can to grow Rudy's viewer base for some reason and I am guessing your previous attempts weren't all that successful so you had to be a bit more brazen about it now. I noticed that you never mention any other Youtubers trying to make a living off this game. Only Rudy gets your attention.....
I will admit that there are a lot of things wrong with what is going on with Magic from LGS's being overlooked in certain cases (they do get special Secret Lairs so while not enough for long term, Wizards is trying to engage with them), to the way Arena functions in terms of Wildcards and Arena Only cards, especially with sets like Historic Jumpstart making keeping up nearly impossible, to their apparent disinterest in a Pro Tour, to their overwhelming desire to control the secondary market without admitting there is one with Secret Lairs and "strategic" reprints. Hasbro/Wizards is not infallible but to see someone who focuses entirely on the bad about what is going on in the Magic community is tiresome. Sure, things deserve to be discussed, but basically every thread you have ever created is about how the world is falling apart with Magic. Not simply that something is wrong; that the very existence of Magic is at stake. Which is asinine.
"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
There clearly are a lot of people that just buy product online and never play anywhere outside with other people, just some selected few friends if at all.
That number is increasingly large and these people spend more money in the game.
Also, these people are "hidden" from the people that would seek out the social community of a store.
The "LGS community" is a group of players that is quite sadly dying out.
Its not growing in any big numbers, as the store itself is limited by space.
If people in a LGS dont spend much money there and only invest time, its less profitable.
If a store can ignore all that, including space for playing and just ship the product to a customer and receive cash, thats a much simpler and easier investment, so it pays in high revenue to kill the entire social aspect, as it doesnt bring in big money (while its incredible big for the health of the game to have it in the first place, people that actively want it, will bleed to keep it, but ultimately the entire game is changing away from it into a much more digital world, which frankly, is not the kind of Magic that builds a "strong" local community, its building a more broad de-socialized skeleton community).
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Rudy is not new, and hes dealing with the Magic market in many iterations over the years and is capable to adapt to whatever is the current business model thats profitable. Some of his content videos have a lot of insight in the business that people would never get a glimpse otherwise.
He had a store as it was mandatory, now its just extra cost.
He did sell a lot of singles on ebay, now its much simpler to ship lots of sealed product (to god knows who is buying them, as i frankly dont know any Magic players that buys that many sealed product at all, so it has to go somewhere, but i cant say who exactly consumes it, as a lot of places just buy product to sell it, but someone has to be the actual end-customer to keep the product for good).
In huge areas a lot of people have to just order a bunch of sealed boxes for themselves. its private and hidden, if these players never get out to socialize in a LGS, nobody will know they exist, except the people they pay for the product.
So for a LGS community, these people basically dont exist, and the demands and needs of a LGS community basically dont exist for the hidden individuals, completely isolated groups.
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Digital is quite frankly a different game.
I would argue the game we know as Magic is actually quite different depending on which group is playing it.
Paper Magic with actual cards in a store, has a very social community, new players, new people, for me thats much more important than the game itself.
People that like the game itself, but basically hate other players, also exist, and in the past they couldnt play the game in a LGS, so resorted to MTGO or played something else. Thats a pretty large group of people, the anti-social incels (not as a insult, but a broad description of what that group is made of).
You only really notice the existence of this group in the amount of extra revenue that WotC brings in, as you wont hear from them in a forum or anywhere else, as they actively avoid any social interactions with other people (but consume a lot of Magic online, youtube, twitch and all kinds of websites to generate traffic).
To play Magic in digital has no actual player social interaction, so that really speaks to this group, and thats a large increase of people that a former LGS net of shops simply did not speak to at all.
Tournament players that seek out competition are basically dead now, WotC scrubbed it.
Bigger tournaments in paper basically represented events like concerts, a Grand Prix was an event to meet even more people in person than a LGS.
Today people play digital and cant even know if the opponent is not just a bot, or halve asleep, or goes afk in the middle of the game, its not social at all, its just a time-wasting mechanism like so many mobile games and a lot of the computer game industry shifts into that gear already for quite some time.
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What really boggles my mind is the fact that an LGS even has to go over a distributor at all, its completely avoidable today.
To compete in price tags with Amazon and the like is not working, and a LGS can really only provide one thing that Amazon is not, and thats the space to play the game.
WotC is not providing any support for stores to do that, and they lost any financial incentive to do so as well, and the LGS that still exist either have a extremely strong community with lots of disposable income, or they simply bleed money till they are gone.
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For a lot of people that play Commander you can also cut them into subgroups that have different interests.
The nostalgic players dont really buy new product, just very few singles for a existing deck.
The revenue these players bring in is minimal.
Completely new players at least buy a bunch of product and if they are not aware to efficiently buy singles, they buy a lot of sealed product as they simply dont know better (yet, as very learns at some point, or leaves the game).
So yes, for WotC its much better to simply abandon existing players and seek out new players.
Its long time quite destructive to piss off old players, but the deal is, the old players are not the whale customers.
And then we get the increasingly more expensive "premium" products that is leeching even more money from people.
A lot of people had a mentality of "buy a box of a new set" and thats about it, they never spend more money on a set.
Some of them now buy a collectors box of a set, thats already more expensive and then they buy all Commander decks of a new set, thats like 4x the amount they spend before, and then they order some SecretLair boxes, and what not ... and if any of that money would actually be funneled into an LGS it would help a lot, but its quite simply not cutting, as WotC is at the same time taking customers away from a LGS with their own product (assume you have advertisment for digital in a LGS, like what?).
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So the "endgame" is probably going to be that Magic is losing the LGS and WotC as a game will sell product themselves.
At that point, someone else might take over the LGS, might even be a new card game (which is hard to sell for nostalgia players, as abandoning a game you played for 20years is quite heartbreaking and nothing you just do out of the blue).
We already have new games that are quite profitable already.
Flesh and Blood is pushing in the LGS-market for Magic (but sadly i just dont like the game, so its not for me).
With rent going up for all city-areas having a space to play Magic is expensive.
People play in restaurants, fast-food chains, or anywhere with a table and space.
Its certainly not the same as a central hub LGS that acts like the defacto-go-to location for everyone.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Just a thought. As Magic players age I think some shrewd LGS will attempt this at some point hopefully. Maybe WotC could be ahead of the curve instead of being reactionary as usual.
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 would agree with that statement. Sooner or later the player base/buying base will erode to a point where they will have to close up shop. They have no long term game plan that I can tell.
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."
That's how dangerous this gaming hobby of Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games has become especially If you're someone whose had their collections stolen with high-end Reserve List cards or there was a natural disaster like your basement getting flooded where it somehow affected your card collections and you can't even sell them due to the condition being really bad. It's hard to replace something of value If it's no longer available online especially when it comes to discontinued Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games that are completely out of print. Plus it can take years to recoup the losses and damage involved and realistically people just don't have the time for that. That's why this gaming hobby is very high risk / high reward compared to Video Games that are just as susceptible If you happen to lose years worth of data on games you've been grinding in. That being said If you've managed to pull through up to this point then enjoy the ride while it lasts but If you have better priorities in life that are worth pursuing more then that might be a good stopping point to get off the roller coaster. It's very easy to get lost and have regrets later in life for decisions we should've took. Okay first off, anyone who really believes that Arena is supposed to serve Paper Magic CLEARLY has not opened a physical booster pack in the last 5 years. Physical Booster packs for Paper Magic have a promotion for Arena as Arena doesn't have a promotion for your Local Game Store (LGS). I don't believe the whole point of Arena was to funnel new players from Arena onto Paper Magic when it's the complete opposite. Who'd want that? You're going to lose your player base especially If your Local Game Store (LGS) doesn't abide by health and sanitation standards. If someone finds out that air freshener hasn't been sprayed in the men's restroom at your LGS it's over, especially from players and customers where even LGS owners / employees SHOULD be on top of keeping the restrooms clean and not smelly. That's part of their job. It's what they're supposed to do.
Some people in other industries when they interpret the idea of the MTG Community itself then it basically means that they're going to scam you very soon. The physical MTG community has been scammed many times by cheaters, to harassment of many natures, to tournament judges, to drama, and all this stuff that doesn't care about Arena and Paper Magic. You just play the game Online or on Paper, that's it. You're playing the game because you love to play the game not because you love the drama associated with it which a lot of people tend to misunderstand from me when I express my concerns about Paper Magic and it's future. There's so much drama outside of playing MTG involving MTG and very few of it should exist on Arena and Paper Magic. Players have gotten away with so much cheating and stealing in Paper Magic that Arena is designed to make it impossible despite being less physically tangible. Another problem is Inside Trading where Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has now made it a whole lot easier to speculate which specific cards will spike in price in said "Return to Previous Plane", in this case being Innistrad and Kamigawa being an example based on the current release schedule before the sets are actually released in Paper and Digital. With players and collectors buying out these cards in advance within their availability in the Secondary Market it leaves those with not as much revenue or are relatively new to the game left in the dust until reprints come along which can take forever. One of the easiest Inside Trader Buyouts recently was Crucible of Worlds right when Zendikar Rising was publicly announced before it was officially released in Paper and Digital. So it got bought out when it was Standard legal due to it's recent reprint in Core 2019.
Cards like Concordant Crossroads never got another reprint after Chronicles for years because Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro chose not to errata "World Enchantment" to just "Enchantment" even though it isn't on the Reserve List. Mass Hysteria is basically the same card which costs 1 R instead of 1 G so I don't see what the problem is. If they can errata Phyrexian as a creature type for cards already printed then I don't see why getting rid of the "World" stipulation on Enchantments with passive abilities is hard for them to do especially when cards like these need reprints desperately. The more cards are reprinted at Mythic Rare the more they'll hold their value after being reprinted compared to being downshifted to Regular Rares like the Enemy Fetches in Modern Horizons 2. Except Fetches will always have a high demand due to their nature. You mean like what Pokémon TCG does with the Junior. Senior, and Masters divisions for Organized Play? For Casual I don't see this working since it's extremely difficult to form playgroups in EDH / Commander where everyone is around the EXACT same age group. I never really had a problem socializing with people younger than me but when it comes to people older than me I can sometimes feel a bit intimidated especially since they might have that "elitist aura" about themselves instead of being more laid back. I guess it's a matter of having the courage to step outside your comfort zone and forge new friendships that you'd never would've expected. As long as you aren't feeling like you're playing in what feels like the back alley of the ghetto or slums and more in an inviting atmosphere then you should be okay. It's hard when you're at a Local Game Store (LGS) located in a high traffic setting or the geography isn't as favorable. It's too bad that companies look down on age and not up which is also kind of why we're starting to see Arcade Machines at Casinos to cater more toward the Gen X / Millennial demographic instead of people of ALL ages.
"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 certainly works in both directions, but the much more extreme is not remove players into digital.
And some people play a lot MORE digital than they would in paper, as its so anti-social, much quicker to leave a game and start another, if you are not winning, just leave (which produces a pretty cancerous daily routine in Arena).
Anyway, its a more approachable MTGO and its "free" to play , especially if people play PreRelease and buy paper product to get the keys to get the digital cards too (which is basically the best value for money in Arena as its just on-top, buying actual packs digital only is mindblowing for me).
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MTG has a real need and its good that they have a digital game.
They did Xbox/playstation and PC games that worked quite well, and basically extended them with Arena.
If this entire covid scenario is over, we will see whats the aftermath of the digital route, a lot of players will rush into paper magic again, as they love it much more, but a bunch will certainly stay digital (and people that excessively play both are basically the spike players to playtest and all that, more of an exception to the rule).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Possibly. I don't follow Pokemon so I would have to check it out. I would rather the delineations be made on age ranges. An 18 year old may be able to sit and play 13 rounds of Magic for 15 hours straight but expecting a 55 year old to be able to handle those same rigors is not what I imagine. Youthful players generally have a physical advantage over senior players in long drawn out tournaments.
There is also the stigma of inappropriateness attached to an older player playing against (non-familial) children/teens/non-adults. I never want to leave myself open to any potential claims of that nature.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
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."
Pharmaceutical companies don't want to go through the painstaking process of having to develop newer vaccines to deal with COVID-19 considering how long it took for the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines to become widely available to the public and If they become less effective from the virus due to less people getting vaccinated then that puts us back to square one like we were in March 2020. Now without getting too off topic, someone mentioned this in another thread here that Hasbro is either trying to fatten Wizards of the Coast enough to sell off the company or do away with Paper Magic by forcing everyone to play on Arena though I don't think they'd do that entirely for those who are fortunate enough to play Paper EDH / Commander on SpellTable. I do feel as though the female demographic of MTG has more of a negative view of playing In-Person at Local Game Stores (LGS) than the male demographic relating to most of the drama we had to deal with in the last few years up to this point which I'd much rather not get into being a sensitive hot button issue and all. It almost reminds me of the toxic work environment at Blizzard between male and female employees.
"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 to how this is affecting Paper Magic in my area? While we finally started doing In-Store Pre-Releases again starting with D&D Forgotten Realms with the next being Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, we've rarely had very many people show up to play EDH / Commander aside from my local playgroup every Saturday. Most of our foot traffic comes from Paper Standard players who are either just waiting for the next rotation in September or are just playing on Arena online exclusively. My question is If the current meta for Paper Standard is THAT horrible then why are players playing the same meta on Arena? It doesn't make sense to me. I think it has more to do with the Historic cards in Arena not to mention the upcoming Digital Exclusive cards that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro seems to be pushing as a way to lure players away from their Local Game Store (LGS). You can play Brawl on Arena but you can't play EDH.
Another reason for lack of foot traffic is that players are going to other Local Game Stores (LGSs) within the vicinity where they don't feel like they're getting ripped off in terms of pricing though it's got more to do with the environmental atmosphere, geography, and where these players feel the most comfortable. Without In-Person Events being held they aren't required to go to Local Game Stores (LGSs) where they might not feel welcome. They've become more comfortable within their own stomping grounds as the LGS owners and employees may or may not be as strict when it comes to the house rules that their own customers and players are required to follow. The more strict the house rules at your LGS are the more you're going to drive away customers and players. I think LGS owners and employees need to deal with the fact that they can't please everybody and it's causing a lot of problems.
You also got to remember that certain Local Game Stores (LGSs) are tailored to demographics for very specific Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games as not all of them cater exclusively toward Magic: The Gathering players and this is growing in increasing number. It's also very dependent on the owner of the Local Game Store (LGS) and what specific Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games they want to market and sell to customers and players as well as what kind of In-Person Events they want to host. They can't have their store rely solely on ONE Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game as we've seen how evident that was in 2020 with A LOT of Local Game Stores (LGSs) solely focused on Magic: The Gathering going out of business. Most of these businesses can't survive without selling products that aren't related to what they mainly focus on.
I think we often times take for granted just how blessed some of us are to still be able to support our Local Game Store (LGS) to sit down and play our favorite Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games with our friends In-Person. While it may seem like a luxury at first I mostly consider it a free right like in the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. You can't really compare this experience to going to a fancy restaurant when you can take your meal home with you which isn't as satisfying as eating with other people you know of kinda like a Thanksgiving get together. The only alternative is that you have no one to socialize with In-Person unless you shell $300+ for a Webcam for a subpar experience but then again where's the fun in that? You get what I'm saying? This is why it's very important to put "The Gathering" back into "Magic" 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
There are less tournaments and basically no Grand Prix / Big events for Magic organized.
Stores will close one after another, as people buy more and more online and get it delivered.
Its a big loss to lose that social aspect of the game, it scaled down a lot to kitchen table and digital streaming (spell-table etc.).
Getting together to play in person and paper is already quite some luxury, and the less stores are around, the more it will be luxury (or gated in some private home, or just a selected few people in a group getting together, which produces a more and more sharp bubble that does not get outside opinions and fresh blood).
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Almost a year ago i would have guessed stores to open in full again ... here we are, stores in Europe still closed and an endless amount of next waves hitting that stretch a potential proper re-opening.
There are people i havent seen for almost 2 years now ... and i formerly did see them at least each PreRelease ...
Thats quite something.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro used this to their advantage by getting into the Card Singles Market with Secret Lairs to cater to casuals and partnering with Amazon to cut off distributors from Local Game Stores (LGSs) under the false notion that casuals preferred to play at home rather than at their Local Game Store (LGS) when in fact most players prefer to play at their Local Game Store (LGS) as they should. It almost makes it sound like Sheldon Menery had a personal vendetta against Local Game Stores (LGSs) when he invented EDH / Commander back in 2009. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro took advantage of the situation by fueling their own corporate agenda by trying to turn Paper Magic into a Monopoly / Scrabble style board game that you take home and play with your friends when it was never built around that kind of premise. Hasbro doesn't understand the importance of the Local Game Store (LGS) like we do who has more experience in this hobby than they do.
I do think the possibility of another economic lockdown similar to what we saw in 2020 will likely happen again sometime this coming Winter. This means that we could see more Local Game Stores (LGSs) continue to go out of business while having to rely on curbside pickup and direct-to-consumer deliveries similar to Amazon as well as In-Person Play being restricted due to LGSs only operating at 25% capacity. Not to mention more stimulus check handouts resulting in more hyper inflation with the price of goods skyrocketing to the Moon, along with more supply shortages leading to more scalping at big box retailers like Walmart and Target. It's basically a repeat of what we experienced economically within the last 18 months due to continued misinformation and lack of trust between those in power and those that aren't. Fortunately I think we're in a much better position now than we were in Spring 2020 so things might turn for the better this time around.
With the Great Resignation caused by the economic implications of the ongoing pandemic, it's created a major power vacuum for automation, technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to take over more manual labor jobs over the next few years and the idea of living the American Dream pre-2020 is long gone folks. You have the most job openings in recorded history that eventually those jobs will be eliminated instead of being filled because people won't be able to make as much money due to minimum wage not being able to keep up with hyper inflation. This is all going to come at the expense of the next generation of young teenagers and adults especially those who aspire to own or work at a Local Game Store (LGS) to provide a physical location for people to play Paper Magic and they won't be able to do it because of how much the odds are stacked against them economically. Without a job these people can't pay to play Paper Magic unless they get their money elsewhere. You can't live off of Unemployment Benefits as you would 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