A Booster Product for the Poors
General forum
Posted on July 11, 2024, 7:20 p.m. by Gidgetimer
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/what-is-a-bloomburrow-value-booster
Really WotC? Really? I'm a very heavily entrenched player, but you are making me want to stop playing.
wallisface says... #3
From what i’ve heard this is a type of pack that is only being sold in a very few select stores because there is supposedly specific demand for them (it may be the target market is little kids). In any case most of us won’t even see them.
There is no ”separate list of cards that are in those packs”. They’re almost never going to have any value (because commons/uncommons typically aren’t worth anything, and the odds of pulling a rare are presumably abysmal). I see this as a pack some parent buys for their kid to shut-them-up for a minute.
I’ll never be buying this, but i never buy any kind of pack anyway (buying singles is preferable than spinning the gambling-wheel).
If it’s not a product for you just ignore it - it’s doing nothing to hurt you or the game, so complaints feel unwarranted here (given everything else Wotc do, this is a weird hill to die on).
July 11, 2024 8:51 p.m.
I think I erped up a little something when I read "coolest cards" in that collector pack description in the 1st paragraph. Cringy.
July 11, 2024 9:24 p.m.
I think this is a box store/pharmacy checkout lane sort of product, not a dedicated game store product. It's for impulse buys, cheap gifts, and starting collections, stocked next to the candy bars and trashy celebrity tabloids. I probably won't be buying any, but if someone has a little extra cash and wants to take a chance, I wouldn't hold it against them.
And with some deep and focused research, there's this.
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/755580309373943808/people-arent-understanding-what-a-value-booster
July 11, 2024 10:02 p.m.
I was pretty annoyed until I realized imo it seems like they are most likely for kids and younger players who like to open packs and build collections but do not need collectors booster nonsense
July 11, 2024 10:03 p.m. Edited.
TheOfficialCreator says... #7
More diversity in product is always good. I'm glad the option exists for those who want them.
...That being said, I'm a shiny sucker, so I prefer my rares and mythics thank you very much.
July 11, 2024 10:13 p.m.
wallisface I pretty much only buy singles now too.. I have been only getting my little cost-controlled assets for so long that I didn't realize how out-of-hand pack prices had gotten. My goodness, I am out of touch :) It makes me a little sad to realize my playgroup will probably never expand at this price point... I can't think of any reason someone new would want to start such an expensive hobby, especially when my playgroup have plenty of other fun times to be had spending much less.
July 11, 2024 10:58 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #9
wallisface It isn't so much this specific product as it is the pattern of them introducing a product and then discontinuing it just to release a new different product. In the last 5 years we have gone from a single booster product to this being the seventh booster product with three of them being discontinued already. They are just churning through different ways to sell people the least value of cards for the highest price while dismissing any criticism with the exact phrase you used "If it’s not a product for you just ignore it".
Apparently no product is for me, so maybe I should just ignore the game. When building decks I of course buy singles. When I first got into magic 11 years ago there were far fewer releases each year, and somehow despite me having much more limited finances there were more products that were "for me" and I would spend a little bit on engaging with stuff like Conspiracy or the C13 decks. Now it feels like it is just a race to get as much product out the door in as many different ways as possible and to force non-rotating formats to "rotate" so that someone has to buy the product. Even if it isn't you or me buying sealed product, someone has to or else the secondary market prices on cards are going to be such that it becomes more economical to crack packs for the singles than buying on the secondary.
And a product aimed specifically at big box stores to get people to impulse buy has a whole host of other problems.
July 12, 2024 12:13 a.m.
Gidgetimer WotC, and M:tG in particular, seems to be in a highly experimental phase right now. I'm sure orders to make more money faster come down from on high somewhere, but that's the nature of capitalism. They want to expand their market and attract new customers. Every corporation does it, and I would suggest WorC is more ethical and transparent about it than many others. (Not to say there's not a lot of reasons to be mad at WotC/Hasbro's business practices, but they seem to be in the habit of at least weakly admitting their profit-induced missteps, not deflecting or blatantly lying like certain other companies.)
But economic discussion aside, they're trying a lot of new things, keeping what works and getting rid of what doesn't. I got into M:tG with Time Spiral and Alara (kind of skipping Lorwyn), and there's lots of stuff I prefer about those days, not least of which is the much more reasonable number of product lines. But the changes they've made have been successful from the standpoint of creating a popular luxury product and keeping it reasonably affordable. Even a booster box is a lot cheaper than what you need for a lot of other hobbies.
July 12, 2024 1:20 a.m.
wallisface says... #11
Gidgetimer in reply to your comment, i'll just echo everything that legendofa has already responded with above, in a way much more eloquently than I could have done.
I think people keep forgetting that Wotc is a company. It's super normal for companies to keep trying new things and see what works. Oftentimes companies that don't maintain fresh-innovation, fail.
July 12, 2024 1:35 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #12
I think Gidgetimer is right to point out that people spontaneously buying these packs might be in for a terrible surprise if they build a deck with them and show up at any sort of organized play. Having said that, this might be a good way to sort through the passively-interested group to find the few “oh wait.. I’m not PASSIVELY interested... I’m MASSIVELY interested” people in that group. It’s likely this packaging will be discontinued, as the general market starts to short-hand it as “the not-a-whole-pack” packs. I just hope we eventually end up with a core set (or something similar) so we can get some more generally flavorful cards, like Coral Eel. I recognize practically NO ONE uses them... but of all the ways to put worthless crap in the packs, vanillas at least add ambiance. More so at least than “here are the rules for some other way to play with your magic cards” cards. ;P
July 12, 2024 11:22 a.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #13
Echoing legendofa's sentiments about this being the nature of capitalism.
I recognize that Wizards is going to make stumbles and bad decisions in the chase of more profit, but ultimately I already have my niche in terms of what kind of product I buy, so I'm not particularly concerned about the ways in which the company attracts new customers. At least, not any more than I am with the system in general.
July 12, 2024 2:09 p.m.
I know I'm not the target demographic for this, so it doesn't really bother me.
Also, I could have sworn they had something like this before. 2010s ish, if I'm remembering correctly?
July 12, 2024 3:19 p.m.
Nemesis Yup, in Conflux through M14. So right around when I started really getting in, but I don't remember seeing them anywhere. I would have definitely been in the target audience for those at the time.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/319159-con-6-card-conflux-booster-packs-for-1-99
(Original M:tG article is 404'ed.)
Looking around further through Mark Rosewater's blog, it sounds like Walmart and Target and whoever specifically asked for these as a product. So they were a thing for five years, then they got discontinued, and now they're being made again, eleven years later. I don't think these would have been made if there wasn't demand for them; I'm almost wondering if Walmart has higher expectations for these than WotC does.
July 12, 2024 5:02 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #16
It just occurred to me that it’s probably also that these new half-packs are less of a problem shoplifting-wise. With the ever increasing pack prices, it’s probably getting harder and harder to justify allocating shelf space to magic cards (without adding the anti-theft devices to each pack, which might be a pain or expensive).
July 12, 2024 7:33 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #18
I haven’t seen anything that OFFICIALLY implies one way or the other, sergiodelrio, so your guess is as good as mine. Some of the discussions included terms like “retailers requested” which usually implies US market to me (I don’t know how many discussions WotC ever really has with pharmacies in Istanbul or toy stores in Sao Paulo).
July 13, 2024 10:31 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #19
FormOverFunction Your post created a picture in my mind where some intern at WotC is on the line with a way-too-busy gentleman in Istanbul trying to do serious business with his customers talking about how ordering boxes of fancy cardboard would increase his revenue and customer happiness long term. Actually made my day, thanks! xD
"I just hung up on Henriqueta in Sao Paulo and she's totally ordering some for the bakery... free shipping..."
Anyway, I agree with your conclusion.
July 13, 2024 10:50 a.m. Edited.
FormOverFunction says... #20
sergiodelrio exactly. Honestly, if any of you would want to know what it was like to be a magic nerd in the nineties it might actually work to go to somewhere like Bodrum, Turkey and attempt to buy cards (and play with them!) without the internet.
FormOverFunction says... #2
Do we know if there is a separate list of cards that are in those packs? As someone who is rarely interested in the “good” cards... I.... I almost wonder if I want this rather than $30 collector packs...
July 11, 2024 8:36 p.m.