Hedge funds have a goal of creating reliable profits by systematically dismantling profitable businesses. This is that.
How do you dismantle profitable business?
Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
361–370 of 387 posts
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't you buy singles? (Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)
> What's the point of buying packs? Draft is probably the best MtG style of playing. A lot of MtG turns into pay-to-win, since the best cards of the meta inevitably cost more. Drafting on the other hand, ensures that everyone has zero-cards upon the start of the draft and have to make due with the booster-cards that come in the draft. In many ways, drafting is cheaper. You don't have to worry about making the best de…
I have always found it funny how there's a game format that requires you to buy new cards to play it. Though I doubt they invented it, it really works out for those selling the cards.
I'm sure there's a guide out there somewhere for repacking cards you already own though. Hopefully one that doesn't need one person to do it and not play because they know which cards are included.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#363I really miss 2016 MtG. I remember when full art lands and full art promos were RARE and with money for no reason other than their collectability. I really liked when cards were rare because of the fact that they were good and uncommon and maybe because they were the same as the regular card but foil, not because they were arbitrarily a different type of shiny, or like when that one card from Kamigawa had a different…
That seems like a ridiculous attitude. Surely players should want all cards to be as cheap as possible, so everyone can play whatever deck they’d like.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
It works in the sports card industry because owning the rare card is the entire point of the hobby. The vast majority of people buying comic books plan to read them and the majority of the people buying WotC products want to be able to use them to play some sort of game.
Except not true. Every trading card game where the cards are just game pieces and there's no secondary market around the game has died hard. The mystique and value in the cards is necessary to keep the game alive. I say this to you as somebody with hundreds of thousands of dollars in MtG cards in his collection and I still consider myself a player first. Comics are a complicated mess but in the 90s it was largely gim…
>>I say this to you as somebody with hundreds of thousands of dollars in MtG cards in his collection and I still consider myself a player first.
You are just proving my entire point by saying you consider yourself a player first. I didn't say that the cards should be valueless, I'm stating that with comic books and card games the value is created by the readers/players and in order for there to be value the product needs to service it's purpose (a story that is enjoyable to read, a game that is fun to play).
Sports cards just need to exist, the window dressing IS the product and owning a particular variant of some card is the end goal. Sports cards are booming by releasing tons of variants and gimmicks because it just gives the collectors more to speculate on. It isn't as effective in the comic book and trading card industry because all of the windowing dress is meaningless if the stories aren't interesting or the game isn't good.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#365Hedge funds have a goal of creating reliable profits by systematically dismantling profitable businesses. This is that.
How do you dismantle profitable business?
Well, for example, when I worked at the Baltimore Sun, the owners at Tribune Media sold the already owned outright headquarters of the Sun, the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, etc. and has us all lease office space from somewhere else instead. This is an insane business decision. No one who wants to keep a business alive would think to replace a money making asset (just lease out the other floors of the building) with a money losing ongoing expense. But it gives you one quarter of extremely high profitability in exchange for lower profits for the rest of time, so they did it.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#366Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
"YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT." [Gygax, 1979] (I missed a chance to use "thrice".)
In this aspect, Gygax is wrong :)
I think the definition of "campaign" has drifted significantly since that book was written but I agree.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always wondered if anyone ever really plays Hackmaster? I'm guessing no. It seems to be a very intricate, rule heavy game.
As I understand it (parody RPG elements notwithstanding) HM was originally (and appropriately) based on 1e/2e and is actually playable (as much as those games were. I imagine enthusiasts of those games might prefer the originals for historical authenticity, but HM sounds entertaining and fun! And a sort of 2.6e, which is interesting (much as PathFinder 1 was a sort of 3.6.) Hmm, according to wikipedia Hackmaster 5 wa…
Ahh I'm only vaguely familiar with the more recent one having done a small amount of reading about it. It does appear to be serious and rule-heavy.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#369The question is: who are they really firing? There are thousands of tournament organizers, consultants, dealers and judges. Perhaps they aren't touching the core creation and balance team which churns out a new expansion every rotation.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relatedly, Old School Essentials is, IIRC, B/X just more streamlined in presentation? They also have a cool-looking setting with Dolmenwood (as I gather, basically "a mix of darkness and whimsy in the style of old-school fairy tales") that just had a kickstarter for a big campaign setting guide earlier this year.
While I haven't played D&D in any form for nearly 30 years, I lurk in places like r/adnd. There's something I often wonder in the light of the OSR trend & renewed interest in B/X, early AD&D, etc. And that is - to what extent the style of play captures the older style of play vs. hybridizing the more modern style of play w/ the older rules. When I talk to friends who play contemporary versions of the game, even if on…
There's a YouTube channel called 3D6DownTheLine which has video series of two campaigns using OSE (one in Dolmenwood and another in a popular megadungeon). I can't really comment on how close it fits D&D from 30 years ago but it at least seems like it plays like how people describe old-school D&D (more emphasis on player skill and creative problem-solving).
From just watching a little bit of those videos, I think a significant part of the appeal today is that it's much quicker (thinking mainly in comparison to 3.5 since that was my introduction) to roll some attributes, pick a class, and go. It also makes the GM's job easier because they don't need to worry about balancing skill checks when the game doesn't even have skills.