This is in the midst of several other suuuuuuper unpopular decisions on WotC’s part, though, so it might just be a black eye they don’t need right now.
Certainly possible, only guy I know who’s like INTO magic wouldn’t stop buying packs if WotC killed his whole family, so my perception of the average mtg player is perhaps… skewed.
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The guy who is striking is a damn hero, that much is clear. Others should definitely join in to test whether WotC cares about the Pro Tour as a marketing venue or not. Signs point to no, since prize pools are staying small, they aren’t comping player travel anymore, etc.
WotC seems to not care for marketing much in general. Ask yourself if you’ve seen them at a PAX in the past few years. They’ve been almost entirely absent from the con scene, where they probably stand to gain a lot of both new and re-activated Magic players.
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I would take that bet and your free money. Everywhere I have looked in the Magic community player, regardless of status in the community or proficiency in the game, have been supportive of his decision.
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The response to the boycott from players, particularly top level players, has been near universal support.
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I mean, they’ve traditionally relied on outside sources (Star City, etc) to handle event stuff, save HasCon.
For years at PAX East, they would send 20+ staff DMs for D&D, make a big Magic tourney area, and have demo tables for games like Lords of Waterdeep/Betrayal at House on the Hill. They stopped this ~3 years ago, at the same time they stopped doing Gen Con and a few other cons.
They are now just dipping their toe in the water. They came back to Origins and did some stuff at Game Hole Con, of all places.
MtG: Arena went into open beta today. It is basically digital M:tG, but with the same monetization model as Hearthstone. The thing is, as far as I know, all the cards in the game are also cardboard cards in actual M:tG. This means that none of the cards do things that are only possible in a digital card game, but impossible with actual cardboard. Game mechanics that are only possible in a digital game is the primary appeal of Hearthstone. I see no reason to play M:tG Arena.
Artifact seems like it’s going to be the best digital cards game, but again, it’s got an unacceptable monetization model.
Hearthstone is on the downswing a little bit.
To be fair, for someone like me, who wants the cultural connection of playing Magic but is a bit over paying for Cardboard, Arena is exactly what I wanted. I’m not too impressed by it’s heavy focus on Standard (the Dane Cook of Magic formats), Brawl, and Singleton, but it burns the hours the way Hearthstone used to.
I definitely think it fills this niche well. Players looking for that laid back experience like hearthstone can enjoy arena for what it is and those that are looking for more can find more. The game even convincing a few people that otherwise wouldn’t to stop by an LGS is a big deal and this will do it far better than Duels ever did.
Magic: The Gathering wanna be pros all around the world:
Some people in the community seem to think this is the deal of paper magic for some reason.
Death of Paper Magic Imminent is basically the story of the last 25 years of Magic.
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While that’s true, when I went home for Thanksgiving, I talked to a friend of mine who owns a great gaming store in Albany, NY called Zombie Planet. I should preface this by saying that I’ve never been into Magic, and I don’t remember exactly what my friend told me, but the general gist of it was that WotC had started selling exclusive sets online and were selling directly at prices that retail stores can’t match. He said that this is a downward spiral that many other gaming companies had become victims to, most notably Privateer Press and their Warmachine/Hordes games.
Gaming Company X starts selling the most anticipated and wanted Stuff directly, retailers can’t compete. Retailers start ordering less of Product X and gradually stop supporting it. Retailers stop supporting Product X, it becomes less visible, the community starts to die or at least go “underground.” There are less tournaments. Sales suffer. Company X doubles down on selling directly to make up for lost sales which only further exacerbates the problem. Company X eventually dies or becomes a shadow of its former self by undercutting the very retailers that kept it in business.
Magic seems to have started down this path, plus with the combination of Magic Online, is leading a lot of brick and mortar retailers to worry. Whether this is just WotC just experimenting or not, they’re not sure, but they’re nervous.
Yeah, the buy a box exclusives are… sub-optimal, and unfortunately rather popular.
That all depends on how much money digital Magic can bring in, and whether cardboard Magic declines as a result. As long as cardboard game still exists, they still need retailers, and won’t completely abandon them. If the digital game becomes so huge that people stop playing the cardboard game, then they absolutely will abandon or heavily decrease it at some point years down the line.
You misunderstand…
It’s not about Magic abandoning retailers, it’s retailers abandoning Magic as more and more of their customers just buy their cards online instead of at the store.
Why should a retailer host a Magic tournament and spend time and money promoting a game where the majority of his or her customers don’t buy the product from the store? Answer: They won’t.
Granted, it would probably be a gradual process, but it’s shocking how quickly Privateer Press died once retailers stopped carrying their products and hosting events because all their customers switched to buying everything online.
I feel like this is one of those cases of people assuming that they’re smarter than the people running the company that we always talk about.
Even if there’s some Magic set that is sold only online, there is still another set that is sold in stores. People are still going to buy that. Retailers are still going to sell it. Tournaments should still be profitable, especially sealed format.
If players still want to play Magic in person, and WotC still prints cards, stores will still be able to make money on it.