Day 286 of 362

Yep, new tie porn... I wasn't certain I would like this one when I ordered it, but I took a chance. Glad I did. I think it looks great.

I'm running a tad behind this morning, but I'm not feeling particularly rushed. It's a good feeling, but my brain is nagging at me thinking I am forgetting about SOMETHING of some importance. I can't come up with what that is, so I'll just ignore it until it rears its ugly head.

Last night at the store was mellow. A couple of RPGs and some casual MtG were going on. I wasn't involved in either, so I kicked back, let Skribl run the store, and priced out part of a Magic collection we acquired recently. Skribl and I also ran through another collection to price it out and make an offer on, but we're waiting for the seller to get back to us.

In general, I like Magic: the Gathering. It's a fun game with an INCREDIBLY solid core design. Sure, there are some card balance issues, but at its heart, MtG is one of the best designs to ever come out of gaming. Selling MtG can also be fun, and EXTREMELY profitable for a store. Selling it though, requires a LOT more back end work than one might think.

It's all based on card flow. If a store has cards coming in a regular basis, MtG customers learn to check the wares on a regular basis to see what is new and shiny. As a result, even older cards that have sitting there for a bit will drift out of the store because they get enough exposure that someone finally comes along that is looking for that card, for whatever reason. If the card flow becomes stagnant, binders don't get checked nearly as often, and cards, even good ones, will sit for a REALLY long time.

Keeping that flow going takes a fair amount of work. There's sorting, pricing, organizing, and even trading that needs to be done to keep it up. It's enough work that even with me, Loq, and Skribl working on it steadily, we are seriously considering hiring another person JUST to deal with Magic.

Yeah, this game can be that profitable... if you're willing to work at it...

-- GopherDave