Hasbro is killing Magic in the name of short-term gains
A recently released report suggests that Hasbro indeed is mismanaging its property Magic: The Gathering, MTG, all in the name of short-term profits to make their books look better.
What do the report say
The analyst has spoken to a lot of actors in the MTG scene. Players, collectors, distributors as well as local games stores. And all of them echo the same sentiment:
the primary concern is that Hasbro has been overproducing Magic cards which has propped up Hasbro’s recent results but is destroying the long-term value of the brand.
Just to give an example of how seemingly desperate Hasbro has been with padding their short-term gains. They have broken promises and have released cards they said they never would release again. Top of that list is hands down the most famous MTG card, The Black Lotus.
The card has made its return in what can only be described as a cash grab. The card is part of MTG´s 30-anniversary set. And that set will cost you $999. And then you get 4 boosters with cards from the 30th anniversary. And keeping with tradition the cards are of course random. This means you might very well end up with let's call them "not so sought after"-cards.
This reprinting has led to prices crashing on the secondary market. And Hasbro is still churning out cards like there is no tomorrow. And collectors of the rare cards have started to worry if they will diminish the value of their original card. Which might very well be the case.
Hasbro has even tried to snake its way out of breaking its 25-year-old promise to never reprint The Black Lotus card. They did this by saying that the 30th-anniversary cards are not tournament legal. This does very little to ease the mine of the collectors.
What are your thought on this, is Hasbro slowly turning MTG? Or is simply what is good for Hasbro good for MTG? Please sound off in the comment section. If you would like to support me and the content I make, please consider following me, reading my other posts, or why not do both instead.
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Gah! I never liked Hasbro, and this doesn't help. If they wanted to do a Now you can own some of the cards from 30 years of MtG history thing, to attract new players (and maybe some people who buy MtG cards as an investment,) they should have bought up a bunch of the original cards from those who still have them, and put those in a raffle for $999/ticket or whatever people would be willing to pay. Maybe ask the MtG community about the ticket price...
Yes, so many other options for things to do better. They are also pushing expansions faster and faster. =(
This anniversary could have been a great celebration for Magic Players like me. I play the game more or less intense since I found the first starter pack in my litte game store back in the 90s. Even in the phases where I did not play the game, I was still connected by reading the lore, looking through my small collection ans so on. Now WotC is telling me, I can be a part of the 30th anniversary celebration of one of my favourite IPs! Sounded cool, but the main product for celebrating my lifetime with MTG is some boosters with proxy cards for 250$ each??? Sorry but that is far beyond ridiculous and a smash into the face of long time fans of the game. Especially in times like these where you have to cut expenses where it is possible in order to being able to feed your family... So that's it with MTG for me, time to end this relationship because Magic The Gathering now lives beyond my means ^^
I can't agree with you more. It is such a cash grab that it is ridiculous.
I wonder if there's a link between this and the lukewarm reception the community gave to their "One D&D" idea, where they floated a draft of new rules as a "playtest" but just wanted a rubber-stamped approval rather than actual feedback ? Without the huge boost a new edition of D&D would give, they seem to have turned to trying to wring revenue out of another of their properties.....
I have missed that D&D news. But the main idea behind new version sis to force people to buy new books. So it kind of fits.
But I thought they would be more wary about that with the massive flop 5th edition became. But I guess there is no cure for greed. =/