Magic Pricing Again: Exclusive Pay to Win
Sep. 30th, 2020 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitWizards of the Coast did a THING again. Once again to do with prices, and the community is united in outrage but it's still going to sell.
The product is a new Secret Lair (remember Secret Lairs are individual or small groups of cards available for a limited time directly from Wizards): a Walking Dead crossover. Which seems kinda weird on the face of it, because Walking Dead's cultural moment has passed and while it's still popular it's not OVERTAKING SOCIETY anymore. I wonder if this is product placement or licensing-- did Wizards get paid to do this branding or are they paying to do this branding.
Now, the "another company's IP" part of this is annoying but not *inherently* problematic-- no one cared that much about the Godzilla alternate art skins they did for Ikoria. The problem here is that these cards are mechanically unique one-offs, not reskins of existing cards, and they are black-border.
I will pause for a moment here to explain the difference between black and silver borders. In the beginning, there was the black border, which meant it was a card from what was then called an "expert" set-- one that was all originals. Then there was the white border, used for Core Sets and other sets that were just reprints. They then retired the white border and just printed everything in black-border, which is now slang for "tournament legal" even though developments in card printing led to special edition borderless cards which were also tournament legal. Much later, there came the silver border, which was used for what are called the "Un-sets": joke Magic sets which do ridiculous things and are sometimes used by R&D to experiment with more out-there mechanics they might want to bring to black border someday. Silver-bordered cards are not tournament legal, in any format; they are for casual play at home only.
Promotional cards are also sometimes done in silver border. There was a My Little Pony charity collaboration that was very cute and well-liked. Silver-border cards can be silly and tailored to the crossover IP in a way black-border cards can't. The Godzilla collaboration was black-border, but they were just reskins of cards that were also in the accompanying (monster-themed) set, and they came with notations about how the Godzilla cards were, for the purposes of deck construction rules, considered the same card as the equivalent Magic card. (For Constructed play, you can only have four of any named card that isn't a basic land.)
The problem here is that these cards are *both* original, non-reskinned cards, *and* in black border. There's no way to get them in a set; there's no other way to get them except for this two-week period where they're on sale. They won't be printed until after the ordering period is done, which means there's no way of knowing of one of them is going to become a tournament staple until it's too late to get more-- which means your choice is "buy now" or "wait until it becomes horrifically expensive later but you need four copies of it to be competitive."
(There are also countries where you can't get them at *all*; Secret Lair is not available worldwide.)
They've done things like this before, and they've been massively problematic. Not two weeks before this announcement, Wizards announced that they were no longer going to include mechanically unique cards as the buy-a-box promotional cards because of negative player feedback-- they'd caused problems by completely taking over entire tournament scenes to the point where no one wanted to play, and meanwhile gotten so expensive that even if you wanted to be competitive you couldn't actually get your hands on a copy.
But those were at least still attached to *sets*. Back in the early days of Magic, there were the cards Nalanthi Dragon and Mana Crypt. Mana Crypt was a promotion for the Magic novels; you sent away a coupon in the book for the free card. It turned into one of the most sought-after and powerful cards, was hideously expensive, and took them a decade to reprint. By comparison, Nalanthi Dragon wasn't that exciting. It was a DragonCon promo card. It wasn't very good. But people were outraged because it was a collectible that only a certain subset of people had the opportunity to buy. People were so outraged, in fact, that Wizards included it as a "send away for" in Duellist magazine so people could get it even if they hadn't been at DragonCon, and swore to the community that NEVER AGAIN would they print new cards outside of a set.
This promise was sort of *bent* with the box topper-- which, again, *still* caused the same problems, and they announced they'd learned their lesson. Clearly this was an outright lie, because here they are again doing the thing they've long promised never do again, that has always, universally caused major problems.
In fact, the *only* promise to their players they seem bent on keeping is the Reserve List, and *that* one is one everybody would be much happier to see gone. But they insist they can't do that because they made a promise to their players. Not only that, but they're functionally printing these new cards directly to the Reserve List: it uses someone else's IP; it's almost certainly a one-time deal that they can't reprint no matter how essential or expensive it gets. They insist that they can reprint mechanically identical "Magic versions" of these cards-- but unless you change the rules, then you have the same card with two names and it becomes something you can have eight of in your deck. They also, while repeatedly insisting they *can* reprint this if necessary, refuse to commit to actually doing so. (And, historically, have refused to reprint things no matter how necessary they were; it took 11 years to reprint Mana Crypt.)
And that's just the main and major issue with this! There's also the issue of bypassing local game stores which rely on selling Magic for revenue-- and since the way people become enfranchised players is often the community at their local game store, this is being taken as another sign that Magic wants to cash out on their way to ending the physical cards altogether and just having Arena.
There's also some thematic issues, which are more subjective: Walking Dead is *very* not-child-appropriate yet here it is being introduced into a game in part aimed at children. We are putting a character who is known for being a rapist on a Magic card (though I do agree with the people who are suggesting *that* outrage is more performative than anything, since most of the people shouting about it have nothing to say about the horrendous amount of *actual* rape and sexual assault and driving out of women common in the broader Magic community). Wizards insists that we are never going to get a world any more steampunk than Kaladesh and never ever have anything gun-based or technology based because this is a FANTASY game, not a science fiction one... and yet is introducing a heavily gun-based franchise as a main card rather than alternate art. I'm not going to get into a lot of detail about those because, well, this is already really long.
I'll just note that one of the next sets is stated to be a magic school called Strixhaven that seems very Harry Potter, and given this new penchant for tie-ins there's probably a Harry Potter one already in the works that they're going to try to sell on the grounds they couldn't get out of it when Rowling went on her rant, and it is going to once again explode in their faces.
I still like playing the game, but I'm getting less and less interested in anything other than the cards-- I'm not following the competitive scene, I'm not really making an effort to be part of the community, I'm barely reading the story even though it's online now, I'm reluctant to open the Wizards announcements because they're always awful. And I don't think I'm the only one; I've been noticing a lot of the major podcasters get steadily disheartened and less and less enthusiastic about what they're doing.
The product is a new Secret Lair (remember Secret Lairs are individual or small groups of cards available for a limited time directly from Wizards): a Walking Dead crossover. Which seems kinda weird on the face of it, because Walking Dead's cultural moment has passed and while it's still popular it's not OVERTAKING SOCIETY anymore. I wonder if this is product placement or licensing-- did Wizards get paid to do this branding or are they paying to do this branding.
Now, the "another company's IP" part of this is annoying but not *inherently* problematic-- no one cared that much about the Godzilla alternate art skins they did for Ikoria. The problem here is that these cards are mechanically unique one-offs, not reskins of existing cards, and they are black-border.
I will pause for a moment here to explain the difference between black and silver borders. In the beginning, there was the black border, which meant it was a card from what was then called an "expert" set-- one that was all originals. Then there was the white border, used for Core Sets and other sets that were just reprints. They then retired the white border and just printed everything in black-border, which is now slang for "tournament legal" even though developments in card printing led to special edition borderless cards which were also tournament legal. Much later, there came the silver border, which was used for what are called the "Un-sets": joke Magic sets which do ridiculous things and are sometimes used by R&D to experiment with more out-there mechanics they might want to bring to black border someday. Silver-bordered cards are not tournament legal, in any format; they are for casual play at home only.
Promotional cards are also sometimes done in silver border. There was a My Little Pony charity collaboration that was very cute and well-liked. Silver-border cards can be silly and tailored to the crossover IP in a way black-border cards can't. The Godzilla collaboration was black-border, but they were just reskins of cards that were also in the accompanying (monster-themed) set, and they came with notations about how the Godzilla cards were, for the purposes of deck construction rules, considered the same card as the equivalent Magic card. (For Constructed play, you can only have four of any named card that isn't a basic land.)
The problem here is that these cards are *both* original, non-reskinned cards, *and* in black border. There's no way to get them in a set; there's no other way to get them except for this two-week period where they're on sale. They won't be printed until after the ordering period is done, which means there's no way of knowing of one of them is going to become a tournament staple until it's too late to get more-- which means your choice is "buy now" or "wait until it becomes horrifically expensive later but you need four copies of it to be competitive."
(There are also countries where you can't get them at *all*; Secret Lair is not available worldwide.)
They've done things like this before, and they've been massively problematic. Not two weeks before this announcement, Wizards announced that they were no longer going to include mechanically unique cards as the buy-a-box promotional cards because of negative player feedback-- they'd caused problems by completely taking over entire tournament scenes to the point where no one wanted to play, and meanwhile gotten so expensive that even if you wanted to be competitive you couldn't actually get your hands on a copy.
But those were at least still attached to *sets*. Back in the early days of Magic, there were the cards Nalanthi Dragon and Mana Crypt. Mana Crypt was a promotion for the Magic novels; you sent away a coupon in the book for the free card. It turned into one of the most sought-after and powerful cards, was hideously expensive, and took them a decade to reprint. By comparison, Nalanthi Dragon wasn't that exciting. It was a DragonCon promo card. It wasn't very good. But people were outraged because it was a collectible that only a certain subset of people had the opportunity to buy. People were so outraged, in fact, that Wizards included it as a "send away for" in Duellist magazine so people could get it even if they hadn't been at DragonCon, and swore to the community that NEVER AGAIN would they print new cards outside of a set.
This promise was sort of *bent* with the box topper-- which, again, *still* caused the same problems, and they announced they'd learned their lesson. Clearly this was an outright lie, because here they are again doing the thing they've long promised never do again, that has always, universally caused major problems.
In fact, the *only* promise to their players they seem bent on keeping is the Reserve List, and *that* one is one everybody would be much happier to see gone. But they insist they can't do that because they made a promise to their players. Not only that, but they're functionally printing these new cards directly to the Reserve List: it uses someone else's IP; it's almost certainly a one-time deal that they can't reprint no matter how essential or expensive it gets. They insist that they can reprint mechanically identical "Magic versions" of these cards-- but unless you change the rules, then you have the same card with two names and it becomes something you can have eight of in your deck. They also, while repeatedly insisting they *can* reprint this if necessary, refuse to commit to actually doing so. (And, historically, have refused to reprint things no matter how necessary they were; it took 11 years to reprint Mana Crypt.)
And that's just the main and major issue with this! There's also the issue of bypassing local game stores which rely on selling Magic for revenue-- and since the way people become enfranchised players is often the community at their local game store, this is being taken as another sign that Magic wants to cash out on their way to ending the physical cards altogether and just having Arena.
There's also some thematic issues, which are more subjective: Walking Dead is *very* not-child-appropriate yet here it is being introduced into a game in part aimed at children. We are putting a character who is known for being a rapist on a Magic card (though I do agree with the people who are suggesting *that* outrage is more performative than anything, since most of the people shouting about it have nothing to say about the horrendous amount of *actual* rape and sexual assault and driving out of women common in the broader Magic community). Wizards insists that we are never going to get a world any more steampunk than Kaladesh and never ever have anything gun-based or technology based because this is a FANTASY game, not a science fiction one... and yet is introducing a heavily gun-based franchise as a main card rather than alternate art. I'm not going to get into a lot of detail about those because, well, this is already really long.
I'll just note that one of the next sets is stated to be a magic school called Strixhaven that seems very Harry Potter, and given this new penchant for tie-ins there's probably a Harry Potter one already in the works that they're going to try to sell on the grounds they couldn't get out of it when Rowling went on her rant, and it is going to once again explode in their faces.
I still like playing the game, but I'm getting less and less interested in anything other than the cards-- I'm not following the competitive scene, I'm not really making an effort to be part of the community, I'm barely reading the story even though it's online now, I'm reluctant to open the Wizards announcements because they're always awful. And I don't think I'm the only one; I've been noticing a lot of the major podcasters get steadily disheartened and less and less enthusiastic about what they're doing.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-01 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-02 06:12 am (UTC)