Chinese fakes

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

As I understand it, the "proxy" makers in this case make 1,000 of each card. People don't need to order a thousand of a single card or want to buy in the $800 bulk minimum required.

So yeah that sounds like a fine model for local game stores to adopt, selling proxies. If Wizards wants to prosecute them at that point it would be their fault that stores relying on Magic-related income can't adopt to the new technology of distribution.

So the new line is let's encourage new players to buy illegal products, but it doesn't matter since we're getting new players into the game and they don't have to pay a lot to do it?

I already tell people to download Cockatrice, which Wizards shut down. As they shut down MWS. Lotta people on a high horse around here.

[prateta]

This might be true in a vacuum, but your analysis rather limited in scope. Yes, its good for players to get access to cheaper cards. However, that's not even close to the whole picture here.

You're argument is that counterfeiting is rampant in the music industry, but that the music industry has survived. That might be a true statement, but its short sighted and really not applicable. First, come on, are you really going to argue that Napster didn't fundamentally change how the music industry operates? The industry responded by increasing protections on its products, moving toward secured digital media, and prosecuting people who where illegally downloading music. That's not to mention the thousands of stores that went out of business as the industry shifted away from the physical medium of discriminating music. I'll grant that part of that shift was related to technological advances, but it was also in part to security/protection concerns (look back at the creation of iTunes).

Regardless of all of that, he's where the comparison falls woefully short - Magic is not the music industry. Since you're primary assertion is increasing access to cards on the cheap, lets assume you're operating with the interests of the players in mind. Magic is a social game - by this I mean that it requires interactions between players. It's also a game that's usually organized and hosted through a LGS. So what happens when LGS start collapsing? If you're argument is true that counterfeiting will decrease the value of the cards that kills margins or even eliminates potential profits that stores can make selling cards. Additionally, for this plan of using counterfeit cards to lower prices, the knowledge of how to locate or get access to these cards would have to be wide spread. This only further incentives people from buying from traditional outlets like LGS. Furthermore, LGS are deterred from selling the counterfeits because they would be sued by WotC if it was brought to their attention and it would likely mean the loss of their ability to host events.

I'll concede that some people enjoy games with proxies but some don't. More importantly, what kind of a selling point is it when you have to tell a new player that the best way to get into the format is to buy counterfeit card? So the new line is let's encourage new players to buy illegal products, but it doesn't matter since we're getting new players into the game and they don't have to pay a lot to do it?

This is a much larger issue than just getting access to cheaper cards. I'm not saying the status quo is sustainable in the long term, but relying on counterfeits is the answer either.

http://www.grammar-monster.com/easil...youre_your.htm

[the Thin White Duke]

I think some people are missing a point about Hasbro and counterfeit eternal staples. Why should Hasbro care? If any thing Hasbro should be happy that there is another source taking up the expense of printing cards to sell to the people who bitch and moan about card prices. The only people being hurt by this is the LGS that have invested in legit cards. If Hasbro wants to demand satisfaction for copyright issues, good for them. Otherwise, this is a secondary market issue, and as WoTC has said time and time again they don't care about the secondary market...

[Arsenal]

If local game stores are crippled/close as a result of counterfeits, then Hasbro most certainly will care. Sure, there will still be Walmart/Target/Shopko/etc ordering the usual 4 fat packs from them, but I'd wager that the majority of their orders come from specialized gaming shops.

[Scott]

I think some people are missing a point about Hasbro and counterfeit eternal staples. Why should Hasbro care? If any thing Hasbro should be happy that there is another source taking up the expense of printing cards to sell to the people who bitch and moan about card prices. The only people being hurt by this is the LGS that have invested in legit cards. If Hasbro wants to demand satisfaction for copyright issues, good for them. Otherwise, this is a secondary market issue, and as WoTC has said time and time again they don't care about the secondary market...

Expensive cards don't have their price tag because of the expense of printing cards, and Hasbro certainly doesn't want underground assistance on the printing front.

[clavio]

As I understand it, the "proxy" makers in this case make 1,000 of each card. People don't need to order a thousand of a single card or want to buy in the $800 bulk minimum required.

So yeah that sounds like a fine model for local game stores to adopt, selling proxies. If Wizards wants to prosecute them at that point it would be their fault that stores relying on Magic-related income can't adopt to the new technology of distribution.

So basically you think the solution is for all the local gaming stores to conduct illegal activities just to stay afloat? What about really big stores like SCG?

[Stan]

All the people who bitch about these reprints, and about how unethical it is are hypocrites. You won't convince me that if you buy a playset of expensive Jaces, Tundras or whatever expensive card online, and you receive good looking forgeries, you'll throw them away if it proves impossible to get your money back. You're out of a lot of money, and you still don't have your real cards. 99,999999999% of the people who are waling about it now will use those fakes during a tournament, and will rationalize their deceit to themselves because 'hey', I'm the victim in this'. Same goes for people who see their cards rendered useless the day that Wizards bans altered cards from organized play. They'll tell themselves that they already own legitimate copies, and it's Wizards' fault that they have to buy fake replacements now. Keep your holy rolling to yourselves guys, nobody is stoic enough to suck up a loss like that and just buy new expensive cards.

[the Thin White Duke]

Expensive cards don't have their price tag because of the expense of printing cards, and Hasbro certainly doesn't want underground assistance on the printing front.

You're missing the point. Cards cost money to print, packaging costs money, distribution costs money. Someone else doing this at their own expense to pacify a segment of the community is not necessarily bad for Hasbro.

[UnderwaterGuy]

You're missing the point. Cards cost money to print, packaging costs money, distribution costs money. Someone else doing this at their own expense to pacify a segment of the community is not necessarily bad for Hasbro.

This would only make any sense if the counterfeits were all old reserved list cards. That isn't the case though and new cards are the easiest to forge and they're being forged. We haven't even seen any super high quality old border fakes from this chinese factory yet.

[the Thin White Duke]

So basically you think the solution is for all the local gaming stores to conduct illegal activities just to stay afloat? What about really big stores like SCG?

if a LGS does it's due diligence and verifies that they are not buying fakes, they have nothing to worry about. I'm sure they buy products to help ID fake currency, so how hard is it to be equipped to verify high value cards? If a business cares enough to stay afloat, then they will do what is necessary to survive.
If a giant retailer like SCG doesn't pay attention, they they will be called out because they are so big. This is called the cost of doing business.
businesses will not be forced ​to "conduct illegal activities" to stay in business.

[Gheizen64]

This might be true in a vacuum, but your analysis rather limited in scope. Yes, its good for players to get access to cheaper cards. However, that's not even close to the whole picture here.

You're argument is that counterfeiting is rampant in the music industry, but that the music industry has survived. That might be a true statement, but its short sighted and really not applicable. First, come on, are you really going to argue that Napster didn't fundamentally change how the music industry operates? The industry responded by increasing protections on its products, moving toward secured digital media, and prosecuting people who where illegally downloading music. That's not to mention the thousands of stores that went out of business as the industry shifted away from the physical medium of discriminating music. I'll grant that part of that shift was related to technological advances, but it was also in part to security/protection concerns (look back at the creation of iTunes).

Regardless of all of that, he's where the comparison falls woefully short - Magic is not the music industry. Since you're primary assertion is increasing access to cards on the cheap, lets assume you're operating with the interests of the players in mind. Magic is a social game - by this I mean that it requires interactions between players. It's also a game that's usually organized and hosted through a LGS. So what happens when LGS start collapsing? If you're argument is true that counterfeiting will decrease the value of the cards that kills margins or even eliminates potential profits that stores can make selling cards. Additionally, for this plan of using counterfeit cards to lower prices, the knowledge of how to locate or get access to these cards would have to be wide spread. This only further incentives people from buying from traditional outlets like LGS. Furthermore, LGS are deterred from selling the counterfeits because they would be sued by WotC if it was brought to their attention and it would likely mean the loss of their ability to host events.

I'll concede that some people enjoy games with proxies but some don't. More importantly, what kind of a selling point is it when you have to tell a new player that the best way to get into the format is to buy counterfeit card? So the new line is let's encourage new players to buy illegal products, but it doesn't matter since we're getting new players into the game and they don't have to pay a lot to do it?

This is a much larger issue than just getting access to cheaper cards. I'm not saying the status quo is sustainable in the long term, but relying on counterfeits is the answer either.

The Music industry is a shining example of how music is actually working in favor of consumers for once and how market shifts if offer don't adapt. You can listen to most albums on the website of the band who made it, and decide to finance them in exchange if you want to actually download them, completely skipping distribution and empowering musicians. Or you can buy albums, which, in turn, have seen their prices often lowered because of competitions. They basically had monopolies before, but such situations can't last forever. If demand largely outstrip offers, new offers will rise. Legality or not, see how drugs are basically used by everyone even if they're almost everywhere illegal.

And no Legality shouldn't be the end of all. If it were, we'd live in a static society from thousands of years ago when the Sumerian-Accadic civilization was born, but guess what, society was born for the improvement of his citizens, not the other way around.

[Arsenal]

if a LGS does it's due diligence and verifies that they are not buying fakes, they have nothing to worry about. I'm sure they buy products to help ID fake currency, so how hard is it to be equipped to verify high value cards? If a business cares enough to stay afloat, then they will do what is necessary to survive.
If a giant retailer like SCG doesn't pay attention, they they will be called out because they are so big. This is called the cost of doing business.
businesses will not be forced ​to "conduct illegal activities" to stay in business.

I'm fairly certain that this entire discussion has been predicated off the notion that the fakes are 100% indistinguishable from the genuine cards; otherwise, we wouldn't be concerned about fake cards as they couldn't even approach the authenticity of real cards. I understand they currently are not 100% indistinguishable, but given time, I suspect that they will become indistinguishable from the real thing. If this occurs, what "due diligence" and verification methods are the LGS to take?

[Barook]

This would only make any sense if the counterfeits were all old reserved list cards. That isn't the case though and new cards are the easiest to forge and they're being forged. We haven't even seen any super high quality old border fakes from this chinese factory yet.

This

They also diminish the market which can Wizards exploit for premium product. Who would care about FTV with a lack of money staples? There's still enough stuff out there that isn't on the Reserve List and can be reprinted, but Wizards chose not to because they're a bunch of dicks.

Prime example: Force of Will (and Wasteland, to a degree)

[clavio]

if a LGS does it's due diligence and verifies that they are not buying fakes, they have nothing to worry about. I'm sure they buy products to help ID fake currency, so how hard is it to be equipped to verify high value cards? If a business cares enough to stay afloat, then they will do what is necessary to survive.
If a giant retailer like SCG doesn't pay attention, they they will be called out because they are so big. This is called the cost of doing business.
businesses will not be forced ​to "conduct illegal activities" to stay in business.

Yeah I misunderstood. He wants the LGS to sell proxies while explicitly saying they're proxies. I originally read that and interpreted it as stores buying proxies in bulk and then selling them as the real thing.

[Lord Seth]

Does that mean car manufacturer shall lower their prices that car theft is less lucrative? 3,50-4€ per booster is a rip-off

I feel that's completely missing the point. The issue here is not booster pack prices, it's the price of cards on the secondary market. Now to be fair, if booster packs cost less, then cards on the secondary market would as well, but it's not the in-print cards that have the prices that are really problematic.

The problem is the price of older cards, cards that Wizards of the Coast no longer makes. Now, if they were just high because they were collectibles, that would be one thing; people often point to the high price of Alpha Birds of Paradise despite it constantly being reprinted. But the reason a lot of these cards are so high is because people use them. No one spends a million dollars on an inverted Jenny stamp in order to use it to mail something. You can just go over and buy a stamp for less than a dollar. You have to spend $100+ to get an Underground Sea. And you don't buy those just to look at, you buy them because you need them to make that Shardless BUG deck or whatever.

And these are cards that Wizards of the Coast has not done much in order to make more available to the community. Now I'll be fair and say they've gotten a little better. The shocklands came back in Return to Ravnica. Mutavault and Scavenging Ooze were in Magic 2014. Thoughtseize was in Theros. And of course there was Modern Masters; while that actually had the effect of making some cards more expensive, a lot were made cheaper, and it was at least a step in the right direction.

However, they've still refused to this day to get rid of the Reserved List. And even ignoring the Reserved List, there's some high price cards that are in demand that they've done nothing to reprint.

In other words, the issue is not the price that Wizards of the Coast is selling the product at; it's the fact they're refusing to make product.

The car manufacturer analogy would be more valid if a car manufacturer had a line of cars that a lot of people wanted to buy in order to drive, but they decided to not make any more of them because some people who already had them didn't want other people to be able to get them. That would be considered insane... yet it's apparently the norm for Wizards of the Coast.

Legality or not, see how drugs are basically used by everyone even if they're almost everywhere illegal.

If by "everyone" you mean "less than 10%", at least according to the CDC (source). Now admittedly they could have it wrong, but I'm going to guess that the majority of people do not use illegal drugs.

[UnderwaterGuy]

I'm fairly certain that this entire discussion has been predicated off the notion that the fakes are 100% indistinguishable from the genuine cards; otherwise, we wouldn't be concerned about fake cards as they couldn't even approach the authenticity of real cards. I understand they currently are not 100% indistinguishable, but given time, I suspect that they will become indistinguishable from the real thing. If this occurs, what "due diligence" and verification methods are the LGS to take?

They aren't 100% indistinguishable and a store owner better know how to identify fakes. The fakes are still very important though because 1) They can be used in tournaments and 2) Assholes could shark inexperienced players in trades or sales.

[Arsenal]

They aren't 100% indistinguishable and a store owner better know how to identify fakes. The fakes are still very important though because 1) They can be used in tournaments and 2) Assholes could shark inexperienced players in trades or sales.

Uh, I know they're currently not 100% indistinguishable. I'm certain I even said as much in all my posts in this thread. However, this discussion has been operating under the assumption that they will be 100% indistinguishable, otherwise, there would be no fear of a market crash, etc. If they were easily spotted as fake, then there's no cause for concern. However, if they can't be distinguished from the genuine article, that's when you have problems.

[Scott]

You're missing the point. Cards cost money to print, packaging costs money, distribution costs money. Someone else doing this at their own expense to pacify a segment of the community is not necessarily bad for Hasbro.

If Hasbro/WotC wanted to pacify the community's gripes about overpriced cards, they could do it easily, and have sheets of Jaces or Bayous replace sheets of commons, at no extra printing, packaging, or distribution cost. I'm not saying this to be an ass, but I really think that you've got the wrong idea of the finances of this operation.

[PirateKing]

The car manufacturer analogy would be more valid if a car manufacturer had a line of cars that a lot of people wanted to buy in order to drive, but they decided to not make any more of them because some people who already had them didn't want other people to be able to get them. That would be considered insane... yet it's apparently the norm for Wizards of the Coast.

What's cute is some industries are required by law to supply parts and technical support for a product some number of years after production has ceased. Even after they stop making your car, they still have to manufacture new replacement parts.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

No one spends a million dollars on an inverted Jenny stamp in order to use it to mail something. You can just go over and buy a stamp for less than a dollar. You have to spend $100+ to get an Underground Sea. And you don't buy those just to look at, you buy them because you need them to make that Shardless BUG deck or whatever.

Magic, similarly to stamps, has it's own meaning outside of being collectible. I even read somewhere that the gaming factor is the most important for WotC. Ok, so lets imagine the situation when a post company stops to print stamps. And not because e-mail killed postal services, but because there are those strange people who fear that their blue Mauritius may lose value. Ok, guys. We understand your concern. But there are people who want to send letters, you know? So get over it, we'll print the stamps...

One last note: If WotC doesn't do anything about the cards' prices, than I expect a flood of HQ forgeries in the years to come. Heck, maybe they already started to circulate, and we just din't realized that. That's the other reason why I'm more and more inclined to cash out. Cause I won't waste my money on scrap paper.

/rant

I guess that no one will stick blue Mauritius on their letter to grandma, but WotC inability (or whatever it is) to reprint at the very least the non-RL money cards, simply forces the players to either leave the competitive scene or use the blue Mauritii on the grandma-letters. What on earth is that? I won't be playing with USD 2500 deck, NO WAY!