Lia's point about the stamped "staple" cards are very valid. Magic does "Friday Night Magic" stamped copies of popular cards. Seems moderately light on the production costs, and doesn't likely dig into the "casual base"'s desire to buy boosters, as those sales are driven primarily by lvl x's and popular foils, not the competitive Uxie/Claydol/Supporters etc.
There is only one "pie". That is the net budget. PUI can allocate this pie amongst a number of outlets, be it players, judges, etc. We simply need there to be a bigger pie. Even if I do feel that the current pie could be divided up a little better.
NoPoke brings up a very good argument, and NOT being a business major, one I'd like to get more input on from others, opposed to turning this isn't a "players vs judges" war, as I'd love to see us all looked at as "supporters of the game".
What I take your argument as is that your saying PUI willingly took a huge profit loss and overspent in the first few years, hoping that the huge outpouring of resources would work as a jumpstart to invigorate the franchise with full intent to reduce it if successful?
Now, this seems like it isn't unreasonable. I can't say whether that was or was not their intent, I doubt anyone outside of PUI/Nintendo could. What does trouble me with that is a few things.
A.) Pokemon was on it's deathbed. Having played near the game's end, if you told me to guess the odds of whether the game would survive or not, I'd have given it 10 to 1 in favor of dying within 2 years. If you look at the sales, the state of the tcg market, and public perception of Pokemon as a franchise, the odds of revival didn't look GOOD. To risk a huge potential cash hemorrhage when the odds looked that poorly doesn't seem like a wise business move. WotC had nearly killed the game. A strategy such as that seems much more useful to try with a new product in hopes of getting attention, not with a game that had bad stigma attached to it and had been dying a slow death for 2 years prior.
B.) Look at VS. When you cut prize support, you have to be aware that it will have a backlash with player moral.
Even then, one of the arguments I received a lot when talking to people at Worlds ( PokePop as an example ) was that PUI was having a hard time making the argument that Organized Play impacted sales enough. Yet, if the 04-06 "burst" of prize support is to be accepted as a theory, than that would indicate that they DO view OP as a strong way to draw players and thus revenue.
Someone asked if I felt that baseball players are deserving of their salary. Do you know why baseball players are able to be paid as high as they are? Because the people who own teams make enough profit that they are able to pay to get good players. So Team A can give a star pitcher an offer of X dollars. Team B than counteroffers, So the teams of the league can make as high of offers as they want within their profit margins due to competition. If a baseball team couldn't afford it due to the profits they make off of WILLING CONSUMERS, the prices wouldn't be able to get that high. The salary is very high, but they are the best at what they do, so they can fetch top dollar. Would you say that a sculptor charging 50,000 dollars for one sculpture is ridiculous if someone buys it for that much?
Sticking with the baseball analogy, what is happening is that I play for the Cleveland Indians ( Pokemon ) and am offered 3 million to play. I really enjoy playing for the team, and would love to do so. Yet I'm receiving offers from the New York Yankees ( Magic ) to do the same job and get 12 million. Its all about opportunity costs, and I'm sorry, these other TCGs ARE Pokemon's direct competition, you can't expect those who DO put the competition as their primary reason for playing for wanting a more even playing field. I'm not begging for the same prize support, but I don't want to feel like we aren't even getting reasonable offers. And yes, I DO say that per player potential prize support DECREASING while the number of players and sales INCREASE qualifies as not being a "reasonable offer".
As to what ChaosJim said regarding Vince: Vince, whether your trying to or not, your coming off rather one sided on the issue. I fully acknowledge I am as well, and I know neither of us are guilty of this. Its what happens you have something to get defensive over. Ask any number of people, your name, alongside Heidi Craig and the local PTOs John and Laura are the ones I give as outstanding examples of staffing. Its not just something I'll say to your face,
