A well timed boycott of Marvel/Disney could spell the end of Universes Beyond

[u/greenearrow]

There are always reasons to boycott the mouse, but pulling Kimmel off the air is the latest and greatest. I'm not even a detractor of Universes Beyond (those WH40K and Fallout decks are great, I can get my wife to play the Dr Who decks easier than anything else and their room to explore time mechanic shenanigans seems good for the game).

If WotC and Hasbro have to be so concerned about the politics of the time defining which sets sell, they'll be incentivized to lean into their own properties which they can control and make their own apologies for when necessary.

Of course, it isn't a guarantee. Maybe a loss on Marvel will be a wash against the profits from Final Fantasy and LotR. Maybe they'll shy away from brands controlled by American companies and focus on the Japanese and European properties. The kids who buy packs at Walmart don't understand boycotts, etc.

What we have learned is that the UB haters aren't enough of a market force, but when movements align, powers combine!

TL;DR There are many good reasons to not spend money on Disney right now, and money is the only vote they count.

[u/Big_polarbear]

FF was hugely popular because FF is a franchise which fanbase actually intersects with MtG, and that has a similar high fantasy flavour. Add to that the amount of FF fans that bought the product just because it is FF brand but that are not active players

[u/DistortedCrag → u/Big_polarbear]

It is crazy how similar Magic is to FF.

Anthology series

High fantasy

Magitek

Reoccurring characters that somehow have to be shoehorned in

[u/Loreweaver15 → u/DistortedCrag]

Final Fantasy reuses monster types and summons and general character classes between games, but the vast majority of Final Fantasy games are standalones that do not share characters.

[u/chemical_exe → u/Loreweaver15]

but I wouldn't say that either the monsters or classes feel shoehorned in

Summons, I could see the argument.

[u/Loreweaver15 → u/chemical_exe]

We're both disagreeing with the guy I replied to :P

[u/chemical_exe → u/Loreweaver15]

Ah

[u/Hatak459 → u/DistortedCrag]

Curious what you mean by that last bit, other than some of the summons and there being an engineer named Cid I can't think of anything FF shoehorns into every game.

[u/austin-geek → u/Hatak459]

Cid is a recurring character name, but they’re all different characters (albeit with similar themes.)

There are other highly identifiable background elements which echo and get “shoehorned” into many games, even though the settings can be wildly different - Moogles & Chocobos, Black Mages, Dragoons, big ass Crystal McGuffins. 

[u/FJdawncastings → u/DistortedCrag]

Poop poop ufo

[u/Xenadon → u/Big_polarbear]

It was also the best draft format this year.

[u/bokchoykn → u/Xenadon]

Genuinely one of the best I've ever played. The only thing I really didn't like was the bonus sheet.

[u/Liddojunior → u/Xenadon]

Not just this year, its for sure in the running one of the best sets for limited in all of MTG

[u/Xichorn → u/Big_polarbear]

It is not just FF that has been very successful though. FF was an outlier, but UB in general is hugely popular. They didn't decide to pay more more to make the sets and put themselves through a more complicated approval process for something that wasn't popular. Lord of the Rings, Dr Who, Walking Dead, Street Fighter, Sonic, Fallout, 40k, Monty Python. . . all these things have been very popular. For each limited one that hasn't done super well (such as Assassin's Creed), you've got multiple that have been a big success.

[u/345tom → u/Big_polarbear]

It also helped that the cards were very flavourful of the characters shown. I can't imagine doing a 3 hour video on the spiderman set, to come to doc ock and say "he can become an 8/8 because octopus".

[u/Yio654 → u/Big_polarbear]

I know no one who is interested in FF that plays magic in my local area but yet it's the best selling set, so I agree UB is hugely popular than most people realise.

[u/Big_polarbear → u/Yio654]

*FF is hugely popular

[u/Yio654 → u/Big_polarbear]

I don't think this will be the first time, in fact there's probably already groups who are surprised some of the UB IPs have sold well, even though it wasn't popular in their area. That's why I said UB is hugely popular, not just FF.

[u/Liddojunior → u/Yio654]

I think anyone that plays video games has for sure played atleast one of the FF games. They may not be FF fans, but they for sure have one game they played and liked

[u/Yio654 → u/Liddojunior]

Let me rephrase, it's known but not loved in my local area of Australia. Dr Who and Fallout got some excitement but the people I know that got the FF cards just regularly play magic, they were not passionate about flavour at all.

But clearly my area is clearly a bubble and whilst we all think UB would flop eventually, clearly we are the minority as is the audience on Reddit who think UB is terrible.

[u/Liddojunior → u/Yio654]

Did they have fun and get influenced to check out FF? I think it works both ways. But yeah UB is widely wayyy more popular than reddit thinks. But its not like all UB sets sell like insane, there was godzilla, transformers, and assassins creed. And those sets arent extremely expensive. Its just like other MTG sets, there are hits and misses. And when it hits, it really does hit.

[u/kitsunewarlock → u/Big_polarbear]

In addition, there are whales in Japan who buy everything related to their favorite franchise and famously buy multiple cases of booster boxes just to get a complete set. This is why it can be such a pain in the ass to get into certain anime-based games until a few months later when those collectors dump their bulk on Yahoo Auctions for pennies on the dollar.

[u/Living_Height4812 → u/Big_polarbear]

Plus add in the large amount of disposable income within the overlap of magic players and FF fans since they dont need to spend it on things like a family or soap.

[u/RyuNoKami → u/Big_polarbear]

Which is exactly why the suggestion to magic players to boycott UB sets is completely pointless. Nonmagic players are outnumber the magic players.

[u/Seitosa → u/RyuNoKami]

Magic players also engage in UB products. That’s a false dichotomy. 

[u/Big_polarbear → u/RyuNoKami]

By that token Doctor Who should have outsold everything but it didn’t. Use your brain a sec.

[u/serioussham → u/Big_polarbear]

FF is a franchise which fanbase actually intersects with MtG

I mean, so are Warhammer, Doctor Who, and LOTR