HASBRO PROFIT TANKS - Magic COMMUNITY PUSHES BACK 

Hasbro 2021: This product is not for you Consumers 2023: Your product is not for us

This 30th anniversary set was a real misstep. They had an opportunity to thank the community for all the years of dedication, instead they give us a product that is a slap in the face. I really hope they can balance there greed with concern of actually creating strong products.

"our customers are price sensitive" That's why we are selling 4 packs of cards for $1,000.

Imagine spending $999 for four "15 card packs" filled with proxies.

Rudy, multi million dollar magic collection, buys $20 back destroying ikea chair.

Insurance guys: "Huh, who knew a warehouse full of cardboard kindling in a desert could be so flammable?"

Toy sales have been trending down for years. They’ve masked it by selling a lot of toys as adult collectibles and hiking the price up accordingly. Wizards is the only jewel in their crown with future potential. They even lack a digital media entertainment presence and have dwindling sources of revenue into the far future and manage everything under the assumption that growth can’t stop. The entire thing not just hasbro is a burning house of cards.

I only just started getting back into Magic since I first played in the early 90s. Been playing only six months starting this year. Just recently went to my LGS for a Warhammer 40k release event which was the same day that Unfinity was also have a release event. The place was packed and one guy walks in and says, “Anyone here for Unfinity release tonight?” A complete silence went across the room. The poor guy was the only one there for that product. Players at different tables were talking about how foolish it was for Wizards to release so much product at the same time. I myself have struggled to get product from my LGS because they always say that Wizards is constantly shorting them on product so I have to pay reseller prices. They need to calm the f*** down and let us enjoy a product for a few months. One last thing, Wizards also knows they are having trouble getting money from the poorer consumers so now their market shift is milking their whales to keep their shareholders happy.

Wizards be smoking their own stash, they must be like some of the people I know who seem to think if nobody mentions its a recession then it doesn't exist.

The 30th Anniversary product marks my first purchase of a Flesh & Blood starter deck.

You can never expect the C-suites of any corporation to admit the mistakes they make. C-suites executives will never acknowledge their mistakes, no matter how obvious their mistakes are. Anyway, even if Hasbro goes bankrupt tomorrow and disappears for good, I’ll still love collecting Magic cards.

I used to enjoy watching your videos but now that I'm studying finance in post secondary I definitely appreciate your perspective a lot more now that I'm starting to understand the things you talk about. Definitely more fun to watch now lol

Anybody else remember going to prerelease events with almost no idea of what the set contained, and enjoying that set without distractions until the next quarter. Those were the good ol days.

Rudy, they have no clue. Look at the Magic: The Gathering 2023 release schedule. Pedal to the metal all the way. I hope someone at Hasbro corporate watches this video.

Cull the number of products and you solve almost all of Magics problems. Give people time to actualy play with their cards and collect a paycheck.

you can fleece a sheep many times, you can skin it only once.

"Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong."

Just started playing magic this year. I love the game but was really surprised by the amount of releases they did. I was wondering if it was always this way, because I felt they just released stuff with out having time to actually enjoy it. This was very informative thanks

Insider tip : my friend at wizard has been told to prep amazon to do a fire sale from the current items that they have pallets of. Boxes will be sold to break even and after they clear it out they going to up the price more and and cut supply even more

The sealed price increase on top of release fatigue is what hit me.

'Price sensitive' seems like a euphemism that some intern was tasked with coming up with for the press release in the ilk of 'wardrobe malfunction'.

I've been trying to come back to Magic after a break since RTR/Theros block but holy cow the entire landscape of modern and legacy are totally different and i'm just turned away from investing in actual product. WOTC/Hasbro needs to get their shit together or eventually even the most die hard fans will step away. We already have tons of cards to play magic with till the end of time. If sets have to become more expensive in order for fewer but high quality sets then maybe thats the path they need to take. You also have to think, how much more can they really mechanically add to product without going full Yugioh XYZ Synchro Link super elite VMAX bullshit? Doubling the amount of product per year is only going to accelerate this fate. Kids dont even play magic anymore. Not like they used to.

This is why I watch. Thank you for being real Rudy

I mean, this is what happens when you sell out to a publicly-traded company: they end up beholden to shareholders and no one else, not even the customers that enable them to pay those dividends.

"you have these other companies that have pivoted" "doing fine" Well. That right there signals a giant opening for Hasbro to stabilize their profit plans on: launch alternate, non-magic card game lines. If your product's demand is struggling, but the marketplace has other comparable products that are doing well. Then just launch different new product lines to compete with and poach market share from those comparable market products. Or just buy some of those products outright. Now if it's not a "product" stall, but a "brand" stall. Well, that's a different issue. But there are tricks for that too. Launder alternate products through an "independent" subsidiary. Or get to work on rebuilding the brand. Etc.

Hasbro is giving Konami some competition on who can be the worst company in the card game world xD

Are they really that oblivious or just don’t want to publicly acknowledge getting punished for being greedy?

Still waiting on the Head I Win Tails You Lose secret lair. Ordered in November, charged in January, shipping this month. It's actually insane how poorly they handle secret lairs

"The people at Wizards aren't morons" 🤔What are you basing that on?

What the hell happened to magic? Post Malone bundles on a hotdrop page on the mtg site? Another collab with a manga artists for limited time cards? 30th anniversary real-but-not black lotuses? Huhhhh

This gouging is everywhere. People need to hold on to their wallets and punish these companies. $1000 proxy boxes. $550 baseball jerseys. A friend of mine wanted to go see Blink 182 and mediocre seats were selling from the venue at $250-$350. For freakin' Blink 182!

The fact they think of you as a "consumer" rather than "customer" says everything you need to know.

Sounds like a good time to get into vintage yugioh. Also, if no one wants to buy there is only one thing wizards can do to keep the buying up.

Idk if it's been said yet, but the amount of d&d stuff that gets pushed out has been increasing drastically and the material is less and less. I like to collect the alternate art covers of the books, but Jesus christ it really seems like they aren't even playing the campaigns they're releasing now. And I honestly can't believe they're releasing them as fast as they are because a campaign that is engaging and fun for th players should last at least a year. It used to be that people really knew these adventures by the name. People wouldn't even say "curse of strahd" etc they'd just say strahd or waterdeep. Like there was even a chance that someone who hadn't even played d&d had heard of one of the 5e campaigns, and that's really saying something for 5e. But now I don't even know the names of these new campaigns and I really enjoy DMing so I try to read these books. Instead of spending time designing unique races they've just said haha all races have the same stat boosts now. It's not coming off as caring or anything, it's really coming off as just lazy. Spelljammer got released as a 3 book set for ~80 dollars but was really just 1 book of content, but they made it so you had to buy the whole set. WotC products just seem lifeless and heartless now. It really feels like they have a checklist and once all the checks are there they ship the product with no proofreading, playtesting, or heart. If they had been given the time to play these campaigns and make changes, they wouldn't be releasing these amazing settings and great platforms as something completely devoid of life and emotion.

Been HASBORG since the late 90s, early 00s. Everybody has hated them since; loving the IP, but hating the corp.

How the turntables have turned.

It’s time for Flesh and Blood to take the throne.

I returned to playing magic this year and was baffled by how much more expensive everything had gotten, was waiting for the yearly collection set because its usually a great way to build your good card options up quick and could not believe my eyes when I saw : the price, and the word "proxies" - WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE EVEN ENTERTAIN THAT PRICE FOR PROXIES, what a greedy bullshit thing to do. Honestly it pisses me off to the point - maybe I just won't play at the store anymore, and proxy all my cards for $0.25-$0.5 a card. If proxies are usuable, the fuck do I need all the overpriced trash for? Big business is forgetting who keeps the lights on. They better figure it out fast.

I'm a casual player and the amount gluttonous product is hard for the market to digest...I'm just fat and happy playing with my collection which is just enough to make me happy. Made an ode to magic short to celebrate 30 years...looking forward to in person play locally. It will be players actually playing the product...I think collect is way to volatile.

Not a Patreon, just subscribed. Enjoyed this video Rudy, your thoughts echo mine in this video

You know shit is real when million dollar MTG Man Rudy is spitting on his financial videos.

With the greedy decisions, poor sets, not to mention set fatigue, and the blantant commander ball fondling... who could have foreseen this

These business models are physically and mentally unable to scale back. They will push forward and be legitimately surprised when the whole house of cards crashes down.

its been this way for 30 years, chronicles, the original CE, and many many more instances of Hasbroni shennanigans

Turns out you can't force sales in a recession. Congratz Hasbro, you played yourself.

Hasbro: "Am I out of touch?" Hasbro: "No, it's the consumers who are price sensitive!"

CEO logic; "It's not my fault, it's the consumers who are wrong."

The funniest thing about the 30th debacle is that if they'd sold them for $10 a pack with an infinite print run everyone would have emptied their bank accounts to buy them. It was such an easy home run and they didn't just strike out, they fell over into a vat of toxic waste and broke an ankle at the same time.

Profs been saying it for years “BUY THE SINGLES YOU NEED” best advice ever given, thank god I’ve followed that since day 1

I want a Smothering Tithe reprint. With Hasbro’s logo as the artwork.

Hasbro: We're losing money, quick make product more expensive so even fewer people can afford it!

I’ve played MtG off and on since I was in middle school (1994-ish) and though I’ve taken many breaks throughout the years, I always kept coming back to the game. I’ve been collecting EDH precons and staples since the first Commander release, which has paid off since I taught my kids to play during Covid and we still regularly have family game nights. I’ve really enjoyed the collector boxes and beautiful variants since Eldraine, but there is so much product that I really can’t keep up with it. It just doesn’t feel like the game that I’ve loved all these years.

I would be buying lots of sealed magic products if it was still 3 sets a year. The overload made me quit, so now wotc gets nothing from me.

I've played since 94 and 30th anniversary made me give up. I'm quietly walking away from a game that's been such a big part of my life. Thanks for being our voice. You're painfully right about all this.

Thank you for being a voice for how most of us feel, I'm truly sad about the direction magic has been heading for some time now

"Our customer's are price sensitive." ~Hasbin Customer's don't want to spend a fortune on garbage items.

Hasbro must have hired the suits that used to work in Comics in the 90s and drove their business into the ground for a quick money grab

What other companies get rid of MSRP on their retail products? That was a big red flag to me when this was all starting. WOTC also denies an inflation based recession like they deny they have knowledge of a singles aftermarket.

My LGS has been running proxy allowed tournies for awhile, you just ask what you’d like printed and they give you your cards for a fee that’s relatively cheap. They still have real singles and such, but it’s not necessary. Attendance shot up from 10-16 to 50 weekly. They’re netting so much more prophet selling these prints (the backs have their shop on it instead of mtg art and it says proxy on the back) And their singles purchases for events like RCQ’s are up astronomically too. Too funny

Its sad. This was the year I was able to convince my Fiancée to try magic, and she liked it! Her first introduction was the kamigawa set. Which I was hyped for. We went to a prerelease for it had a great time, and then not even a week after it came out I already saw spoilers for New Capenna. I was like awesome. These look cool. I was a little dissapointed there was a second set for Kami but whatever it was understandable. Then right after more spoilers, and at that point my Fiancée said it was too much for her to keep up with all this new stuff. And saddly I've grown to hate this endless spoiler season as well. I've been playing magic for around 20 years now. I love magic and the memories I've made with it. Please hasbro don't end it in a burning fire. I feel like its a little late for that though.

Wizards " We hear your anger." Also wizards " we partnered with wish to bring a $1000 box of proxies."

I've been watching magic as a third party observer for the past two years now and its been crazy. New sets released every month, sets literally filled with chaff sans a handful of lottery cards (a lot just from the reserve list), Secret layers exploding into ridiculous numbers, bizarre products like Innistrad Double Feature and paying 1k for the CHANCE at proxies. There no way their doubling profits, they need to step back, get their stock in order, start rebuilding relationships with literally everyone in the market, and start releasing good product at a reasonable rate.

Hasbro saying price sensitive means the consumer is cheap 😂

I think the biggest issue is the release frequency. It used to be that if you wanted to go down to your lgs, or even walmart, and buy a pack of the latest and greatest set, you were seeing the same set for 3-4 months. That set would probably be on shelves for a year as it rotates away. Beyond that there were a couple products aimed at newer players (dual decks, deckbuilder's toolkit, etc), and that was it. All that extra inventory is stuff that siphons away over the course of a year or longer. Now, the store releases come so fast, nothing is on the shelves for long before a new thing needs to take its place. And on top of that, you have all the wizards direct stuff and special releases that just piles on the product fatigue. Consumers can't keep up, and product isn't on the shelf long enough to make sustained sales, and all that leads to a bunch of extra product. I'm sure other factors like the political stuff, print quality, and the price hikes aren't helping, but it seems like the biggest issue is just that they are making more than people can buy, and aren't giving each product enough time.

13:50 DUDE, I actually went back and did this myself! I just wanted to take a look at Mark's face while the 30th anniversary was being hyped up (and leading up to the price announcement) by Elaine (or whatever he name is). And you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what I saw. Crazy you brought that up, haha. Also, these last few years I've been convinced this is just an exit strategy of sorts. Hasbro is doing this to wotc (forcing them? I cannot imagine they would be doing this themselves, although maybe they just fucked up so badly with the whole trying to move everything to arena thing that now they feel they have to do something positive for hasbro ....."or else"? idk...) just so they can inflate the stock by releasing all these teaser, fomo, crazy limited crazy expensive SHIT products, with ZERO regard for anyone in their 'demographics' except maybe some investors, and then sell the company to the highest bidder. Pump-and-dumping the company, then wiping their hands and turning their backs to walk away from the scene. It's SO sad...looking back to 2012-2019, all the SCG event streams each weekend, GPs, exciting pro tours, awesome coverage teams........ PAPER STANDARD EVENTS, a secondary market that was driven by standard instead of commander, no "collector boosters", and, again......... the pro tour. So sad to look back at all this, even though it was just a few years back. COVID didn't need to destroy everything, but I'm sure that's what they'll use as the excuse when hasbro finally kicks them to the curb. I started playing mtg back in 7th grade , soon after Revised came out. Took a huge hiatus from the game and didn't seriously come back until 2014ish, but the entire time I always felt a love for the game, and if at any moment while growing up if someone tossed a deck in front of me and said 'let's play' i'd gladly do it. So many people have had such strong love for the game for so many years -- so many decades.... it's heartbreaking to see what's happening.

What Hasbro has done is make it very difficult to be a casual magic player. I wasn't able to keep track of the volume of product back in 2016; this is so much it's impossible - I don't want to go broke or spend enough hours to get a PhD just keeping up with it! I loved the hobby when I could play with friends and strangers alike, take a break from the day-to-day, and have a fun and relaxing escape from reality. I don't want current-year anything in it, I don't want to hurt myself financially to play, and I don't want my collection to go to zero because 99% of it is totally outmoded by power-creep.

Hasbro turned their printing machines into overdrive and Hasbro is down 10%, imagine my shock

If their profits drop enough we can probably expect: "Secret Lair the Reserved List 2023." Reprints of duals and power and everything else. Big daddy Hasbro pulls all the strings, they own it all. They need to reinvest in paper Magic - incentivise paper standard in LGS's. If LGS's die then the game dies.

Been playing magic since 93 and I’ve never been more disappointed with the state of the game. Through all the bs at least wizards put a good faith in trying to fix it. These days it seems the care has dropped out where the greed sprang up from. I love the game, I hope it can recover.

This is what happens when constant growth is required. Hasbro won't be the first or last to fall to greed

I've played Magic on and off since 1996. About a month ago, I and a friend walked into a Magic-heavy LGS that opened that day. The owners and I played my first game in over five years, and we taught my friend. I remembered my love for the game and started designing a werewolf Commander deck for my friend. A week later, WotC announced the 30th anniversary slap in the face, and I found all the things that they've done in the name of shareholder's profits. Been trying to figure out how to enjoy the game without giving Hasbro my money, and how to support a store that clearly opened at the wrong time.

I'm surprised they haven't started trying to sell NFTs on Arena

The core of the issue; Uncle Rudy [the blessed Taco be upon him] - is that at some point Hasbro and Wizards *stopped respecting the customer*

I've had these suspicions since Dungeons and Dragons came out. I was like "they gotta be real desperate if they start doing weird franchise crossover sets now". And what do you know, it's only gotten worse since then.

When even the evil investors are saying WOTC has gone to far you know things are super fucked 😂. Somehow wotc and hasbro have found a business model that lets them piss off every faction of their revenue stream. Investors hate them, collectors hate them, and players like me definitely hate them. I am most impressed tbh !

Thank you for taking the time to step forward and tell us how this is affecting you, and everyone else. I've been watching (albeit intermittently) for years now, and I'm very glad to hear from you about collective feelings in the community. As a small time collector myself I've been hesitant, and considering whether I should continue buying new product or not, and your various info-drops have helped tremendously in coming to decisions. Thank you for standing as a Voice in this community.

Another problem I'd like to highlight, is the division of the player base through so many formats. When I go to my LGS, all the YuGiOh players speak the same language and play the same game. Meanwhile, the MtG players are all doing different things.

Four booster packs 999 United States Dollars. Price sensitive indeed.

Hasbro is truly insane.

10:00 THIS. I randomly found out my CE was overpriced and that card scanners existed about 9 months ago. Scanned my 75,000 cards. Got more and more excited looking at my old cards. Thought about trying to jump back in with 6 & 2 y/o limiting my time. Found out they are releasing new, overpriced cards everyother week. Found out blicks are dead. Looked at power creep that MUST make casual magic groups have huge banned lists or be SPIKE only. I may find a play group of ppl w old cards that don't currently buy, but I'm not going to a LGS any time soon. The fun, aside from shuffling cardboard, was in digesting the new cards as I drive to work. Hopping on gatherer to look up new interactions. Lovingly building a deck till dawn and having a good guess how it will work in the meta. Even at 7 sets every 2 years it was too fast to get to half of the decks built that I wanted to. Now? I have ADD and I would get brain fogged and freeze up sitting down to build my first deck. START EXCESSIVE FRAMING I've always been far left of allowable American politics but fairly ignorant. Since corporate candidates threw the election for Biden Vs. Bernie and NPR failed to even call out Warren for pulling votes I got red pilled and educated. (Note it was MSM that red pilled me, not "misinformation" i mean "disinformation" uh, i mean truth that costs our owners money) Then George Floyd. Hasboro is simply acting like every other corporation; though treating an entertainment product like oil during a recession/inflation is perplexing. ENDTMY POINT -I went from new games to abandonware when Skyrim made me play single player ONLINE WTF? Long before the 30th anniversary Hadboro's excessive produst release blatantly geared towards fleecing fans ADDICTED to an excellent product made me think about pitchforks and guillotines long before i felt any itch to pull out my wallet. Fuck em. Gonna sell my >$100 cards & power next time the economy picks up and hopefully find a chill Timmy group when my kids get older. New cards aquired by trade only.

All corporations act like this, fist you then ask why you don't like it without lube. Always predictably disconnected from their customers and employees.

Seriously one of your best videos ever Rudy. You called it, and you're spot on with all of this.

Agreed with everything you said. I stopped playing and buying Magic right after Eldraine, begining of collector box and secret lair era. Totaly lost interest in the game with the non stop releases and everything is special. I kinda miss the days of getting a new release was a hell of a weekend and the spoiler seasons were exiting.

I knew it was bad news when Hasbro bought WotC back at the turn of the century. It took awhile but that fear was proven right.

Remember when it used to be that we kind of argued back and forth if the block should have two sets or three for the entire year? Like, for decades. Now they release 8.3 billion sets/cards/printings all in the same year and their blunder is chalked up to our "price sensitivity" ? For real? I know people that dump 50% + of their paycheck into magic. They do extra shifts just to get more cards. That's like a crack dealer saying their clientele is price sensitive. I do hate their guts, you are right. I hope they continue to suffer for ruining my game.

It gets worse when you account for the wokeness.

So glad I found this channel. It helps me to understand whats happening with wizzards.

"We're sitting on product and our customers are price sensitive, so we've decided to make a new product, 4 packs, for $1,000"

Wizards has adopted the Bandai product mentality. We just release soo many sets in such a short amount of time that no one can buy into it all, and no sort of competitive scene can develop because we have to keep moving to the next set and the one afterwards.

This is like baseball cards that saturated the markets in the 80's and 90's!

We are seeing this in all areas of the economy, inflation has forced people to cut hobbies dramatically

when i bought my box of baldur's gate the LGS guy said "just so you know, instead of getting 24 packs your only getting 18, but it still costs the same." i opened that one box and havent opened a pack of magic cards since that rip off

First time I’ve honestly seen this man worried, it all in the eyes my friends 🙃

the way theyve been running the game for the past few years, it needs to all blow up in their face. magic will never die because even though ive hated everything with wizards recently, id imeediately get back into it if it got good again, and i only started playing mtg in 2016. so just imagine people whove loved the game longer. magic will never die because every player needs to die with it for it to disappear so magic will always survive in some form

How deluded do you have to be to not see the when a conglomerate corporation acquires an company or IP, the company or IP IS THE CONGLOMERATE. There is no "WotC, anymore. There is HASBRO with a WotC department. WotC became HABRO. Period. And HASBRO is controlled by Blackrock/Vanguard. So, HASBRO is a subsidiary of Blackrock/Vanguard, and WotC is a division of it. For the record - Blackrock, Vanguard, State St. Capital & Berkshire Hathaway own and control almost every single corporation in the US. So, we live in a world where one group has a complete monopoly over almost everything. Video games, cars, toys, electronics, energy, entertainment... EVERYTHING... Wake up....

MTG is the new 1990s sports cards. RIP Was at my LGS today, buying board games (my new hobby after quitting MTG and video games) Overhear some guy talking about how he bought a secret lair because one card was worth the same amount as the secret lair and the other two cards were just like a bonus $20-30 a piece on top of the base cost of a secret lair. Pay $50, come out with 80-90? Yeah no. Those cards aren't worth $30. They aren't worth $8. I don't think people have a clue how many cards are circulating and if there is ever a period where people start to panic sell, I will be giddy watching it all come tumbling down.

One of your greatest videos ever

Amazing how much Hasbro highlighted their Gaming division and Magic 30th in their presentation.

I am, as you say, so bitter about what is going on. Hasbro will trade a loyal player base for money every time.

If WOTC could get out from under Hasbro's thumb they may be able to turn it around.