Should the VEKN officially sanction printed proxies?

elotar wrote:

The idea, that the value of cards will drop is also questionable - Enkil Cog, Villein, Summon History and smth like it maybe, but most of the cards maybe will even grow in price if the game became more played. As was already said - people prefer to play with real cards and quite ready to pay for it (look at the mtg players who pays rediculous amounts for "foil" cards with got no additional game value).

im pretty sure publishers give zero fucks about the secondary market, as people buying used cards aren't necessarily buying packs.

Vtes also has a number of legacy issues to deal with, and that may also prove to be a limiting factor in getting it reprinted.

self wrote:

im pretty sure publishers give zero fucks about the secondary market, as people buying used cards aren't necessarily buying packs.

They will buy packs if the publishers put what they want inside. Look how quick HttB starters sold.

im pretty sure publishers give zero fucks about the secondary market, as people buying used cards aren't necessarily buying packs.

That's a very incorrect statement. Every publisher I know of places direct thought into their secondary market sales. That's a part of what leads to Box Rarity spread and print run management. A fine example of this is when either WOTC or Yu-Gi-Oh does their reprints. They are usually different and carefully distributed in a specifically limited manner to ensure that the secondary market is now injured.

The secondary market is directly responsible for the distribution of the games themselves. The game is spread by the availability of the cards. One of the biggest failures that this game ever had, that and a player base that let the idea of being Methuselah's get to their heads and replace their realities.

This game didn't spread by having players accidentally discover this game from some other media. It spread by having a network of Prince's and players promoting the game with physically attainable and usable cards in store fronts. The biggest complaint that both other game store owners and I always had about the game was that only the packs had value. There were no inherent secondary market values to encourage cracking boxes (the number one way that some games get sold) and buying/selling singles. This was partially because card values were average at best with no "money" rares most of the time. This was always a great selling point of the game to players, but it also meant that less boxes overall would turn.

Httb was the first real example of the dynamic trying to change. It gave me hope in the game moving toward the future.

However, as a store owner and a gamer I would be very disappointed to see this game simply turn into a print and play proxy mess. I already dislike the current method of printing cards from new sets and I feel like it drags the game down just a bit and have felt like I should have GotPrint make a few copies of cards our group wants to play, but I worry about the game legality of this.

Borrelstein wrote:

In general I believe that once you starting to allow proxies there may be no way back, so I think we should not do that.

I confess that this attitude confuses me. Are you suggesting that once we allow proxy cards, we *can't* go back, or that we *shouldn't* go back? Because the first statement is simply untrue. One day we say "Proxies are legal in tournaments until such time as the game is picked up by a publisher and physical cards are once again available." That would allow players to get involved with the game now, and in a hypothetical future where CCP allows another company to buy the rights for a decent price, then proxies would no longer be tournament legal. Is that really so complicated or difficult to enforce?

But the question of whether we *should* go back is a more nuanced question - giving players the ability to print any card they want and then suddenly taking that away might not be seen favorably. So I can see an argument there. But I think that most people who join the game want to buy real cards. They don't want to just print out pieces of paper. The problem is that they can't easily acquire staple cards.

TheLich wrote:

However, as a store owner and a gamer I would be very disappointed to see this game simply turn into a print and play proxy mess. I already dislike the current method of printing cards from new sets and I feel like it drags the game down just a bit and have felt like I should have GotPrint make a few copies of cards our group wants to play, but I worry about the game legality of this.

I appreciate your view as a store owner - it's clearly very different than mine as somebody who is only a player. But I have to vigorously refute your insinuation that the health of a card game is dependent on the health of the secondary market. That would be ignoring the massive success that Fantasy Flight Games has had with their Living Card Game system, which literally has no secondary market. In many ways, we are seeing a revival of the early 90's when CCGs were all the rage and there were a massive number of them - except that the CCG model is dead (except for the king - Magic), and it's LCGs that are popping up all the time. The model has even spread outside of FFG - AEG released Doomtown using the LCG model (but not the name).

I also understand your preference for physical cards over printed slips of paper. I think we would all like to be able to purchase these new cards and financially support the game that we all enjoy. However, that doesn't appear to be an option any more - multiple companies have approached CCP and WotC looking to acquire the license to the game and they have all been rebuffed. At this point, our options are to just let the game die or to accept that some changes need to be made (like new cards that are just pieces of paper).

I'm also curious why you are unhappy with the printed cards - may I ask what specific problems you have with the system? Maybe we could change something to make it more palatable.

Finally, just so you know, the only legal shield that the VEKN has in regards to the new print-and-play expansions isn't a legal one at all - it's a social one. The shield is that neither CCP nor WotC cares enough to take the issue to court (which they certainly could). As long as nobody makes any money from it, that situation is likely to continue. That means that getting your cards professionally printed would be a big mistake (the print company is making money that WotC and CCP "should" or "could" be making). This all assumes that there isn't contract that I'm unaware of between WotC / CCP and the VEKN.

brettscho wrote:

One day we say "Proxies are legal in tournaments until such time as the game is picked up by a publisher and physical cards are once again available." That would allow players to get involved with the game now, and in a hypothetical future where CCP allows another company to buy the rights for a decent price, then proxies would no longer be tournament legal. Is that really so complicated or difficult to enforce?

There are two different aspects to this.

1) Could we enforce it? Possibly yes, possibly no.

2) Would a company think "I know, I'll sink tens of thousands of dollars of work into a product where the players currently play for free by printing out and photocopying stuff?" It's a risk for them, even if it's one they're willing to take. And even if they do take it, it might affect how you go about things. Would you, for instance, print a set that has a lot of reprints in it(*), if you were worried that fewer players would buy it, because they're happy using their photocopies for that - driving sales down overall?


(*) Could be a base set. Could just be doing something like saying "Well, we want to make a Laibon set, so we'll reprint these 50 key Laibon cards, plus our new stuff."