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Do you guys not play in stores that redraft the rares? My local shop does that so you only pay the price of the boosters to draft and it works out pretty well.
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Feb 28, 2014 11:28
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pointsofdata posted:I also love how your first priority is always Hasbros bottom line. I want to play magic with cool cards at reasonable prices, not spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of cardboard. More like my first priority is stores not losing a whole bunch of money on singles and either closing because a major source of revenue is gone or deciding to get out of Magic because the last time that poo poo happened WotC promised they would never ever do that again and now whoops it happened again. I get it, people want cheap reprints no matter what, but let's be a little less dishonest with our arguments. I also would love to know what a "YGO business model is". DOes it mean I crack a box in hopes of getting the three cards that are actually worth money because nobody wants the other 357 cards om the set, and then in three months those three cards are worthless? Because that sounds pretty loving bad. BENGHAZI 2 fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 11:58
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Babylon Astronaut posted:redraft the rares
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Feb 28, 2014 12:03
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Literally The Worst posted:More like my first priority is stores not losing a whole bunch of money on singles and either closing because a major source of revenue is gone or deciding to get out of Magic because the last time that poo poo happened WotC promised they would never ever do that again and now whoops it happened again. I get it, people want cheap reprints no matter what, but let's be a little less dishonest with our arguments. In any other business, a promise made near 20 years ago would hold practically no sway over the current market.
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Feb 28, 2014 12:17
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mehall posted:In any other business, a promise made near 20 years ago would hold practically no sway over the current market. In this business it does because WotC puts a lot f stock in not pissing off retailers by drastically reducing the value of their stock, because the stores who sell singles are the same ones who keep WotC's doors open.
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Feb 28, 2014 12:22
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In every LGS I've been to, if suddenly their stock of very expensive ($70+) cards were suddenly worth zero, I would estimate that's probably $5-7000 of revenue total, at the very most, that would have been spread out over like maybe a year in sales, since those cards hardly ever move. If that would break an LGS then they probably would have killed themselves in a myriad of other ways.
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Feb 28, 2014 12:50
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The immediate impact isn't the ony impact, please don't be so obtuse. The current inventory would be devalued and future inventory would be worth chump change so it's not like you're making it up in volume unless you're selling waaaaaay more than you were before, and then continue selling that much. It's not just that you're losing money on existing stock, it's that an existing source if revenue just got slashed and burned.
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Feb 28, 2014 12:55
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Well guess what kind of revenue generating events will now be MUCH more popular....
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Feb 28, 2014 12:57
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toadee posted:Well guess what kind of revenue generating events will now be MUCH more popular.... You actually do not know what you're talking about at all. Nobody is going to replace card sales by running more tourneys. Even the boosted sales from running more slash bigger events isn't going to hold at the local level because at some point, people stop needing those staple cards because they already have them. I want reprints to happen. I want them to happen in a way that doesn't blow up the secondary market. I'm sorry this is so controversial because it's more nuanced than "gimme the cards gimme all the cards right now"
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Feb 28, 2014 13:01
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I really wish someone would do a write up (or point to one) analyzing the revenue streams of LGS's, because from what I've seen my gut tells me singles sales don't take up much at all. I'm sure this also varies store to store. Push comes to shove though, I will side with players over stores, because I know there is a way to make money selling sealed product and hosting events, and I loved the poo poo out of Chronicles when it came out.
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Feb 28, 2014 13:14
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Hosting events does not actually make a ton of money unless you're charging more and/or giving away less in prizes. Events "make money" in that they get people into your store and then those people will probably buy cards/sleeves/snacks/whatever but events themselves are not a moneymaker.
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Feb 28, 2014 13:20
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I did manage to find an article about 'Unseen Costs that Threaten Gaming Stores' that suggests MTG Sealed product is measurably more valuable than singles stock, primarily because singles don't move fast enough: http://www.gamehead.com/article/1930/5-unseen-costs-threaten-game-stores quote:The wild card in gaming retail turn rates is [b:Magic: the Gathering]. A good supply of MTG booster packs, several cases worth, will sell out for a store in anywhere between one and three weeks, depending on the amount of organized play that store supports. This high turn rate means good cash flow and good revenue coming in. What this also means is that stores focused heavily on MTG will not as easily see which other product areas they have that are underperforming their turn rate. and quote:The worst turn rates in the hobby industry belong to out-of-print role-playing game media, out-of-print board games, and non-investment-level out-of-print TCG singles. The common aspect of these products is that they are “back catalog.” A store should generally not endeavor to stock them at all – even at a dime on the dollar, the investment “rots on the shelves.” Of course, this is coming from noted titan of the industry 'Gamehead'. It's actually kind of crazy how hard it is to find anything resembling numbers from anyone about what percentage of gaming stores' revenue is made up from selling singles, since the singles market is such a highly contested and divisive topic.
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Feb 28, 2014 13:25
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One of the real moneymakers is the prerelease, since provides prize support for those.
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Feb 28, 2014 14:41
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MrBling posted:One of the real moneymakers is the prerelease, since provides prize support for those. Yes and no, because you still need to buy the prerelease kits. WotC providing prize support makes it better, but it's not hand over fist woo free money day.
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Feb 28, 2014 14:46
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kizudarake posted:Hey, I don't want fetches and the like to be 5 bucks each, but I'm sure your POS shop'd survive if there was enough supply out there to bring the price down to 30 bucks. If it couldn't, then you probably need to go ahead and cash out of the wizard poker game and get a job that pays the loving bills and a little extra for retirement. I don't think anyone would be upset with blue fetches at $30. If the card is maintaining that price then that means there's probably been some insurge of supply which is being upheld by an increase in demand. More people buying the cards at a lower price is good for everybody. Rolling Earthquake's value is a completely different beast from legacy, modern, or standard playable card's value. Nobody plays Rolling Earthquake in any format. Its price is carried only by its rarity. That means the only people that are going to buy it are people that really care about the collector's value or I guess some dude that has a really sick horsemanship EDH deck. This card is exactly what toadee posted:
is talking about. This price isn't set by supply in demand, it's set by rarity, which means of course it's going to take a long time to sell. For some reason people in this thread seem to think that there's some sort of a battle between players and shops, that what each want are mutually exclusive. I'm going to take Dickeye's word on this one, since he's the dude with experience working in a store, and assume that singles do contribute some significant amount to the revenue stream for a store. If that were to go away, like if Wizards just printed a regular expert expansion version of Modern Masters with no limit on supply, then there's a chance prices would completely crater. Now assuming that your average gaming store needed that singles money to keep operating at normal levels, some significant number of stores may disappear. Which means less places to play tournament Magic. If Wizards can foster a demand for modern cards - which they seem to be doing pretty well right now - and then release, over time, a controlled number of reprints they can lower the price and increase demand without destroying the secondary market. It's better for everyone in the long run when cards are able to maintain their value.
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Feb 28, 2014 14:52
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Kabanaw posted:Now assuming that your average gaming store needed that singles money to keep operating at normal levels, some significant number of stores may disappear. Which means less places to play tournament Magic. Also remember that part of WotC's steeze is fostering a trust between the secondary market and themselves because they know that the people who make money selling singles are also the stores who buy WotC products and run WotC tournaments etc, and that loving that up by doing an expert-level expansion of nothing but reprints in an effort to smash prices could lead to stores just saying "Nah suck my nuts WotC". YGO gets away with it because YGO has never pretended to give a gently caress about the secondary market (and they have an entire franchise helping get the game exposure, something WotC doesn't have).
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Feb 28, 2014 15:01
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Veyrall posted:Don't bring this up. A lot of people on here hate rare-redrafting. I can't comment, since I don't really understand what it is in the first place, but it's a pretty hot-button topic. Can we really not discuss it at all whatsoever? The people who don't like it don't have to like it, but presumably they're also adults and can tolerate discussion of something they don't like without shrieking about it like psychos. Babylon Astronaut posted:Do you guys not play in stores that redraft the rares? My local shop does that so you only pay the price of the boosters to draft and it works out pretty well. When I used to play paper more often, 10ish years ago, I used to play at a store that did this. There are upsides and downsides. The good parts are that it makes draft more affordable, also it discourages raredrafting. The bad part is that you rarely get any value out of the draft unless you come in second or first. As for why the mere mention of it sends a sizable portion of posters in this thread into an apoplectic fit, I couldn't tell you.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:06
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Ableist Kinkshamer posted:Can we really not discuss it at all whatsoever? The people who don't like it don't have to like it, but presumably they're also adults and can tolerate discussion of something they don't like without shrieking about it like psychos. Have you ever read this thread?
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Feb 28, 2014 15:08
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Does anyone have any actual numbers from even one LGS about what percentage of revenue they get from singles vs sealed vs misc paraphernalia?
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Feb 28, 2014 15:09
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Ableist Kinkshamer posted:Can we really not discuss it at all whatsoever? The people who don't like it don't have to like it, but presumably they're also adults and can tolerate discussion of something they don't like without shrieking about it like psychos. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA Seriously, read earlier in this thread, or some of the previous ones. There was less blood spilt over slavery in the American Civil War then on the issue of rare re-drafting in this thread.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:25
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Madmarker posted:HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA Or taking pictures of cards...or just about anything else...this thread will derail into such random tangents for 4-5 pages on the dumbest poo poo.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:36
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What is there to talk about with rare redrafting that isn't either A) explaining what it is or B) arguing about it? It's a pretty simple concept, it's just very controversial.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:46
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toadee posted:Does anyone have any actual numbers from even one LGS about what percentage of revenue they get from singles vs sealed vs misc paraphernalia? A store that good information like this is one run like a real business. Real businesses don't tell you poo poo about themselves unless mandated by law. whydirt posted:What is there to talk about with rare redrafting that isn't either A) explaining what it is or B) arguing about it? It's a pretty simple concept, it's just very controversial. Do you like rare drafting? Me too! One time I won and got a sick rare! Me too! There is nothing else to talk about without input from people who dislike rare redrafting.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:50
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whydirt posted:What is there to talk about with rare redrafting that isn't either A) explaining what it is or B) arguing about it? It's a pretty simple concept, it's just very controversial. Yeah I don't see the point in talking about it. I can see it being cool if you actually have a choice between doing it and not doing it so that the more serious players who actually want to draft to win can opt into it, but at the same time it makes a lot of sense that people who enjoy drafting and regularly place below 3-0 / T4 or T8 don't want to experience opening a foil Domri and then losing, and value that more than stiff competition.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:51
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I don't know about anyone else's FLGS, but mine does the bulk of their MTG business with the Standard format. Sometimes, trying to buy singles out of the case on Friday nights is akin to trying to order a drink from the bartender in a packed nightclub, as people try to get the last few staples for their FNM deck. The speed at which they can move standard product is ridiculous. Conversely, they have a small section of shelf space dedicated to Modern/Legacy stuff that moves a whole lot slower. There's a few people interested in the non-rotating formats, but most people were turned off by the barrier of entry even before this insane spike in everything. It moves a whole hell of a lot slower and is also much more expensive for the store to acquire. I don't think they'd mind too much if modern staples became cheaper for them both to sell and acquire. I think the prices of cards are a lot more resiliant nowadays than the days of Chronicles. Chronicles is such an abberation because it was so massively printed, the secondary market was nothing like it is today, and there's also only a handful of cards in set that are actually worth looking at. (As an aside, I'm surprised that Chronicles Blood Moon is actually 10+ bucks, wow!) Nowadays, Wizards is generally sane with the amount they print of a normal set, the secondary market has much more structure, and people place quite a bit of value on what set the card came from. Thoughtsieze should be a good example. Wizards put it in a major set that's getting opened a lot and its a reasonable 15 bucks. The Lorwyn version is still a respectable 30. If we got a Modern Masters type product with a Theros size print run I think we'd be ok. It would be terrible if all of a shops product tanked to pennies on the dollar, however, short of Wizards losing their mind and deciding to convert Magic to an LCG format, I don't think that's going to happen.
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Feb 28, 2014 15:59
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Just getting back into Magic after a good decade+ off, and then I played only very casually. The kid behind the counter at the game store balked when I told him I hadn't played since Urza block. Ha. Bought the 2014 Core deck toolkit mostly for lands and filler cards to get started. Then a few boosters. I know if I want to play Standard I've got to stay current with the sets and everything, but mostly I'm just looking to play friends. I'm wondering though where to find the best deals as far as card rarity and quantity is concerned. I've looked at the fat packs (don't need extra lands) and different premade decks, duel etc. commander decks? Just looking for a little advice. Thanks.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:14
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Honestly, do not buy packs - you're just pissing away money. If you're going to play standard, buy singles online (or maybe at your LGS if they need some business). If you really need to crack boosters to fill that empty hole inside, you should draft. That way, although you're buying boosters, you're getting a chance to practice and a shot at winning some product. If you're looking to play with friends and just want shittons of cards to start off with, buy a collection on eBay/Craigslist or hop over to the thread in SA Mart because there's a bunch of us that will hook you up for a reasonable price.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:18
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toadee posted:It's actually kind of crazy how hard it is to find anything resembling numbers from anyone about what percentage of gaming stores' revenue is made up from selling singles, since the singles market is such a highly contested and divisive topic. You're not going to find this info anywhere because most games stores don't share their data, and the revenue breakdown of game stores is incredibly diverse. Go into a bunch of different game stores and sit around a bit and you'll notice this. The missing piece of the puzzle here is margins. Did y'all know the MSRP on a box of Magic is $143.64? Shops that are selling you $99.99 boxes are making way lower margins on sealed product than is really reasonable or profitable. Stores that prize out $99.99 boxes at good-EV tournaments are essentially providing judges and table space for the privilege of selling a captive audience a bunch of low-margin sealed product. Shops that sell packs at higher prices have different market realities, but you can't have good EV tournaments and cheap packs without the singles market to support it. For what it's worth, though, I think it's important that WotC brings down Modern/Legacy/EDH prices because they are a barrier to entry to new players of these formats. MMA was great for stores. "Sorry we devalued your Modern inventory, here's a bunch of packs you can sell at 20x your normal markup to patch it over for a while, and you're going to get a whole bunch more Modern customers from this." More of that at somewhat-larger print runs, please.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:19
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Good to know. I'll explore that option. Thanks!FreelanceSocialist posted:Honestly, do not buy packs - you're just pissing away money... If you're looking to play with friends and just want shittons of cards to start off with, buy a collection on eBay/Craigslist or hop over to the thread in SA Mart because there's a bunch of us that will hook you up for a reasonable price.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:23
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pointsofdata posted:I want to play magic with cool cards at reasonable prices, not spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of cardboard. You're probably interested in the wrong hobby, then. Unless you play MTGO, then you can spend hundred of dollars on a piece of digital cardboard.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:28
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Saeku posted:You're not going to find this info anywhere because most games stores don't share their data, and the revenue breakdown of game stores is incredibly diverse. Go into a bunch of different game stores and sit around a bit and you'll notice this. Yes I know, hence why I said before 'Im sure this varies'. Even example numbers, from someone who say, used to run a store, whatever. I haven't seen anything from anyone who actually does this so I'm not sure why we would all just assume that shops do a ton of revenue in expensive singles. When is the last time anyone here went into their LGS and bought a $50+ card from a case?
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Feb 28, 2014 16:28
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Ableist Kinkshamer posted:Can we really not discuss it at all whatsoever? The people who don't like it don't have to like it, but presumably they're also adults and can tolerate discussion of something they don't like without shrieking about it like psychos. Raredrafting is The Satan and I won't hear of it! But seriously: My problem with it is that, as I mentioned before, I can't make a draft deck that works. I tried on Saturday, and made a really good UR deck with EIGHT pieces of removal and 2 or the counters that counter creatures or enchant creatures. The guy across from me got a shiny Xenagos Walker, the guy to my left got a Xenagos, and I got a Thoughtseize pack 3 from an otherwise junk pack for my colors. Everyone else got junk. I absolutely wrecked my first 2 rounds, not even coming close to losing a game, and not losing a single life in 2 of the games. So round 3 comes and, as usual, my deck stops working completely. It takes me 9 turns to get into the first game, which was longer than it had taken me to win any of my other games, and I still end up winning at 5 life. His deck just didn't do anything to threaten me, so once I finally found my removal, he couldn't touch me. Game 2, I draw almost nothing but lands, get something like 2 creatures, and still only lose by 4 life/1 turn because he happened to have Gild. Game 3, it takes me 12 turns to find my 2nd island (I was playing 11 islands and 6 mountains, all of which I had in play by then,) and in that time I find one creature and like 3 of my less useful pieces of removal. So even with how badly that game went for me, I had him at 3 life before, once again, Gild saved the day for him. Anyway, I ended up in 3rd because my round 1 opponent dropped after our match and my round 2 opponent lost. So here's my point: if I had lost a Thoughtseize and ended up with a Xenagos in its place because I lost to that terrible deck, I probably never would have drafted again. I say this not being much of a fan of limited in the first place because every time I play it's some variation or the above story where my deck just stops working randomly. I'm sure someone who actually likes drafting wouldn't mind as much as I would. Tl; dr: I mainly draft to see what cards I can get out of it and occasionally I'll have a good game. If I don't get to keep those cards because my draft decks inevitably end up screwing me, I'm not going to draft.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:29
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Literally The Worst posted:The immediate impact isn't the ony impact, please don't be so obtuse. The current inventory would be devalued and future inventory would be worth chump change so it's not like you're making it up in volume unless you're selling waaaaaay more than you were before, and then continue selling that much. It's not just that you're losing money on existing stock, it's that an existing source if revenue just got slashed and burned. As we've seen with Modern Masters, small amounts of reprints don't have a huge impact, and in some cases made the card get more expensive because it increased the popularity of the format. Don't think I'm someone crying for reprints here, I'm already pretty heavily invested in Legacy. I have a playset of duals and most other staples. I'd honestly love to see more players able to get into the format though, as it's by far the most interactive and diverse constructed format.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:37
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Why are the dexterity cards banned in legacy/vintage?
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Feb 28, 2014 16:38
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Molybdenum posted:Why are the dexterity cards banned in legacy/vintage? Dexterity is not a skill they want to test in organized play.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:39
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If Legacy and Vintage are to be formats that exist in paper and in MTGO in identical forms, then you can't well be flipping cards from a foot above your virtual table online.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:43
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toadee posted:Even example numbers, from someone who say, used to run a store, whatever. I haven't seen anything from anyone who actually does this so I'm not sure why we would all just assume that shops do a ton of revenue in expensive singles. Do you think I come to this thread to talk about margins stuff because I just really love stores?
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Feb 28, 2014 16:43
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Saeku posted:Do you think I come to this thread to talk about finance stuff because I just really love stores? I dunno, I like to talk about financials and I don't run a store. Are you confirming that you run a gaming store and that if the prices of Legacy and Modern staples dropped you would go out of business?
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Feb 28, 2014 16:44
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The big thing with singles is that, even if you don't sell many of them, the large selection helps attract and retain customers. If Joe Casual wants card X, and the LGS doesn't have it, he'll go online or to another store that does, and next time he makes a purchase, he might decide to just buy online rather than check to see if the LGS has it. I worked for a company that sold specialty auto parts, and this is a core part of their business model. They may only sell a dozen of a low-value part per year, and make next to nothing on it, but the customer calls them first because the competition says "We'll have to special order that, and it could take 6-8 weeks." Sell them a $5 bracket that's hard to find and they'll come back when they need $5000 worth of parts to do a complete restoration.
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Feb 28, 2014 16:49
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I have literally never seen anyone buy anything from the expensive case at either of the LGS's I go to. Im sure someone does or else they would have taken them out completely, but it seems silly, because there's nothing in there that can't be had for substantially less on TCGPlayer
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Feb 28, 2014 16:50
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