They Need To Fix This
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- The most frustrating thing about all this, was that we had it so much better before.
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When you wait in queue for an hour and then it's immediately sold out it's not even FOMO at this point. It's just straight up MO.
Agree. I logged into the site at 11am (my time for when it opened) added all my stuff to the cart at 11:02 and was ready to checkout. Got a 40 minute queue and when I was let in my cart was empty went to re-add everything and they all showed sold out. So this 4 hour sold out for North America doesn't seem right. It looks to have been sold out in under an hour.
Pre-ordered the Eldrazi deck from MH3 the day pre-orders were being taken. Still couldn't get the deck. The shop didn't receive all their stock and WotC said no more was coming, and I was chosen as one to not get it.
Pro-tip, don't use HMV.
Proxy them. If you don't like "fake cards" then just buy a regular buried alive and proxy the Monty Python version.
More like AMO: Accepting Missing out; like the 5th stage of grief.
Oof im so sorry i feel you i sat there for like and 2 hours @teekers2
The fact they didn't reprint kenrith as king Arthur is the true crime here.
That said, anything with limited availability will be scalped by shitbags, and will be as long as that availability is limited.
On wizards end, the players haven't been the primary customers for a while now. Its the shareholders first, then the collectors, then scalpers, then players.
I'm assuming it had something to do with rights to likenesses - you'll note Arthur doesn't particularly look like Graham Chapman on Three Visits and his face is intentionally obscured on Dismember. Seems like, bizarrely, Eric Idle was the only one who signed off because Sir Robin sure does look like Sir Robin on the Marit Lage token. Tim looks like Tim but he also never particularly looked like Cleese in the first place, with all the makeup and costuming.
They could have at *least* made Codie be The Book of the Film though
You blame the scalpers, but the people who built the system are wotc.
It's funny you say that because when ordering my friend and I said we hope that's the hidden card or something.
@@Loki- yeah, and people that exploit the system solely to profiteer at the detriment of others are scumbag arseholes
It's not true that anything with limited availability sells out. It's just select ones. Clearly, the other less desirable secret lairs did not sell out fast, because they kinda sucked. But yeah, there's a big problem with scalping. Any secret lair getting lots of positive talk on the Internet from people excited about it gets scalped
When they changed from print-to-demand to limited-print-runs, I remember somebody suggesting they could do both. So if you order it and you’re in the first X customers, then you get the cards quicker because you get the cards that were already printed and ready to go. However, if you dawdled for a few days and weren’t sure but then ordered, you were outside of the first X customers so you still get the cards but you have to wait for them to print them, package, etc. So you reward the people ordering first because they get the cards quicker, but everyone gets a chance to order them.
People suggest a lot of things without considering the logistics
@@chim007azoLike the logistics of Corporate entities not being complete douche-wagons on purpose?
That is a tough nut to crack, I admit… 😂
@@Muhahahahaz Time to take your meds. No one is out to get you or being a “douche-wagon for no reason.”
Secret Lair started as a very limited thing, then later went to print to demand and now its back again. They tried that in the beginning of the print to demand cycle. It obviously didn't work for whatever reason. Have an open ended quantity means no one cares, that's why they stopped the print to demand model.
I used to buy 2-4 boxes of every set, participate in every draft, every commander deck, and I bought a good chunk of secret lairs.
With the constant changes and increase in prices I had to cut back, and then they changed Secret Lairs to this race to buy BS, and honestly? I haven't bought a single Magic Product since I missed the dog Commander deck, I've converted to playing online and proxying everything. I can't justify the higher prices on everything, and I can't even buy the secret lairs if I WANT to without getting scalped to all hell.
I was a heavy spender on magic for nearly 20 years, and they just can't milk me any more, they got too greedy.
Same. Was an MTG whale from Battle for Zendikar to March of the Machine. I couldn’t justify keeping up with the hobby any more especially when other board games can offer far more for far less cost.
Yeah I felt kinda forced into the proxy side as well due to the cardboard greed.
@@notionofvice7836 that's how a lot of us feel. I used to spend and play just like you.
Same here. Due to pricing and availability, I haven't wanted Anything since last April.
Same, after they discontinued the game in my language (portuguese), I Lost most of the interest in buying new products
That fomo is going hard. These should be timed products. Ultimately, they should sell them through LGSs.
They are timed. They are supposed to be on sale for 1-2 weeks.
I don't think they'd be able to supply enough secret lairs to every LGS and even then LGS's would absolutely scalp this product because it would be a time limited release and they would have such little supply. They should stop selling secret lairs and figure out a distribution method that doesn't favor scalpers.
@zztzgza I'm just a guy on the internet and the ins and outs are above me. Hear me out, what if they did previews a few months ahead of time. Let's say they announce a secret lair that will release in November, the lgs takes orders until the of August. Lgs submits the order, then in November wotc ships all orders to the lgs for people to pick up. Lgs gets foot traffic and a small cut.
They used to be printed to order with a timed order window, but a few months ago they changed to a limited volume printing instead.
@@mayklakulawell worth it for them for a predictable printing schedule and for me to get cards in a timely manner
I'm genuinely so pissed about the Hatsune Miku secret lairs. Not only does the email subscription not work, I've signed up multiple times with multiple emails, and not a single one has gotten a notification email. Then I go on Twitter and see speculators and scalpers bragging about how much money they'll be worth when they resell them because "The fans of this thing like collecting everything from this brand"
Yea I didn't get an email bout the recent Monty Python set till 14 minutes before they launched (I knew it was coming I just didn't know it was in this launch) when I was still asleep 😂 none of the other emails I got mentioned it, my whole group missed it cause of how bad the system is.
I will third this statement. I did not get my email for the bloomburrow walkers either. I was lucky enough to get one. I'm on the side of proxy if the card looks cool (my playgroup only proxies cards we own).
I can't get an email. No matter what I do they don't send me the emails.
@@AwdlyTbdShoot, I think it's fine to proxy cards you don't own. It's not worth buying 1 card just to proxy as many as you want. I think everyone should be more liberal with proxies. Especially since WotC has been so aggressive and predatory. These slips of paper just aren't worth the trouble when I can get the same effect with some custom cardstock.
Sorry none of you have phone that can set a reminder alarm. Maybe spend 3 bucks on a digital watch instead that can do it.
When they did print-to-demand, I didn't have enough disposable income to buy Secret Lairs. I do now, after they made the switch to limited print runs. I guess if I ever want to own a secret lair I'll have to hit up a proxy print shop.
Customize your own secret lair! I got the cats and dogs deck, but I'm still working on getting half the deck proxied out with cards that have my pets on them
I know we’ll never get this data but it would be interesting to know how many of these “exclusive” cards are printed, especially when the product sells out globally in less than a handful of hours.
Exactly! What's so impressive about saying they sold out in a matter of hours because they only printed 1/10 (making up a number) of what they knew they could reasonably sell? At what point do you say you're just really bad at evaluating how desirable your product is? If
@@jameslarochelle8501Your opinion of “bad” probably does equate to “bad” for business. FOMO is incredibly valuable. Everyone talking about it is valuable. The Monty Python lair might have been very well evaluated. They even limited it to 5. Fallout has no limit.
@@chim007azo I agree that FOMO is valuable. If I told you that I sold 1K units for you in 2 hours, you'd normally be pretty happy. But what if I told you that I could have easily sold 2K units for you in 5 hours? Are you really still as happy? Call me old-fashioned, but between the spin I can put on selling out in quickly and making double the money, I think I'd rather make double the money, particularly if the amount of time it took me to make double the money is still nothing to scoff at . Maybe they're working towards that sweet spot and producing more each time. But if they're consistently producing more and still selling out quickly then I think they're still being a little too conservative in their evaluation. Also, limiting people to 5 isn't a sign that they evaluated properly. It's the bare minimum they can do to not make it blatantly look like they're simply handing the product over to the scalpers.
@@jameslarochelle8501 you could sell an extra 1k now or an extra 500 to 1k the next 3 sales that likely won’t have the same demand. I’m just assuming they have business guys to look at the trend numbers, especially after Fallout and Hatsune, and knew what the best balance is.
@@jameslarochelle8501 But look at all the other Lairs still available. They're trying to project demand and not getting there and they probably printed these long ago, so they don't get time to judge feedback, so they have to guess. But they over guessed on every Lair except Monty Python. No one cares about that, they make their entire response on one Lair they didn't get at the cheapest price.
The first thing I heard about the Monty Python secret lair was that it was sold out
I found out about it when people started putting up want to buy posts in a card resale group haha
One of my friends logged in exactly when they went online, was thrown in a 90 minute queue, was told they sold out.
That effectively means they sold out instantly when 3 seconds worth of clicks after launch didnt get it.
I found out about the Not a Wolf Secret Lair after it sold out too. I recently made a Wolf Token deck, so this is the first Drop I wanted to buy and I didn't even hesitate to run to the site.
Gone.
Had to pay the markup. I got my shinies though.
@@paulbuckley2301 ironic, given that NOTAWOLF posts pretty anti-commercial stuff all the time
Huh, and now I know that NOTAWOLF is a separate thing outside of Magic. This was a missing piece of the puzzle.
Do the initial run, foil only. The non-foil are printed to demand, and will be delayed. But if you want foil, you HAVE to get that pre-order run. Stick an extra exclusove art basic land in there as well. Bam, available and fomo-y
And it makes foils special again. That's a nice approach.
Considering that print to demand most likely is so they can send consistent, identical print run orders to their printing partners for logistical and contractual savings, making even more SKU's and having even more erratic orders is probably the exact opposite of what WOTC would want to do. Everyone think this is FOMO when it's probably just practical savings. Between various specific print runs at variable intervals and 'print 50,000 copies of this SLD sheet every 4 weeks', which do you think is the cheapest?
Everyone is viewing this from a sales lens and thinking it's a FOMO tactic when really it's a supply chain optimization.
@@alanli6276 You seem very new to the Secret Lair sales and operation. The reason everyone is saying this is being done for FOMO marketing is that they literally did it the other way for a couple years. Further, they have never done it the way you are suggesting. They took orders for about a month and then printed enough product to fullfill all those orders. That is what is meant by "print to demand."
There are no SKUs because the product is sold directly to consumers. Stores cannot order these via distributors. If they choose to buy some to sell them, they must pay full price and buy them as consumers, not stores.
Then they changed it to this. They are artificially limiting sales so they can print them in advance and ship them out the week after orders. That's it. There is "print X copies every Y weeks." There is "print X copies. Destroy the plates."
If the cards had a decent foiling process and wouldn't curl I would get behind that. I choose non foil over foil because of that problem.
This will just be more of the same, and will give WotC even more tools to take advantage of us. Especially with foils. Foils already retain value and are much more expensive to print than standard cards. This will make foils more expensive, and there is no guarantee that there won't be 'foil exclusive' cards. It's already obvious that they will make the most predatory version of whatever idea is given to them, and they have already manipulated rarity in the past. POD may only be commons and uncommons, while they would find a way to make getting anything else painful. They also have a proprietary cardstock that needs to be manufactured, so POD can become expensive in-and-of itself. My perspective anyway. I think there are better ways of doing things, but they wouldn't want to make it easier for us.
Also, Prof had 3 days to make a "Is it worth it to buy" for this superdrop, but now it will have to be another "Was it worth it to buy"
It was. It almost always is.
Everyone hating on the Brain Dead drop was perfect for me because that meant I had plenty of time to snag it. Didn't even have to wait in the virtual queue.
This isn't about FOMO any more. When the stuff sells out before I even know it's on sale, what used to be FOMO becomes apathy. Toward the whole product line. Because why even bother?
😂 the drop date was known about a month ago, the Monty Python part at least a week ago.
Implying it was ever actually about FOMO, instead of just persuing maximum profit for the company. Badly.
And when its available for an entire month and print as much as people order there's apathy because its not special in any way. Every person who wants one got them. And you only wanted 1 Lair, meanwhile every other Lair is still available. It's not FOMO, its just too much demand for one item and they didn't make enough, but they have too much of every other Lair. And no one cares about that.
I tried to buy the Monty Python Vol. 1 set in the UK, waited for an hour in the queue, got to check out 1 hour and 11 minutes after it dropped... And it had sold out.
I tried to check out 9 minutes after the drop and still couldn't get it so time to proxy! Win win for me, I still get cool cards to play with and WoTC get no money from me!
Everyone: Tickmaster’s model is terrible. WotC: I’ll have two of that!
This is so far from the Ticketmaster issue it’s not even funny. If GameStop and Cardshop live were allowed to buy up like 1/2 the Lairs available before anyone even had a chance to get in the queue, then there would be a comparison.
I missed out on buying the Monty Python ones because I was at work... gotta love it
@@ghost64626 i had to fucking go to the restroom just to set up the order, then kept my phone in sight to make sure I didn't miss my order window. I unfortunately missed out on both Miku sets in similar fashion because I failed to look up exactly when the damn things released
Same. I guess WotC don't want people who have to work to buy their cards buying them.
@@JD-gk7ehit’s a children’s card game
@@honestabe411yes you’re right. So why do they sell out in 2 minutes if that’s the case?
@@honestabe411 Then why are you here talking about it?
I signed up for email alerts. Clicked the email when it showed up, waited in queue for 1.3 hours and it was already sold out. I have money and I am willing to purchase a product, it is a service problem that I am unable.
Nah, it’s an exactly the same as every other limited collectible drop across all collectibles.
@@chim007azo You missed the queue to comment on my post. Thank you for coming, sign up for my newsletter for more updates.
Agreed. I didn’t sit on the Secret Lair website all day at work and I am punished for not doing so.
@@AnimeManiacAndres it took less than 5 minutes to sign in and order. You had 20 minutes to complete your order when your turn came up. I checked the queue at 40 minutes then again at 50 minutes I was in. Another 3-5 minutes to check out. Not even close to all day.
You don't cut the golden goose's head. The most common knowledge no company head ever holds.
Selling out of product, getting lots of online people talking about your product and instilling a sense of FOMO to sell you future products people might normally be on the fence about is not in any way shape or form cutting off the goose’s head.
Magic is a luxury game, it has luxury game pieces that not all players can afford.
You know whos never sold out of cards? The place i buy proxies from who print what you order.
Too bad SOME influencers think proxying cards that look like real mtg cards makes you worse than genghis khan
@@provolonepop it's dumb, I own a collection worth more than most peoples cars are worth, I don't give a shit about proxies or the value of the cards. I play the game to have fun, id rather people actually be able to play then spend a mortgage payment to build a deck.
@@provolonepopwho? Every creator I’ve seen is way too easy on proxies.
@@Si0nbarzahdI’d rather people who spend money on an expensive randomized game and the game stores that sell it be able to recoup a decent amount of that money when they get cards they don’t want or would like to exchange for other cards.
@@chim007azo sorry you're poor bro.
Monopoly GO is the golden goose and Magic is the Silver Goose. DnD Is a normal egg laying hen. Everything else HAS does spends the profits from the profitable sectors while giving very little back to shareholders.
too bad more people didnt buy star wars toys a decade ago, could have prevented all of this
I honestly thought you were joking about monopoly go. We failed as a species.
There *were* complaints about how long it took to get some lairs, specifically the coin-flip full commander deck took nearly a full year to ship.
BUT, they corrected that issue by doing precisely what you suggested in this video: they started pre-printing a supply of them and then printing-to-demand for orders beyond that initial supply. When I ordered the secret lair tie-in for the D&D film, I received it within 3 days, while the product was still actively on sale.
That was the perfect mid-point, in my opinion.
But I'm sure they had situations where they never even sold out the pre-printed stock on some lairs, and it looked bad to some executive, so they whip up the FOMO to ensure that it always sells out, regardless of quality.
Except they don't even close to always sell out. The Bloomburrow Foil is the only other one from this drop besides the Monty Python that has sold out. The month long print to demand was lame and I'm sure they saw a huge dropoff in sales.
@@michaelrudolph7003 a dropoff that cost them nothing at all, doing it this way is resulting in fewer sales. any product that sells out completely is lost sales from the people who wanted to buy it and could not.
WOTC definitely needs to improve on this. I'm still greatly saddened by getting two wastes cards in the fallout secret lair cause what a great idea to make a "special print" bonus card a chance that nobody can afford
You realize that this current system was the improvement because everybody complained to wotc staff online about having to wait a few months to get their orders. Wotc is doing this fomo distribution because of the mtg community and its impatience.
@@zztzgza that was a shit complaint and everyone who has a brain knows it. It was only a problem with the coin flip commander deck and it was because of the extra goodies included with the product weren’t developed ahead of time properly.
If the difference is between an extra 2-6 month wait and guaranteeing I get a product I want vs an hour-long rush to the register, Black Friday style, I choose the former.
@@jemm113definitely not a 💩 complaint. Some people have waited a year for a Lair. If you don’t print a head of time you have to wait to see how many of each you need to print before you can even start trying to figure out when you can get printer time to print that many. Any hiccup in supplies or an order at the printer taking longer pushes the printing back. Having a Lair show up you forgot even ordering was absolutely ridiculous.
If memory serves, they used to do the "pre-print X copies and then print to demand" back when they were all technically print to demand, which caused some people to get theirs much faster than others. That sort of exacerbated the "mine took a year to arrive" issue because people could compare ship dates to those that got a pre-print.
That said, this FOMO-ization has made me almost completely disengage with the product line. Monty Python is the first I've bought since they swapped to the FOMO model and it certainly isn't because it was a good value.
Speaking of value, I wish I had the numbers in front of me but as someone who pays attention to the various reddit evaluations of the value in these things, I feel like the value of them has gone down considerably aince they swapped to the FOMO model. If that can be proven to be true, it would prove they're actively providing a worse product for the same cost and counting on FOMO and scalpers buying them out to keep the sales figures up.
They haven’t had a proper playtest team since GRN/RNA. the game and product getting better has been past tense for 5 years now
It's not FOMO when most people actually MO. It's actually missing out of things people wanted to buy.
The “drop” for Volume 2 of Monty Python was especially egregious… They wanted $30-$40 for only 3 cards! (And 1 Token)
I think I can consider myself lucky that I wasn’t able to waste my money… However, I will say that I did end up buying the Foil Showcase: Bloomburrow drop, since it was ultimately $70+ worth of foils for only $40 (not to mention I specifically collect Planeswalkers)
I straight up cursed out loud (giving my two cats a heart attack) when I got home from work on Monday and found out that the Monty Python secret lair was already sold out.
Secret lairs use to be a product for me (I could buy into what I like to bling out my few decks) but now after not once, but twice! I missed out on a secret lair because of the limited print run they switched too. The product isn’t for people like me anymore.
Magic isn't for you any more. Magic is for the scalpers and the whales.
@@PhoenicopterusR sadly more apparent every month when the next set drops before I even open packs from the current month
Yeah, same here. I can comprehend the reasoning behind switching to this sales model, but it's utter bullcrap and it just straight up marks the product as 'not for me'.
I'm pretty sure I speak for a lot of fellow players when I say that as a working man with various major responsibilities, I think it's ludicrous for WotC to expect me to check in online several times per day (or night) to see if something desirable has been ejected from the Mothership. I have actual important shit going on, way beyond the 'need' to buy overpriced custom playing cards, and making SL this inconvenient to purchase just makes me not want to part with my cash.
Kinda sad, some Lairs really were awesome, and I would have loved to snag myself a Monty Python set. But I'm not engaging with this detestable business practice, and scalpers can go fuck themselves with big handfuls of rusty nuts and bolts.
All the other Lairs are still available and the only other Lairs that have ever immediately sold out (within several hours) have been the Miku Lairs.
@@michaelrudolph7003 So far, sure. What's your point, though?
Proxies are the answer
Proxies aren’t legal in sanctioned play.
Not for collectible items. You can print all the game pieces you want, but I sometimes want my shiny. Or, at least, used to. Seems this stuff is not for me any more, whether I want to or not.
Absolutely this! More proxies
The number of new players that can be onboarded gets bricked by the proposition of needing a quality printer and an hour of labor
@@VolkbrechtProxies are just as shiny. You can even print foils very affordably. Putting the onus on "collectibles" gives this scumfuck corporation power over the consumers. Consumers ALWAYS have the power- if they aren't foolish.
I say in a que for 45 minutes after trying to check out a minute after it went live. Got my happy 1 set!
They can just do something like serialized cards, have the first 500 orders be serialized or first thousand, then make the rest print to order. They get the FOMO for their whales with the serialized cards, and the normal cards don’t end up being $500. Or they can just have a limited alternate printing. Make a special version of the SLD for the first 1000 people who order, then the rest are the normal SLD. Higher overhead because you need more art, but overall they would sell a lot more actual units. I just really hope they don’t go the way of, “Alternate art just isn’t for you, let the collectors collect, if you’re broke, just say it.” Magic just seems to be way more about the money now.
Too. Late.
It's been a Scalper's Game for decades, it's just we've been using nicer terms up until now.
This is such a great point
9/10 My only point of disagreement; I highly doubt wizards didn't have an idea that this would sell out immediately. #1 you yourself said part of it, that selling out of a product looks good to investors and the corporate valuation. Also, and maybe more importantly. that's how they build the FOMO for the next one. People will be more likely to jump on and grab something they like, even just a little, if they know they will likely only have one chance to get it.
There's a certain extent that selling out looks good to investors and valuation but only if they meet their numbers. If you sell out and you miss your numbers then the conversation becomes "why are we not printing enough to meet the market demand" because you're essentially leaving money on the table
@@JD-gk7ehyou’re ignoring the value of FOMO to sell more product in the future and all the free publicity they’re getting. I have a feeling they printed way more of these than usual, maybe on the cautious side but achieved exactly what they wanted. They definitely knew the demand would be higher this time because they had buying limits which they don’t always have.
@@chim007azoThey can’t use FOMO to sell more product if there is no more product to sell.
I preordered and paid for 2 fallout collector boxes, that order was canceled. I was so upset I didn't buy anything up through Bloomburrow. I wanted this too, checked my emails and the online store before I had to go to work like an adult - got no email and it was sold out next time I could check in the middle of the workday. So, now I feel demotivated to buy things again. Not only are they losing money on their missed sale on a tiny group of cards from me or other lairs ( I probably would have got the walkers at least but I was too mad and just closed it) but the usual booster+collector box I usually get with each set I just ignored since they began this nonsense starting with fallout...There are other collectables where I can get my pre-orders and not add extra frustration I don't need with my hobby when I choose to be an adult, and while I may be insignificant to them, I'm guessing I'm not the only adult that feels this way ,@califkids3
For a bit of context on what I'm about to say, I'm from the UK, I've loved Holy Grail since I was little, saw a touring production of Spamalot in my teens (always wanted to see the west-end show but it closed before I could), and we played Find Your Grail from Spamalot at my mum's funeral last year because she also loved it. So this was one I felt I really couldn't miss. I just hate that it's on these terms. I've Also only partaken in 2 other Secret Lairs, those being The Walking Dead (approached by WotC ALMOST as badly as the Monty Python one, and I never expected to say another SL was actually implemented WORSE), and Stranger Things (Arguably a chef's kiss as far as SL ordering and distribution goes)
I hate this new model. It was so much stress just trying to even figure out the plan to buy them in terms of release timing and such. With the Stranger Things one, they were made to order so all I had to do was go on whenever I was able to and order them. They also didn't make it very clear at the time, but under the previous model, you didn't pay until it shipped (I found out from a friend who'd recently ordered a different one whilst complaining I was going to miss it). It allowed me to order extra copies of the Stranger Things lairs (Including one for my sister for Christmas) and save up for a couple of months to actually afford them. With this and The Walking Dead, not only were they pay on purchase, but the release date was only announced about a week before, making it insanely difficult for normal people to actually afford them at such short notice. I had to call in a bunch of favours (not something I like doing) in order to afford my single copy of The Walking Dead lair, and I put this one on a credit card I only recently got (along with the ridiculously overpriced MH3 product I got a month ago) so I could worry about paying it off later, over time. Neither thing being an option too many people are fortunate to have. Not only that, but I was on there as soon as it went live (a few minutes before, to be specific) and ended up in the queue for just under an hour. Apparently it was sold out within 90 minutes, and I think that's including wait time, so more like 30 minutes realistically. Looks like a lot of people waited in the queue and by the time they got to checkout, it was sold out and the site had emptied their entire baskets, not just the Monty Python lairs, meaning they had to go back through the queue.
It sucks that buying some of these brilliant items has to come along with this shitty feeling for upholding a broken system. As I vaguely mentioned, I felt similarly about how they went about The Walking Dead lair but I ultimately got that one as well because trying to afford a copy of one of my favourite comicbook and TV villains, as well as a staple for my Saskia (Umori companion) Humans deck on the secondary felt like it would cost vastly more.
It felt like they'd truly found the right system with the Stranger Things ones but annoyingly, they've now regressed to an even worse system than The Walking Dead and it's a system that doesn't even make sense. All it does is limit the amount of money they can make. They use the justification that it decreases shipping times, but I still have to wait over 3 weeks for them to ship on August 20th (not even arrive), so it's not like it's immediate anyway. In fact it's probably closer to a month or more before it arrives. If the wait is more than a week or two, it doesn't make much of a difference to me whether it's 3 weeks or 3 months, especially if the 3 month system results in a much fairer system for all (AND creates a potentially unlimited amount of money for WotC in the process). The sentiment I've seen online is similar. People don't mind waiting longer for it to arrive if it means they can actually get the bloody product
The whole "FOMO marketing" argument doesn't hold up when every single secret lair has a limited buying window. Literally the only ways this model makes sense is if WotC themselves (or hasbro) are buying up a tonne of copies to later sell on the secondary market for even bigger profit, or as Vince (Also known as PleasantKenobi on the internet) said, looking good to shareholders. But even then, surely making $50 million from made to order vs $20 million from limited supply looks even better to them? And not that it matters, seeing as the items sell out anyway under this model (it did matter for The Walking Dead model), but the amount of people this system turns off from buying because they don't want to support it is another HUGE chunk of money they lose out on. The Walking Dead at the time was apparently their most profitable/best selling product by far. Imagine how many more they would have sold if they hadn't made countless people opt out of buying it, or even just completely unable to buy it due to affordability around the timing of the release? I think I remember hearing Stranger Things did even better, and it's no surprise when the main purchase limitations were removed.
Lastly, the fact that they seem to be making the products for high value resale on the secondary market (assuming the tin foil hat conspiracy thing about them doing it themselves is most likely wrong) is deeply insulting to the playerbase who loves the game. It's essentially telling us that people who don't even care about playing and just want to make money off of it are more important than the players who built the game and would most likely love and cherish the product.
I could probably go off even more about how this flawed model is basing itself largely on the Supreme model, but I'll save y'all even more of a rant, as well as my own energy 😸
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
Maybe I should say this to WotC instead of just venting it in a RUclips comment section 😅
Update for anyone still interested after that essay: I ended up being convinced to order the Braindead Creatures and Staples lairs thanks to all the online hate, along with an Andrew Maclean one because I figured I could use another Nirkana Revenant (especially with that brilliant flavour text) and I loved the Maelstrom Wanderer art. Anyway, I ended up ordering them with no problems 2 days after the drop launched. And looking again now, they still seem to be in stock almost a week later, which only gives me more doubts about the current model and Vince (also known as PleasantKenobi on the internet)'s mention of how items selling out looks good to investors/shareholders. Because surely it doesn't look THAT good if only 3 out of the 7 sell out quickly and they're left with surplus unsold stock of all the rest? Not only does that show they could've made VASTLY more on the ones that did sell out, but it means that if none of the rest of these do, that's actually less than a 50% success rate for sales in terms of clearing the stock for each lair in this drop (although I'm sure they sold more than 50% of the TOTAL number made)
What's odd to me is that they're leaving so much money on the table by not selling to people who want to buy. I worked in a very different business, but we'd order product with the goal of having 10% left over at the end of the day because that meant that we didn't miss out on a sale because we didn't have the product a customer wanted. That figure was based on certain profit margins of course, but the idea is that you want to sell as much as you possibly can. I don't get how the value of saying you sold out is so much higher than actually selling more cards at hugely inflated prices
It should be print on demand within the window of time available as a compromise between players and wotc.
I say this as someone who bought 3 pairs of monty python who intends to flip a pair to cover opening one, keeping one unopened, and hopefully pay bills with the rest of the profit. I might sell the unopened later for more.
Strapped for cash, so I can't help but see an obvious way to help pay bills and take it when I have a family to feed.
Have fun scalping and "collecting" a game nobody plays anymore. You're the problem.
Fuck Wotc, they'd make more money if they sold more, and consumers won't miss out. New SL model is just a big middle finger to people who like this stuff
I personally never bought a secret lair; i dont agree with print to consumer direct singles and especially when adding a time frame as short as 5 min to even get one before it sells out.
It seems predatory on many levels, from keeping lgs out, to making it scalpers paradise with no msrp, and not allowing something reasonable like a 7 day window so players have a week to get a SL if they want.
Imo there shouldn’t be secret lair edh decks; but a yearly release of 4-6 precons that have SL style art and each deck a different art style and theme.
Make it available for a few months so players can actually get it and long term ppl can hold sealed.
I think the weirdest part for me is that it's so painfully obvious that the demand is there but Wizards just... don't want to fulfill it? They don't want free money? There's literally no downside to print to demand. If it's an unpopular secret lair, you're not left with wasted product but on the flip side to that, if you strike gold like the Monty Python set then you just rake it in. Genuine madness.
I will keep shouting it until I'm blue in the face:
PRINT. TO. DEMAND.
EVERY company just needs to PRINT TO DEMAND, and ALL these issues would be fixed. Screw the "supposed loss" they MIGHT have, their products will sell JUST FINE.
Whats sad is I was currently spending magic on bloomburrow, and I get paid monthly. If it was like it used to be, being preorder before production, I would have had time to give them my money. I'm a huge monty python fan. But i guess wizards hates money now. So now they don't get it from me for this product. counting myself lucky as is to have nabbed each miku lair so far.
I tried to make a purchase the minute it went live and waited in the queue for an hour before being able to make my purchase. I'm grateful I was able to make a purchase, though, and I'm frustrated that others weren't.
WOTC really needs to fix this by printing to demand. That's all you have to do to fix the issue.
I actually loved how it was print to order, no pressure. Was into it. I am so tired of the scalping. I just do not even touch these anymore.
Yeah, I was engaged in a meeting (in-person) and by the end of the meeting (approximately 1 hour), it was already showing sold out for me. I very rarely am interested in secret lair, but the flavor of monty python was so nostalgic for me. We should be able to responsibly engage in our professions without having to make time in the middle of the day to enjoy our hobbies.
I am Australian, and the majority of Secret Lair products were sold out when I got up at 6am on launch day. Like a lot of people, I was hoping to grab the Monty Python ones, but alas, I'll have to live without them (given the deluge of product, it will be quite easy to move on).
It has gotten to the point now where I would have to set an alarm for the middle of the night / morning just to stand a chance of getting a Secret Lair. I have done this in the past for very special, limited edition items (e.g., vinyl from a favourite artist), but it's not something I'm willing to do for every Secret Lair, especially given the rate of release.
Probably just me. But I completely stopped buying the secret lair stuff. Kind of happy I dodge the bullet. I'm mostly sticking to buying my Singles on tcgplayer and this mans sponsers. Just want to support my favorite creators. I loved them doing the print to demand but now ever since the other IP's showing up in the game. I can't really escape the power creep, the fancy pants copies, and the CONSTANT variants.
Shout out to the creators actually helping out with these things. Dont forget to support this guy with the funny accent. He's cool i guess. He's also got stuff.
Jokes aside. Thanks to this guy and all MTG creators who got them funny codes. You guys put the singles in my collection and I cant be happier.
Have a great day you person who read this :].
It started with the 30th anniversary edition packs first but the handling of the secret lairs is solidifying my use of “counterfeits”
This is 100% WotC's fault. They put up a limited run product as a supply with obscene prices, knowing it will sell out immediately no matter how much money they ask for. They see no reason to shut off the money printer since they dont care about hurting the game.
1:05
As a Canadian I feel left behind in most USA centered products. It's amazing how difficult/expensive it can be to ship across an imaginary line.
I can't compare to Europe, and when I lived in Australia it was much worse.
Scalpers lose out if people dont spend the money to buy from them. So the fact that scalping works means people are willing to pay crazy prices for the product
Lol what? Wizards didnt realize the demand these would drive?! No one actually believes that
I typically buy these to sell to others in my local community and then later online (I run a Magic Community in my local area), so by definition I think I'm a scalper, but I only got two of these because I wanted the Monty Python cards to frame. I kinda regretted not buying more because I immediately got messages to see if I ordered more to sell. I just wish it was print on demand again, it makes everything easier for the players.
“They had no idea”… I call bullshit. They are absolutely under printing on purpose at this point 😂
This was the first ever secret lair i bought and man. I hate how wizards does these but monty python was just too good to pass up. As soon as it was announced i knew for a fact this was going to happen
This issue is in a lot of Hasbro products. Transformers has recently been releasing the most characters like Bumblebee exclusive figures or they have the lowest amount of figures made. All the those most wanted figures are sold out right away by figures and then the rest sits on shelves for years.
After the outcry of the mythic editions being so scarce and scalped, I can't believe it took this long for people to wake up about secret lairs. Wotc does this on purpose and yall eat it right up so why would they stop?
Secret lair set with 2 20$ cards in it gets overshadowed by the meme set of commons with a monty python theme
I bought both
dont like the art
The art is baaaaad
@@KabochaNo-o-ue5hp but the cards play as the same.... and will be worth more later to trade for originals plus
Sad that wizards missed out on so much money. A print to demand run would've sold so much.
What the fuck do you mean? It’s been a scalper’s game for years now!
Yes! Let it become a scalpers game. PLEASE let it go down. It will be right good punishment for everyone trying to take advantage of the collective community. We don't need WotC. We can make our own sets and proxy our own cards. It'll be like the 3rd party content for D&D. A lot of us players already know how to design cards and a lot of us are designers at heart. Some are crafty and others are mathy. This game isn't dead. Not by a long shot. But the failure of the official game will be good overall. New games will take its place, the community will own mtg, and game stores will be better off. Growing pains will happen, but thats not bad. It's for the better.
It should go back to previous print on demand. And nothing can convince me otherwise.
When the drop is at 2am and they sold out at 3am, Australians have never had access. I had to stay up late to get the one secret lair I got
Strange how WotC heard the community complaining SL were too cheap (in the secondary market, per each card’s playable value) and thus WotC artificially increased the SL value by doing nothing for the cards selected. Just squeezed the supply so the demand in silly high for something so scarce.
And no, signing up for notifications of when SL will drop, that of course doesnt work.
Wotc did this and only they can fix it but, they'd rather use fomo to sell this shit. Also, people complained directly to mark rosewater and other wotc people online over having to wait to get secret lairs so, this is wotc's fix; only scalpers can get them now. It sucks but, maybe people should just be patient next time.
This is, ultimately, their goal. This has all been about prestige for the executives working at Hasbro and Wizards. They want to be able to talk about how valuable their products are on the secondary market. They want people at their cocktail parties to know who they are. It isn't about what is best for the game, or even the company, it is about vanity.
Make online Secret Lair purchases limited to 1 per shipping and billing address. Release them in "waves" every few hours. Say, 20k, then + 5k or 10k or whatever throughout a 24-hour period ar a random interval within 1 hour. (T1 = 20k at 9AM Pacific , T2 = 10k at 10:23AM Pacific, T3 =10k at 11:47AM Pacific, T4 = 5k at 12:35PM Pacific, etc..)
Send to brick and mortar stores. Blacklist stores that sell the Secret Lairs online from ALL MTG products. Require stores to sell no more than one or two per person. Remove all restrictions after the next Secret Lair drop (Restrictions only apply to the "active" drop)
It won't stop it. It will stem it. You simply cannot stop scalping of limited product. Heck, you can't stop inflated scalping/arbitrage of unlimited product until FOMO dies down.
The existence of Secret Lair proves that it is a Scalpers game. We already lost
Not even close
Foils were sold out in NA in an hour. ie, when my queue was up after adding them to my cart in the first 5 minutes of the sale. I was so pissed off that admittedly I didn't look for the non-foil until the 90-minute mark, but those were gone by then, too. Anyone who told you "under 4 hours" is being EXTREMELY generous.
Was stuck at work on a Monday morning. Wasn’t even able to check until 3 hours after they went live. More product, a better release time not during a typical work week, or limit 2 per customer. So many potential solutions, yet none are implemented
I wanna say FOMO is definitely an outcome of this practice, but I feel its mostly just to make prints consistent / save money
Honestly, it almost feels like living a Monty Python sketch. "Please, I just wish to exchange my money for your goods." "No, you're too late. Come back next Thursday." "But you're closed..." "THURSDAAYYY!!!" "But my money!" "Don't care. Invest it somewhere else." (walks away depressed) "I just wanted to spend too much money on a silly hat. Now I can't."
I just stopped caring about secret lairs when they changed to limited quantity. I have liked a few and would have ordered them, but I am not getting in a race to get online in the first hours to get them. I just won't have them, and that's fine.
The email they send if you leave it in the cart and don't check out is also slightly "FOMO" fear enducing..."they might not be available for long. With just a few clicks, you can complete your order before it’s too late." Lots of ppl do it but it's usually temu or a crap company that uses those tactics
I got on the mailing list for the Monty Python set cause it's actually one I was interested in. Didn't even get the email. Went to check the site, already sold out. As much as I have issues with Secret Lair - at least the old system you had some time to put an order in rather than just FOMO driving scalpers.
The monty python secret lair was one that I was actually into. I'm very glad that my wife was able to buy them when I was at work.
The change has simply made me much much more selective about what secret lairs I'll buy. I used to have a system based on 3 categories: How much do I like the art? how many of the cards am I currently playing? what is the financial value of the cheapest printings of the cards? If the SL was a win in 2/3 categories, I'd usually buy it. Now that its print to demand, I don't want to deal with the que or support support the change by wizards. I'm still willing to try and buy a secret lair, but only when it hits all 3 categories.
Never owned a SL card, never will, fuck that shit. Same as Arena, fuck that.
But I’m not a saint; I just spend €23,- for a japanese old bordered foil flusterstorm promo. I’m a freak in my own way.
Here's what to do. Preprint. Sell out. Then print-to-demand two weeks later.
Classic "invent a problem so you can sell the solution AND be the savior" system. "We understand that there are more people who want this, so we're going to go out of our way to get it to you." Note that a second printing is never promised, and could even be marked differently to preserve he value of "First Editions".
(Do I have to think of everything? It's like the toy company doesn't realize that their collectibles business is a license to print money if handled correctly.)
I woke up, added them to my cart and waited an hour in que. They sold out before my GF could get them around 1pm EST after her 20 mins que.
Feelsrealgood when the only reason you signed up for wizards emails was for Monty Python and they sell out before you wake up
Oh we're way past that at this point, Hasbro has smelled blood in the water and is going to keep cranking these out until the cows come home.
This is my first secret lair drop. Got it within the minute but had to wait 20 minutes. UK btw. Its nice to know so many people like Monty Python. But I do wish scalping wasnt a thing. I suppose this is why proxies are popular
Secret lair should be a mystery box.
You sub, pay every month, and get your box every month. Either you don't know what's in it, or know a month in advance. Scalping would be dead.
In the last set of Secret Lairs I ordered an extra Lair just to get the Seedborn Promo. Didn’t get it. When I emailed support they told me it was “a limited supply promotion” and that I should have read the Terms & Conditions.
A single promo card is now limited? Short supplying the stock of the Lairs wasn’t enough? My extra $30 wasn’t enough for you to print more cardboard you were printing anyway?
Told them I’m never buying another one. And I won’t. Not even sure my friends will either.
How do I submit feedback? The link just takes me to my profile page, and I can not locate an option for feedback.
God im so glad that i sat there for 2 hour refreshing the page to get it as soon as it dropped
Will need to watch this evening... but just a note, I put my email in to be notified when live, I did not get an email. Surely nothing untoward going on, there...
I lucked out in having a bit of downtime during work and was able to snatch mine up. The bit at the end about having some of the print run ready to go sounds intriguing. It won't happen, as it doesn't make quite as much FOMO money, but having a big serialized batch for this ready to go bit has some FOMO in mind while also leaving nonserialized print to order open for consideration.
Im a firm believer that Preorder no longer means."lets see how big demand is and make that many plus X amount for retail." Instead it has become " We low key already made X amount and we put a preorder up and when the limit is hit it sells out." They deliberately create FOMO so you are spending your money on them every week. I stopped buying MTG because I love Transformers and collect the modern figures. So they were getting me on both ends and they do the exact same thing with all their toy releases as well.
Thank you. Was sold out in an hour and a half for me, or at least that’s when I saw it.
I rolled in the queue right at 12:00p est, completed my order of both Monty Python sets, around 1:00p. I was curious and checked in an hour later ( i recorded it for my friend) and it was sold out at 2:17... so not sure where people are getting that it was still available after 2 hours. But that is clearly wrong.
I managed to get this secret lair, first one ive bought cos i loved the cards and they were also cards i want to use, cant wait to use sir bedivere's scales in a pauper game. But i was checking out within 4m of it going live, and i had to queue for over an hour. Realistically, these went out of stock in 10-20m imo.
They could do the sports card style first off the line limited release with FOTL on the corner of the card, and get their 5 minute sellout. Then release a print to demand a month later to get the money.
We went from the lair being avaiable from a day to a month and now to an hour. These went up while I was driving for work and were sold out before I had my lunch break. I have tuned out lairs since the sell out style started, Ill live without Miku cards and it will be a real bummer when I cant get a certain artsits collection but I'm not setting an alarm to drop whats in fornt of me to buy cards.
0:54 Hasbro then announces the end of English language support of magic the gathering cards.
this was the first set i'd wanted in so long, too
I feel like they could solve this problem and look good to outside investors by printing waves to demand. Each wave is let's say 5000 units. People could buy however many they wanted while the drops are available and Wizards could claim the product "should out ten times over"
To note, there's the 50th anniversary secret lairs for DnD that will contain mechanically unique cards that will most likely all have limited printings.
I'm from Australia and my LGS is a Wizards premium store. Wizards has not sent promo packs or secret lair to the story in over a year, quoting "shipping and stock issues" to why
Also woke up for the secret lair in my local time, the website had issues for half an hour then said sold out
I bought 2, one for me, one for my brother. As fans of the property, we are the right buyers. Should it be this stressful? No. He'll no, what a pita.
It all started when the main tagline for secret lairs was "miss it, and its gone forever" and no one got bothered by it. This is just the logical conclusion.
As a European, what I want them to do, is to have them in stock, at their European warehouse, before they set them up for sale. It is utterly ridiculous that we have to wait a month or two more, when we have ours sold at the exact same time as the Americans. And if their argument is that they need to ship them to their EU storage first, then they need to stop putting them up for sale before they have arrived.
You’re 31 years too late. Magic has always been the ultimate scalper’s game.
I got them because I liked the film right at noon, my friend tried to get them 20 minutes later and the foils were gone