4 ms·

What is inherently wrong with co-branded product? Do you have any data to back up "exiting players"? I don't think we really have a good read on that. The Magic

by Yhippa 3y ago

What is inherently wrong with co-branded product? Do you have any data to back up "exiting players"? I don't think we really have a good read on that. The MagicCons I've been to have been increasingly packed with people.

bart_spoon 3y ago
The concern many MtG players have is that throwing a bunch of other IP crossovers into the card game has a variety of potentially negative effects: - established players who enjoyed the theme of Magic in the first place might be turned off - it creates an increasing number of products and therefore product fatigue, which is something I’ve heard lots of players mention and was even brought up by Hasbro themselves in a financial call - it adds to the increasingly confusing legality of cards/formats. Some crossovers have alternate in-universe versions. Many don’t. Some are commander legal. Some are commander and modern legal. Some have their own draft environments. Knowing what cards you can play in a given format is getting obnoxious to track. - They clearly seem to be introducing new players to Magic, but they are also clearly driving old Magic players away. The question is how persistent are the new players? Do they stick around, or does their interest wane when their favorite crossover franchise isn’t getting new cards anymore? I personally think it’s too soon to tell, but a lot of the moves strike me as very reminiscent of the types of moves that eventually are identified as enshitificafion as management tries to extract as much short term juice as possible in a way that damages long term health. I’d love to be wrong.
Mtgtrw 3y ago
[flagged]
serf 3y ago
>What is inherently wrong with co-branded product? it points towards brand dilution and financial straw-grasping. it indicates that the stewards of the IP no longer care about the thing being meaningful and the release schedule is now no longer ordered to increase impact and brand value, but rather to extract whatever value has been accumulated via customer good-will thus-far. you can see this trend/process occur in just about any long-standing fantasy/fiction IP. Some IPs are built to push product. Evangelion and Gundam are designed to shove plastic toys out the door since day 1. Some IPs slowly evolve into that product push once main-line income dwindles; those are the ones that tend to upset folks with that sort of behavior, and frankly it cheapens the brand appeal by reducing exclusivity. In other words : niche appeal exists, and generally the move towards synergistic advertisement partnerships over quality generally signals the corporate desire for generating mass market appeal at the sake of sacrificing the niche crowd.
alphager 3y ago
The part of the player base that cares deeply about the lore of MtG was skeptical of having My little Pony, Warhammer 40k, Lord of the Rings, Fallout and Street Fighter cards (all real btw!). The other thing is that there's a certain product-fatigue and format fatigue in the community. There are so many releases each year that it's increasingly impossible to give the monetary and time commitment to follow 100% of MtG. It was never a cheap hobby, but the price increases and the proliferation of products really is noticeable. The old-school entrenched playerbase is also noticing that the formats they grew up with are becoming increasingly irrelevant. In-person standard-events in local stores are increasingly harder to find (and even if an event is planned it often fails because not enough people show up). The competitive tournament scene is almost completely dead. The big money-maker for wizards is Commander and you are thus seeing more and more cards aimed at that format, even in standard-sets. In short: the extended universe is not aimed at the old-school base and can be seen as an unnecessary money-grab at best or as an "they killed my preferred format for this?!" outrage condensation point. You are seeing the same thing in the MCU: it's hard to follow /all/ movies and TV shows and even worse: some of the shows are not aiming at the classically young singe male audience and thus shows aimed at female teenagers are produced. Some part of the nerd community sees that as a direct attack on their identity.

by Yhippa 3y ago

bart_spoon 3y ago

The concern many MtG players have is that throwing a bunch of other IP crossovers into the card game has a variety of potentially negative effects: - established players who enjoyed the theme of Magic in the first place might be turned off - it creates an increasing number of products and therefore product fatigue, which is something I’ve heard lots of players mention and was even brought up by Hasbro themselves in a financial call - it adds to the increasingly confusing legality of cards/formats. Some crossovers have alternate in-universe versions. Many don’t. Some are commander legal. Some are commander and modern legal. Some have their own draft environments. Knowing what cards you can play in a given format is getting obnoxious to track. - They clearly seem to be introducing new players to Magic, but they are also clearly driving old Magic players away. The question is how persistent are the new players? Do they stick around, or does their interest wane when their favorite crossover franchise isn’t getting new cards anymore? I personally think it’s too soon to tell, but a lot of the moves strike me as very reminiscent of the types of moves that eventually are identified as enshitificafion as management tries to extract as much short term juice as possible in a way that damages long term health. I’d love to be wrong.

Mtgtrw 3y ago

[flagged]

serf 3y ago

>What is inherently wrong with co-branded product? it points towards brand dilution and financial straw-grasping. it indicates that the stewards of the IP no longer care about the thing being meaningful and the release schedule is now no longer ordered to increase impact and brand value, but rather to extract whatever value has been accumulated via customer good-will thus-far. you can see this trend/process occur in just about any long-standing fantasy/fiction IP. Some IPs are built to push product. Evangelion and Gundam are designed to shove plastic toys out the door since day 1. Some IPs slowly evolve into that product push once main-line income dwindles; those are the ones that tend to upset folks with that sort of behavior, and frankly it cheapens the brand appeal by reducing exclusivity. In other words : niche appeal exists, and generally the move towards synergistic advertisement partnerships over quality generally signals the corporate desire for generating mass market appeal at the sake of sacrificing the niche crowd.

alphager 3y ago

The part of the player base that cares deeply about the lore of MtG was skeptical of having My little Pony, Warhammer 40k, Lord of the Rings, Fallout and Street Fighter cards (all real btw!). The other thing is that there's a certain product-fatigue and format fatigue in the community. There are so many releases each year that it's increasingly impossible to give the monetary and time commitment to follow 100% of MtG. It was never a cheap hobby, but the price increases and the proliferation of products really is noticeable. The old-school entrenched playerbase is also noticing that the formats they grew up with are becoming increasingly irrelevant. In-person standard-events in local stores are increasingly harder to find (and even if an event is planned it often fails because not enough people show up). The competitive tournament scene is almost completely dead. The big money-maker for wizards is Commander and you are thus seeing more and more cards aimed at that format, even in standard-sets. In short: the extended universe is not aimed at the old-school base and can be seen as an unnecessary money-grab at best or as an "they killed my preferred format for this?!" outrage condensation point. You are seeing the same thing in the MCU: it's hard to follow /all/ movies and TV shows and even worse: some of the shows are not aiming at the classically young singe male audience and thus shows aimed at female teenagers are produced. Some part of the nerd community sees that as a direct attack on their identity.