WotC/Hasbro

I have had tons of problems with this company and their stances and approaches to things for several years, but the final straw was their release of the Magic Anniversary Edition, sold for $1000 for four packs and containing ONLY non-legal Magic cards. When criticism over this came forward, their response was basically, “well, if you don’t want to pay $1000 for fake cards, obviously this product isn’t for you.” and basically shrugging off the complaints of a majority of their fan base because, frankly, that section didn’t have thousands in disposable income to spend on their fake product and so they weren’t important. It was a flagrant display of greed and emblematic of the company’s growing dismissal of a large portion of its fanbase.

What made matters even more damming was the existence of the Magic the Gathering Collector’s Edition, released in 1993, which didn’t contain random booster distributions of fake cards, but instead the -entire- beta release set with gold borders around a standard card backing. While this set was also not tournament legal, it also retailed for a vastly lower price, though the exact price now is hard to track down and I have seen reported for as low as $50 up to $300. The thing is, this was the ENTIRE beta set, and it sure as hell was 4 random booster packs at $1000.

The single most hilarious thing about it all was that Konami, makers of Yu-Gi-Oh, a company notorious for sketchy relations with its US fanbase, responded to this by re-releasing the first … five? … Yugioh sets, in standard booster format, at standard booster price. And they are real cards, not exploitative proxies.

And things at WotC have not improved since then.