Continued legality of random card packs into the future?

[AvalonAurora]

Something I've been thinking a bit about recently is wondering if random card packs will be something WotC will continue being allowed to make into the future.

Some reasons I could see them getting in trouble include:

* complex legal issues related to investors starting to invest more in magic cards and possible regulations tightening

* Possible developing regulations on lootboxes in video games having knock-on effects for comparable physical goods if they don't manage to lobby in loopholes, which they might fail to do even if they try for various possible reasons

* Possible existing anti-gambling laws being re-analyzed by courts against things like lootboxes in video games being determined to close what is currently treated as the loopholes that exist which allows random card packs in physical goods, I seem to recall hearing something about how it was almost determined illegal, during the era of baseball cards' early heyday, and don't recall exactly why it was allowed (plus I'm not a legal expert)

* Possible legal decisions or lawsuits directly targeting TCGs potentially triggered by increasing amounts of money involved due to increasing investments into them, or related to some kind of counterfeiting related issue accidentally making the random card packs considered illegal as a side-effect of another case, possibly involving a different TCG from a company who drags things out in court related to stubbornness to get things their way, refusing to settle, and then the case being resolved in court leads to a decision that affects the whole field

* Some kind of anti-gabling organization seeking to protect people with gambling related compulsions gathers together a bunch of 'whales', mostly related to lootboxes in video games, but the case determines that companies can't do things that profit in this manner where smaller numbers of individuals can purchase large amounts of goods, and it restricts the amount of money that can be spent by a single individual on lootboxes in a specific time period (possibly based on the average price of other games that don't involve lootboxes) but in a way that makes physical randomized goods like TCG packs illegal because the number of purchases can't be limited in the same ways (whale can just buy packs from another store or whatnot).

* Some kind of anti-gambling case determines that the fact that the TCG cards can be resold for significant amounts relatively reliably and easily negates old arguments for their legality, even if the card game companies don't directly manage the markets involved

* A major card game company is found to be too closely involved in the secondary market leading to expensive internal and possibly external investigations into others which makes more discoveries and eventually leads to the companies deciding TCG's with re-saleable cards in any form are too legally risky and invite too much of new government oversight to be reliably profitable because they are found to be at-risk of massive investment fraud related crimes and fines or something

The exact specifics I'm not sure of, but I do see it as an increased possibility, so I wanted to discuss the possible future of MTG in such a case.

Do people think it could still be made by WotC/Hasbro profitably with the random packs element removed, like perhaps a version of Arena where you don't buy packs, but simply pay prices similar to expansion packs for video games for access to entire sets for deckbuilding, and the default limited environment switches to be more like cube, and the physical cards, rather than coming out in booster packs with randomized cards, are released more in forms of pre-built decks or card collections closer to things like planescape or something? Perhaps with an equivalent to existing booster boxes instead being pre-assembled cubes with specific cards in the entire box (and individual packs illegal to re-sell on their own in random form) with the individual packs contained possibly being pre-randomized for quick starting of a cube draft. Or maybe not pre-shuffled packs for legal reasons, but WotC would sell an automatic shuffling device of some sort that you could load cubes into?

Do people have any insight into possible specific reasons random packs could end being a thing, either for legal, liability, or PR reasons they want to discuss?

What about potential game rules and format changes that could result from no longer having random packs? I could see it leading to a very different set of grounding principles behind something like Standard for instance.

Any other ideas related to the thread topic people want to discuss?

Odds of this even being a thing or just my random concerns?

Actual analysis efforts by posters with legal or political backgrounds?

[rujasu]

Trading cards have been around since the 19th century. They're not going anywhere.

[user_938036]

Regulations tightening could have an impact but out of everything you bring up its the least damaging and the only likely event. Though tighter regulations probably just result in changes to there more widely variant packs. Such as "the list" and similar things.

Loot box legislation could impact how sold/marketed online but they are fundamentally different products so slapsh damage to physical product is unlikely.

Anti gambling laws won't be a problem because too much profitable stuff would be effected and no one is going to challenge that monster.

Lawsuits directly at CCGs can only realistically do nothing or kill it entirely. This is simply too unlikely.

All arguments about the secondary market are nonstarters. The most that could happen would be specific companies facing fines for dabbling in their own secondary market as opposed to their normal sales but even that sounds unlikely. A more likely scenario is a problem with tournaments.

Assuming something happens that makes the sale of randomized product illegal for a large portion of the globe. I don't see magic surviving. They couldn't afford the current team that creates magic to create stand-alone products. Magic with a significantly reduced scope could continue existing but it wouldn't be magic as it couldn't feed its various formats.

[Krishnath]

This has already been up in the EU parliament a long time ago, and is one of the reasons why Ante was discontinued. Randomized boosters are fine, and thanks to the thriving secondary market (that is actually partially encouraged by WotC, thanks to the collectible and tradable aspects of the game), the loot box aspect is effectively non existent.

Without the secondary market, all trading cards would have been made illegal a really long time ago. Complaining about it now is nothing but doom and gloom. This is incidentally also why boosters can be bought with earned currency in Arena. It gets around the loot box problem by making it entirely earnable in game without any money changing hands.

[motleyslayer]

I feel that this conversation has been going around for a while now and I don't thin TCGs will really have to change much in regards to the way they do packs. First comparison I remember seeing in regards to this was the comparison to gambling. Now its compared to loot boxes, as they're a relatively new comparison. As has been said previously, the secondary market being so popular makes booster packs drastically different than loot boxes as unneeded cards can just be sold for at least some money back (or more)