this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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They love to cite how great these sets are for attracting new players but do they really become players? This is rhetorical at this point as we’ll never see the data but what is the actual player retention rate from these sets? If they knew this and it was good they would show it.
I realize the goal is to now convert them to a more accessible format like Standard but my gut says most of these buyers are one time buyers and are not actually growing the game long term. As long as they keep cranking out sets then this will be fine financially for a while but I can’t understand the long term thinking here, particularly as this pretty much forces enfranchised players to now cross the Rubicon. This is a fundamental shift/fork in the game.
I would love to see this too. It's like a company that doesn't care about retaining any customers, just using the new customer data to show growth. The bottom falls out of that because any company/game/etc needs a core group of repeat and engaged long-term customers/users to keep it alive. That same group kept Magic alive for 30 years and they're now being told the game isn't for them anymore.
I think they truly think of Magic like Fortnite, and just as a joke, but in that they don't really care if someone plays for 2 weeks or 2 years, they just want as many people in the "system" as possible, thinking they will come and go throughout their lives. Maybe they see a new set that interests them and they come back in for a few months or years.
I don't think they care about or want to support the interests of players who play EVERY set and try to collect every card. I think that ship has sailed and it's now just all about casting a much wider net of peripheral customers and perhaps that can keep them showing growth for a while.
However, this all hinges on a couple very flimsy assumptions -- (1) that UB sets will never lose appeal as In-Universe sets supposedly have, and (2) that there are enough of this type of customer-player. What happens when UB sets are scraping tier 2 and tier 3 properties and sales go down? What happens when there's no more in-store in-person standard at all? At what point do they have to scale this back and return to "Classic Magic" to regain what was lost and try to grow the company again? What happens after 2 consecutive down-growth quarters for WoTC?