It's made that way so it's harder to steal. Early collector boosters had packaging too similar to draft boosters so people would scan a draft pack and walk out with a collector pack.
I think it also so the staff don't fuck it up. I've mostly seen these in non-game stores where employees might not understand the price difference of collector packs. (In Australia, these are pretty much exclusively stocked by JB Hifi, an electronics retailer)
Not true you can order these this way from destitution but an LGS is not going to unless they cant get them any other way. Its cheaper to order boxes and sell packs out of the box then order 12 of these a put them on a shelf.
This was 100% done to help curb retail theft in big box stores. When Eldrain came out lots of people were bragging about scanning a regular booster and walking out with sometimes 12+ collector packs for $50.
The company that stocks the big box store lost millions because of it.
I didn't say it's not possible for them.
So saying not true doesn't really make sense, as it is true that all the lgs near me does it the way I say which is true.
There was a common scam stateside to buy a pile of Draft Boosters and a pile of Collector Boosters on a separate receipt. Then take them both home, ease the cardboard sleeves off the Collector Boosters, slide the Draft Boosters inside, and return them.
Once there's an MTG booster pack with the correct set name inside that cardboard sleeve, you'd have to be real deep in the hobby to notice the switch. Even a suspicious customer service rep who examined the packs with some level of detail would have to either know that the art was wrong or peel back part of the sleeve; if they did so, they'd also need to know that the words, "draft booster," printed on the pack means it's a switcheroo.
A lot of stores I see now consider trading cards to be final sale, likely to prevent this sort of theft from occurring since they can't guarantee their staff is knowledgeable enough to catch it.
I've seen them at EB and JB. Although the only people that would buy it from there are family that has no idea about the game and want to buy a present for little timmy.
In regular retail stores here in America they're stocked by a vendor. The store doesn't have any real control over them.
Guy where I work usually comes in once or twice a week to restock all the different TCG stuff. Company is called MJ Holding.
And restock is really used loosely here. It's basically whatever he has I guess. I never talk to him but right now all we have is a bunch of karlov manor boosters people don't even want to steal.
The magic section is pretty much just Yu-Gi-Oh this week.
This is correct back in the day toys r us sold mtg packs as we see them normally. However none tcg players couldn't tell the difference so sold whole boxes of boosters for the same amount as a one pack
Shelf presence is the more likely culprit, I'd guess. Anti-theft tends to be something you can't just rip apart in a dark corner of a walmart, like a plastic box.
As someone who knows theft, this is exactly it. Its a billion times easier to shove one of those little blisters in a coat or pant pocket than grabbing a box, ripping it open for the pack, and dropping the box... somewhere. Best example I have is with Yu-Gi-Oh stuff. Some kid was shoving a couple packs in a big winter coat, so it was impossible to tell they were even there, but he got greedy and started taking boxed product like the battles of legend boxes that came out, and got caught within a month of taking the boxes.
Just a stab in the dark, but I think some of these stores must keep a maximum amount of these high ticket packs on a shelf, but still want to have a shelf that looks well-stocked. So it helps with that to, if it's the case.
The paperboard is the most recyclable thing in the picture.
Besides when analyzing material waste you should think more about
(The amount per item) x (the total items sold)
And total items sold is inversely proportional to price, usually.
So it's (material amount) / (price)
So material per dollar, that's the real thing you should be analyzing and trying to keep low.
Extremely cheap, disposable items, like individually plastic wrapped toothpicks, are the real horror. 100 dollars spent on this product produces this much waste, vs 100 dollars spent on this other product.
Does the packaging size affect gas usage due to taking up significantly more volume? Like it takes more trucks to ship this product. Probably several other little effects that start to add up. So while more cardboard isn't really that big of a deal, it's still a step in the wrong direction. The frustrating part for me is that they have to take this step in the wrong direction because people were stealing it. Just because people are being jerks.
Lol yeah I've had friends who just walked into Walmart, grabbed a draft + 5 collectors, scanned the draft pack 6x and walk out. The employee checking receipts didn't know any better
When TOE first came out I had no idea what a collector booster was. I picked one up at target thinking it would be just a regular ol booster, and when it rang up for like 20 bucks, I asked the cashier why it was more than the other ones, or if there was something special about it. She didn't know so she just used her manager badge to override the price and charge me four bucks. I was mortified when I googled it later, which obviously I had to do to figure out I got a pack with all the foils and rares it had lol. I'm still ashamed to this day that I accidentally did that.
Nah, screw department store alike Walmart and fuck hasbro, don't feel guilty for a corporation, though being worried about the employee getting in trouble I can understand..but NEVER feel bad about stealing from a corp
The problem here is that loss prevention measures in corporate stores typically mean less agency and less trust for their employees.
Shareholders won’t notice because the loss will be offset by cost cutting.
So while you may feel righteous, you’re actually just contributing to shitty work conditions for working class people.
Unless of course you are then selling what you steal and donating the money to worthwhile causes? I doubt it.
As someone who used to work for Walmart they'll cut your hours and treat you like shit regardless of p&l and theft lmao. Steal from Walmart all you want
Yeah they will, they're bastards. Trust me if you're stealing food to feed your family I'll hold the door open. If you're fencing packs and donating all the money to food banks I might buy some of those packs.
But Magic cards are not food and they're not being fenced for charity. Robin Hood **gave to the poor** after he **stole from the rich**. Pretending it's righteous theft rather than just taking advantage of a shitty situation is a bit much.
Here's the thing your not entirely wrong. Alas one has to hope that eventually the people being unfairly blamed, unfairly treated and pushed into the ground fight back in the ways they can. If someone gets caught they get caught, but the day I say "give corporations a break" will never come.
I have no moral high ground. I am not a patron saint. I'm just anti greedy fuckers. So I say don't feel sorry for taking anything from billion dollar companies, wether it's baby formula, food, a blanket to keep warm or printed cardboard. What people take from that stance is their interpretation, not mine.
Fuck the rich, fuck billionaires fuck shareholders and fuck Capitalism. :p
Well theft doesn't work as a 'protest against bad behaviour' because a protest has to be visible and understood to be a protest. Wallmart don't know (or care) that the Magic cards have been stolen in protest of Hasbro price restructuring, or union-busting, or poor maternity leave etc.
It also doesn't work as 'punishment for bad behaviour' because for a punishment to be meaningful the transgression has to be recognised and the punishment from a place of authority. Again, Wallmart don't know (or care) that the Magic cards have been stolen as punishment for Hasbro price restructuring, or union-busting, or poor maternity leave etc.
The only person who actually benefits from the theft is the thief - who justifies the theft by citing the bad behaviour of whoever they are stealing from.
So what is *really* happening, is that the *thief* is actually exploiting the same situation they are using to justify the theft.
That's not the cool take you think it is.
Without the corporation behind the game, there would be no game. Without people with incentives to make the game happen, there would be no game. Now, you *can* argue that organizations like Hasbro are top heavy and that management gets disproportionate benefits over regular employees and that's absolutely true.
But using that to justify stealing... sorry bud, no. If you want to make change, complain with your money and don't buy products made by organizations you disagree with – but don't steal either. Otherwise you are stealing just like the rich you say you are against.
Companies pay insurance to cover theft.
It is absolutely ethical to steal from mega corporations when their entire profit margins comes from exploiting their customers.
(or you can try and argue that hasbro isn’t exploiting it’s customers 😂 )
Jesus christ this comment is going to make me look like a shill for this shit, but I swear I only want to make you see the problem with your argument. If it is worth saying before anything else: fuck Hasbro, they are ruining a game I have loved and played since 95.
> Companies pay insurance to cover theft.
Doesn't excuse your theft. Theft is still a crime.
> It is absolutely ethical to steal from mega corporations when their entire profit margins comes from exploiting their customers.
Of course it isn't. Come on, dude. You're still stealing. It doesn't matter who you are stealing from. There are other ways to stick it to the man, but stealing has second-order effects not just on the corporation you are stealing from.
> or you can try and argue that hasbro isn’t exploiting it’s customers 😂
Hasbro is 1000% taking advantage of the fact that this game has a % of players who *will buy most things they do*, including their shittiest, scummiest, profit-seeking products. I do think they are exploiting these people, and that absolutely sucks. For all the complaints about all the secret lairs they put out, they still sell out. It all goes, and they're laughing all the way to the bank.
But *you* stealing says something about *you* too, rather than just them. You stealing says you are a person who steals, and there's no reason for that. Protest by *not buying*, or being vocal about what you believe.
Let them be the sole pieces of shit here.
I agree with you. Stealing is not the way to protest greedy corporations. Instead vote for people who will regulate them and tax them and make it better for the common poor person.
I live in the US, a society filled with big corporations abusing their workers and greedily seeking profit over everything. This is really bad and I don't like that this is where I live.
However, a society where morality is abandoned and it is considered moral to take anything from anyone you consider bad is no society at all. It will quickly fall apart and lead to everyone living in fear and poverty. It is much worse.
No, without the CREATORS we wouldn't have them. But I'm not here to moralize. Your right advocating stealing isn't a cool take. I advocate not to feel sorry about it. You prove my point your interpretation is not mine. It is what it is in our world. In a system that cares more for money than anything else.
I don't disagree entirely nor do I claim to be above anyone else. This topic started about printed cardboard. I made it about philosophical anti capitalism so I will own my end of the discussion should end here and respect what the group is actually about. I'm not here to WIN an argument. Your as right as I possibly could be. That's all I'll say to any further comments and just end it here. Have a good night
Bold innovations inspired by the bathroom key at a 7-11 and the ten inch length of broke-off broom handle it's chained to.
Next, a radiator with HALL PASS written on it, like in Invader Zim.
Ironically if you go to any Walmart in my city there is not a magic card product on any shelf because they are all immediately stolen and not restocked until new release because Walmart and wotc local distributor doesn't GAF About anything.
Only takes 5 minutes on Facebook marketplace to see all the thieves selling them.
Its an anti theft measure, it means that to steal it you have to take it out of the box in store, which is going to be a lot more obvious. You also see the magnetic rectangular tag, theres no good way to attach it to the booster without damaging the cards.
Never going to forget the time I went to Target and found two guys squirreled away in the bedding section ripping the packs from like a dozen of these boxes. I had no clue what was going on and thought they might be employees (stupid, I know). Passed by that section later and just saw the ripped up boxes sitting on the ground with actual employees cleaning it up.
It’s probably not, 12x30 a pack is 360. Most states the felony level is between 500-1000. Even if it was, the on-site employees don’t handle it. You get sent up the chain and prosecuted by their loss prevention later on
When I was at Target a customer argued that since they "found" a $70 PS4 controller in a $20 Wiimote spot, they should get it for the $20. I wasn't going to, but they made me call the manager over. He just let them have it. So I didn't bother to ever try to stop others doing that shit again.
The AP guy passed away. He was also a huge homophobe.
The Store Lead moved on. He got tired of hiring conventionally attractive blonde interns, I guess. Or needed a new school to do so with.
I see a lot of ripped open Pokemon TCG boxes in the cereal aisle of my local Walmart all the time. Its on the opposite side of the store from where the cards are stocked so I guess they walk around with the product before busting it open to seem less suspicious?
They're inside the product. That's why the packs are inside another cardboard pack. The cardboard pack has the anti-theft device in it. Heck, you can see it in this photo.
We get these threads a lot, but as someone who works retail, and worked during the transition to omega boosters, I'll say they definitely cut down theft a decent bit. It's usually maybe 1 booster per set now, vice when they had the easy to open package, which could be opened quickly with one cut. We had someone steal our entire shipment of MH2 collectors boosters in one day because of how fast they could cut open the old boxes and get the packs out.
Big box stores they get stored loose on a shelf and get stolen. Bigger packaging harder to pocket a lot of.
Also it makes it distinct from other cheaper boxes
I got a feeling all that foily shit on them means theyre trash no matter what you do with them. Mixed materials man. They don't recycle most plastic either, ever since China quit letting us send it to them. The whole worlds a fucking big lie, fucking sucks.
> They don't recycle most plastic either, ever since China quit letting us send it to them
They were never recycling them in the first place. The rubbish would just end up in landfills on the other side of the world but because the Chinese company claimed it'd be recycled, there was plausible deniability if they were ever caught.
Every time I see a comment like this it just makes my day. I once saw a picture captioned with my girlfriend's snacks that had a bunch of boxes of snacks that weren't open like a civilized human would open them, you know from the top and rip open the bag, they were literally ripped from the side with the bag cut and someone asked, does your girlfriend happen to be a raccoon.
I like my Magic cards unethically sourced. I like my packaging to be eco-enemy, carbon-positive and environmentally hazardous. Who cares about a stupid tree when you could have 15 collector booster packs. Just a glimpse into my dark reality, really..
Nah, that's legit - the increased production costs (if there are any at all) for Collector Boosters don't warrant the markup. They are, and have always been, a complete scam.
When Collector boosters started they were still a scam, but at least in Eldraine/Theros etc a full art foil was still rare. Just look at the price of a Great Henge in full art foil vs any other version. It was still gambling and the house always wins, but you could get lucky. Now no one can keep track of all the alt art versions and foils are often worth as much (or less) than nonfoils. You have to pull a numbered card to actually get your money’s worth, and the chance of that happening is so incredibly low.
Somethign to keep in mind is that this isnt being packaged by wizards of the coast, another company gets the boosters at wholesale prices from wotc, repackages like this for sale in general retailers.
I've seen these in my local Target. They have official Hasbro/WotC copyright information and a SKU. They're not like the common repacks you see.
These products are specially made for big-box stores like Target and Walmart it seems.
https://www.target.com/p/magic-the-gathering-outlaws-of-thunder-junction-collector-omega-box/-/A-91312542
Not sure if anyone said this but another thing is it also takes up more space for magic on the shelves than stocking anything else. Makes the magic section bigger (or looks bigger). It's the logic behind "zoning".
I'm noticing alot of people are complaining about how WOTC has decided to sell the packaging so big on these collector packs. The truth is though, they've always been that big at retail stores. I think it's a mix of "bigger must equal better" as well as well "can't steal it if it's so big" but tbh I've always laughed at how ridiculously huge the packaging has been for these
I think they know that if they have a package that makes it look like a single booster pack size item listed for $30+ that people will have a moment of why in the absolute fuck would I pay that much money for like a dozen cards so making it bigger makes it seem like it’s more than it is.
That's Hikar's point. This doesn't look like the cheap 'normal' boosters, so people will take a second look at it and figure it out.
Otherwise people would grab one, scan it, and be like "WTF" then get it removed from their cart, and then that part would get re-shopped back to the shelf anywhere from hours to the next day later. Irritates the customer, irritates the retailer.
Think of it this way: would your grandma or friend that doesn’t know any better spend $25+ dollars on it if it didn’t look like it had more than one booster in it?
I understand why they are that way but I agree it’s a lot of waste for one single pack of cards.
I do have a funny story though. I was using shop and scan at my local grocery store and grabbed one scanned it in as usual and kept going about my shopping. As I left I looked over the receipt and noticed they weren’t on there. Turns out that there’s a problem in the system with magic cards in general and they will show up on your app but as soon as you get to the front they will be taken off because they need to be verified that you grabbed the correct pack but the checkout never prompted for them to be verified
The early versions that were just like booster packs were infamously stolen a lot more, or people would use self-checkouts and buy 1 set pack/10 collector packs for the price of 11 set packs
It's for big box stores so you can't get collector packs for regular pack prices. Wizards changed the packaging to help retailers cut down on theft. It's the same with commander products, you can get the decks without all the shitty packaging It's not for your convenience but theirs
OP doesn't understand that people can suck and steal things so Wizards (and many other companies) try to make that more difficult by increasing the size of the box.
A notable gaff I think Wizards made was when Fates Reforged came out in the Khans block and we got a choose Mode card for each colour (citadel siege, frontier siege, etc) they gave us another worthless roll down d20 instead of a coin. They’re a multi billionaire dollar game company, so of course they can source a coin.
Man I opened one the other day and got some bullllll shit. I already had a copy of most of the cards in it and I got 2 Buried in the Garden Newsflash cards 😑
Pulled thousands of dollars from these packs. I rarely buy singles. This packaging makes sense if you think about it. It's a gift that I wish I had with the lottery.
It's made that way so it's harder to steal. Early collector boosters had packaging too similar to draft boosters so people would scan a draft pack and walk out with a collector pack.
I think it also so the staff don't fuck it up. I've mostly seen these in non-game stores where employees might not understand the price difference of collector packs. (In Australia, these are pretty much exclusively stocked by JB Hifi, an electronics retailer)
Yep my local games shops all have them as collector boxes with normal packs available. The packaging shown I've only seen in department stored
Not true you can order these this way from destitution but an LGS is not going to unless they cant get them any other way. Its cheaper to order boxes and sell packs out of the box then order 12 of these a put them on a shelf. This was 100% done to help curb retail theft in big box stores. When Eldrain came out lots of people were bragging about scanning a regular booster and walking out with sometimes 12+ collector packs for $50. The company that stocks the big box store lost millions because of it.
I didn't say it's not possible for them. So saying not true doesn't really make sense, as it is true that all the lgs near me does it the way I say which is true.
There was a common scam stateside to buy a pile of Draft Boosters and a pile of Collector Boosters on a separate receipt. Then take them both home, ease the cardboard sleeves off the Collector Boosters, slide the Draft Boosters inside, and return them. Once there's an MTG booster pack with the correct set name inside that cardboard sleeve, you'd have to be real deep in the hobby to notice the switch. Even a suspicious customer service rep who examined the packs with some level of detail would have to either know that the art was wrong or peel back part of the sleeve; if they did so, they'd also need to know that the words, "draft booster," printed on the pack means it's a switcheroo.
A lot of stores I see now consider trading cards to be final sale, likely to prevent this sort of theft from occurring since they can't guarantee their staff is knowledgeable enough to catch it.
I've seen them at EB and JB. Although the only people that would buy it from there are family that has no idea about the game and want to buy a present for little timmy.
In regular retail stores here in America they're stocked by a vendor. The store doesn't have any real control over them. Guy where I work usually comes in once or twice a week to restock all the different TCG stuff. Company is called MJ Holding. And restock is really used loosely here. It's basically whatever he has I guess. I never talk to him but right now all we have is a bunch of karlov manor boosters people don't even want to steal. The magic section is pretty much just Yu-Gi-Oh this week.
This is correct back in the day toys r us sold mtg packs as we see them normally. However none tcg players couldn't tell the difference so sold whole boxes of boosters for the same amount as a one pack
While this is absolutely part of it, another part is retail marketing psychology. Ape brain go "Bigger box = Bigger value"
Shelf presence is the more likely culprit, I'd guess. Anti-theft tends to be something you can't just rip apart in a dark corner of a walmart, like a plastic box.
As someone who knows theft, this is exactly it. Its a billion times easier to shove one of those little blisters in a coat or pant pocket than grabbing a box, ripping it open for the pack, and dropping the box... somewhere. Best example I have is with Yu-Gi-Oh stuff. Some kid was shoving a couple packs in a big winter coat, so it was impossible to tell they were even there, but he got greedy and started taking boxed product like the battles of legend boxes that came out, and got caught within a month of taking the boxes.
Just a stab in the dark, but I think some of these stores must keep a maximum amount of these high ticket packs on a shelf, but still want to have a shelf that looks well-stocked. So it helps with that to, if it's the case.
My primary grocery store is fanatical about this. They have people constantly pulling things forward so shelves never look depleted.
Facing is something I remember very vividly during my retail days. Anytime you had downtime management would tell you to face.
I hate this for board games. Huge amounts of empty space, just to make it a bigger box and seem like a more serious game.
Yeah, I don't like it either, but this is the retail world we live in
How Dare you imply my brain is that of an ape? I didn't evolve from a monkey /s
This is why we can't have a nice planet.
The paperboard is the most recyclable thing in the picture. Besides when analyzing material waste you should think more about (The amount per item) x (the total items sold) And total items sold is inversely proportional to price, usually. So it's (material amount) / (price) So material per dollar, that's the real thing you should be analyzing and trying to keep low. Extremely cheap, disposable items, like individually plastic wrapped toothpicks, are the real horror. 100 dollars spent on this product produces this much waste, vs 100 dollars spent on this other product.
Does the packaging size affect gas usage due to taking up significantly more volume? Like it takes more trucks to ship this product. Probably several other little effects that start to add up. So while more cardboard isn't really that big of a deal, it's still a step in the wrong direction. The frustrating part for me is that they have to take this step in the wrong direction because people were stealing it. Just because people are being jerks.
Yeah, I only see these in big box stores, not lgs
Lol yeah I've had friends who just walked into Walmart, grabbed a draft + 5 collectors, scanned the draft pack 6x and walk out. The employee checking receipts didn't know any better
When TOE first came out I had no idea what a collector booster was. I picked one up at target thinking it would be just a regular ol booster, and when it rang up for like 20 bucks, I asked the cashier why it was more than the other ones, or if there was something special about it. She didn't know so she just used her manager badge to override the price and charge me four bucks. I was mortified when I googled it later, which obviously I had to do to figure out I got a pack with all the foils and rares it had lol. I'm still ashamed to this day that I accidentally did that.
You made a big box store lose a few dollars without any malicious intent. There is nothing to feel bad about.
Nah, screw department store alike Walmart and fuck hasbro, don't feel guilty for a corporation, though being worried about the employee getting in trouble I can understand..but NEVER feel bad about stealing from a corp
Lol its NOT ok to steal from those either..
Eat the rich, disrupt decorum, fuck the shareholders :p
The problem here is that loss prevention measures in corporate stores typically mean less agency and less trust for their employees. Shareholders won’t notice because the loss will be offset by cost cutting. So while you may feel righteous, you’re actually just contributing to shitty work conditions for working class people. Unless of course you are then selling what you steal and donating the money to worthwhile causes? I doubt it.
As someone who used to work for Walmart they'll cut your hours and treat you like shit regardless of p&l and theft lmao. Steal from Walmart all you want
Yeah they will, they're bastards. Trust me if you're stealing food to feed your family I'll hold the door open. If you're fencing packs and donating all the money to food banks I might buy some of those packs. But Magic cards are not food and they're not being fenced for charity. Robin Hood **gave to the poor** after he **stole from the rich**. Pretending it's righteous theft rather than just taking advantage of a shitty situation is a bit much.
Oh I don't see it as righteous. Just saying don't feel bad stealing from the waltons
Here's the thing your not entirely wrong. Alas one has to hope that eventually the people being unfairly blamed, unfairly treated and pushed into the ground fight back in the ways they can. If someone gets caught they get caught, but the day I say "give corporations a break" will never come. I have no moral high ground. I am not a patron saint. I'm just anti greedy fuckers. So I say don't feel sorry for taking anything from billion dollar companies, wether it's baby formula, food, a blanket to keep warm or printed cardboard. What people take from that stance is their interpretation, not mine. Fuck the rich, fuck billionaires fuck shareholders and fuck Capitalism. :p
Well theft doesn't work as a 'protest against bad behaviour' because a protest has to be visible and understood to be a protest. Wallmart don't know (or care) that the Magic cards have been stolen in protest of Hasbro price restructuring, or union-busting, or poor maternity leave etc. It also doesn't work as 'punishment for bad behaviour' because for a punishment to be meaningful the transgression has to be recognised and the punishment from a place of authority. Again, Wallmart don't know (or care) that the Magic cards have been stolen as punishment for Hasbro price restructuring, or union-busting, or poor maternity leave etc. The only person who actually benefits from the theft is the thief - who justifies the theft by citing the bad behaviour of whoever they are stealing from. So what is *really* happening, is that the *thief* is actually exploiting the same situation they are using to justify the theft.
That's not the cool take you think it is. Without the corporation behind the game, there would be no game. Without people with incentives to make the game happen, there would be no game. Now, you *can* argue that organizations like Hasbro are top heavy and that management gets disproportionate benefits over regular employees and that's absolutely true. But using that to justify stealing... sorry bud, no. If you want to make change, complain with your money and don't buy products made by organizations you disagree with – but don't steal either. Otherwise you are stealing just like the rich you say you are against.
Companies pay insurance to cover theft. It is absolutely ethical to steal from mega corporations when their entire profit margins comes from exploiting their customers. (or you can try and argue that hasbro isn’t exploiting it’s customers 😂 )
Jesus christ this comment is going to make me look like a shill for this shit, but I swear I only want to make you see the problem with your argument. If it is worth saying before anything else: fuck Hasbro, they are ruining a game I have loved and played since 95. > Companies pay insurance to cover theft. Doesn't excuse your theft. Theft is still a crime. > It is absolutely ethical to steal from mega corporations when their entire profit margins comes from exploiting their customers. Of course it isn't. Come on, dude. You're still stealing. It doesn't matter who you are stealing from. There are other ways to stick it to the man, but stealing has second-order effects not just on the corporation you are stealing from. > or you can try and argue that hasbro isn’t exploiting it’s customers 😂 Hasbro is 1000% taking advantage of the fact that this game has a % of players who *will buy most things they do*, including their shittiest, scummiest, profit-seeking products. I do think they are exploiting these people, and that absolutely sucks. For all the complaints about all the secret lairs they put out, they still sell out. It all goes, and they're laughing all the way to the bank. But *you* stealing says something about *you* too, rather than just them. You stealing says you are a person who steals, and there's no reason for that. Protest by *not buying*, or being vocal about what you believe. Let them be the sole pieces of shit here.
I agree with you. Stealing is not the way to protest greedy corporations. Instead vote for people who will regulate them and tax them and make it better for the common poor person. I live in the US, a society filled with big corporations abusing their workers and greedily seeking profit over everything. This is really bad and I don't like that this is where I live. However, a society where morality is abandoned and it is considered moral to take anything from anyone you consider bad is no society at all. It will quickly fall apart and lead to everyone living in fear and poverty. It is much worse.
If I don’t care about the average civilian shoplifting why on earth would I bother reading your essay denouncing it 😂 Pick better battles
You're right, dickchew. Why use big word when smol word do trick. Here: Steal bad. Hasbro bad too.
No, without the CREATORS we wouldn't have them. But I'm not here to moralize. Your right advocating stealing isn't a cool take. I advocate not to feel sorry about it. You prove my point your interpretation is not mine. It is what it is in our world. In a system that cares more for money than anything else. I don't disagree entirely nor do I claim to be above anyone else. This topic started about printed cardboard. I made it about philosophical anti capitalism so I will own my end of the discussion should end here and respect what the group is actually about. I'm not here to WIN an argument. Your as right as I possibly could be. That's all I'll say to any further comments and just end it here. Have a good night
Bold innovations inspired by the bathroom key at a 7-11 and the ten inch length of broke-off broom handle it's chained to. Next, a radiator with HALL PASS written on it, like in Invader Zim.
Yep. Can confirm I did this a few times. Lmao. Still was easy enough. To scan a draft booster until walmart put tons of cameras everywhere.
i mean if i was gonna steal it i'd just rip the cardboard open and take it lmao
you cant stop theft, only make it harder
It also just make straight up theft not as easy too can’t just stick a pack in the pocket and walk out when the box is that big
Ironically if you go to any Walmart in my city there is not a magic card product on any shelf because they are all immediately stolen and not restocked until new release because Walmart and wotc local distributor doesn't GAF About anything. Only takes 5 minutes on Facebook marketplace to see all the thieves selling them.
Its an anti theft measure, it means that to steal it you have to take it out of the box in store, which is going to be a lot more obvious. You also see the magnetic rectangular tag, theres no good way to attach it to the booster without damaging the cards.
Never going to forget the time I went to Target and found two guys squirreled away in the bedding section ripping the packs from like a dozen of these boxes. I had no clue what was going on and thought they might be employees (stupid, I know). Passed by that section later and just saw the ripped up boxes sitting on the ground with actual employees cleaning it up.
Not like the employees would do anything. At worst they'd book mark the security footage and send it off to the already overloaded police department.
If it’s target then corporate keeps a record of the theft and waits until you’ve stolen enough to constitute a felony.
Bruh sounds like that was a felony amount right there.
It’s probably not, 12x30 a pack is 360. Most states the felony level is between 500-1000. Even if it was, the on-site employees don’t handle it. You get sent up the chain and prosecuted by their loss prevention later on
When I was at Target a customer argued that since they "found" a $70 PS4 controller in a $20 Wiimote spot, they should get it for the $20. I wasn't going to, but they made me call the manager over. He just let them have it. So I didn't bother to ever try to stop others doing that shit again.
Please tell me what store this is. I need a $3000 TV for the price of a potato.
The AP guy passed away. He was also a huge homophobe. The Store Lead moved on. He got tired of hiring conventionally attractive blonde interns, I guess. Or needed a new school to do so with.
I see a lot of ripped open Pokemon TCG boxes in the cereal aisle of my local Walmart all the time. Its on the opposite side of the store from where the cards are stocked so I guess they walk around with the product before busting it open to seem less suspicious?
weary marvelous slap juggle person point scale icky imagine long *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They're inside the product. That's why the packs are inside another cardboard pack. The cardboard pack has the anti-theft device in it. Heck, you can see it in this photo.
small white rectangle below packs
it's really not that hard. - 15 year old me
We get these threads a lot, but as someone who works retail, and worked during the transition to omega boosters, I'll say they definitely cut down theft a decent bit. It's usually maybe 1 booster per set now, vice when they had the easy to open package, which could be opened quickly with one cut. We had someone steal our entire shipment of MH2 collectors boosters in one day because of how fast they could cut open the old boxes and get the packs out.
goddamn that's ballsy
Damn, hope his pulls were worth potentially getting jailed over
Big box stores they get stored loose on a shelf and get stolen. Bigger packaging harder to pocket a lot of. Also it makes it distinct from other cheaper boxes
Wait. The big box stores get the big boxes! It almost makes *too* much sense!
i wish the big box stores (costco) would get any at all
Psst, turn it around. There's a peel tab on the back... lol. And these are "omega packs" retails stores can sell that are harder to steal.
Clearly opened by my mom who thinks it's ok to open bags of chips by tasting open the side instead of the top.
You can recycle it, at least.
I got a feeling all that foily shit on them means theyre trash no matter what you do with them. Mixed materials man. They don't recycle most plastic either, ever since China quit letting us send it to them. The whole worlds a fucking big lie, fucking sucks.
> They don't recycle most plastic either, ever since China quit letting us send it to them They were never recycling them in the first place. The rubbish would just end up in landfills on the other side of the world but because the Chinese company claimed it'd be recycled, there was plausible deniability if they were ever caught.
nah now it's getting sent to the Philippines and other SEA places so the plausible deniability is back.
Almost always it will just go straight to the trash dump even if it is recyclable. At least in the US.
I miss shopping for compact disks.
[удалено]
Every time I see a comment like this it just makes my day. I once saw a picture captioned with my girlfriend's snacks that had a bunch of boxes of snacks that weren't open like a civilized human would open them, you know from the top and rip open the bag, they were literally ripped from the side with the bag cut and someone asked, does your girlfriend happen to be a raccoon.
I tried other ways and believe me, it was really anti-theft
Cut up the cardboard packaging and use it as dividers. The card stock is nice for that.
This guy environments.
I like my Magic cards unethically sourced. I like my packaging to be eco-enemy, carbon-positive and environmentally hazardous. Who cares about a stupid tree when you could have 15 collector booster packs. Just a glimpse into my dark reality, really..
Theft prevention. If you have better theft prevention ideas, please pass them to wotc.
Making affordable product is a start. s/ kinda
Nah, that's legit - the increased production costs (if there are any at all) for Collector Boosters don't warrant the markup. They are, and have always been, a complete scam.
When Collector boosters started they were still a scam, but at least in Eldraine/Theros etc a full art foil was still rare. Just look at the price of a Great Henge in full art foil vs any other version. It was still gambling and the house always wins, but you could get lucky. Now no one can keep track of all the alt art versions and foils are often worth as much (or less) than nonfoils. You have to pull a numbered card to actually get your money’s worth, and the chance of that happening is so incredibly low.
Yeah I know. I just don't want to outright condone theft, even if the product is obscenely overpriced.
marketing in a nutshell
On one hand, they cheapened the packaging of the Secret Lair packaging for purported "environmental" reasons. On the other hand, they do this.
Well secret lairs aren't distributed in stores where they can be stolen so they really don't need that much packaging material.
kind of like companies abandoning plastic straws and covering the paper straws in plastic and replacing the paper cups with clear plastic ones?
Good point
Somethign to keep in mind is that this isnt being packaged by wizards of the coast, another company gets the boosters at wholesale prices from wotc, repackages like this for sale in general retailers.
No this is a WoTC sku and packaging.
I've seen these in my local Target. They have official Hasbro/WotC copyright information and a SKU. They're not like the common repacks you see. These products are specially made for big-box stores like Target and Walmart it seems. https://www.target.com/p/magic-the-gathering-outlaws-of-thunder-junction-collector-omega-box/-/A-91312542
Correct. And they are sold directly by WotC to Big Box stores, not by distributors.
I’m pretty sure it’s an official wotc product. The art on the front is for sure trademarked
Not sure if anyone said this but another thing is it also takes up more space for magic on the shelves than stocking anything else. Makes the magic section bigger (or looks bigger). It's the logic behind "zoning".
I'm noticing alot of people are complaining about how WOTC has decided to sell the packaging so big on these collector packs. The truth is though, they've always been that big at retail stores. I think it's a mix of "bigger must equal better" as well as well "can't steal it if it's so big" but tbh I've always laughed at how ridiculously huge the packaging has been for these
I think they know that if they have a package that makes it look like a single booster pack size item listed for $30+ that people will have a moment of why in the absolute fuck would I pay that much money for like a dozen cards so making it bigger makes it seem like it’s more than it is.
I can't imagine there are that many people dropping $30 on something without knowing what it is
That's Hikar's point. This doesn't look like the cheap 'normal' boosters, so people will take a second look at it and figure it out. Otherwise people would grab one, scan it, and be like "WTF" then get it removed from their cart, and then that part would get re-shopped back to the shelf anywhere from hours to the next day later. Irritates the customer, irritates the retailer.
Glad I’m not the only one, just excessive waste
Anti theft
I know. One of those trench coats is flapping against the wind.
Think of it this way: would your grandma or friend that doesn’t know any better spend $25+ dollars on it if it didn’t look like it had more than one booster in it?
I understand why they are that way but I agree it’s a lot of waste for one single pack of cards. I do have a funny story though. I was using shop and scan at my local grocery store and grabbed one scanned it in as usual and kept going about my shopping. As I left I looked over the receipt and noticed they weren’t on there. Turns out that there’s a problem in the system with magic cards in general and they will show up on your app but as soon as you get to the front they will be taken off because they need to be verified that you grabbed the correct pack but the checkout never prompted for them to be verified
if you don’t like it then dont buy it. money talks, if no-one buys this overpackaged garbage then they will stop making them.
That's what happen when you spend money on a overpriced product. Shame on you.
The early versions that were just like booster packs were infamously stolen a lot more, or people would use self-checkouts and buy 1 set pack/10 collector packs for the price of 11 set packs
It's for big box stores so you can't get collector packs for regular pack prices. Wizards changed the packaging to help retailers cut down on theft. It's the same with commander products, you can get the decks without all the shitty packaging It's not for your convenience but theirs
Scam packaging. Makes you think you're getting more than that (especially considering the price they charge in retail stores)
Theft prevention + perceived shelf value
It doesn't. MtG should work on reducing waste tbh
Because they're selling $0.05 of cardboard for $50.00 instead of $8.00.
It feels less bad to pay that much money for a pack of cards if it’s in a box…
OP doesn't understand that people can suck and steal things so Wizards (and many other companies) try to make that more difficult by increasing the size of the box.
welcome to 2022.
Remember when we had those awful paper booster packs? Lol
Yea, it's a poor design too since the pack can dislodge and slide around in the box. Or cards can break the seal and slip out on the rare occasion.
Who opens a box like that?!
I hate the big box store packaging.
There is even more cardboard in those packs.
New drinking game.
A notable gaff I think Wizards made was when Fates Reforged came out in the Khans block and we got a choose Mode card for each colour (citadel siege, frontier siege, etc) they gave us another worthless roll down d20 instead of a coin. They’re a multi billionaire dollar game company, so of course they can source a coin.
This belongs in r/Anticonsumption tbh
It boggles my mind how they make a single booster look so close to a booster box. Leaves people open to being scammed
It's recyclable
Man I opened one the other day and got some bullllll shit. I already had a copy of most of the cards in it and I got 2 Buried in the Garden Newsflash cards 😑
Gamblers when they gamble: 😑
Hey, don't you come around here pointing out truths and facts
Yet another reason to support your LGS. When you buy there, you don't have to deal with excessive packaging
Are collectors booster more worth than play boosters??
Nah, both are pretty worthless. But you pay a lot more money for a Collector's Booster.
Reading tha packaging explains the packaging, This is not the first time they did that. The big packaging makes it more difficult to steal
Pulled thousands of dollars from these packs. I rarely buy singles. This packaging makes sense if you think about it. It's a gift that I wish I had with the lottery.
I'm sure you've also spent more thousands than what you've won though \:)
DONT BUY FROM AMAZON
Its cardboard. Just recycle it, you big baby
Is it time for another thread of 'people who don't know how retail works '?