I deeply disapprove of Magic and honestly think that it shouldn't be allowed to be marketed to children if cigarettes aren't allowed to be marketed towards children. But an enormous number of people actually play the (shockingly boring) game. And while there's little doubt that most of the cards being purchased now are going to end up worthless, the "long term" in Magic has already been reached because it's been around for 30 years.
Magic is being held up by the early cards having been driven up in price by millennial and young gen x players who became adults with real incomes and social lives that revolved around the game. WoC manipulates the market as much as it can manage, trying to maintain the hope that one can strike it rich, but they make their money off the new cards, not the used ones.
It's the same thing that happened with comic books and baseball cards: people who bought baseball cards in the 50s and early/mid-60s found themselves with small fortunes, because there were wealthy nostalgic baby boomers to sell to. People bought baseball cards in the 80s and 90s trying to cargo cult the price increases of those classic cards, and the people who printed baseball cards played into that. That doesn't make baseball cards a type of security where one is investing in the growth in the community that buys baseball cards any more than buying a washing machine makes you an investor in the growth of the community that buys washing machines, although washing machines also have a resale value.
Buying crypto gives you nothing but a line in the distributed accounts of the people who are coining crypto. It's nothing but an obligation. There's not even the token value that a 10 cent stock certificate might provide.
> But an enormous number of people actually play the (shockingly boring) game.
Boring?! That's very subjective, don't you think? It's 'boring' in the sense that chess is boring.
There's an entire market around the cards, yes. You don't _need_ that if you just want to play and have fun, but people will try to min max everything. I used to play with borrowed decks since I figured out as a teen that building decks out of booster packs was far beyond what I was willing to spend.
Cigarettes are the only (legal) product it is illegal to market (in the US) except in very limited ways. The poster was saying that MtG should also be illegal to market, and therefore has to be compared to cigarettes in that limitation.
Much like if they had talked about an age limit on purchasing them, it would be related to cigarettes or alcohol (in the US).
Stellar point. I especially like the notion that cargo culting historic price increases is involved. You could look at so much of the cryptowhatever space as a series of cargo cults around different aspects of financial history. It seems like a crucial ingredient in any bubble, really.
Magic is being held up by the early cards having been driven up in price by millennial and young gen x players who became adults with real incomes and social lives that revolved around the game. WoC manipulates the market as much as it can manage, trying to maintain the hope that one can strike it rich, but they make their money off the new cards, not the used ones.
It's the same thing that happened with comic books and baseball cards: people who bought baseball cards in the 50s and early/mid-60s found themselves with small fortunes, because there were wealthy nostalgic baby boomers to sell to. People bought baseball cards in the 80s and 90s trying to cargo cult the price increases of those classic cards, and the people who printed baseball cards played into that. That doesn't make baseball cards a type of security where one is investing in the growth in the community that buys baseball cards any more than buying a washing machine makes you an investor in the growth of the community that buys washing machines, although washing machines also have a resale value.
Buying crypto gives you nothing but a line in the distributed accounts of the people who are coining crypto. It's nothing but an obligation. There's not even the token value that a 10 cent stock certificate might provide.