Rich Waldbiesser of Six Feet Under Games in New Holland, Pennsylvania, saw the interview with Wizards of the Coast's Casey Reeter and Chris Galvin (see 'Interview with Casey Reeter and Chris Galvin') and thinks they missed the point about retailer concerns with CCG pre-releases:

Having read the three-part interview with Casey Reeter and Chris Galvin about the current Magic Pre-release system, I have come to the conclusion that Wizards has once again missed the point and tried to give us, the brick and mortar store owners, a snow job. 

The Future Sight pre-release had under 18,000 players in all pre-release events in North America according to the DCI reports posted on the Wizards website.  Understanding that most players play in two separate tournament events at a pre-release, this gives about 9,000 distinct players.  Compare this to the 20,000 players from the Magic Game Day event which had only one sanctioned event from which the numbers were drawn.  This yields 20,000 distinct players from the Game Day event versus about 9,000 distinct players from the Future Sight pre-release.  It seems logical to me and anyone else who sees these numbers that stores are doing a better job at attracting more players to Magic, which according to the interview with Ms. Reeter and Mr. Galvin, is the goal of Wizards and the current system.

This brings me to the next point.  Mr. Galvin stated that stores are too small to host pre-release events.  The Game Day numbers prove that if all stores have the opportunity to host pre-releases, that this is not the case.  Approximately 1,000 stores held Game Day events and averaged 20 people per event.  If it can be done for Game Day, effectively a pre-release type event held on release weekend, it can be done for any other set.  This would allow all stores who support Magic year-round to benefit from their hard work rather than Premier TOs reaping the rewards.  At an average of $60 per player for a large pre-release, stores lose $540,000 in revenue to the Premier TOs, half of which, by Wizards own admission, have no vested interest in the game.  By Wizards' estimates the loss is actually $558,600 (140,000 boosters times $3.99 each) and this is for each pre-release.  At four pre-releases per year, the total annual revenue lost by brick and mortar stores from the pre-releases, according to Wizard's figures, is $2,234,400 or a little over $2,200 per store.  This may not seem significant to Wizards or parent company Hasbro but, for most independent game stores, this is between 1% and 3% of annual revenue.

Finally, in England and continental Europe as well as some areas of the United States, pre-releases are held in retail stores.  This proves that retail stores can support this type of event.  The only reason not to move these events to stores is the fact that the Premier TOs are part of the 'club.'  We have been told that if you are not already a Premier TO, you never will be.  This gives me and other store owners in my position little incentive to even attempt to promote Magic.  Why should I, a brick and mortar store owner, devote my store's resources to promoting a game where I will not receive any real return on my investment when I can support any number of other games from other manufacturers that will give me a far greater return on my investment?  This is the question that Wizards needs to look at when determining future strategy.

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