This is intended as a thoughtful commentary, not a bitter rant (which I have also enjoyed typing on occasion).  I’d be interested in everyone’s opinion.  I wonder if we can actually make a difference if other people feel the same way.

So I’m thinking that maybe we should all write/email Wizards to give them our opinions on the Pro Tour and the increase in card prices.  Am I the only one who thinks that part of every dollar that I spend on packs, entry fees, and singles should NOT be going to buy airline tickets for some guy from Japan, France, or Boston to attend Pro-Tours around the world for free and win thousands of dollars?  Do I want to contribute money so that Wizards can pay “Pro’s” to attend Pro-Tours and make it nearly impossible for us more casual players to win anything?  Not exactly.  I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that big tournaments would be more fun if you didn’t see the same names all the time and I KNOW I’m not alone in believing that $4.00 is a lot to spend for one pack of cards.  I’d rather see the price of packs go down in order to encourage people to get into the game, enable stores to sell more packs (and in theory make more profit), and permit me to acquire more of the cards I like so much.  It certainly seems like Wizards has this idea that we all want professional card players to idolize and that we aspire to quit our real jobs/school so that we can play more Magic.  I think that maybe if we disabuse them of this notion they may start to realize that a smarter approach would be to make the game more accessible to everyone by lowering prices and not having us all subsidize a bunch of bums’ Magic touring.

...I’m on the same boat with you, definately. I sent a VERY angry e-mail to WotC a couple of days ago, as soon as I heard the news. And i’ll probably be sending a couple more. I mean, seriously, do those players really need the $40,000 payouts that they get for winning/T8ing in PTs/Nats/Worlds/whatever? Most definately not… and ESPECIALLY not at the expense of everyone else paying $30 for Pithing Needles or $13 for Exalted Angels, where pros get all the cards they could ever want(foreign-ized, foiled, signed, whatever) for practically free… It’s fine if they want to have a Pro Tour and have large payouts, but why not just stop at $1000 or so? Do they really need much more than that? I don’t think so…

EDIT: On another note, I’ve been wanting to play on the PT for a looooong time… not because of the $10,000 I could make by somehow pulling out a miracle and winning the damn event, but because It’d be so much fun to play with the best players in the country… and for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT! Maybe I should stop getting 12th and 5th and 7th at all the damn qualifying events…

---

Current Decks:
UG Aggro
Mono-Green Turbo-Allosaurus!
Mono-Red BURN

RGD Draft: 25-7-2
RGD Sealed: ***Censored***

RagingAscetic - 24 August 2006 10:19 AM

...I’m on the same boat with you, definately. I sent a VERY angry e-mail to WotC a couple of days ago, as soon as I heard the news. And i’ll probably be sending a couple more. I mean, seriously, do those players really need the $40,000 payouts that they get for winning/T8ing in PTs/Nats/Worlds/whatever? Most definately not… and ESPECIALLY not at the expense of everyone else paying $30 for Pithing Needles or $13 for Exalted Angels, where pros get all the cards they could ever want(foreign-ized, foiled, signed, whatever) for practically free… It’s fine if they want to have a Pro Tour and have large payouts, but why not just stop at $1000 or so? Do they really need much more than that? I don’t think so…

EDIT: On another note, I’ve been wanting to play on the PT for a looooong time… not because of the $10,000 I could make by somehow pulling out a miracle and winning the damn event, but because It’d be so much fun to play with the best players in the country… and for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT! Maybe I should stop getting 12th and 5th and 7th at all the damn qualifying events…

Trust me. It is worth it. So much fun to see so many players from so many diffrent walks of life playing the same game. I think I played 6 diffrent people who did not know a word of english yet we never needed a judge. I prefer people who don’t speak english. And the pro lounge is sooooooooooo nice. Free food plus magic players is expensive.

But I never buy packs so it doesn’t bother me that much.

"Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They’re dead.” -Jaya Ballard, task mage

RagingAscetic -

and ESPECIALLY not at the expense of everyone else paying $30 for Pithing Needles or $13 for Exalted Angels

i dont know where you are paying $30 for pithing needles, but i suggest you shop around.. they are around $20 everywhere else in the world.

on a related note, WotC doesnt give a rats ass about singles pricing and the secondary market.. it makes them no money.

Providing Central and North Texas with monthly $300 CASH Tournaments.

End of Year Extravaganza! December 16th @ Czech Inn of West, Tx. $1000 CASH IN PRIZES! (and of course the coveted playmats)
Ron Spencer will also be there to sign your cards!

Christian - 24 August 2006 09:18 AM

Am I the only one who thinks that part of every dollar that I spend on packs, entry fees, and singles should NOT be going to buy airline tickets for some guy from Japan, France, or Boston to attend Pro-Tours around the world for free and win thousands of dollars?  Do I want to contribute money so that Wizards can pay “Pro’s” to attend Pro-Tours and make it nearly impossible for us more casual players to win anything?  Not exactly.  I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that big tournaments would be more fun if you didn’t see the same names all the time and I KNOW I’m not alone in believing that $4.00 is a lot to spend for one pack of cards.  I’d rather see the price of packs go down in order to encourage people to get into the game, enable stores to sell more packs (and in theory make more profit), and permit me to acquire more of the cards I like so much.  It certainly seems like Wizards has this idea that we all want professional card players to idolize and that we aspire to quit our real jobs/school so that we can play more Magic.  I think that maybe if we disabuse them of this notion they may start to realize that a smarter approach would be to make the game more accessible to everyone by lowering prices and not having us all subsidize a bunch of bums’ Magic touring.

how is it nearly impossible for casual players to win anything? you have access to all the PTQs that more serious tournament players do. You’re more than welcome to show up in OKC on Saturday and tear up the Rav sealed Coldsnap draft PTQ. That’s the same chance to win as everyone else there.
as for the more fun with different names thing, from what I’ve seen you tend to T8, T4, T2, or win FNM on a regular basis. I’m pretty sure you like being near the top of the standings, and you have made several comments about the “Top 20 Constructed Players in the DFW Area” Ratings aren’t good for anything but bragging rights if you have no aspirations to qualify for the pro tour.
The base of Magic players and the group of people that contribute the most revenue to wizards are the casual players, wizards knows this, they’ve mentioned it several times on the site.

Let’s say that instead of raising the price of packs to $4, they lowered it to $3.39. how many more packs do you think you’d buy? I wouldn’t buy any more packs per set at $3.39 than I will at $4. it’s such a small price hike, it’s really not even worth complaining about.

I like that they have a Pro Tour, and I like that they pay the top players a lot of money for winning. It gives me a goal that is actually worth going for. I know I’m not gonna win a pro tour, but I have plenty of opportunities to go to one, and that’s really all I want.

Kevin

“Wasn’t our plan just to get to 900 life and f***’em?”

Coldsnap Sealed: who cares
Coldsnap Draft: who cares

drawer - 24 August 2006 03:53 PM

how is it nearly impossible for casual players to win anything? you have access to all the PTQs that more serious tournament players do. You’re more than welcome to show up in OKC on Saturday and tear up the Rav sealed Coldsnap draft PTQ. That’s the same chance to win as everyone else there.
as for the more fun with different names thing, from what I’ve seen you tend to T8, T4, T2, or win FNM on a regular basis. I’m pretty sure you like being near the top of the standings, and you have made several comments about the “Top 20 Constructed Players in the DFW Area” Ratings aren’t good for anything but bragging rights if you have no aspirations to qualify for the pro tour.
The base of Magic players and the group of people that contribute the most revenue to wizards are the casual players, wizards knows this, they’ve mentioned it several times on the site.

Let’s say that instead of raising the price of packs to $4, they lowered it to $3.39. how many more packs do you think you’d buy? I wouldn’t buy any more packs per set at $3.39 than I will at $4. it’s such a small price hike, it’s really not even worth complaining about.

I like that they have a Pro Tour, and I like that they pay the top players a lot of money for winning. It gives me a goal that is actually worth going for. I know I’m not gonna win a pro tour, but I have plenty of opportunities to go to one, and that’s really all I want.

Kevin

Touché!  You have a good point that I have access to all of the resources that the “Pros” do, but honestly I don’t think my playskill is nearly sufficient to get me to a Pro Tour win past those people who play Magic A LOT.  I almost never play more than once in a week, and consider myself a fairly casual player. 

I mentioned that I was nearly Top 20 once as that was my personal Magic goal at the time and I was miffed about not being there due to a match reported incorrectly (By the way, Ambler--nice rating!), not because I have ever intended to qualify for anything on an 1850 rating.  I don’t even have the slightest idea what rating you need to qualify for byes.  Yes, I do alright at Madness, but I have never claimed (and strongly disagree) that it’s good for the game to have the same people there all the time.  I love to see new people make Top 8 and feel empowered--it helps them enjoy the game more, and that’s good for everyone.  How many of the littler guys have quit coming to play because they realized they’re just not going to make that cut?  That makes me sad for them.

I agree with you that $0.30 is not a lot of money on one pack, and that’s what Wizards is hoping everyone will say.  But how much lower could that price be if they quit paying for Osyp’s airline tickets?  That $0.30 (or 8% if you prefer) translates to about $11 on a box, and that does influence me a little bit. 

My contention was that people would prefer to save money on their cards and not have the PTQ regulars earn quite so much money for playing a game.  Forums would be nowhere near as interesting if everyone agreed with everyone else.  Playing against “Pro’s” holds absolutely no allure for me, but it looks like I may be in the minority on that one.  Delger, what would you think if flights were still subsidized, but prize payouts were smaller ($100 or $1000 like Ambler suggest)?  Just trying to get a feel for what the general consensus is.

I wouldn’t waste my weekend flying to a foreign country to play Magic for a chance at $1000. if they gave plane tickets and docked the payout people would basically take a free vacation. (fly to the country, sightsee, and leave) the Pro Tour would die.

$100 for winning a pro tour stop would be insulting by any standards.

they docked the payout at Nationals and I’m pretty sure that kept a lot of people from making the trip.

There are cash tournaments locally that pay $140 to first place and the attendance is still not great, there were 16 people at the last one at Shotokon. The next one is at CBC on Sunday if anyone’s interested. Format is Standard with Coldsnap, entry is $25, payout is $140, $80, $40, and 9 packs each to 5-8.

as for the little guys, their success has nothing to do with the existence of a pro tour or the price of packs(well, availability of cards is a factor, but...) the reason they don’t do well in their early FNMs is because of players like you and me, regulars who have been playing a lot longer, although I get beat by little kids all the time. I don’t understand how you think any of this would give new players a better chance of winning.

My stance on all of this is, Magic is not my game, I have no influence on the direction it goes, and I don’t want influence. I enjoy the game, I enjoy the opportunities is gives me, and they day the game turns into something I don’t want to be involved in, I’ll quit. If the game has turned into something you don’t want to be involved in, quit. If you just want to play casual with friends, do that, if you just want to go to FNMs and not shoot for anything more, you’re more than welcome to, but if you want to change the game, and the way Wizards presents and supports the game in a way that is going to hinder other people’s enjoyment of it, I think that’s where you cross a line. It’s not your game to change, it’s a product, you buy it or you don’t. You participate in the pro tour or you don’t. Some people need the pro tour in order to stay interested in the game, just like casual players need stupid cards that suck in real tournaments to stay in the game, just like collectors need cards in new languages and misprints and premium cards to stay interested in the product.

I think Wizards knows what they’re doing, and I think they do a pretty good job of pleasing an incredibly broad base of players regularly.

Kevin

“Wasn’t our plan just to get to 900 life and f***’em?”

Coldsnap Sealed: who cares
Coldsnap Draft: who cares

Dilligaf - 24 August 2006 02:11 PM

RagingAscetic -

and ESPECIALLY not at the expense of everyone else paying $30 for Pithing Needles or $13 for Exalted Angels

i dont know where you are paying $30 for pithing needles, but i suggest you shop around.. they are around $20 everywhere else in the world.

on a related note, WotC doesnt give a rats ass about singles pricing and the secondary market.. it makes them no money.

I love how you always ruin the point of my posts by pointing out slight imperfections… YES, needles did cost no less than $30 when they were sought after, and YES Exalted Angels have been at least $13 for the past few years, but that wasn’t my point. My point was how directly related singles prices are to the price of a pack.

If Johnny Q wants to open “Rare X” in his Time Spiral booster box, he is going to have to spend ~$11 more for that box. So, in turn that means for the EXACT SAME amount of cards he would get in a box of Ravnica, he will have to spend more on this new booster box… which also means that every card in the box is worth more than it would have been if the box costed less. Ahem… the greater the price of the pack, the higher the prices of singles in the secondary market…

WotC does care what the secondary market looks like, because without a good singles market, then packs, boxes, and cases would not sell NEARLY AS WELL… and I know they care about those sales… because that is the sole reason distributors buy their product. Although it seems the opposite, after the release of Coldsnap… doesn’t look like they care at all. :/

Erm, well I may be wrong about that, but I do believe it is their goal to make money, right? ......

---

Current Decks:
UG Aggro
Mono-Green Turbo-Allosaurus!
Mono-Red BURN

RGD Draft: 25-7-2
RGD Sealed: ***Censored***

No, they don’t care because they make no money after the second market. They make money off the main market which they will make more as they increase the price hence the reason for increasing the price.

So there you go.

So don’t buy boosters. Buy singles. Or win them. Or do favors for them… If only I could get my wife to play this game. The addiction would grab whole and…

"Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They’re dead.” -Jaya Ballard, task mage

RagingAscetic - 24 August 2006 10:34 PM

Dilligaf - 24 August 2006 02:11 PM

RagingAscetic -

and ESPECIALLY not at the expense of everyone else paying $30 for Pithing Needles or $13 for Exalted Angels

i dont know where you are paying $30 for pithing needles, but i suggest you shop around.. they are around $20 everywhere else in the world.

on a related note, WotC doesnt give a rats ass about singles pricing and the secondary market.. it makes them no money.

I love how you always ruin the point of my posts by pointing out slight imperfections…

Do I?  hrmm.. didnt know i was singling you out.

My point was how directly related singles prices are to the price of a pack.

ok.. still wrong.

singles prices have no bearing on pack prices and vice-versa.. the only thing that drives singles prices is playability & rarity.  playability and rarity then drive supply/demand, which set prices depending on regional metagame.

If Johnny Q wants to open “Rare X” in his Time Spiral booster box, he is going to have to spend ~$11 more for that box.

sound logic.. except that there are less rares in TS, so while his pack price is higher, his odds of pulling a specific rare are also increased.

Ahem… the greater the price of the pack, the higher the prices of singles in the secondary market...

repeat it again.. its still wrong.

WotC does care what the secondary market looks like

no they dont.

because without a good singles market, then packs, boxes, and cases would not sell NEARLY AS WELL...

sure they would.. look at ColdSnap.  Singles SUCK, and yet.. there is an alleged product shortage.  hrmm…

because that is the sole reason distributors buy their product.

no, distributors buy thier product because contracts force them too.. and because retailers need it to sell to people like yourself.

Erm, well I may be wrong about that, but I do believe it is their goal to make money, right? ......

indeed you are.

I love how you always ruin the point of my posts by pointing out slight imperfections…

Ok, this time I actually did single you out and tear apart your post.. but only because it was almost entirely incorrect.. had anyone else posted the same diatribe, i would have done the same.

Providing Central and North Texas with monthly $300 CASH Tournaments.

End of Year Extravaganza! December 16th @ Czech Inn of West, Tx. $1000 CASH IN PRIZES! (and of course the coveted playmats)
Ron Spencer will also be there to sign your cards!

Thank you, kind sir… I guess I should talk to the right people next time before I post “diatribe” like that… I appreciate you “tearing me apart.”

---

Current Decks:
UG Aggro
Mono-Green Turbo-Allosaurus!
Mono-Red BURN

RGD Draft: 25-7-2
RGD Sealed: ***Censored***

Dilligaf - 25 August 2006 02:04 AM

singles prices have no bearing on pack prices and vice-versa.. the only thing that drives singles prices is playability & rarity.  playability and rarity then drive supply/demand, which set prices depending on regional metagame.

Not so, good sir.  You’ll always have high marks in my book for telling off Captain Playmat, but the primary and secondary markets actually are positively correlated.  If you can buy a pack of cards for $2 with the intent of selling it as singles, you can recoup your investment by charging less per card than you would have to charge for those same cards if you invested $6 in that same pack.  Additionally, as price goes up you slide to the right on a demand curve, decreasing purchases, and meaning that less packs (and singles) are in circulation, which will influence your supply and demand.  A lot of the purchase decline can be overcome by increasing playability, but you’re still left with people needing to recoup more money from their purchase of that booster box. 

Wizards may not make any money directly off of the secondary market, but it does impact them when people start buying extra boxes in hopes of opening a $15 rare.

EDIT:  Why are so few people using these forums now?  What happened to Hoffmann, Blake, Rich, Mark, and everyone else?

I think the fact that dual lands are rare is excellent supporting evidence that WOTC really does care about the secondary market, even though they don’t make money off of it directly.  In a block with ten cards that hit the $15-$20 range before the sets were even released, they gave the players guaranteed chase rares to make them want to crack more packs.  I don’t think this would happen if the duals had been uncommon, at least not to the degree that it does when they are rare.  Consequently, WOTC knowing that good mulitcolor lands go for at least $10 yet still printing as few as possible seems to indicate that they know demand for the lands on the secondary market will encourage more purchasing on the primary market.

The flipside to this argument is that Ravnica block is awesome.  I don’t think anyone can deny that WOTC brought us a superior product, so it helps when you want to crack a dual and “all” you get is a lousy Simic Sky Swallower.

One last thing:  While the idea of pack pricing driving up the singles market makes sense to me, I’d like to see evidence one way or the other.  Simply refuting someone else doesn’t make your point correct unless someone tells me why.

I like the idea of a Pro Tour, both for Delger’s reason of having a high-end goal and for something to legitimize the game to those who are less familiar with it.  When the chance exists to make a ton of money, some people are more willing to acknowledge Magic as a hobby.