[ Closed ] Site-wide card pricing changes (Page 2 of 8)

I would also second (third, or whatever) the MTGPrice avenue.

Link to the Relevant API page on MTGPrice

Current Stipulations:

• If you use the prices from the API on a web page or in a mobile app, please include the following html on the page the price appears in at least 10-point font: "MTG Price data provided by: MTGPrice.com" (with the link)

• If you plan to use this data to keep your store prices up to date, let us know first. This use is fine but we may want to talk to you to improve it.

• This service is free. It costs us money to run it. Please don't abuse it. We reserve the right to cut service, without notice, from anyone we deem to be misusing the service.

• Please cache the results you get back. Right now, we only update daily (it will be hourly by January 2014) so there is no need to re-fetch the same data more than 1-2 times in a day, per set.

• (very important!) This is a BETA product. Prices will be wrong, period. All we can promise is to try to get them fixed if anyone tells us. In particular, I would not trust Alpha/Beta/Unlimited prices yet, nor some of the obscure "promo" cards. We have a fix in the works for those sets. All of that being said, having good prices is important to us, so let us know if anything looks odd.

Last edited by Ripptor (2014-04-02 12:37:27)

It absolutely sucks for you and all of us users that TCGPlayer has cut access to their pricing API.  But you'd have to be pretty naïve to believe that they would continue to let you have access to one of their most valuable assets, at their largesse, when you are setting up a site that essentially directly competes with them.

And while I feel bad about your financial struggles and greatly appreciate all the work you have done for us over the years, I admit that it's hard to feel too sympathetic when you have steadfastly refused to accept any form of support via donations or the like for the many years that I have been around.  I have, and continue to financially support sites like Cube Tutor, that provide a similar service.

For those suggesting MTGPrice, I would be surprised if they would hand out an API key to deckbox when doing so would jeopardize their access to TCGPlayer's and other site's data.

Well, this is too bad. Guess it was obvious that this was coming once the marketplace was announced -  time to set to vacation mode until further notice.

I don't disagree that it is each persons responsibility to know the prices, but having a platform that made trade valuations simple was a HUGE part of the advantage deckbox brought to the table. I'm not abandoning the site for all time, but until I wrap my head around whats going on and figure out how I'm going to approach trades through the site, and/or see what changes next with pricing since Sebi said this amazon thing is only temporary.

Lets be honest, while you may double check you know the prices of your promo's, what cards might have spiked, lets say your trading for or trading a m12 birds of paradise. this is such a know value I'm sure you haven't second guessed DB's price. You go yeah 2-3ish its somewhere in there. Now?  Apparently its $4, $6 in foil. That price is 25% to high. Before I could genrally trust DB pricing to be accurate, now I'm going to have to research every trade. I put my account on vacation, but even if/when I resume trading until we have a trustworthy pricing database, the time to check each trade is just going to add time to every trade I do, make me less likely to do larger (volume not price) trades and so forth.

Reputation of the price data means everything. Nobody trusts Amazon for pricing. People in general trusted TCGP because it is an aggregate of many stores prices so the TCGmid is a good average value for a card. MTG Price would provide a similar thing, but deckbox prices or amazon prices are just based on whatever. Here is what is going to happen. People who are willing to sell on deckbox will most likely reference prices on TCGP. The issue is people will be less likely to sell due to the amount of work to price cards. I might list a card or a couple of cards but pricing out 100 or more cards when I have to price each individually is going to be a real issue.

Last edited by jassi007 (2014-04-02 13:24:24)

This is a big mistake.  Find some other way to monetize the site.  You get enough traffic to earn money via google ads, and you could start accepting donations.  You could even give perks to donating members (similar to the system on Untap.in) to incentivize donations.  I don't think the marketplace will ever be your bread and butter, so there is no sense in putting the site in serious jeopardy for it.  Either that or find a new source of data.  Amazon is a terrible choice.  I have found this site to be incredibly useful but these developments have me very disappointed.

Website is nearly unusable as is... I realize the website is provided as a "free" service, but ads to provide a form of revenue and i think that will drop sharply after this.

From a business prospective this isn't a shocker, starcity and others have already handed out CNDs to others.  Seems like all of this was poorly executed.  This is surely a result of the market place announcement and that should have been withheld until a suitable replacement was in effect.  It puts you in direct competition with TCG player how could you think it wouldn't be an issue?

I'm not going to stop using deck box and I may even take part int he market place once everything is finalized, but I can't justify using the site in it's current state. 

GLHF until then.

It was completely avoidable...just dont do the market.  They performed the same business practice you the same as you would bully them if they stood up a direct competitor to you while using all of your data to make your site remotely functional.

There is a lot of negativity here, I just wanted to say I have faith that this site will return to full awesomeness, hopefully sooner rather than later.  Thanks Sebi for all of your hard work. 

I've seen other sites have similar problems.  PucaTrade for example ended up writing their own pricing code.

I'm hoping that this change actually allows Deckbox to move away from the restrictions of TCG player and accommodate more of the promos & cards that were not previously listed.

Why not take out your frustration on TCG's legal department instead of the guy who spends many hours of his free time creating a free website for your enjoyment and benefit? We didn't get here because the deckbox team wants to use Amazon prices. We are here because they can't use TCGplayer anymore under legal threat. You should be able to appreciate the difference as a professional. It isn't their intention to offer a deliberately worse product.

Sorry this happened sebi. I'm sure you are working on the best solution, and this was the one that you could implement quickly while figuring out the best options for the site and long term growth.

Last edited by mcnealysbaby (2014-04-02 13:38:14)

Fair enough... seems you guys have a bit of a mess to work on though.  I appreciate the response.    Sorry this happened to you guys and I hope you can recover. 

I'm not usually an optimist but I'm rooting for you.

That's great to hear.  But, really?  Getting promos listed is high on the priority list right now?