EBay acquires TCG

[BaronCappuccino]

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releas ... 09889.html

Big news, I think. TCG just recently acquired CF. There can be only one.

[pokken]

And thus begins the megamonopoly consolidation in card sales.

My prediction for the apocalypse of the MTG bubble is when SCG goes under due to competition with Ebay/TCG there's a mass selloff and card prices implode.

(edited typo)

[Krishnath]

And thus begins the megamonopoly consolidation in card sales.

My prediction for the apocalypse of the MTG bubble is when SCG goes under due to completition with Ebay/TCG there's a mass selloff and card prices implode.

I wouldn't worry. If SCG and Channel Fireball didn't get out competed by MagicCardMarket and TCG already, they won't get out competed by TCG getting a new owner.

[BaronCappuccino]

And thus begins the megamonopoly consolidation in card sales.

My prediction for the apocalypse of the MTG bubble is when SCG goes under due to completition with Ebay/TCG there's a mass selloff and card prices implode.

I wouldn't worry. If SCG and Channel Fireball didn't get out competed by MagicCardMarket and TCG already, they won't get out competed by TCG getting a new owner.

TCG acquired Channel Fireball about a month ago.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 83431.html

[Krishnath]

Interesting.

Still, there are other websites that are sellers of MTG cards, on the secondary market. Now, if they buy either SCG or MagicCardMarket, you can worry.

[Venedrex]

Gee, I wish there was some societal institution that could start taking steps to prevent the monopolization of almost every major company, i.e, Microsoft buying Activision/Blizzard, almost as if that was one of it's functions. Nah, I guess I'll just wait until Disney buys Microsoft so I can buy all my products from one of four companies!! Hooray!

Funny how the one thing the government should do is the one thing it never does. I just wish politicians were forced to wear the logos of every company that pays them like Nascar drivers do. I mean, they do say they are public servants, which is to say servants of publicly traded companies. Why not get a little advertising for your sponsors in at the same time?

[motleyslayer]

I don't think I'm a fan of this much consolidation of sales sights. Seems pretty late for eBay to get into tcg sales but I guess we'll wait and see

[The Fluff]

Tcg is popular in facebook groups here in my country for price reference. Often you will see people here selling their cards as "tcg-mid" or something like that.

ebay getting a popular site worries me a bit..

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@pokken Oh, right because commercial mass media totally imploded as it consolidated. Lemme tell you, I live three hours from SCG and with their propensity for big sales, their fire sale would be a big, month-long spectacle. I can't imagine they'd fail to liquidate at least 70-90% of their inventory within that time through traditional single sales and then make bulk auctions to unload the rest. However, I actually think prices will rise; with yet another competitor out of the market, TCG will get so much new business that they won't give a damn about the short term rush of supply within the course of a year. In such a scenario, TCG player may even make arrangements to buy out SCG's inventory for pennies on the dollar just to prevent the market from going haywire for 10 weeks or so, even if they win either way in the long run.

[pokken]

@pokken Oh, right because commercial mass media totally imploded as it consolidated. Lemme tell you, I live three hours from SCG and with their propensity for big sales, their fire sale would be a big, month-long spectacle. I can't imagine they'd fail to liquidate at least 70-90% of their inventory within that time through traditional single sales and then make bulk auctions to unload the rest. However, I actually think prices will rise; with yet another competitor out of the market, TCG will get so much new business that they won't give a damn about the short term rush of supply within the course of a year. In such a scenario, TCG player may even make arrangements to buy out SCG's inventory for pennies on the dollar just to prevent the market from going haywire for 10 weeks or so, even if they win either way in the long run.

Maybe. I think the card market is a long burning bubble and unlike mass media there are scarce resources involved.

We're at a point where the only thing propping up prices is legions of game stores sitting on absolutely insane amounts of product. All it takes is one big one forced to liquidate for people to realize that the prices are all pretend.

Of course people have been saying similar things about magic cards for 20 years but man. It sure is a bizarre industry.

Maybe you're right. Tcg might be big enough to keep the bottom from falling out since they're basically an unregulated monopoly.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@pokken almost all value beyond clean drinking water, nutritious food and a solid roof is trivial and contrived. That fact has never kept a good market down though, thus capitalism. I firmly believe that so long as the game itself is still fun and accessible, our cardboard keeps its value. If Magic irl play gradually dies out, the cards will become briefly worthless for about 20-40 years before the remaining supply become niche antiques. Or somehow, against all odds, it goes the way of chess, changes its rules sixty one times, and is played forevermore for no apparent reason.

[The N82O Molecule]

all the people that worked for tcg are as they say, rich now. there should be no card that they can't buy now. I don't know how many persons behind it but 250mil is a lot of money even if you divide it 250 ways.

so let this tell you the projections of the money they expect to make. micro transactions are beautiful things. it will be only a little bit of a cost addition to you. . .very minor. . .

but no buts its a bad thing

[motleyslayer]

I was pretty surprised to see it sold for that much but maybe I just underestimate the value of a company like that

[pokken]

@pokken almost all value beyond clean drinking water, nutritious food and a solid roof is trivial and contrived. That fact has never kept a good market down though, thus capitalism. I firmly believe that so long as the game itself is still fun and accessible, our cardboard keeps its value. If Magic irl play gradually dies out, the cards will become briefly worthless for about 20-40 years before the remaining supply become niche antiques. Or somehow, against all odds, it goes the way of chess, changes its rules sixty one times, and is played forevermore for no apparent reason.

So I think you're missing my point a bit especially with the bolded bit.

The whole Magic card system is basically a pyramid scheme; new people need to keep buying in in order to keep the values of cards going, and old, invested players and companies need to keep sitting on massive amounts of sealed and unused product. This only works because everyone has confidence that prices can go up.

If the music stops and enough stock hits the market at once, I think the trajectory could be a more like "everything not on the reserved list is basically junk bonds" - I don't think people have any idea that there are probably a million unused copies of The Great Henge (if not more), so its $60 price tag is almost comical. Modern mythics are just absurdly overpriced and made so a combination of factors:

(1) absolute mountains of sealed product being held onto by distributors, stores, collectors, etc.
(2) collectors/investors/retailers holding way more copies of things than are useful
(3) a group of large companies willing to essentially price fix with buylists -- as long as the buylist for The Great Henge is $30 at enough places, it's a $50 card.

So a combination of fomo, price fixing, and new rubes means prices stay insane...until they aren't.

I suspect that if you looked at the actual cash value of Starcity Games' inventory it's probably like a billion dollars on paper, but if they tried to sell it all they'd crater the economy.

[singlewedr]

the megamonopoly consolidation in card sales.

[The Fluff]

I suspect that if you looked at the actual cash value of Starcity Games' inventory it's probably like a billion dollars on paper, but if they tried to sell it all they'd crater the economy.

wow, that's amazing.

sorry, a few months late to reply. I only saw the post today.