have they ever mentioned why this game is priced the way it is?

[joesephjOSEPH]

i can't really understand the reason for why a pack and an event is as expensive as it is?

are there any players who have spent money on the game or continue to spend money on the game who have an opinion on this?

[Argstein]

i spend a fair amount on this game

i don't ever buy gems to buy packs or enter events so perhaps i am a bad example however the gem pricings for rare limited-edition cosmetics etc has always seemed fair enough to me
as for the direct cash-only offers that gems can't even be used on it depends what is being offered and whether or not it is a rare limited-edition thing or not

[joesephjOSEPH]

what formats do you play?

[Argstein]

Originally posted by joesephjOSEPH:

what formats do you play?

nowadays i only play brawl

[Andrei]

Yes drafts are very expensive. I don't pay money but I did get the 5 and 15$ one time offers. I wish they would occasionally (like once a week or so) offer a draft token for cheap like 2 or 3 dollars. I'd pay for that. But with the current price scheme I just draft when I get enough gold. Like 10 euros for a draft I'm not paying that. Maybe if it was half of that I'd consider it.

[joesephjOSEPH]

Originally posted by Andrei:

Yes drafts are very expensive. I don't pay money but I did get the 5 and 15$ one time offers. I wish they would occasionally (like once a week or so) offer a draft token for cheap like 2 or 3 dollars. I'd pay for that. But with the current price scheme I just draft when I get enough gold. But 10 euros for a draft I'm not paying that. Maybe if it was half of that I'd consider it.

i agree thats so much. This is not the same as the paper game or mtgo. They should be pricing it very different.

[CourtJesterCowboy]

You pay less, but do not take the cards home and hold potential value. That being said, I think its further set into stone, the fact that people can actually go pro of Arena. Like, if you are truly cracked at the game, you can seriously win, and be invited to a genuine real life event. I think that helps justify their prices.

Personally, especially with the cost of MTGO being so cheap, Arena is very predatory. They have strayed into the casino territory of just taking peoples money like a slot machine, and lots of players dont know any better, not experiencing real life Magic.

I have put maybe $120 in since 2018. I dont plan on any more. I am just going to run it free and use my gems for master passes or whatever and put my actual money into real life drafts. So much better.

Long story short... Wizards is kinda a bunch of predators I mean, CEOs are cashing out, employees dropped, prices raised, sets flooded to a desensitizing amount of cards releasing.

[Loracs]

people spending money on this must be brain dead. The algorithm is rigged to the teeth. It matter very little if you have a good deck or not, skilled or not... outcome is determined before you play your first card.

[mwesthoff]

Not paying is part of the challenge for me, but I love the lazy people who support the game for me.

[FireHtz]

Originally posted by joesephjOSEPH:

i can't really understand the reason for why a pack and an event is as expensive as it is?

are there any players who have spent money on the game or continue to spend money on the game who have an opinion on this?

Magic has always been a complete nonsense in how overpriced the game is. I mean, decks that are worth thousands of dollars are very common, and it's been like that for over 20 years already. I always wondered if there were players stupid enough to give WoTC this much money over a simple card game. It's unreal how over the years WoTC has never even tried to make the game cost an honest and affordable price. I think WoTC is possibly the greediest company that has ever existed.

[Kurt Angle's Neck]

Originally posted by FireHtz:

Magic has always been a complete nonsense in how overpriced the game is. I mean, decks that are worth thousands of dollars are very common, and it's been like that for over 20 years already. I always wondered if there were players stupid enough to give WoTC this much money over a simple card game. It's unreal how over the years WoTC has never even tried to make the game cost an honest and affordable price. I think WoTC is possibly the greediest company that has ever existed.

You realize those are second-hand market prices which WotC has zero control over... right?

[FireHtz]

You realize those are second-hand market prices which WotC has zero control over... right? [/quote]

Yeh, i know. But packs were always very expensive. And on Arena, WoTC employs the same nonsense economy, over the top prices, that those second-hand markets always had.
Arena's economy is extremely overpriced considering you don't even get real life copies of the cards and you can't even uncraft unwanted cards to get their equivalent wildcards...

[Winter Wolf]

Packs were NOT always very expensive. Back when I started buying them, Revised packs cost $3.50. (Less if you bought boxes and even less if you bought crates.) The Dark ~$3, (I got my first cards in 93 but didn't start buying until 94), and when they overprinted Fallen Empires those dropped to $.5 from $1.5. Homelands dropped dramatically as well soon after their release. It was $10 for a very long time to draft a 3 pack set at the best stores in NYC. $20 for a sealed. The stores raised the prices justifying them with better prize pools but the pack prices stayed the same for a very very long time.

[FireHtz]

Originally posted by Winter Wolf:

Packs were NOT always very expensive. Back when I started buying them, Revised packs cost $3.50. (Less if you bought boxes and even less if you bought crates.) The Dark ~$3, (I got my first cards in 93 but didn't start buying until 94), and when they overprinted Fallen Empires those dropped to $.5 from $1.5. Homelands dropped dramatically as well soon after their release. It was $10 for a very long time to draft a 3 pack set at the best stores in NYC. $20 for a sealed. The stores raised the prices justifying them with better prize pools but the pack prices stayed the same for a very very long time.

$10 for a pack is already an absurd, you get complete junk cards in the vast majority of them. Not to mention that in countries where the dollar is worth more than the local currency, Magic is nearly a completely unaffordable game.

[Winter Wolf]

Originally posted by FireHtz:

Originally posted by Winter Wolf:

Packs were NOT always very expensive. Back when I started buying them, Revised packs cost $3.50. (Less if you bought boxes and even less if you bought crates.) The Dark ~$3, (I got my first cards in 93 but didn't start buying until 94), and when they overprinted Fallen Empires those dropped to $.5 from $1.5. Homelands dropped dramatically as well soon after their release. It was $10 for a very long time to draft a 3 pack set at the best stores in NYC. $20 for a sealed. The stores raised the prices justifying them with better prize pools but the pack prices stayed the same for a very very long time.

$10 for a pack is already an absurd, you get complete junk cards in the vast majority of them. Not to mention that in countries where the dollar is worth more than the local currency, Magic is nearly a completely unaffordable game.

$10 for 3 packs is what I was talking about in case you misunderstood.

I will agree it is not a game for those who are impoverished. Though having friends who can cover the costs may help. Sadly on Arena that's not the case.

And while I refuted your claim about the initial buyin for M:TG (from say '93 to 2014), the costs of packs in the last decade has become hard to tolerate and the shrinkflation with the packs makes it worse even so. So I do see your point, just wanted to inject a sense of reason into the discussion.

I would not call WOTC or Hasbro for that matter the greediest of companies. But they certainly have done very little recently to ingratiate themselves with their base. I'd say if I didn't know better they have gone out of their way to alienate their base while wooing new customers. Which imho is a consistent shooting of their foot. Though apparently it is working for them since they have reported year after year of record profits.

[JustMonika]

I occasionally spend money on gems for drafts, its how I primary collect sets - Gems for drafts, and gold from playing for drafts to get more gems to draft.

However, I spend way more than I should, fully agree the game is overpriced, and I know I'm being tricked into spending it by the system. 5 here, 10 here, unlock the next mastery pass... Over the years (I've played since the start of the beta) I've probably easily spent 500, maybe more.

Do I play arena a fair bit? Sure.

If I compare that to anything else in my steam library have I got fair value for money? Not even close. It's easily the worst $ per minute of entertainment spend I have. MTGO is pricy, but still much better.

Every time I spend, i regret it, and I've uninstalled more than once.