The mega sized set will be be ~3x the size of a normal large set, have only two rarity levels, common and uncommon, and be packaged as 1 full art basic land, 10 commons, and 3 uncommons per booster pack.
Im not sure thats believable. Stores have no reason to buy massive quantities and tie up capital and if the distributor does this thats business. Bad individual decisions can cause a given distributor out of business. Others will step up as its a good stable ROE business its just middle man with margins. But I get your point. Its all bull *****. Chronicles eventually sold out. Lousy products wouldnt sell. And no store in my city sold packs below cost.
The retailers' reasoning was that after the chronic shortages of Alpha/Beta through the Dark, they would jack up their order quantities far beyond what they thought they'd actually sell so that when the distributors rationed out supplies on a percentage of order basis they would get more. Of course starting with Fallen Empires there were no shortages or rationing, so gigantic full orders went out. Then a couple of distributors reordered genuinely massive quantities after they initially sold large amounts. Chronicles wasn't quite so bad, but Fallen Empires was a disaster and Homelands wasn't much better. I remember finding places that had cases of the stuff they'd sell for $30 a box around 2001-2002 and it still wasn't selling.
You're right, it was bad business. And a lot of stores and distributors were in dire straights after similarly bad choices during the comic book and sports card boom and bust. Apparently the stores in your town didn't make such bad decisions. Unfortunately, that hasn't kept WotC from coddling those who did to the present and finding the most convoluted ways of doing so possible. The problems were very real, but instead of solutions they ended up with band-aid fixes and diversions. One only needs to look at their online game platform to see those organizational and problem solving practices are still in place.
Hey ebonclaw. Not to be rude but just to correct. Magic has not hit its peak before. There can only be one peak. Ive played on off since fourth ed. There is a lot of bull ***** going on. The "player base dip" after affinity was 100times the effect of chronicles. And all we hear is chronicles almost killed magic. Well I think it had more to do with too many sets (6?) Released in one year for a game in its infancy.
The really big problem with Chronicles was that distributors and retailers were getting burned by falling prices of sealed product. The same was true of Fallen Empires preceding it and Homelands after. It was the *****s for some of the wholesalers and retailers who ended up having to sell those products at a steep loss just to clear stock and recoup some capital. And because WotC doesn't sell directly to consumers, it was a very big deal for them.
It really did almost kill the game, but not for the reason of a few collectors getting miffed, you're right about that.
EDIT: Although I would point out that while sealed product needs to retain a reasonable value, it doesn't need to appreciate to 10x+ MSRP within a few years to keep retailers and distributors on board.
SCG and pretty much all speculators/hoarders are a cancer on the game. They do little to nothing for the game and instead take and harm it for personal gain. It's these people that stop staples from getting reprinted in reasonable quanities, or keep the reserved list going. The game would be a thousand times better if they ceased to exist.
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
It doesn't look like they're for preserving the reserved list to me:
you'd have to convince me that someone who already owned a $500,000 (READ: everything is paid off) house would decide they just don't want that house anymore because it is now worth $250,000.
It's called downsizing. I've seen several people do it. They sunk around a quarter million dollars of savings into a McMansion thinking it would continue to appreciate indefinitely. Now, what was worth #250,000 is worth $100,000. To make matters worse, it's bigger than what they need so the utility expenses are horrendous and the tax evaluations are based on the peak and won't go down because local municipalities became dependent on the real estate tax revenue to support deficit spending of their own (muni bonds). Topping it all off, they're bitter and jaded about losing a huge portion of their savings. Sinking an additional $20k per year into something that's only worth five times that or less as an asset is no longer an appealing proposition, so they dump it.
...How does this relate to magic cards? Property tax? Utility costs? I said that this housing market crash analogy is a bad way to predict an outcome of a bubble that we don't even know exists, and you've got a list of things that once again don't relate to magic cards. Magic cards are not houses! Houses take decades to pay off. Magic cards are bought with hobby money. I'd honestly be buying up extra duals if the market were to "crash," and I'm not alone.
You were talking about houses and I responded.
There are applicable analogies to the housing bubble and Magic cards even if you don't see them. The primary one is that after a bubble bursts and the mania and fad behind it fade, the market concerned takes decades to fully recover, if it ever does. Hence my comment about a diminished game (or at least format within it) and specifically the tournament scene.
Some people like to use these analogies to falsely predict the impending death of M:tG, which is ridiculous. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if Magic card prices are in a bubble and it pops, a great many people who bought them will be extremely pissed off values dropped precipitously, because most people believe that when they buy Magic cards they will be able to sell them in the future at an equal or greater price. A large portion of those people will quit and the format will take an extremely long time to recover, if it ever does. Again, this reaction wouldn't be rational, but markets and usually people as well aren't rational.
You and others who already play who would buy up cards being dumped at cheap prices isn't going to bring people back. You're right, Magic cards aren't houses. Everybody needs to have a place to live and if they don't own it, they'll be renting it from bargain buying landlords. Magic cards on the other hand are just game pieces and without voluntary demand for them they won't recover their peak value.
you'd have to convince me that someone who already owned a $500,000 (READ: everything is paid off) house would decide they just don't want that house anymore because it is now worth $250,000.
It's called downsizing. I've seen several people do it. They sunk around a quarter million dollars of savings into a McMansion thinking it would continue to appreciate indefinitely. Now, what was worth #250,000 is worth $100,000. To make matters worse, it's bigger than what they need so the utility expenses are horrendous and the tax evaluations are based on the peak and won't go down because local municipalities became dependent on the real estate tax revenue to support deficit spending of their own (muni bonds). Topping it all off, they're bitter and jaded about losing a huge portion of their savings. Sinking an additional $20k per year into something that's only worth five times that or less as an asset is no longer an appealing proposition, so they dump it.
Is it rational? No. Usually it's cutting off one's nose to spite the face. But people often behave in an irrational manner and markets never operate rationally.
If a lot of people get burned financially playing Magic they'll get pissed and either quit or go back to just playing with friends noncompetitively. WotC won't go out of business and M:tG won't die, but they'll be greatly diminished, the tournament scene in particular.
A more general answer then. If someone knows a friends' sibling who has a spark that attracts them, I wouldn't tell them to shy away from dating just because they're friends with one of their family members. Not at all, in fact. Just remember:
Dating & Romance ≠ *******
But that's true regardless of pre-existing relationship dynamics. From personal experience and many other observations I can tell you the damage is always worse if things go sideways though.
In my case, basically my best friend and I had known each other for 7 or 8 years. Then he started dating my sister. It was fine and dandy until it wasn't. Then I got blamed for introducing them to each other. Now neither speaks to me. She's married to a lazy, leeching pothead now (I don't mean all potheads are inherently lazy leeches, just that this guy is lazy and a pothead, so he leeches off her) and he ran through a few dozen one night stands until he couldn't even balance that anymore due to his newfound alcoholism and disillusionment with life. Somehow all this became my fault due to my being the common link.
EDIT: Hmm... Reading that I realize that sounds kind of bitter...
The mega sized set will be be ~3x the size of a normal large set, have only two rarity levels, common and uncommon, and be packaged as 1 full art basic land, 10 commons, and 3 uncommons per booster pack.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
There's also the postal inspectors:
https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/investigations/mailfraud/fraudschemes/mailtheft/ReportMailTheft.aspx
I hope so. And it's northern Asia. I'll squeal if we get full art snow-covered lands.
The retailers' reasoning was that after the chronic shortages of Alpha/Beta through the Dark, they would jack up their order quantities far beyond what they thought they'd actually sell so that when the distributors rationed out supplies on a percentage of order basis they would get more. Of course starting with Fallen Empires there were no shortages or rationing, so gigantic full orders went out. Then a couple of distributors reordered genuinely massive quantities after they initially sold large amounts. Chronicles wasn't quite so bad, but Fallen Empires was a disaster and Homelands wasn't much better. I remember finding places that had cases of the stuff they'd sell for $30 a box around 2001-2002 and it still wasn't selling.
You're right, it was bad business. And a lot of stores and distributors were in dire straights after similarly bad choices during the comic book and sports card boom and bust. Apparently the stores in your town didn't make such bad decisions. Unfortunately, that hasn't kept WotC from coddling those who did to the present and finding the most convoluted ways of doing so possible. The problems were very real, but instead of solutions they ended up with band-aid fixes and diversions. One only needs to look at their online game platform to see those organizational and problem solving practices are still in place.
The really big problem with Chronicles was that distributors and retailers were getting burned by falling prices of sealed product. The same was true of Fallen Empires preceding it and Homelands after. It was the *****s for some of the wholesalers and retailers who ended up having to sell those products at a steep loss just to clear stock and recoup some capital. And because WotC doesn't sell directly to consumers, it was a very big deal for them.
It really did almost kill the game, but not for the reason of a few collectors getting miffed, you're right about that.
EDIT: Although I would point out that while sealed product needs to retain a reasonable value, it doesn't need to appreciate to 10x+ MSRP within a few years to keep retailers and distributors on board.
It doesn't look like they're for preserving the reserved list to me:
Visiting Wizards, Reprints, and the Reserved List
Should Wizards do Away with the Reserved List?
I Hate the Reserved List
You were talking about houses and I responded.
There are applicable analogies to the housing bubble and Magic cards even if you don't see them. The primary one is that after a bubble bursts and the mania and fad behind it fade, the market concerned takes decades to fully recover, if it ever does. Hence my comment about a diminished game (or at least format within it) and specifically the tournament scene.
Some people like to use these analogies to falsely predict the impending death of M:tG, which is ridiculous. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if Magic card prices are in a bubble and it pops, a great many people who bought them will be extremely pissed off values dropped precipitously, because most people believe that when they buy Magic cards they will be able to sell them in the future at an equal or greater price. A large portion of those people will quit and the format will take an extremely long time to recover, if it ever does. Again, this reaction wouldn't be rational, but markets and usually people as well aren't rational.
You and others who already play who would buy up cards being dumped at cheap prices isn't going to bring people back. You're right, Magic cards aren't houses. Everybody needs to have a place to live and if they don't own it, they'll be renting it from bargain buying landlords. Magic cards on the other hand are just game pieces and without voluntary demand for them they won't recover their peak value.
It's called downsizing. I've seen several people do it. They sunk around a quarter million dollars of savings into a McMansion thinking it would continue to appreciate indefinitely. Now, what was worth #250,000 is worth $100,000. To make matters worse, it's bigger than what they need so the utility expenses are horrendous and the tax evaluations are based on the peak and won't go down because local municipalities became dependent on the real estate tax revenue to support deficit spending of their own (muni bonds). Topping it all off, they're bitter and jaded about losing a huge portion of their savings. Sinking an additional $20k per year into something that's only worth five times that or less as an asset is no longer an appealing proposition, so they dump it.
Is it rational? No. Usually it's cutting off one's nose to spite the face. But people often behave in an irrational manner and markets never operate rationally.
If a lot of people get burned financially playing Magic they'll get pissed and either quit or go back to just playing with friends noncompetitively. WotC won't go out of business and M:tG won't die, but they'll be greatly diminished, the tournament scene in particular.
A more general answer then. If someone knows a friends' sibling who has a spark that attracts them, I wouldn't tell them to shy away from dating just because they're friends with one of their family members. Not at all, in fact. Just remember:
Dating & Romance ≠ *******
But that's true regardless of pre-existing relationship dynamics. From personal experience and many other observations I can tell you the damage is always worse if things go sideways though.
In my case, basically my best friend and I had known each other for 7 or 8 years. Then he started dating my sister. It was fine and dandy until it wasn't. Then I got blamed for introducing them to each other. Now neither speaks to me. She's married to a lazy, leeching pothead now (I don't mean all potheads are inherently lazy leeches, just that this guy is lazy and a pothead, so he leeches off her) and he ran through a few dozen one night stands until he couldn't even balance that anymore due to his newfound alcoholism and disillusionment with life. Somehow all this became my fault due to my being the common link.
EDIT: Hmm... Reading that I realize that sounds kind of bitter...