Are the Users in this Thread Being Too Negative?
General forum
Posted on June 20, 2024, 10:36 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I saw this thread on Reddit, and I do agree that some products seem to be very expensive, recently, but I also feel that some of the users are being too negative in it, since I do not believe that the current is as bad as they say that it is, since there are still products that are affordable to average players.
What does everyone else say about this subject? Are the users in that thread being too negative about the game?
MH3 is a particularly weird case.... its expensive sure but as of now (at least in my opinion) doesn't seem to be NECESSARY/NEEDED to play modern and be relevant.
Its predecessors of MH1 amd MH2 introduced so many cards that basically just made whatever you were playing before obsolete. And these were loaded of chase rares amd mythics.
June 21, 2024 1:25 p.m.
DoomNoodle says... #4
The singles have been reasonably priced since the prerelease calm down. Those negative comments are from people who are complaining they can't do what the people they are complaining about doing, cracking packs for value. This set so far is looking to have good ev so idk stay mad? I loved it bought all my singles and a collector box and felt I got my money worth for both playability and collectability. As the prof put it you can now buy a playset of all those fetches for about the price of the playbooster box. Purchase wisely to your needs and let people make their own decisions and enjoy this incredible game how you want! -bolasforever.
June 21, 2024 3:10 p.m.
In no way are any of the sets like MH3 justified in costing 2x as much. The art and manufacturing costs are the same as any other set. The design might be trickier, but I struggle to see how that would lead to a doubling in cost. As long as Wizards and the retailers can make a reasonable profit at ~$5/pack then that's what they should cost.
Wizards (and Hasbro) is a greedy corporation. They will do whatever they can to get our money. They know that by printing a bunch of very powerful cards in a special set they can charge more and people will pay it, so they do that. Short-term profit taking is the name of the game for most companies these days.
June 21, 2024 3:17 p.m.
wallisface says... #6
Abaques I remember Rosewater talking about pricing a while ago, and from memory the general gist is that because most people play formats other than standard, they have to price the product with that in mind. If they price it the same as a standard product then nobody buys any of their other product for a while - but also they run into problems they’ve occasionally had in the past (and what some other card games have constant issue with), where the product just gets bought-out by scalpers and sold on the secondary market at a higher rate anyway.
Yes i’m sure profits come into the equation, but there’s a bit more nuance going on also.
June 21, 2024 5:42 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #7
Looking at the profit end of things, is it possible that they’re making up the money that they would have otherwise been making by selling boring dopes like me core sets and other sorta “lame” things...? It seems like so many of the sets have been huge events, worthy of press release and existential debates... have they lost out on selling vanilla creatures to grandmas who want to get their grandkid a little something that he or she might like for their Christmas stocking...? We can’t have a normal car any more? It has to be a superduty truck, sports car, or 8-person SUV?
June 21, 2024 6:16 p.m.
wallisface I think that's just Wizard's problem with profit margins they want to meet. Wizards is pretty successful, if they wanted to not charge more for a set like MH3 they could and would absolutely still make a great profit, it just wouldn't be as much. The cost for that short-term profit is that it erodes the trust their customers have in them and potentially burns out people because they can't keep up with the churn.
Personally I've made the decision that I won't buy or play with any Universe's Beyond properties. It's a way for me to control my spending on Magic and I also tend to not like most of the Universe's Beyond stuff. I might not have done that if Wizards weren't charging so much for some of their products.
June 22, 2024 2:45 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #9
Abaques, I understand that, as I, also, am making a conscious effort to not purchase any universes beyond products, but some of the cards were simply so amazing that I could not justify not putting them in some of my decks, so I hope that WotC shall eventually print universes within versions of them, at some point.
June 23, 2024 9:02 p.m.
DemonDragonJ I'm with you 100%. There are some cards I'd really like to play, but I'm going to keep them out of my decks on principal.
June 24, 2024 10:12 a.m.
I think my problem with current card pricing mostly comes from how bad card quality is now, in physical quality, the amount of misprints, and also with how little they are playtesting and counting on players to test the cards for them. Their fire design philosophy of, we'll see what problems come up and then make some bans, that just really doesn't take the place of good playtesting in design. Wizards is way too gun-shy to hit cards that could still sell packs, and the commander committee is way too reliant on rule 0 for everything. Solving problems after the cards are on the market and selling was always a recipe for disaster.
For me, the price of MH3 is not the issue. I absolutely will buy into a good game I can play with friends. It's just that, the last time I bought packs I got one complete pack of misprints that were too dark to read, I have actually paid an extra to get non-foil versions because foils are so bad quality, and the design of cards now leaves the game constantly in a state of, there are cards in the meta that are going to get a ban as soon as they aren't selling packs anymore, and that's so unhealthy for everybody.
By every metric I can think of, the per-card quality has plummeted over the last few years, and it's just like, all the price hikes are a little much to ask, considering.
wallisface says... #2
I think it’s a tricky topic to cover. Personally I haven’t had issue with the Mh3 price point, they do have reasons for needing to price sets like these slightly higher than standard-legal ones (ranging from accomodating the cost/demand curve, ensuring there’s enough product for everyone, and just making good business sense).
I personally think this horizons set will do a good job of making the format of modern more accessesable to get into. Not if you’re trying to build a tier-1 deck, but that’s never been the case, and the average prices of those decks is unlikely to shift. But, with every card that goes up in price, another generally comes down. The pool of powerful-and-affordable cards is growing, which means any player who’s a good deckbrewer & deck-piloter should be better equiped to compete reasonably well on a budget.
I think for those that netdeck, nothing changes. The big costs for everyone already in the format, however, are having to adjust to a new meta - which at this stage doesn’t look like it’ll be particularly pricey unless you’re wanting to change decks entirely (most existing decks can likely still survive with just some new sideboard tech).
June 20, 2024 11:22 p.m.