Poll of the Day > Magic: The Gathering topic, because there have been some news.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Some stuff to note:

1. WotC is dumping local game stores in the bin: https://mobile.twitter.com/HipstersMTG/status/1364966892713181192
2. Warhammer 40k Commander Decks are on the horizon: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/magics-voyages-universes-beyond-2021-02-25
3. Lord of the Rings will likely be its own set https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/magics-voyages-universes-beyond-2021-02-25
4. Not all extra-universe cards will be only commander/legacy/vintage legal, just not standard: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/lshb5s/ian_confirmed_that_universes_beyond_wont_be_legal/gorqb4f/
5. WotC is now its own division in Hasbro (because they're the only people making money likely): https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/wizards-of-the-coast-dungeons-dragons-magic-hasbro-reorganizatio/

Not going to lie, if someone makes gandalf drive a tank with a chainsword in his hand in my EDH game, I'm going to just leave.

Watch them say that Middle Earth and the 40k Universe are part of the Multiverse now.

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> Cocks

Cocks

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Zareth posted...

Watch them say that Middle Earth and the 40k Universe are part of the Multiverse now.

Bro, they tried to argue that The Walking Dead was magic-related because there were zombies.
The hoops when they will jump through to print money is going to be insane.

I was talking Dungeons and Dragons, because certain MTG planes are considered part of DND.

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Uuuuuh, they made DnD products to play DnD in MTG. It was never an official conjoining thing.

But now we're getting legit actual DnD in MTG, so, fuck it whatever,

It half seems like the greater MtG community is just sorta... just caring about the new set that's coming out.

So most of these fundamental things are being ignored.
I guess we'll see freaking out once the 40k commander decks come out.

Sounds like it's not just MtG news >_>

idk, I guess it makes more sense that they're applying MtG mechanics to new properties instead of creating new games? (Assuming I understand that right.)

shadowsword87 posted...

WotC is now its own division in Hasbro (because they're the only people making money likely):

Can't imagine that's the case.

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As a huge Rings fan and former MtG casual.

Take my money.

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Lokarin posted...

> Cocks

Cocks

>Cocks

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Zeus posted...

shadowsword87 posted...
WotC is now its own division in Hasbro (because they're the only people making money likely):

Can't imagine that's the case.

Believe it baby.
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47698/wotc-makes-more-money-hasbros-toy-business

With the new digital platform WotC is making money hand over fist.

Plus you have Hasbro's Annual Report from 2019 saying they wanted WotC to DOUBLE THEIR REVENUE. Not profit, revenue.

https://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/88b2a83b-2368-463a-9489-6cf31dc209ac

Both are significant brands for us today, but also meaningful growth drivers across formats and in storytelling. Last year, we set a target to double the revenues of Wizards of the Coast brands over the coming 5-year period, and we're well on that path to accomplishing this mission. We have a plan to invest $200 million to $300 million over the period across multiple titles and platforms to create unparalleled gaming experiences with superior operating margins.

They can tap the same playerbase more for more stuff, but, that's likely to completely fuck up the secondary market if they just sell everything everyone has ever wanted. They have 5 years to fucking double their profits, so they need to start pulling other fanbases for their money.

I honestly don't know what's going through Hasbro's mind. Either hasbro is looking to pump as much money out of WotC as they can before selling it, or they're dumping all of their IPs in one basket because it's the only thing making money.

shadowsword87 posted...

I honestly don't know what's going through Hasbro's mind. Either hasbro is looking to pump as much money out of WotC as they can before selling it, or they're dumping all of their IPs in one basket because it's the only thing making money.

MTG over the year 2020 had their best year ever for sales, this despite the fact that a pandemic was making meeting up to play far harder.

Monopoman posted...

MTG over 2020 had their best year ever for sales, this despite the fact that a pandemic was making meeting up to play far harder.

Oh yeah, I think they realized that they can instead just make Magic Arena for the game part, and sell to the collectors for the cash part. Plus WotC has never fully understood commander and why people play it, just that the products seem to be good.
By replacing organized play with a digital game, suddenly, why are you bothering with all of these local gamestores, who gives a shit. Just sell directly to the customer and have them play on your platform instead. If something's OP, just ban it, people aren't buying physical cards and are getting any sort of value deleted, they can just get some wildcards instead.

I still think MtG is the best cardgame in the world, and now there's a platform where they can actually compete with Hearthstone and yu-gi-oh. I can't imagine them not crushing it.

So as someone who's not into MTG, I thought it was it's own lore? How do cards from other IPs work? Do people actually not care about the lore, or is it non canon, or are they self contained?

Just curious.

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Blightzkrieg posted...

So as someone who's not into MTG, I thought it was it's own lore? How do cards from other IPs work? Do people actually not care about the lore, or is it non canon, or are they self contained?

Just curious.

Yeah it's its own lore and multiverse and everything.
They are describing it as Universes Beyond, and making a different little sticker on the bottom of the card. It's not officially apart of the lore is the idea.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/magics-voyages-universes-beyond-2021-02-25

Wow I can't believe they'd trample over my canon like this

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lotr set sounds cool. i hope theres a shelob card

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I mean keep in mind MTG has a weird loop hole for this stuff, Planeswalkers can travel to other planes and realities. So technically they could go to Middle-Earth or a Warhammer 40k universe.

It's partly why so many weird places have been visited by MTG in the past.

Now one thing they have never done in the game is put modern technology into it, so I will be curious how they handle Warhammer 40k since it makes our 2021 technology level look ancient in comparison.

Monopoman posted...

I mean keep in mind MTG has a weird loop hole for this stuff, Planeswalkers can travel to other planes and realities. So technically they could go to Middle-Earth or a Warhammer 40k universe.

God, I can't wait to see that one happen. "Ah yes 40k fans, did you know that Jace the Mindsculpter appeared on a planet and then wiped out the memories of a local meanie head, and then fucked off back to a really big city?".

Monopoman posted...

Now one thing they have never done in the game is put modern technology into it, so I will be curious how they handle Warhammer 40k since it makes our 2021 technology level look ancient in comparison.

I mean, by the end of the brothers war, there was fucking power armor and shit. Plus we were just on a plane that had literal actual cars, it just looked indian and had blue glowey things to make it work.

Blightzkrieg posted...

Wow I can't believe they'd trample over my canon like this

ic wat u did thare


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shadowsword87 posted...

Bro, they tried to argue that The Walking Dead was magic-related because there were zombies.
The hoops when they will jump through to print money is going to be insane.

There's almost no incentive for them not to, which is part of the problem. The backlash against that Secret Lair was larger than anything I can recall since I started playing like 5 years ago... And it still ended up being the best selling Secret Lair ever. So of course they're going to continue down that route.

Zeus posted...

shadowsword87 posted...
WotC is now its own division in Hasbro (because they're the only people making money likely):

Can't imagine that's the case.

Yeah, he already posted the link to show it, but the profit margins on Magic product is insane. The rest of Hasbro brings in like 4x the revenue or something like that, but WotC brings in more profit than the rest combined.

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shadowsword87 posted...

I mean, by the end of the brothers war, there was fucking power armor and shit. Plus we were just on a plane that had literal actual cars, it just looked indian and had blue glowey things to make it work.

Yeah, basically the only thing they've said is they don't want guns in their game. And outside of a few old cards that's held pretty true. No clue how that philosophy will interact with the 40k stuff, but I assume they'll stay true to the source and have guns when it makes sense.

Kaladesh had a literal Inventors Fair, they're fine with adding technology.

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Dynalo posted...

Yeah, he already posted the link to show it, but the profit margins on Magic product is insane. The rest of Hasbro brings in like 4x the revenue or something like that, but WotC brings in more profit than the rest combined.

Yup, most of the money goes to what exactly? The cards themselves are five cents to make, or whatever, it's just ink on some higher quality cardboard. Art is expensive, sure, but after you have a repertoire with the artists, and people want to work for you, you can shrug off a few hundred thousand in buying art (I'm not actually sure what their rates are, but I'm imagining it's around 10k, and you're asking for ~300-400 pieces a year). You have a bunch of people who work for the company, it's 600+ according to their website. Assuming a rate between 50k and 70k per person per year, that's between 30mil and 40mil for the people. All of the graphic design and everything is handled in-house as well, they rarely pull outside people, and now they have a division for competitive play (which sucks, but that's another thing).

It's basically a flat price to produce a new set, and then every box that they sell is just insane profits. So as long as they get a few good sets in a year, they pay for the people, and everything after that is just money straight into the bank.

shadowsword87 posted...

Assuming a rate between 50k and 70k per person per year, that's between 30mil and 40mil for the people.

Probably double this number, but that doesn't come close to changing the point - all of their expenses are a drop in the bucket compared to how much money they make.

And I say double it because the last Great Designer Search from a couple years ago had a posted salary of $8000/month for an intern. Now not all 600 of their staff are designers, but if interns are being offered the equivalent of 96k/year I imagine the average salary in the building is above that.

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shadowsword87 posted...

Yup, most of the money goes to what exactly? The cards themselves are five cents to make, or whatever, it's just ink on some higher quality cardboard. Art is expensive, sure, but after you have a repertoire with the artists, and people want to work for you, you can shrug off a few hundred thousand in buying art (I'm not actually sure what their rates are, but I'm imagining it's around 10k, and you're asking for ~300-400 pieces a year). You have a bunch of people who work for the company, it's 600+ according to their website. Assuming a rate between 50k and 70k per person per year, that's between 30mil and 40mil for the people. All of the graphic design and everything is handled in-house as well, they rarely pull outside people, and now they have a division for competitive play (which sucks, but that's another thing).

It's basically a flat price to produce a new set, and then every box that they sell is just insane profits. So as long as they get a few good sets in a year, they pay for the people, and everything after that is just money straight into the bank.

Sounds like they have severely inflated egos if they think art is worth 10k per card.
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Revelation34 posted...

Sounds like they have severely inflated egos if they think art is worth 10k per card.

There isn't really much information out there on what they get paid per art piece since they aren't allowed to disclose it per an NDA.

I imagine 10k is probably high on average, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear a few of the bigger name artists get that or more for the important pieces.

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Revelation34 posted...

Sounds like they have severely inflated egos if they think art is worth 10k per card.

Eh, art is expensive, and high quality art is expensive as well, plus you factor in rights and promotional things, it can add up. But, my point is that the amount of money they spend on art is really good, they have a lot of money on art that sometimes they just sit on that isn't used because the card didn't work out, or whatever.
But in terms of a company, that's nothing and not a big deal for what they're producing.

Remember reprints don't cost money for art, and a decent amount of cards are reprints (which are good from a game design perspective, bla bla bla).

what do you think the one ring will do. gotta be some kind of equipment with a crazy downside right

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shadowsword87 posted...

Eh, art is expensive, and high quality art is expensive as well, plus you factor in rights and promotional things, it can add up. But, my point is that the amount of money they spend on art is really good, they have a lot of money on art that sometimes they just sit on that isn't used because the card didn't work out, or whatever.
But in terms of a company, that's nothing and not a big deal for what they're producing.

Remember reprints don't cost money for art, and a decent amount of cards are reprints (which are good from a game design perspective, bla bla bla).

Wizards for the past 20ish years have bought the art outright, in earlier sets they did have a pay per use thing, thus why some older arts are rarely reused. Now they tell their artists we will give you this larger payment once but we can then reuse that art anywhere we please.

Anyways they have put out financial records and for Hasbro who owns WotC that makes MTG, MTG is their most profitable franchise ever when you factor in money spent vs. money returned. Transformers makes more total money but it has a higher cost ratio to get that money.

shadowsword87 posted...

Believe it baby.
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47698/wotc-makes-more-money-hasbros-toy-business

With the new digital platform WotC is making money hand over fist.

Plus you have Hasbro's Annual Report from 2019 saying they wanted WotC to DOUBLE THEIR REVENUE. Not profit, revenue.

https://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/88b2a83b-2368-463a-9489-6cf31dc209ac

They can tap the same playerbase more for more stuff, but, that's likely to completely fuck up the secondary market if they just sell everything everyone has ever wanted. They have 5 years to fucking double their profits, so they need to start pulling other fanbases for their money.

That doesn't demonstrate that the other segments are unprofitable, just that WotC is more profitable. I'm also not sure that their analysis of the numbers is necessarily correct.

Also I'm not sure why you're putting an emphasis on revenue over profit >_> A company can have massive revenue while not turning a profit.

shadowsword87 posted...

I honestly don't know what's going through Hasbro's mind. Either hasbro is looking to pump as much money out of WotC as they can before selling it, or they're dumping all of their IPs in one basket because it's the only thing making money.

If a company can make profit in an area, why would it be strange to do so? It's not like WotC ever just did one thing. Keep in mind that WotC did a SW CCG around the time the prequels were coming out... which tanked horribly (and that's probably why they're setting other IPs within the established MtG mechanics instead of reinventing the game).

WotC has done other CCGs, but very few have been successful. Offhand, I think their only two hits have been MtG and Pokemon, but it's possible I'm forgetting some. Granted, they've got a lot of stuff under their umbrella still, I think?

Monopoman posted...

MTG over the year 2020 had their best year ever for sales, this despite the fact that a pandemic was making meeting up to play far harder.

Keep in mind they also have online.

Monopoman posted...

I mean keep in mind MTG has a weird loop hole for this stuff, Planeswalkers can travel to other planes and realities.

Which led to some silly gimmicks over the years >_>

Dynalo posted...

Yeah, he already posted the link to show it, but the profit margins on Magic product is insane. The rest of Hasbro brings in like 4x the revenue or something like that, but WotC brings in more profit than the rest combined.

Digital CCGs are mtx, so there really isn't going to be much in the way of operating expenses on that side. As for the physical CCG, the price of boosters has been insane for years.


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I didnt realize MTG was still popular. My kids are into Pokmon, and we cant find those anywhere. MTG cards are always in full stock though.

Zeus posted...

I'm also not sure that their analysis of the numbers is necessarily correct.

They gave direct links to their sources bro. Hasbro's a publicly traded company, it's there if you know where to look, or have an inclination to look.

Zeus posted...

Also I'm not sure why you're putting an emphasis on revenue over profit >_> A company can have massive revenue while not turning a profit.

Yes. They are the most profitable arm of Hasbro percent-wise. That's a big deal.

Zeus posted...

If a company can make profit in an area, why would it be strange to do so?

Because you need to start dipping into underhand, shitty, tactics at the expense of the game at some point. Like how a mobile game can be extremely profitable, but also awful for the consumer. I don't want to see Magic existing to sell purely to the whales and collectors of different games.
It's change that I don't consider for the better and I just don't fuck'n want that.

shadowsword87 posted...

WotC is dumping local game stores in the bin

Those still exist?

This is like when people in the comic community or RPG community talk about supporting their local brick-and-mortar LGS or whatever, and I'm like, how have you discovered a way to travel back in time to the 1990s?
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Those still exist?

This is like when people in the comic community or RPG community talk about supporting their local brick-and-mortar LGS or whatever, and I'm like, how have you discovered a way to travel back in time to the 1990s?

Yup, I've got two in my city right now.
One is almost exclusively games workshop and WotC product, where the majority of their floor is for playspace.
The second is a half comics, half board games, with sections for card games and RPGs. Their RPG and board game sections are pretty well varied and super nice with a lot of hidden gems. Not a lot of the place exists for playspace.

I'm willing to bet that you have 'em as well where you are too.

you kinda need a gamestore to play magic tho, you can read a comic anywhere
unless you playin at someones house a gamest9re is necessary to play paper tcgs

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You "need" a gamestore to run prereleases, and sanctioned events (mostly friday night magic).

By moving things digitally, and heavily promoting magic arena, surprise, friday night magic isn't as emphasized, but, paper prereleases probably are still happening.

I still can play magic by going to a friends house and jamming some EDH games, and then playing The Crew, or whatever.

The tabletop industry has boomed over the pandemic but that boom is not really being passed onto FLGSs. Its becoming harder to say that people "need" them though obviously they have perks.

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shadowsword87 posted...

I'm willing to bet that you have 'em as well where you are too.

I'd be willing to bet that I don't, if only because literally every store that I knew of that used to sell Magic (and host tournaments and local play) other than Wal-Mart and Target has closed, and I haven't seen any new ones open anywhere (and I do travel a lot locally). That's both the full retail "hobby" type stores as well as the more casual "playspace" type stores where you can tell someone who just wanted to play opened a store to lure in other people (we had a few of those at various times in the past, for both card games and video games).

The same goes for all the stores I used to know that sold comics and RPGs (and hosted Warhammer games, D&D/RP sessions, etc). The combinations of those two mediums going through rough patches economically/popularity-wise and a lot of "nerd-savvy" products moving more and more to online distribution models kind of gutted the brick-and-mortar stores years ago. Definitely in my area. Maybe less so in less densely populated areas where property values aren't as high (and on a related note, I know Forbidden Planet in NYC is supposedly skirting bankruptcy/closure at the moment because they can't afford to pay property fees).

The only store left that I know of that's sort of a nexus for "geek stuff" is a hobby shop that is about as old as I am, but which is also mostly non-geek (they've got a tiny comic section and I think they might still sell Magic cards, but they make most of their money selling art supplies, model trains, puzzles, and other stuff). They used have a HUGE comic section back in the 80s/90s along with a pretty robust RPG section (and they stocked multiple Magic sets at a time when Magic first took off), but all of those mostly got reduced to a tiny after-thought (comics) or outright dropped (RPGs) when the bubbles for those hobbies burst.

Basically, I've spent the last 30 years watching every store that sells things I'm interested in close. It mostly started with bookstores (as all the local bookstores, and then places like B.Dalton/Waldenbooks/Borders in the mall dying off, with only B&N left standing), then it shifted into music stores (all except one local hipster vintage record store I know of), then movie places (like Suncoast), gaming stores, comic stores, etc.

Video game stores are mostly sort of going the same way, too.

It's not a huge tragedy because all of that stuff is mostly just moving online one way or another (or is getting shoved into a corner in Wal-Mart/Target), but it does underline just how much "nerd culture" tends to embrace the Digital Age in more ways than one.



TheSlinja posted...

you kinda need a gamestore to play magic tho, you can read a comic anywhere
unless you playin at someones house a gamest9re is necessary to play paper tcgs

You don't, necessarily. Aside from the fact that Magic is trying to maintain a strong online play presence where the paper CCG aspect is almost obsolete, there are always other ways to run physical tournaments. Conventions and arranged events in secondary locations (like how there's a local tournament in NJ run out of a sports complex, and I've played in Magic tournaments mostly just in the concourse of a local mall) can pick up a lot of the slack.

Though it's worth considering just how many people DO play at someone's house. Or at school. Or can now use Internet resources to arrange informal meet-ups.

Sure, the hobby would have to evolve a bit and change if it ever went entirely digital with no physical anchorpoints, but that's not necessarily a negative. Just because "this is how we've always done things" doesn't mean "this is how we'll always do things".

And games like chess have managed to have massive global communities and tournament-level play without ever having "chess stores" to anchor them, so it's obviously possible to handle things in a different way.
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shadowsword87 posted...

You "need" a gamestore to run prereleases, and sanctioned events (mostly friday night magic).

By moving things digitally, and heavily promoting magic arena, surprise, friday night magic isn't as emphasized, but, paper prereleases probably are still happening.

I still can play magic by going to a friends house and jamming some EDH games, and then playing The Crew, or whatever.

I mean paper tournaments really aren't happening because of Covid-19, Arena might hurt RL tournaments a bit but there are still plenty of areas where you can find plenty of RL tournaments assuming a pandemic isn't going on.

In my area no store is doing RL tournaments right now the risk of Covid-19 is too high. Blaming Arena for the death of paper magic is a joke, especially when we are seeing a ton of older cards spike in value over the past year or so. Crap some are playing Commander in paper using computers and a camera to stream each of their decks and play area.

I also will point out that they can do any number of methods to get more people in stores, with special promos you can get in Arena if you show up and play in an FNM event. While they are likely to want people to play Arena their ideal is to have people invested in both so they spend more money.

Now that PO mentions it, I think the last few dedicated hobby shops -- minus comic shops and less geeky hobby shops -- in my area (using a pretty wide radius here) are gone now, too, since a few closed within just the last 4 or 5 years. Now, I still have comic shops, but they no longer run tourneys of any kind afaik... although I guess it's worth noting that there's a locally owned video game store that isn't too far away that's been branching out into other shit and may someday get into CCGs as well. That and actually there might be another place or two, but I think they're more wargaming.

That said, I'm not sure that the physical MtG will ever really die simply because people like the actual cards. And I'm sure even now there's a reasonable amount of local play, since apparently there's an underground geek culture in my area. (And one of these days I'll have to really bust out a shovel and look for it... or just ask one of the D&D guys what's up.) And, like PO mentioned, there's a LOT of offline play. Most MtG players aren't tourney-goers anyway so the loss of centralized locations doesn't necessarily have as big of an impact as people might expect (although it's still a loss for more casual players who wanted to try a tourney)


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Zeus posted...

Now that PO mentions it, I think the last few dedicated hobby shops -- minus comic shops and less geeky hobby shops -- in my area (using a pretty wide radius here) are gone now, too, since a few closed within just the last 4 or 5 years. Now, I still have comic shops, but they no longer run tourneys of any kind afaik... although I guess it's worth noting that there's a locally owned video game store that isn't too far away that's been branching out into other shit and may someday get into CCGs as well. That and actually there might be another place or two, but I think they're more wargaming.

That said, I'm not sure that the physical MtG will ever really die simply because people like the actual cards. And I'm sure even now there's a reasonable amount of local play, since apparently there's an underground geek culture in my area. (And one of these days I'll have to really bust out a shovel and look for it... or just ask one of the D&D guys what's up.) And, like PO mentioned, there's a LOT of offline play. Most MtG players aren't tourney-goers anyway so the loss of centralized locations doesn't necessarily have as big of an impact as people might expect (although it's still a loss for more casual players who wanted to try a tourney)

Well like all this stuff based on your local area your mileage will vary, some cities have a very robust MTG scene and others don't. Obviously smaller towns usually have nothing of an MTG scene, so those that live in some 10k or less person town probably struggle to even find 1-2 people to play with locally.

My area has a ton of game shops and more spring up every 2ish years. So I am pretty lucky to live in this area.

Monopoman posted... Obviously smaller towns usually have nothing of an MTG scene, so those that live in some 10k or less person town probably struggle to even find 1-2 people to play with locally.

Ironically enough, it was one of the smaller towns in my area that had a hobby shop that years ago was the most reliable for all kinds of events. Meanwhile for the longest time the larger cities/towns didn't really seem to be offering much, unless they had specialty shops I didn't know about. But logically yeah, you'd think it'd be the larger towns/cities with these places.

Monopoman posted...

My area has a ton of game shops and more spring up every 2ish years.

A lot of the ones closest to me will spring up every few years, then close every few years =p


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Zeus posted...

Ironically enough, it was one of the smaller towns in my area that had a hobby shop that years ago was the most reliable for all kinds of events. Meanwhile for the longest time the larger cities/towns didn't really seem to be offering much, unless they had specialty shops I didn't know about. But logically yeah, you'd think it'd be the larger towns/cities with these places.

A lot of the ones closest to me will spring up every few years, then close every few years =p

While we lose game shops here overall we have more game shops now than we did 10 years ago. Game shops have some risk attached to them so, obviously some will not succeed no matter what.

I also assume larger cities do better because more people, sure some small town might have a thriving game store but I'm sure if I went to 50 small towns 98% of them probably wouldn't even have one.

The hobby store where I finally tried a tourney was only open for maybe a year or two and, although it was a fucking tiny location, it had 30+ people at that tourney, which I think was a draft release for Planar Chaos (where I only top 8'd (iirc, off a 4-1) then lost after a mana screw).

Another hobby shop had a bigger area with a dedicated play space and I imagine it had large tourneys, but I didn't really enjoy the one tourney I did (the waiting between rounds, etc, was annoying and it ate up so much of the day) that I never tried another one. That shop itself lasted for a while and was in a city, but I think it might not have even made it 5 years. As far as I'm aware, that city no longer has a hobby/game shop of any kind (or even a comic store)


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