Well, Wizards of the Coast has finally announced their pricing plan for Magic Online. Unlike many others who are going to be screaming, wailing, and gnashing their teeth at the plan, I am thankful. Yes, you heard my right - I am thankful that Wizards in their wisdom decided to charge full price ($3.29 each) for the virtual boosters.
You may think that I am mad, but I can assure you I am not.
A few weeks ago I was chatting with Lou and taking some grief because I hadn?t yet bought my kids a video game system. No Playstation, no N64, and certainly not one of the newer gaming systems. Lou initially felt I was being derelict in my duties to my children, that I was depriving them of some harmless gaming fun. But as we continued talking it became clear that quite the opposite was true. By refusing to buy a gaming system, I was protecting my children.
Protecting my kids? What am I, one of those whackos who think that video games are responsible for the downfall of western civilization?
Um, no - I actually blame air-conditioning for the downfall of western civilization, but that isn?t why we?re here today.
The actual reason I cannot buy my kids a video gaming system is because there is a very good chance that I would become addicted to it myself. I could end up playing it for hours on end.
So what has this got to do with Magic Online? (Patience, I?m getting there.)
I?m one of the fortunate ones who have had access to the beta testing cycle of Magic Online. For several weeks I?ve been planning to play and write up my impressions but the constant updates have gotten in the way. Every time I have an hour, I have to update the files and have only enough time to purchase my allotment of boosters and open them.
Well, this past weekend that all changed?I got a stable update for several days, and my wife was out of town. I spent many more hours than I should of playing Magic Online.
A lot more hours than I should have. Some work that I?d brought home for the weekend didn?t even get looked at, much less done. I almost didn?t bother to finish my most recent article and mail it to Ferrett. And I lost track of the time on Sunday and nearly forgot to fix supper for my kids.
Yes, that?s right; I found Magic Online so addictive that I was actually on the verge of starving my children just so I could play a few more games. Just as bad as if the kids had a video game machine in the house.
Sad, really sad.
The point? The point is that if Wizards/Hasbro had priced the virtual boosters at some noticeable discount to retail I would have been tempted to buy a bunch of them. Maybe ten to twelve boxes worth, so I?d have enough cards to play several different decks. (Remember, when you start Magic Online your card collection starts over from scratch. Okay if you?re new to the game, I suppose, but for those of us who buy a couple of boxes of each expansion...)
Now if the virtual boosters had been priced at$0.10 each, this would be no pain at all, amounting to a mere $36 for 10 boxes of boosters. At $0.50, it would have been quite manageable at $180 for 10 boxes. And even at $1.00 per booster, I think I would have coughed up the $360 over a couple of months in order to play.
And if I had, I would have been lost forever. I know in my heart I would have spent so much time playing Magic Online I would have ruined my marriage and jeopardized my job.
But Wizards saved me from that dark path by pricing their virtual boosters at Full Retail! At that price 10 boxes of boosters would cost about $1200. (Versus about $670 for ten boxes of the real cards from Starcitygames.com and around $950 from my local retailer.)
No matter how cool Magic Online is, there is no way that I am even close to tempted to spend that kind of money on virtual boosters in order to play.
So I say thank you. Thank you, Wizards, for pricing your product in such a way that I am not even tempted to purchase it. Thank you for saving my marriage and my job.
Michael Granaas
magicman@dtgnet.com
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