I have zero knowledge of or interest in Magic: the Gathering for its own sake. But I was clickbaited by this YouTube video suggestion, which claims M:tG sales are tanking because of Wizards/Hasbro price gouging.
https://youtu.be/smJ4vnBnQ4E
He doesn't go into much detail, but a quick google says Wizards just hiked card set prices 11%, which isn't that much above inflation so I don't know if you can call it "price gouging".
Hasbro's "Wizards and Digital Gaming" segment showed a 16% drop in revenue in Q3 2022 vs Q3 2021. But Wizards are saying the decline in revenues is because their new M:tG card sets are coming out in Q4 this year rather than Q3 as usual. So maybe we need to wait for Q4.
...
By the way, a piece of laminated card with a picture of some grassland on it trades for EUR230. WTF? I agonise about spending £20 on a pdf.
It's not price gouging. 11%is nothing compared to the rate of inflation. ...But in times of recession/high inflation, people spend less of their income on luxuries and more on necessities.
...
Magic is totally going to go through a major collapse from the macro forces. It's not just inflation is killing the disposable income; it's that opening packs is a gambling addiction and that when prices of the cards you are going for collapses, the gambling addiction weakens. The drop in card prices is not over. Not by a long shot.
In my opinion, it is a combination of several things, WotC benefitted greatly from the kung-flu boom in sales. Both for D&D and MTG. So there will be a natural downturn just from that.
But for MTG, this is the real reason for their long-term issues:
WotC is saturating the market. With all the knock-on effects that entails, and they are showing no signs of stopping.
Hasbro/WotC is also a converged corporation at this point. They are creatively bankrupt.
This is evident both on the D&D side and MTG side with the recent releases of uninspiring product.
Gamers love, love, love, love, their favorite gaming IP. To ridiculous levels of loyalty.
So just through the inertia of loyalty; sales will be decent for a while.
But the current business practices that they are engaging in have proven to cause declines in sales and IP popularity in every industry that has adopted them.