More money, more problems
April 6th 2008 01:45
And... we're back! Sorry for the delay in making a new post, but now that the Orb of Insight domain name is set up, I should be able to post more regularly. The site's new name hopefully reflects exactly what you'll get from it, and hopefully said insight will be of some use.
To start things off today, let's talk Tarmogoyf.
When this happy little fellow from the future was first released, not many people found him very impressive. At the Future Sight pre-release, people were practically giving them away because they thought they would never use them. Today, single copies of this card sell for $50 on eBay, and card stores can't keep them in stock (I'm glad I already have mine!). The story of Tarmogoyf is the story of one of the most impressive value turnarounds in the history of Magic: the Gathering.
That story has also made it one of the most maligned cards in history.
Go anywhere Magic is discussed on the internet or in person, and wait for the topic discussion to turn to recent sets and recent developments in tournament play. Sooner or later, somebody will start with the
"Why does everyone play with Tarmogoyf? It isn't even that good."
"How can Tarmogoyf be so expensive? It doesn't even have any relevant abilities."
"Tarmogoyf is so overrated. I'd never pay $50 for one."
Don't, however, suggest to them that there are reasons a card can be expensive or in demand other than being good in gameplay, unless you want to get a bunch of dirty looks. For some people, Magic: the Gathering is sitting down across a table from someone with a deck on your side of the table and another on theirs, and going through the game mechanics, and nothing more and nothing else.
They certainly don't pay attention to the card art, the results of hours of work from some of the best fantasy artists in the world. They certainly don't think that Magic is a collectible, and that the cards will have value in the future for being unique and often rare even if they don't play well in a constructed deck. They certainly don't think that Magic is a marketed product subject to market forces, where an item's price is affected by the demand for it and the supply of it (old sets had very small print runs, so rare cards from 1993 are rarer than rare cards from 2003).
Isn't it funny how nobody complains that classic baseball cards are expensive, or that model trains are expensive? With those things, they are clearly collectibles and there is no game attached where you can win some kind of nominal prize. With Magic, there is. Some people get so caught up in trying to win that they'll spend hundreds of dollars to make a deck - and then put aside or trade away the cards if they don't win the first tournament where they play it. They think they should be able to make more money from playing in tournaments than they spent on their collection. Whenever the Wizards of the Coast tournament administration releases its list of players banned and censured worldwide, a depressingly high number of them committed offences like cheating, lying to judges, and even assaulting other players.
How can it possibly matter that much?
Tournaments are over in a couple of hours. A week later, no-one will even remember who won. But your cards are going to be around for ever. When the day comes when there are no more tournaments with cash prizes, your cards will still be little windows into one of the best-developed fictional worlds in history, and a tangible memory of a time that used to be.
And that, my friend, is what you get when you pay $50 for a Tarmogoyf.
To start things off today, let's talk Tarmogoyf.
The rarest of the rare, the strangest of the strange
When this happy little fellow from the future was first released, not many people found him very impressive. At the Future Sight pre-release, people were practically giving them away because they thought they would never use them. Today, single copies of this card sell for $50 on eBay, and card stores can't keep them in stock (I'm glad I already have mine!). The story of Tarmogoyf is the story of one of the most impressive value turnarounds in the history of Magic: the Gathering.
That story has also made it one of the most maligned cards in history.
Go anywhere Magic is discussed on the internet or in person, and wait for the topic discussion to turn to recent sets and recent developments in tournament play. Sooner or later, somebody will start with the
"Why does everyone play with Tarmogoyf? It isn't even that good."
"How can Tarmogoyf be so expensive? It doesn't even have any relevant abilities."
"Tarmogoyf is so overrated. I'd never pay $50 for one."
They certainly don't pay attention to the card art, the results of hours of work from some of the best fantasy artists in the world. They certainly don't think that Magic is a collectible, and that the cards will have value in the future for being unique and often rare even if they don't play well in a constructed deck. They certainly don't think that Magic is a marketed product subject to market forces, where an item's price is affected by the demand for it and the supply of it (old sets had very small print runs, so rare cards from 1993 are rarer than rare cards from 2003).
My price is higher than the High Sierra
Isn't it funny how nobody complains that classic baseball cards are expensive, or that model trains are expensive? With those things, they are clearly collectibles and there is no game attached where you can win some kind of nominal prize. With Magic, there is. Some people get so caught up in trying to win that they'll spend hundreds of dollars to make a deck - and then put aside or trade away the cards if they don't win the first tournament where they play it. They think they should be able to make more money from playing in tournaments than they spent on their collection. Whenever the Wizards of the Coast tournament administration releases its list of players banned and censured worldwide, a depressingly high number of them committed offences like cheating, lying to judges, and even assaulting other players.
How can it possibly matter that much?
Tournaments are over in a couple of hours. A week later, no-one will even remember who won. But your cards are going to be around for ever. When the day comes when there are no more tournaments with cash prizes, your cards will still be little windows into one of the best-developed fictional worlds in history, and a tangible memory of a time that used to be.
And that, my friend, is what you get when you pay $50 for a Tarmogoyf.
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