There's a new Magic product coming out in August, and it's casuing quite a bit of commotion among the online Magic community. It appears
the product From the Vault: Exiled is only going to be available to actual brick and mortar stores, and not stores that sell only
online because of the total clusterfuck that was From the Vault: Dragons. (Of course, Star City games has a B&M store, so they will likely
get their seemingly infinite supply, just like with the previous FTV product and will sell them at $100 again) Seeing as I work at
a brick and mortar store that was completely fucked last time, I was pretty excited about this. However, it seems an inordinate amount
of people on the Magic boards were pissed off at this because they hate physical stores and only want to buy cards online. I finally
lost it on them, and figured I'd post my tirade here. Note that this obviously does not apply to Syd Lexia, Black Zarak, APLETHORAOFPINATAS, or
any of our other forum members, so don't take this as me calling them out because they are definitely not part of the problem.
"I swear to God, all this fucking whining by people who hate brick and mortar stores is insane. Without brick and mortar stores, the game would not exist. Period. If the game is to exist in a physical form, it can not solely be sold online for multiple reasons:
1. Getting new players would be nearly impossible. There would be no impulse buying of cards, and if you wanted to buy your friend one of the newest precon decks as a starter for the, they'd have to wait days for it to actually get shipped to them.
2. When purchasing singles, you can actually see the exact copy of a card you are going to buy before you buy it. Conditions are explained vaguely at best online, and both myself and other people have been completely fucked over because of this.
3. The casual market would almost completely die, and the casual market drives sales of sealed product. You can dispute this all you want, but I'm not going to listen because you're wrong and you're a fucking idiot if you disagree with this. Sure, competitive players are used to buying all their cards online because the more competitive a player is, generally the bigger a douchebag they tend to be and they're far more concerned with saving 15 cents than having product immediately or supporting their community. Without the casual market, the game can't survive. In general, casual players love cracked packs (helps Wizards stay in business), whereas competitive players tend to only buy the singles they need for their decks. This doesn't help keep Wizards in business because they make no money off these sales, and stores won't keep cracking boxes open just to get 2 or 3 chase rares, because that doesn't even remotely cover the cost of the boxes (Unless all chase rares become $50 each).
I've said it before, but Magic players don't seem to understand how fucking good they have it. Stores dedicate valuable floor space (Literally valuable, as rent is done as X dollars per square foot) to put up tables so you can play. While tournaments have entry fees, the fees normally only cover the cost of the product and prize and don't even take into account any overhead such as rent, utilities (The bathrooms that you all use), wages for judges and other staff, and all sorts of other expenses. Also, many players will show up just to hang out and play cards at these tables without actually buying anything or entering the tournament, so it's just a place you go to hang out and get free entertainment. The only way the stores really make money off of any of this is if you actually buy singles, but you've all made it clear that you'd rather buy singles online for the potential to save a few cents (Though I assure you that buying singles where I work would be cheaper than buying online anyway). Also, players trade cards with each, and we're expected to allow this. There don't have to be signs posted saying it's alright, everyone instantly assumes that they're allowed to trade amongst themselves. Why the fuck, as a business, should we actually allow this? Would you bring a binder full of CD's to a record store and expect to start trading discs with each other without being thrown out on your ass, especially if the store has in stock the items you're trading. And yet, if a store owner were to bring this up and mention it to players explaining that they were no longer allowed to trade cards there then no one would ever show up again. (This doesn't even address the fact that players have the fucking balls to sell cards to each other, often stepping outside but rarely taking care to actually go out of sight in an attempt to skirt the rules of not being able to sell cards inside the store). Oh yeah, everyone also assumes they can just bring food and drink in too, even if the door you need to open to enter the store explicitly states otherwise.
Basically, quit being a bunch of whiny assholes and acknowledge the fact that brick and mortar store owners are forced to bend over backwards just to get five fucking dollars out of your greedy little hands for an FNM entry free which gets you hours of entertainment and product prizes (In the case of FNM foils not even necessarily based on whether or not you do well)."
Please not that when I finally go on a tirade about the general odor of Magic players that once again Syd, BZ, and PLETHORA are exempt
from that as well.
Syd should really stop chewing 8 sticks of gum at once though, it's overpowering!
© 2009 by Dr. Jeebus