WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Faolyn]

Wow. I was mostly joking/oversimplifying in that post. It's crazy to see that this is actually what you want. That's absolutely anathema to me. I don't want to buy the same book over and over again. That's a waste of money to me, even if they're several years/even decades between release.

And as a newby game designer, I would hate having to do that.

Exactly. I only bought Ravenloft because it was new lore.

 

[Scribe]

Have nothing to do with D&D - that's all from the Magic side of the house that didn't learn the D&D lesson of not saturating their market with product.

Culminating in a product that will devalue the entire ecosystem.

If new leadership is needed anywhere, that's where I would look.

 

[Zardnaar]

It looks like current glory to me. Being in the top 5 of all books previously might be faded, but #17 now is current.



Asserting that without some sort of data to support it is not persuasive. If you can do a real apples to apples comparison of numbers, we can look at it. Otherwise, this is not distinguishible from an "I don't personally like it" argument.



Online chatter is not a representative sample of opinion, and you know it.



Have nothing to do with D&D - that's all from the Magic side of the house that didn't learn the D&D lesson of not saturating their market with product.

One of the other posters has a thread with current ranking for new product.

What I meant with faded glory the phb was designed at a different time with different goals. It's a quality product it's there new stuff that's the issue.

And we both know online chatter can hit critical mass. People take positive stuff as gospel and other online issues.

 

[MoonSong]

I haven't paid attention to M:tG for years but this is the third or fourth time I've seen reference to it having problems of late.

Can someone fill me in as to what's going on? Readers' Digest version will do.

It seems this got lost or ignored in the shuffle.

The short answer, it's a disaster. A longer tale, it is a perfect storm of PR disaster, simultaneous pissing of of audiences with mutually contradicting goals, too much product, dead game formats, quality issues and WotC not managing a single week without making yet another colossal mistake.

At the heart of the issue is what I call the Trek/Lego effect. A long period of insufficient supply to meet expanding demand followed by another long period of too much supply for a contracting demand. During the early stages of the pandemic, there were shortages of a lot of product, including the well liked Time Spiral and Jumpstart. Now there is so much product of so many lines that stores are plainly not ordering more than what they are strictly contractually obligated to buy. At the same time, there is lots and lots of delays of product, particularly of the print on demand stuff that is sold direct to consumer.

Then there is a part of the audience for whom the game is too expensive and another which thinks it isn't expensive enough. The avalanche of product somehow manages to make both unhappy.

Also, they took the aforementioned Jumpstart and slapped the name on random product that had none of the quality of it. Last week the last Jumpstart released to nobody's hype. And in two weeks they will release yet another one...

On dead formats, Legacy and Vintage are dead because the cards are too expensive. Modern is getting there thanks to newly invented direct-to-modern sets that include cards powercreeping existing stuff at super high rarities (like the infamous Ragavan which quickly rose to staple status as a mythic card). Standard is so dead it isn't even funny. The loss of sanctioned tournaments, the increase in the amount and frequency of standard products, the needless segmentation of packs, and the insertion of meant for commander and meant for modern cards mean playing standard is a fools-errand.

And on the other hand, the last month has been a PR disaster after another. Wizards sold remote tickets to their anniversary convention which included access to conferences by MaRo and Richard Garfield, just to not give enough time to buyers to preregister for these. Then in the actual convention they did such a poor job organizing it that people found themselves registered on overlapping events (and each event costed money) Then they restricted table space to only people who paid for the privilege. Then at the end they opened play for everybody pissing of those who paid.

They prepared an advent calendar to celebrate the anniversary, but instead of the usual direct-to consumer which is print to demand and buyers can choose to have as foil or non-foil, they opted for a limited run in which the foil or not foil is completely random. Since they didn't bother to inform the public of this, it sold out in minutes. It seems buyers are preparing a class action lawsuit about the whole fiasco.

And speaking of direct-to-consumer, the secret lair products they have been selling take ages to arrive, and when they arrive the cards come damaged, or missing, or misprinted.
But the thing that takes the cake is their 30th anniversary set. Which is everything wrong in spades. The product is not for sale yet, but some of it is in the wild already -attendants to the convention received some packs. It is going to cost $999 for a box with four packs. $999 for sixty random cards. And all of these cards are proxies since they aren't tournament legal and have a different backing. Due to the cost of the packs, we are talking $16 dollar proxies of cards that on average cost pennies. But because some of the cards in the set are reprints of reserve list cards, that somehow justifies the high cost, and people who invested their life savings on reserve list cards aren't happy. Many people have been selling out their collections in response.

Since this product is so toxic for the fan base, Wizards hasn't given product to the usual reviewers, but instead has reached out to celebrities who can easily afford it. (This has made them come of as tone deaf) And they experimented with giving packs to a youtube yugioh reviewer who was blindsided by them, they didn't tell him these were $250 packs and he got a lot of hate online. The review was removed within 24 hours and the yugituber posted a video apologizing for it.

They have also gone hard sending C&Ds to prominent proxy and custom artists, as well as the most popular site for creating your own proxies and custom cards. (The guy running the site is basically a kid that hasn't even finished college)

The whole controversy even reached Bank of America that sent a memo downgrading their appraisal of Hasbro stock. It basically summed up as "They are running the value of their brand into the ground, and they are pushing too much product". So far the only response WotC has given to the whole debacle is basically a "we are keeping course, if you don't want it, don't buy it".

There is also a lot of non-troversy over they discontinuing cards with scantly clad women, the inclusion of mechanically unique Transfomer-themed cards in a standard set, and many other stuff, but from my perspective that is a bunch of dudebros further disturbing the waters for personal gain.

But yeah, the last month has been bad for WotC on the Magic front.

 

[Zardnaar]

It seems this got lost or ignored in the shuffle.

The short answer, it's a disaster. A longer tale, it is a perfect storm of PR disaster, simultaneous pissing of of audiences with mutually contradicting goals, too much product, dead game formats, quality issues and WotC not managing a single week without making yet another colossal mistake.

At the heart of the issue is what I call the Trek/Lego effect. A long period of insufficient supply to meet expanding demand followed by another long period of too much supply for a contracting demand. During the early stages of the pandemic, there were shortages of a lot of product, including the well liked Time Spiral and Jumpstart. Now there is so much product of so many lines that stores are plainly not ordering more than what they are strictly contractually obligated to buy. At the same time, there is lots and lots of delays of product, particularly of the print on demand stuff that is sold direct to consumer.

Then there is a part of the audience for whom the game is too expensive and another which thinks it isn't expensive enough. The avalanche of product somehow manages to make both unhappy.

Also, they took the aforementioned Jumpstart and slapped the name on random product that had none of the quality of it. Last week the last Jumpstart released to nobody's hype. And in two weeks they will release yet another one...

On dead formats, Legacy and Vintage are dead because the cards are too expensive. Modern is getting there thanks to newly invented direct-to-modern sets that include cards powercreeping existing stuff at super high rarities (like the infamous Ragavan which quickly rose to staple status as a mythic card). Standard is so dead it isn't even funny. The loss of sanctioned tournaments, the increase in the amount and frequency of standard products, the needless segmentation of packs, and the insertion of meant for commander and meant for modern cards mean playing standard is a fools-errand.

And on the other hand, the last month has been a PR disaster after another. Wizards sold remote tickets to their anniversary convention which included access to conferences by MaRo and Richard Garfield, just to not give enough time to buyers to preregister for these. Then in the actual convention they did such a poor job organizing it that people found themselves registered on overlapping events (and each event costed money) Then they restricted table space to only people who paid for the privilege. Then at the end they opened play for everybody pissing of those who paid.

They prepared an advent calendar to celebrate the anniversary, but instead of the usual direct-to consumer which is print to demand and buyers can choose to have as foil or non-foil, they opted for a limited run in which the foil or not foil is completely random. Since they didn't bother to inform the public of this, it sold out in minutes. It seems buyers are preparing a class action lawsuit about the whole fiasco.

And speaking of direct-to-consumer, the secret lair products they have been selling take ages to arrive, and when they arrive the cards come damaged, or missing, or misprinted.
But the thing that takes the cake is their 30th anniversary set. Which is everything wrong in spades. The product is not for sale yet, but some of it is in the wild already -attendants to the convention received some packs. It is going to cost $999 for a box with four packs. $999 for sixty random cards. And all of these cards are proxies since they aren't tournament legal and have a different backing. Due to the cost of the packs, we are talking $16 dollar proxies of cards that on average cost pennies. But because some of the cards in the set are reprints of reserve list cards, that somehow justifies the high cost, and people who invested their life savings on reserve list cards aren't happy. Many people have been selling out their collections in response.

Since this product is so toxic for the fan base, Wizards hasn't given product to the usual reviewers, but instead has reached out to celebrities who can easily afford it. (This has made them come of as tone deaf) And they experimented with giving packs to a youtube yugioh reviewer who was blindsided by them, they didn't tell him these were $250 packs and he got a lot of hate online. The review was removed within 24 hours and the yugituber posted a video apologizing for it.

They have also gone hard sending C&Ds to prominent proxy and custom artists, as well as the most popular site for creating your own proxies and custom cards. (The guy running the site is basically a kid that hasn't even finished college)

The whole controversy even reached Bank of America that sent a memo downgrading their appraisal of Hasbro stock. It basically summed up as "They are running the value of their brand into the ground, and they are pushing too much product". So far the only response WotC has given to the whole debacle is basically a "we are keeping course, if you don't want it, don't buy it".

There is also a lot of non-troversy over they discontinuing cards with scantly clad women, the inclusion of mechanically unique Transfomer-themed cards in a standard set, and many other stuff, but from my perspective that is a bunch of dudebros further disturbing the waters for personal gain.

But yeah, the last month has been bad for WotC on the Magic front.

You missed killing the pro tour.

I bailed when Jace the Mindsculptor was a thing and standard decks were hitting $1000. Ragavan sounds like 2.0 of that.

Local flgs isn't buying Jumpstart and fnm is EDH and there's a modern event.

All the formats from when I played are dead +(vintage, legacy, standard, extended).

If I ever played again sealed, draft maybe pauper. Quit 2011 iirc think the local players are doing proxy allowed edh.

 

[MoonSong]

If I ever played again sealed, draft maybe pauper. Quit 2011 iirc think the local players are doing proxy allowed edh.

Do cubes, cubing is the way. I'm a fan of pioneer too. Locally there is an edh group in the lgs. I just don't have a lot of opportunity to go.

 

[Mecheon]

Also on the Secret Lair side of things is just the comedy pricing for shipping if you're outside of America

My pal does a good MTG series and brought this up in a recent video

 

[Zardnaar]

Also on the Secret Lair side of things is just the comedy pricing for shipping if you're outside of America

My pal does a good MTG series and brought this up in a recent video

That's where they're selling tourniment staples direct to market?

Not sure if you can get them here.

 

[Mecheon]

That's where they're selling tourniment staples duirect to market?

Not sure if you can get them here.

Nah, its what started as the special artwork ones but is now the crossover stuff

The prices are.... A bit much outside of America, if you're somewhere that can even order 'em.

 

[MoonSong]

Also on the Secret Lair side of things is just the comedy pricing for shipping if you're outside of America

My pal does a good MTG series and brought this up in a recent video

I live one country over and it is a nightmare to get stuff sent to me. That is with a free trade deal between our countries. I can't imagine anybody being into this stuff under harsher shipping conditions. If it wasn't for my lgs and Amazon I wouldn't be able to get anything.

That's where they're selling tourniment staples duirect to market?

Not sure if you can get them here.

You could probably get some of them. At a premium... Seriously I'm in "this game should be cheaper" camp.