Wy not just give up on tgcplayer and use magiccardmarcet.eu for example? If u hate not US $ currency so much, you can just calculate price to US $ from Euro...

micke wrote:Wy not just give up on tgcplayer and use magiccardmarcet.eu for example? If u hate not US $ currency so much, you can just calculate price to US $ from Euro...

I just tried that website and it didn't pull up.

I am using this site to price my current collection of around 100,000 Magic cards (estimated). I understand the position that the Deck Box team is in with tcgplayer. I was hoping to slowly get most of my collection up with in the year. I understand it is only temporary. I choose to wait till the new prices are set by the Deck Box team.

I feel amazon is not a good solution even if it is temporary. As stated before there are sellers charging only a cent on commons and charging full price on shipping. It happens on Ebay too.

I think some good options were given as possible solutions to the pricing problem. I think the right approach is being taken to achieve an alternative that is based off of seller statistics and seller prices.

I am choosing to wait not based on the change and how abrupt it had to happen. I am choosing to waiting because I want to see what the future holds and I need a good base line idea of exactly what the price is of my collection. This way I have a good idea for something I want to do in the future.

BlackAndBlue wrote:

micke wrote:Wy not just give up on tgcplayer and use magiccardmarcet.eu for example? If u hate not US $ currency so much, you can just calculate price to US $ from Euro...

I just tried that website and it didn't pull up.

As I said in one of my previous posts - there are other options like MTGprice.com or MTGGoldfish.com.

IIRC, MTGGoldfish.com gets it's information from TCGPlayer so that could cause some issues.

BlackAndBlue wrote:

micke wrote:Wy not just give up on tgcplayer and use magiccardmarcet.eu for example? If u hate not US $ currency so much, you can just calculate price to US $ from Euro...

I just tried that website and it didn't pull up.

He had a typo. It's https://www.magiccardmarket.eu

Thanks for your hard work on this and sorry to hear TCGPlayer didn't want to collaborate.

Mmmkay, the prices are really messed up now, so I hope you guys get everything together and provide working alternative in a reasonable amount of time because pricing in its current state is completely unusable.

What I really did not like is that there was no announcement with ETA to pricing mechanism change prior to its implementation. Or did I miss one?

Tenth addition shock is apparently going for $87

This is a sad change for deckbox, I hope it gets fixed soon

I know most people are frozen on trading because the pricing is messed up, but we can use mtgstocks.com to get TCG low/med/high and foil. I know the people at Deckbox can't tell us that, but we can get the same pricing info there. At least that way we can start trading again.

AxisMundi wrote:I know most people are frozen on trading because the pricing is messed up, but we can use mtgstocks.com to get TCG low/med/high and foil. I know the people at Deckbox can't tell us that, but we can get the same pricing info there. At least that way we can start trading again.

That's like saying we can look up prices on TCGplayer. Yes, we know we can do that. The problem is convenience of not having to do that, which is what this site offered over its competitors.

migrena wrote:What I really did not like is that there was no announcement with ETA to pricing mechanism change prior to its implementation. Or did I miss one?

This. It was a little disconcerting to just see the prices vanish all of a sudden upon reloading one of my decklists...

cda wrote:

migrena wrote:What I really did not like is that there was no announcement with ETA to pricing mechanism change prior to its implementation. Or did I miss one?

This. It was a little disconcerting to just see the prices vanish all of a sudden upon reloading one of my decklists...

Legal cease and desist letters are like that (assuming that was the mechanism used). They don't give you time for an orderly transition.

HikingStick wrote:Legal cease and desist letters are like that (assuming that was the mechanism used). They don't give you time for an orderly transition.

What he said :)

While IANAL, my work history includes time in retail management, and I can tell you that prices themselves are not protected. Stores regularly monitor their competitor's prices. While in retail books, I had to kick my former boss (from another chain) out of my store because she was not only logging prices, but also photographing everything (back when all cameras were film-based). I regularly record retail prices when shopping, and keep them in a spreadsheet to track price patterns (e.g., big meat sale every 10 weeks).

The issue here is that we had been using an interface created by TCGPlayer to get our pricing information, so TCGPlayer controlled the terms that allowed us to use that interface. They didn't like what was happening, so they "took their ball and went home" (so to speak).

<soapbox>

Sebi and company, rather than letting the site sit with no price information, worked hard to get something in place right away--Amazon pricing. It may not be ideal, but it was also not intended to be a permanent replacement. They've invested far too much thus far (time, money, nights, weekends, and holidays) to walk away (though I'm sure they've been tempted). It's going to take time to get things fixed with a new price source--work that needs to get done in Sebi's spare time (outside his other responsibilities in life).

Again, while I am not a lawyer (and certainly no expert in international commerce), I do believe some of the pricing resources others have mentioned may be valid options, even if those resources utilize prices from TCGPlayer. TCGPlayer's agreement governs the direct (API) access to their pricing information. Access to the data provided by those other services is governed by the EULA or Terms of Service each has in place. To exercise an abundance of caution, perhaps prices could be aggregated from multiple sources.

As a final thought, the reason so many people trust TCGPlayer pricing is because they aggregate prices from many sources. As this site continues to grow, I can envision other sellers wanting to sell through Deckbox. That would give us the type of pricing data that could make Deckbox the de facto and trusted source for pricing information. We just need to ride out this storm.

No matter how shocked we were by the change... No matter how frustrated we may feel about the loss of a reliable pricing source... No matter how much any of us may feel like giving up and moving on... we need to remember that we are the Deckbox community! and we are the ones who have helped this site become a rising star. We need to take a collective breath and give Sebi and company time to do what they do. If you've been with us for a while, you'll realize just how far the site has come. You'll recall how attentive Sebi has been to comments and suggestions. And though sometimes we've had to wait longer for some fixes and features [[b]Thanks for the vacation flag, Sebi!], he's kept the updates and fixes coming. He'll do it again in this situation. I look forward to seeing the pricing system resolved, but, more importantly, I look forward to many great days of tracking, trading, and selling ahead.

</soapbox>[/[b]

AdrianaLimaTime wrote:Probably already discussed, but why not let the sellers put a price on the cards that they are selling? Magictraders doesn't use tcg prices they just have the user name the price they want for the card. If the seller wants to use tcg prices, amazon prices, or their own price that's up to them. Although there won't be enough, but if selling cards do get big on this site, you could scrap the selling prices and make those the suggested trade prices.

Yes it does. But no one is selling cards through this site (yet). I think it would be helpful to put in the value of the cards on the trade. Market value is OK, but the actual agreed trade value is more useful, especially with fluctuations. Sometimes a trade takes days or weeks to complete. Also, the market prices don't account for condition.

Finally, lots of rare cards (promos, etc.) never had market prices from TCG or anywhere else.

HikingStick wrote:
Sebi and company, rather than letting the site sit with no price information, worked hard to get something in place right away--Amazon pricing. It may not be ideal, but it was also not intended to be a permanent replacement. They've invested far too much thus far (time, money, nights, weekends, and holidays) to walk away (though I'm sure they've been tempted). It's going to take time to get things fixed with a new price source--work that needs to get done in Sebi's spare time (outside his other responsibilities in life).

</soapbox>

First off, i like deckbox, since i started playing MTG again I've been using the service non-stop. I'd like the option to buy from people on here and the option to sell. Right now i sell locally or on ebay when I can. A "one stop shop" would be ideal.

I get the time investment, this is their baby, and I don't think anyone can deny the work that's been put into the site.

Here's the issues.

1. Amazon prices are crap, they're unstable at best (tcg prices were a bit unstable to begin with but workable). Honestly, nothing would have been preferable to the mess we currently have. We've got to look up other more stable prices right now already, zeros would have at least let everyone know you can' trust the prices there are people that don't read the forums. Bottom line, The prices are completely unusable and a waste of their development time.

2. I get the money angle, i get the need to make the site independent. No one is faulting them for that. IT's the _execution_ that is the issue here. The problem is 2 fold. 1) The market place going online before they had stable workable prices of their own or made an agreement with another 3rd party to outsource the data. So bad choice #1. 2) No communication, we are customers (paid or unpaid doesn't matter) using a service they provide. There was no warning, no heads up, it took everyone by surprise and people don't like that. They have a pretty solid devoted base of people here and blind siding them shakes their confidence. Bad choice # 2

Visibility, reliability, consistency, and accountability. The nature of the internet makes it so, you can provide a good service with a minimal staff (which they have been). but you still have to run it like every other business.

Hypothetically, If I owned a store and was a high volume trader potentially a high volume seller using deckbox because I loved the service. How should I feel now? Can i trust them to be consistent in the future? What if something goes wrong during a sell? Can they be held accountable? This transition has been shaky, will they be reliable in the future? They've been consistent in the past, but now i have to wait and see what happens... which hurts my business as well as theirs. To me a lot of this seems uncertain.

Honestly letting this discussion be an open forum was a mistake. Take a tip from some of the bigger cats on the internet. It should have been a single post, with an apology and a list of things they're working on to fix it. Wasting time holding everyone's hand is just that... wasting time.

Paul_K wrote:

Helios52 wrote:No, a valid reaction is " Im going to hold off trading/selling for the moment until this gets fixed to an acceptable level". Saying the site is "nearly unusable" is overreactive to the everything else deckbox does that those MANY other forums do not.

Young people (especially those between ages 2-26) are over-reactive naturally. They believe (knowingly or not) that being loud and bombastic will yield 'traffic' their way. With attention comes fame, with fame comes money. It is a very short/brief business model but applicable for temporary gains. After all people are corporations (if we inverse the legal ruling that corporations are people), people are money. People no longer equals a person. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." This is a direct result of the expansion and proliferation of media. As Gramsci would say one can not separate people from their culture.

Lol - I think, legally speaking, it is actually that corporations are people, not the other way around. But yes, the culture machine is manufacturing a generation that has some sever social and cultural handicaps and we are letting it happen. The only solution = unplug.

Could you have an agreement with a Commercial site like Cardkingdom?

Most people over here use Deckbox for trading, while we use Cardkingdom for buying. I would see that as a mutual benefit for both Deckbox and Cardkingdom, and a tremendous benefit for us :)

Roar wrote:Could you have an agreement with a Commercial site like Cardkingdom?

Most people over here use Deckbox for trading, while we use Cardkingdom for buying. I would see that as a mutual benefit for both Deckbox and Cardkingdom, and a tremendous benefit for us :)

Problem with that is that Deckbox intends to be it's own facilitator for sales, they can't say that their users are just trading, because that would be false.

FireBelly71 wrote:

Paul_K wrote:

Helios52 wrote:No, a valid reaction is " Im going to hold off trading/selling for the moment until this gets fixed to an acceptable level". Saying the site is "nearly unusable" is overreactive to the everything else deckbox does that those MANY other forums do not.

Young people (especially those between ages 2-26) are over-reactive naturally. They believe (knowingly or not) that being loud and bombastic will yield 'traffic' their way. With attention comes fame, with fame comes money. It is a very short/brief business model but applicable for temporary gains. After all people are corporations (if we inverse the legal ruling that corporations are people), people are money. People no longer equals a person. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." This is a direct result of the expansion and proliferation of media. As Gramsci would say one can not separate people from their culture.

Lol - I think, legally speaking, it is actually that corporations are people, not the other way around. But yes, the culture machine is manufacturing a generation that has some sever social and cultural handicaps and we are letting it happen. The only solution = unplug.

It isn't just technology. It is technology, government, social policies, and a host of other things. Parents are too lax, trying to give their children everything they possibly can. Government programs hand out money and food stamps to people who don't deserve them. Companies can be bullied into paying disabilities they shouldn't have to. Credit cards, banks, and so many others foster a, "Reward now, pay someday" attitude. Frivolous lawsuits actually work. Schools can't discipline children. My generation (I'm 27), and even more so the rising generation, expect everything to be handed to us, and we throw temper tantrums when it isn't.

Entitlement and instant gratification are to blame, and technology is only one reason why those twin diseases exist. My generation, and the generation coming after us, could do more damage to the country (and the world) as a result of prosperity than anybody ever did as a result of depressions and recessions.

But that is a "little" off topic. :rolleyes:

laura wrote:

HikingStick wrote:Legal cease and desist letters are like that (assuming that was the mechanism used). They don't give you time for an orderly transition.

What he said :)

Overhauling pricing mechanism is not something one do during one lunch break. It would be nice to inform users about upcoming changes even if the information would be provided shortly before implementing them.

Also - what will happen in case amazon sends similar c&d?

migrena wrote: Also - what will happen in case amazon sends similar c&d?

That's like asking what Walmart would do if a single-store business copied their smiley face mascot. Deckbox is too small (in relation to Amazon) for it to be a priority. They might get around to it eventually (though who knows how long it would before they even noticed), but by then Deckbox will have moved to a better system.

Xan wrote:

migrena wrote: Also - what will happen in case amazon sends similar c&d?

That's like asking what Walmart would do if a single-store business copied their smiley face mascot. Deckbox is too small (in relation to Amazon) for it to be a priority. They might get around to it eventually (though who knows how long it would before they even noticed), but by then Deckbox will have moved to a better system.

Perhaps a bad example to illustrate your point. Wal-Mart would sue. They've prosecuted shoplifters for single candy bars (back when they were only twenty-five cents US). They are extremely litigious.

HikingStick wrote: Perhaps a bad example to illustrate your point. Wal-Mart would sue. They've prosecuted shoplifters for single candy bars (back when they were only twenty-five cents US). They are extremely litigious.

Perhaps not the best example, though I know Walmart would sue, and I think Amazon might eventually. I just think it'll take so long before they figure it out that Deckbox will have already moved on.

Bethesda, on the other hand, would have already figured it out and initiated proceedings. Their legal department should be fired, lock stock and barrel.

We should just let the community price the cards, IMO.

Otherwise, remove the seller options and go back to TCG Player integrated pricing if they will allow for such things.

kebertxela86 wrote: Otherwise, remove the seller options and go back to TCG Player integrated pricing if they will allow for such things.

They won't. That's part of the problem.

Kammikaze wrote:

kebertxela86 wrote: Otherwise, remove the seller options and go back to TCG Player integrated pricing if they will allow for such things.

They won't. That's part of the problem.

Just to be very clear. TCGplayer (My Company) did not say that we would be unwilling to work with Deckbox again. I even wished Sebi good luck in his endeavor. I was never asked the question: "if the Marketplace was removed, would you allow us direct access to the API?"

I am always open to discussion as Decbox was a tremendous partner with TCGplayer for many years. The launch of the Marketplace was a surprise to me just as it was to many of you.

Chedy Hampson
President, TCGplayer.com

TCGplayerCom wrote:

Kammikaze wrote:

kebertxela86 wrote: Otherwise, remove the seller options and go back to TCG Player integrated pricing if they will allow for such things.

They won't. That's part of the problem.

Just to be very clear. TCGplayer (My Company) did not say that we wouldn't work with Deckbox again. I even wished Sebi good luck in his endeavor. I was never asked the question: "if the Marketplace was removed, would you allow us direct access to the API?"

I am always open to discussion as Decbox was a tremendous partner with TCGplayer with many year. The launch of the Marketplace was a surprise to me just as it was to many of you.

Chedy Hampson
President, TCGplayer.com

That is very good to know. Thank you for taking the time to respond. It appears we were misled by one (or more) of the other people that posted in this thread.

TCGplayerCom wrote:

Kammikaze wrote:

kebertxela86 wrote: Otherwise, remove the seller options and go back to TCG Player integrated pricing if they will allow for such things.

They won't. That's part of the problem.

Just to be very clear. TCGplayer (My Company) did not say that we would be unwilling to work with Deckbox again. I even wished Sebi good luck in his endeavor. I was never asked the question: "if the Marketplace was removed, would you allow us direct access to the API?"

I am always open to discussion as Decbox was a tremendous partner with TCGplayer for many years. The launch of the Marketplace was a surprise to me just as it was to many of you.

Chedy Hampson
President, TCGplayer.com

Please, please work with us here (I'm not in any way affiliated with the leadership of this board, just a happy user). I trade like crazy on here, and I buy cards through TCG. That was a great situation for me for a couple years. Wish we could go back to that!

Thanks for speaking up in this thread.