http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m..._the_Game.html
I ran polls in the Vintage and Legacy communities, surveying the age demographic of players in those communities. The results -- and the implications -- are here.
I talk about the demographic model that Wizards uses, why it's wrong, and, more importantly, why it's a self-fulfilling prophesy, how it's holding back Magic and what to do about it.
I really like this weeks article, but you seem to miss an important point.
Wizards doensn't care about people getting back into the game (or staying in it) if they move on to eternal formats. Legacy players don't bust packs, that is all that matters. While having a good community and awesome events and all is important, it all comes down to one goal:
How do I sell more packs.
I think a lot of the Lagacy players are like me, they own a good deal of stables or have to opportunity to borrow what they need. It is true that new Legacy stables are printed, but most Legacy players are not in a rush to pick them up. I know that I will own at least 2 Jace 2.0 at some point. But I will not try to trade for them, I will wait until he rotates out of Standart and then pick up one of the leftovers.
Casual players open packs beacause they look for some fun and will take whatever is inside.
Standart players open packs because they need the stables.
Limited players open packs to draft with them.
Dealers open packs to sell the cards (once a new set is released that is).
Both dealers and to a lesser extend limited players bust packs because they know that they con sell the moneyrares to the T2 players, but non of them is actually thinking:
"Oh hey, I opened a Jace, I can sell him to an Eternal player."
If Wizards could eliminate all Eternal Magic to increase the number of Standart players by 5% I'm pretty sure they would do it. Thats why suggesting a business model that focusses on increasing the number of Eternal players is kinda pointless.
Originally Posted by pi4meterftw
But you also miss an important point: people are more likely to demand new Magic cards in some form if they're playing than if they're not.
New cards make their way into the Eternal formats in relatively large numbers these days, with each new set bringing at least one or two things that end up making the cut in Legacy (I don't know about Vintage). Legacy players may not bust packs looking for those cards, but if they buy them on the secondary market, they're still indirectly pushing up demand for packs. Online stores like SCG don't just print whatever staples come out in the new set - they get them from opening boosters or buying them off people who opened boosters. An uptick in demand from Eternal players will add more pressure to the secondary market to increase supply, and ultimately the only way to do that is to open more packs. It doesn't matter who opens them, as long as they get opened by someone.
Furthermore, there aren't a lot of players who just play Eternal formats and nothing else. Many players will also draft or play variant formats like EDH, and that increases demand for cards as well. A person who plays Legacy primarily but drafts every now and then is still helping the bottom line.
Eternal players also bring revenue for tournament organizers, who in many cases have stores. Keeping stores in business helps Wizards sell more packs.
If anything, strictly casual gamers are bad for Wizards: the ones who cobble a deck together but don't spend money to draft or anything, and maybe only buy a few packs from the new set and trade for the rest of what they want. These people bring in very little revenue over time compared to dedicated tournament goers.
tl;dr: You're more likely to have demand for your product, directly or indirectly, from a current Legacy player than from some guy who quit Magic five years ago when his kid was born.
In the last year, far more new printings see play in Vintage than Legacy, counter-intuitively. Vintage has really taken advantage of new printings like Lodestone Golem, Terastodon, Bog, and a gajillion Zendikar cards see Vintage play.
A polite suggestion: re-read this article, and outline it, if that helps. I think you miss some major points that's leading you to some questionable inferences.
Well said, sir.
Anyway, I thought I was going to skim this article but ended up finding it really interesting. I thought you made a very compelling case.
@paKO, its not just the cards they print in boosters, but the tournaments they run and the other products they sell, like Duel Decks and FTV.
Edit- Incidentally, do you think that there is a real problem here? It seems like you a primarily worried about the tournaments the WotC runs/sanctions. However, third parties have caught on and filling the void. Already these large tournaments have caught on and a bunch of large stores are running 5Ks. It seems like the problem is fixing itself, albeit slowly, but an articles like this and vocal player base are also working to solve the problem.
This is 100% true, but a lot more packs are cracked for/by Standart players than Legacy players. There are a lot of new cards going into Legacy decks, but you rarely have to pay a high price for them. Unless you absolutely need them quite a lot of players just wait for cards to rotate out until they buy them. At this point people don't crack packs for these cards anymore, they are just making some money of their "leftovers".
Ok, I think I cant quote word to word since its premium and all, but taken from the article you say:
The Wizard's business model is making more people quit than necessary and by changing some fundamental things those people could be kept or reintroduced to the game.
One of the major reasons for this (or a chain of events that leads to quitting in the first place) is the rotation of the T2 legal cards.
Anoter thing you mentioned was the average age of the Eternal formats is higher.
With this (and you stating how good Legacy GPs are) I came to the believe that you are suggesting more players would be kept in the game if Wizards would support the Eternal formats more. (Well, you didn't say it explicitely, but Standart, Extended and Draft will always have some kind of rotation, so I Wizards were to support a rotation free environment it would necessarily be either Legacy of Vintage (or both).)
So where exactly is my mistake (I really want to know myself now)?
Yeah, I thought the Barbie/Coke analogy was REALLY cool and something I had not considered. In business worlds where perception is reality, they have the power to make it a Barbie or a Coke. I don't know if Hasbro actually sells a lot of stuff that's perennial like Coke. You buy a Scrabble Board, then they try to sell you the Anniversary Edition or Scrabble Stackers, but you never buy expansion letters. Magic is, in that sense, strange to their business model.
Yeah, but you're not going to sell any packs to someone who doesn't play anymore.
The thing is, players seem to naturally progress to the Eternal formats the longer they play. Trying to force them to stay in Standard is more likely to make them quit, IMO. It's better to have someone still in the game but not very active than out of the game entirely.
Stephen's point is that increasing support for the Eternal format allows Wizards to potentially keep these players engaged on a higher level. Players are less likely to get bored and quit if they have someplace pleasant to play their chosen format, and if there's enough incentive for them to go out of their way to do so. Of course, the Reserved List has effectively placed a ceiling on how much support they can give, but that aside, I don't think that Wizards is supporting Legacy or Vintage as much as it could be, given the limitations on card availability and price.
To add a personal antecdote: I was a lot more engaged in Magic when I lived in the Bay Area back when it had a bigger Legacy scene. Since that died and I moved out to Arizona (where practically no one plays Eternal formats), I've been getting closer and closer to selling my collection off. I don't feel like getting into Standard because of the investment and the lack of interesting tournaments (I'd rather draft for FNM, and PTQs are just as shitty as Stephen made them out to be - not to mention, I don't have the time to be on the Pro Tour even if I could qualify), and I don't like playing Magic on MWS or MTGO since it's a lot less interesting than actually sitting down across from a real person. Because of this, depending on what happens after Columbus, I may sell off my cards entirely (except for some EDH stuff) and get mostly out of the game. If there were better Legacy tournaments around here, I would still want to play; as it is, the tournaments these days don't even get enough turnout to be sanctioned, so it's not worth going to them.
True, it is better to have a Legacy player than someone who doesn't play at all, but the real problem why Wizards cannot support Legacy to its fulles lies elsewhere:
For the arguments sake lets assume the majority of players who go competetive play T2 for 3 years, after that 10% continue, 20% move on to Legacy or Vintage and 70% quit and never look back.
If we assume this is the current situation and Wizards is ok with it it is unlikely that something is gonna change (the playerbase has been growing leately, so there is no real reason to be unhappy).
So, what happens is Wizards does suddenly increase the Eternal support? The obvious answear is that fewer people will quit for all time. The much more important fact is (and what Wizards is probably afraid of) is Standart players moving to Eternal before the 3 years are over.
Standart and Limited are what make money for Wizards, the whole Eternal community is a little bonus for them. However once Eternal becomes too attractive it is actually more of a threat than a little bonus money.
So it is in Wizards best interest to keep Eternal attractive for people who want to quit, but make it unattractive for people who would potentially play Standart or Limited.
Wizards doesn't have to make it actively unattractive for people who play Standard or Limited: the structure of Eternal formats is such that card availability and cost act as effective barriers to entry. Limited is the easiest format to play because you only need boosters; after that, Standard is the second easiest because all of the sets in it are still in print, or are easy to find. Because of this, these two formats can support many more players, in many more locations, than Legacy ever could. Tournament organizers and Wizards know this and have built the support structure accordingly. As long as new players continue to enter the game, Limited and Standard will continue to be the most popular formats.
The issue that Stephen addressed, and it's something implicit in what you're saying, is that players are essentially disposable. If we assume that players will, on average, only play Standard for X number of years, the choice after that is quitting or moving on to Eternal. However, it's important to note that "on average" conceals a range of values. Some players will play Standard for a season and get sick of it, while some players will play Standard for a decade before quitting the game.
I don't see how increasing support for Legacy will draw players en masse away from Standard or Limited. It's perfectly possible to maintain the levels of support those two formats currently enjoy while still offering incentives to stay in the game. Major structural changes in tournament organization would have to take place to get players to switch over en masse: there are tournaments for Standard or Limited almost any place where Magic is available, in the form of FNM. Far more people are available to play those formats locally, which makes them much more attractive than a format with irregular support and a geographically fragmented player base. Why would you want to switch from Standard to Legacy when the only tournaments for it are twice or thrice-yearly major events far away from you, and only two or three other people play it locally?
Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that the player base between these two formats overlaps more than you think. Antecdotal evidence from the SCG 5ks seems to suggest that maybe around 10% of the Standard players will come back the next day for Legacy. Making one format more attractive won't make people automatically quit every other format they play and jump in. I suspect there are lots of people who play primarily Limited or primarily Standard and then dabble in other formats for quite a while before divesting in the game.
EDIT: The "Wizards doesn't care about Legacy because it doesn't make them any money" is such a cop-out argument. The largest tournament for the game, ever, was for Legacy. If that didn't wake Wizards up to a currently under-served but potentially lucrative market, I don't know what will.
The major premise of the article was that Wizards Demographic Model is wrong. The main point is that this demographic model is harmful.
This point was really two sub points. First, this model actually drives player turnover (in all the ways explicated in the article, such as assuming players are replaceable, etc).
Second, this model has created a market gap. That gap is being filled by a number of sources, of which Eternal Formats are merely one.
One thing that some people in this thread are assuming is that I'm just talking about eternal formats. I'm not. There are people out there who don't PTQ who aren't eternal players.
Thus, the point wasn't to increase the number of Eternal players, but to increase the possibilities for non-PTQ tournaments, including Eternal.
Also, you make a bunch of other points that I've addressed 100 times before. For example, it's just wrong that Legacy doesn't earn lots of money for Wizards. Every time that a dealer sells a legacy single -- whose price goes up because of the legacy format -- the dealer makes money. That dealer, store, retailer, etc then uses that money to invest in their business and stay in business, which ultimately makes Wizards money. An LED becomes a box of Magic. And so on.
Also, in addition to what has been said above, there is a new(ish) way of looking at a customer. In what you said, it seems like you have a certain percentage of the customer's wallet and that spending will be funneled in one direction or another, as if Standard and Eternal are competing forces for that same revenue. But the more post-modern (if you will) way of looking at a customer is to try to get as much from one customer as possible by diversifying your product range.
An example of this is Apple. Maybe 15 years ago some people have an iMac. Then, they came out with MP3 players and iPods are now everywhere. Also iBooks seem to be a ubiquitous choice of college students. Then, Apple had 0% market share in cell phones, but now they successfully introduced iPhones. As you see, a customer is seen as a way to expand what they are willing to spend on your products. It isn't that Apple wanted all of each customer's budget for computers, they wanted more of the customers budget, full stop. We can say the same with Wizards/Hasbro and Magic: the Gathering. By getting into a wider range of products like console games and even MTGO, their goal (I imagine and assume) is to get all customers to WANT to buy more products. Ideally, all players would draft, play Standard, play Eternal, play online, etc. They aren't independent competing forces with each other as much as they are competing with each customer's entire entertainment budget.
Anyway, that's just another way of viewing their business strategy.
Who says the Internet isn't full of <3?
That's what I'm saying. Right now Standard and Limited have the best support, thus the largest playerbase, this is what Wizards want. As soon as you increase support for the Eternal formats they are bound to draw some players away. Obviously if you add a monthly Legacy tournament every month it is not like half of the Standard players will instantly move to Legacy, but every action triggers a reaction and every little thing you do to support Legacy micht get a Standard player to change formats.
And Wizards is very aware that Legacy can draw away players. Maybe it is just over here in Germany, but we have 2 bigger events every month that offer Standard, Legacy and Vintage. In both tournaments, Legacy gets by far the most players. That only shows that a lot of people consider Legacy as the best format (or the one that offers them the most fun playing) so Wizards has to keep it down on other ways, namely tournament support.
Ok, I might have expressed myself wrong. I actually agree with most of the stuff you said. I merely think that the solutions you offered regarding the Eternal formats might not be as desirable for Wizards to execute as you think.
And yes I am aware that Eternal makes Wizards some money. But given the situation you said: If I go into a store and buy a Flooded Strand it is good for Wizards. If I go into the Store and buy packs instead of the Strand(for the same money) that would be even better. The Store still made money, but Wizards sold more packs in the process.
@MMogg:
I think that is only halfway true. Wizards want to make people spend money on their products, that is their priimary goal. However, their secondary goal is to makke people bust pack (or make people bust packs for them). Look at it like this:
Customer A: Spends 50$ on Standard and 50$ on Legacy every month.
Customer B: Spends 100$ on Standard every month.
Now Wizards want both of them to keep spending money on Magic, but when it comes to their business model they are bound to lend towards customer B.
I'm not sure if you get how a business like WotC works. When the packs are in the store, Wizards has already been paid for them. If they sit on the shelf indefinitely, the store loses money, not Wizards. They are paid in advance, albeit at a wholesale price, for the packs sitting in the store. Whether you buy a pack or a Flooded Strand, you are feeding the store, not the company. You are never directly giving WotC money by buying Magic Cards, unless you're at a Wizards sponsored event playing limited. Ultimately a Standard FNM and a weekly Legacy event have the same net gain on Wizards' bottom line. Perhaps the drive to get standard staples increases the amount of packs the store buys, but that's an indirect increase to WotC's bottom line based on the store's speculation and the amount of Limited played in the store, not on the constructed format the players are playing.
I had a lot of thoughts on this subject. I think wizards has to start asking them what is the draw of Legacy and why are there such large turn outs for Big Legacy tournaments? OK, so they make their money with standard and draft.
I think that the move towards Mythic rares is really helping their profit. It seems that their is usually about 1 Mythic rare per set that is chased in Standard, Extended, and Legacy. To meet this demand packs need to be cracked and in some way Legacy indirectly helps them.
Legacy also provides a place for cards to retain value (for those getting rid of stuff for the rotation) as well as potentially retain players. I'm not sure why extended doesn't seemingly have such a high following to let people continue playing with their stuff.
IMO I think wizards would prefer to have MTGO be the only medium to play in. That way they could control EVERY aspect of the product. However, MTG is much more than just a video game. It is somewhat of a social event and allows for having a manly hobby where men can gather and talk for hours about irrelevant topics. Virtual cards can not replace this aspect.
Yeah, but what do you think the dealers base their orders on? If a lot of people walk into the store and ask for Legacy stables then thats it. If they ask for packs instead the dealer will sell more packs.
So if people demand for more packs dealers will order them from Wizards, if people want more Legacy stables the dealers will try to get them from players.
So yeah, if you are talking about picking up some leftover packs you are right, Wizards will not make money of these, but we are talking about the players that play in tounaments frequently, so the dealer would be right to assume that he might sell more packs/month thus ordering more.
In what universe do you live in where tournament players are walking into stores and buying packs? Unless they're looking to play limited (where the entry fee pays for the packs), the VAST majority of tournament players buy their cards in singles form, rather than busting packs, since the probability of actually cracking the cards you need is so low. The exception to this is the player who buys a box or case of each new set as it is released. Even then, they're mostly well aware of the limited return on this investment and do it as much for nostalgia and fun of cracking rather than to get the cards they need.
Adam, how can you say that a pack and a single have the same impact? When packs sell faster, a dealer has to replenish them faster. There is a distributor involved here, but even still the path from Wizards to the consumer is far more streamlined than that of a single. The path a single takes from Wizards to a consumer, especially Legacy singles (the kind that are not commonly purchased in Standard in particular) could include a decade in a shoe box.
I don't think it was right of you to question his understanding in the manner you did when your own analysis is deficient or at least refutable in favor of his.
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When you buy a pack from your local B&M, you are buying it from Wizards, yes. Indirectly. Does the store then need to increase it's purchase numbers for the next month, or week, or whatever? Potentially, yes. This does increase the number of packs sold by Wizards overall. However, you aren't buying packs. Johnny FNM isn't buying packs. Peter PTQ isn't buying packs. You and they are buying singles. This is not conjecture. This is fact.
There are players buying packs. These players are doing so for 2 reasons - 1. To fuel limited play. 2. To enjoy opening packs. Neither of these is to open Standard (or Legacy, or Vintage) staples in order to fuel constructed play (or at least, the amount of times this is done is so small by comparison that it approaches negligibility).
My point is not that Wizards doesn't profit from selling packs. My point is that in terms of Standard vs. Legacy, there is effectively no difference in the amount of packs a store is selling to fuel those formats. Realistically, the people opening packs for the express purpose of finding specific cards are A. Stores looking to profit on singles, opening massive volumes of packs. B. Players who don't know better. The way you, the player, get cards is from A - the store cracks the packs for you, or the store buys singles from players to flip at a profit. In either of these conditions, you buying singles has the same net effect as buying packs - you increase the amount of packs the store needs to purchase in order to fuel your purchases - be it individual packs or the STORE cracking the packs to sell singles. In one instance, the store sells the packs piecemeal, and WotC profits slowly throughout the print life of the set. In the other, the store "sells" the packs immediately, and WotC profits all at once. Either way, the end result is an increase in the flow of packs to the store - although not necessarily to you. Again, the point is not that buying a pack doesn't make Wizards money (although it does, but indirectly) - it's that it doesn't necessarily make them any more than buying singles (those available in packs, anyway).
I will concede that using the example of Flooded Strand makes this whole argument skewed. However, this discussion could be applied to Misty Rainforest, for example, which is still available in packs, and is a functional replacement (and sometimes improvement) on Flooded Strand - ie: cards that are viable in both formats we are comparing.
Additionally, while I am not a store, nor do I own one, in my experience packs are leaving the shelves more rapidly due to limited play and "low cost prize support" than they do for individual sales to players of any format.
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