Not Cool

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victorcamp
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Re: Not Cool

Post by victorcamp » Thu May 27, 2004 6:23 am

And I would think the online singles market may not be affected that much, since its driven by popularity and demand, not box prices. They'll still be buying collections, it's just their new-set cards (always absurdly priced anyway) that won't have quite the profit margin they were used to.

GavinO
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Re: Not Cool

Post by GavinO » Thu May 27, 2004 6:28 am

Having gotten used to preordering a box of new sets from cool stuff inc for $67 US, this kind of bites.  Rather than rasing prices for online retailers, they could drop the prices across the board.  There's no way it costs anywhere near $100 to manufacture a box of cards.  I can see why they want to support the local store, though; that's where I go to play and where I go for singles (I can see the card, I can talk about the card, I can bargain for the card. Much better than Visa)

Cyberellium
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Re: Not Cool

Post by Cyberellium » Thu May 27, 2004 10:15 am

Starcity is a ripoff.

They think they can charge $20 for P3K boosters now when they charged $5 for them as little as 3 months ago.

Luckily thats what I got my P3K boosters for and now they 4x the price. WTF they are gonna never sell another booster for another 20 years until they actually are worth $20.
Magic: The Gathering: 1993 - 1999.

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dry cereal
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Re: Not Cool

Post by dry cereal » Thu May 27, 2004 9:13 pm

P3K packs just sold on ebay for 30 a week ago
I can't believe I ate the whole thing

gzeiger
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Re: Not Cool

Post by gzeiger » Fri May 28, 2004 12:16 am

THey clearly are worth that. If you want to discount some of the ones you kept, I'll pay $15 :p

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Re: Not Cool

Post by dry cereal » Fri May 28, 2004 10:18 pm

since jim is in the business, I want to know what he thinks the impact of this will be on the market/gaming comunity.
I can't believe I ate the whole thing

GavinO
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Re: Not Cool

Post by GavinO » Sat May 29, 2004 7:45 pm

I think that the only people getting hit by this are the people who buy small quantities of boxes.  A store can buy a few cases for the purpose of opening to sell singles from.  With Darksteel you're almost guaranteed to break even if you can sell the rares at list prices (like a store), and it looks like it might be similar for 5th Dawn.  The key to the game is the players; a change that makes it harder for the player to get packs makes the player have to go for singles to build a deck.  Rather than hurting the store that cracks huge numbers of boxes to sell at gross profit, it really helps them at the cost of the people who are most critical to Magic.

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sylvanstu
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Re: Not Cool

Post by sylvanstu » Sun May 30, 2004 8:32 pm

Even though I enjoy getting my product cheaper online I understand having a close freind who could not compete with the online prices and lost his buisness. I would have to agree with what WOC is doing. In my erea there used to be alot of shops here now there are only a few left. What I am worried about lately is all the collections i am finding at garage sales lately. alot of people are getting out of magic. I feel a slow period in magic coming. and the reat of the stores around here will start disapearing. Our store Pastimes had the worst Prerelease in years with Fith Dawn :-/
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mintcollector
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Re: Not Cool

Post by mintcollector » Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:12 pm

What I am worried about lately is all the collections i am finding at garage sales lately. alot of people are getting out of magic. I feel a slow period in magic coming. and the reat of the stores around here will start disapearing. Our store Pastimes had the worst Prerelease in years with Fith Dawn :-/
Finding garage sale collections will always be around.  Many kids who play M:TG in high school do not continue playing M:TG, or may play through college and then drop out when they hit the career world.  I also had friends in college who go out and back into M:TG 3-4 times each, selling out on everything each time.  Keep in mind there are new players filling up the ranks on the back end all the time.  

As far as the Pastimes pre-release, I think Fifth Dawn is a weaker set, and many saw it as that so turnout was bad on that aspect.  Second, Alan really changed the prize structure around so much that this was a turn off to some.  
And I would think the online singles market may not be affected that much, since its driven by popularity and demand, not box prices. They'll still be buying collections, it's just their new-set cards (always absurdly priced anyway) that won't have quite the profit margin they were used to.
Not true.  Some dealers either do this as supplementary income (like Paul Pantera at CollectMart who is a SysAdmin for Sun Microsystems by day) or as a full time job (like Gabriel Wilson at AlphaBetaUnlimited).  You hit the head on the nail that the profit margins may not be what they were.  If this is the case, maybe the number of online dealers start dying off as it is not worth their time.  Either that, or we see a rise in online card prices by dealers.  Either way it goes, online retailers will not get the boxes they once had to crack open and sell in mass.  Also as the back end buyers, we get left with higher prices.  This should and will affect other markets over time like eBay and such.  The brick and mortar stores will need to be careful what they sell online, otherwise they get banned as well.

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