Hello!
If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve been quite busy around here.
Put simply, it’s an exciting time for MTGPrice. We’ve been working hard to increase our content offerings for you. I’m sure you’ve noticed we’ve been running more great content from the best authors in the business (If you haven’t, I suggest you take some time to look over the work our authors have created, it’s truly top-of-the-line). We’re working hard to make sure we’re ahead of the finance game and get that information to you as quickly as possible. We’ve got big plans for more content and features to come, and if you stick with us you’ll see the fruit of those labors over the coming months.
With that in mind, I have an exciting announcement for our ProTrader subscribers. We have an all-star staff of writers here, most of whom have many years of experience in the business and have seen it all when it comes to the financial side of the game. Beginning this week, we are making some of that content available exclusively to our ProTrader subscribers. Whether you’re a longtime member or just giving us a try as part of the Kickstarter, we’re excited to offer this to you.
Our lineup of ProTrader-exclusive articles comes from the most respected names in the business, a group of experienced traders and dealers who have time and again proven why they’re the best there is to offer.
Moving forward, this is the content that will be available exclusively to ProTraders.
Monday: Sigmund Ausfresser
Tuesday: Danny Brown
Wednesday: Jason Alt and Travis Allen
Thursday: Corbin Hosler and Guo Heng Chin
Friday: Ross Lennon
Saturday: Guo Heng Chin and James Chillcot
That’s six full days of the best Magic finance writing on the planet. In addition to that lineup, ProTraders have access to the buzzing MTGPrice forums (for all your truly up-to-the-second financial needs), early access to the industry-leading Brainstorm Brewery podcast, advanced tools for tracking your collection’s value over time, and access to raw inventory data from individual stores to track just how much a particular card is moving.
That’s a lot of value for your $4.99 monthly subscription, and if this sounds interesting to you, I hope you consider becoming a ProTrader today.
But if that’s not for you, fear not; MTGPrice will always have some free content as well. Our authors writing for the free side are quite capable, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading these guys every week.
Monday: Jared Yost and James Chillcot
Tuesday: Guo Heng Chin
Wednesday: Derek Madlem
Thursday: Douglas Johnson
Friday: Cliff Daigle and Houston Whitehead
Magic has made some huge leaps over the past few years, and it’s truly an exciting time to be around the game. We’re going to continue to work hard here at MTGPrice to make sure you’re able to keep up, and we like to think it’s an exciting time around here as well. Spend some time around our site, and I think you’ll agree.
– Corbin Hosler
as exciting as this is for the pros, I’ll say I find this tremendously disappointing. MTGPrice was great, and gained my allegiance long ago because it had amazing content and all of it was free, unlike qs/bsb, making it really the only reliable place to go for this info as someone who wants to not lose money, but doesn’t spend/make enough to justify finance site memberships.
It’s not that I don’t get it. It’s just that I am bummed at the deterioration of this resource, which just weeks ago looked to be claiming the position of unparalleled leader for everyone.
Hey David,
We certainly hope to earn that title of “unparalleled leader,” and we believe the tools the site provides along with the content far outweigh the $5 cost when it comes to the goal of not losing money. But if you decide a membership isn’t for you, I hope you’ll still continue to enjoy the free content we’ll have every day.
Just to clear up a key point: all content will eventually become free. ProTrader essentially gives you “early access” but we will automatically unlock everything after 45 days.
In addition, writers have the option of occasionally making some of their articles free as well.
We will, of course, continue to have free mtgfinance content every day – that’s not going away.
Finally: I’m absolutely convinced that the content will make you more than $4.99 in a month unless you happen to be a very casual trader. Basically, if you own $1000 of cards or more, ProTrader is for you. If you don’t, then it probably isn’t worth it to be honest. Still, the free content will still make you aware of all major trends – it’s not going away.
thanks for responses. Like I said, i get it. But I’m loudly bemoaning a fundamental shift. the trend was (a year ago or whatever) “oh dang this content is smart, well researched and good. rad. im checking their site every day.” Then, over past few months it was “jeez, this place is crazy. even if I don’t trade or play for a month or more (quite common for me) I’ll still want to read all this stuff.” Now it’s “Oh, just another qs model, I guess that was fun while it lasted. I’ll probably check the stuff with really catchy headlines if I see it scroll past on twitter.”
Again, this sucks for me. It’s probably awesome for the writers, and fine for many of your readers. but the trend I somewhat hyperbolically described is real.
thanks.
No problem David, and thank you for the feedback. I’m glad we were able to hold your interest, and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy the free content even if you never consider signing up.
I’m sad also. I’ve been following you guys for a year now and got me super hyped about magic financd. But I don’t want to pay for a membership all of a sudden.
Hey Steven,
I can understand the disappointment, and I’m sorry you feel that way. If you decide a membership isn’t for you, we still have some great free content every week, which I hope you’ll continue to enjoy.
I very much will. Will articles like “what we’re buying”, “weekly spot light”, and pre release guides still be amoung free articles?
“What we’re buying” is moving to the ProTrader side. Prerelease guides will depend on the authors who choose to write them.
If you choose to give us a try for a month or two and see if you get enough out of it, we’d love to have you. If not, I’ll look forward to seeing you around the free content 🙂
I too am disappointed. I have been following this site for about a year and have really loved the content. It has been much better than Quiet Speculation but I fear the quality free content will dry up now. Please don’t go the Q.S. route and limit the free content too much. I simply don’t do enough trade/spec volume to justify paying for a magic finance site. Have you considered offering the first month free to demonstrate the value? Might change my mind. Thanks
That’s not something we have considered, but that doesn’t mean we won’t try things in the future like that.
As for demonstrating the value, I personally believe the quality of the content that is moving behind the paywall is worth the cost of a McDonald’s meal every month. Since we’ve expanded our writing lineup I hope you’ve seen the quality of the authors on the site who are moving behind the paywall.
Cool. I appreciate that. I just thought it might help push people to make the leap over the paywall. As someone who has considered making the commitment it certainly would help me. My thought is that if I got a free month and made more than $5 from the info that month I would probably be hooked and sign up right away.
MTGPrice has been a great site for me thus far, keep up the great work.
Thank you, we will do our best!
> It has been much better than Quiet Speculation but I fear the quality free content will dry up now. Please don’t go the Q.S. route and limit the free content too much.
We fully intend to have high-quality, free MTGFinance content every single day. The stuff that is under the ProTrader umbrella is the more advanced stuff as well as specs that may be irrelevant mere hours later – in other words, it’s for people that are pretty serious about trading.
Everyone else will still get great coverage – we don’t plan on hiding all the good articles behind the paywall.
Finally, we are committing to making all of the paid content free after 45 days have passed, so you can read it all anyway. ProTraders simply get early access.
Hope this helps!
Yes, this does help. Thanks!
I don’t understand the issue with paying for content, especially when it’s as little as is being asked. It’s strange this expectation that Corbin and Guo and Jason and Ross and Sig, etc etc provide us their insight, analysis, their time and effort for free. We’re not entitled to it and if you’re reading articles on a site dedicated to MTG finance then you’re looking to save money, make money, or both then you can pay for the site that’s looking to help you do so.
I don’t “make” enough either but if I can justify buying cards I can justify paying for a finance site dedicated to the cards I buy.
If the point of MTG finance is to save money on an already expensive hobby why would you spend $5 a month on articles if they don’t save you more than $5 a month on Magic? Just spend the $5 on Magic. I’m not saying ProTrader isn’t worth it. I’m sure it is if someone is into it enough. But your logic escapes me.
If the writing here is of so little value to you that you can’t budget $5 a month then why do you come back?
Not trying to be difficult but I really don’t understand. If you value the hard work of the writers here, and I assume you do because you read the articles, then why the unwillingness to pay for it? Why the expectation that they should just provide free content?
You’re absolutely right. I’m sure the reason they’re so pissed about it having a sub fee for premium content is because they’ve probably made money when there was no fee. They don’t want to pay their dues, but they want to reap the benefits. If it were up to me, I’d make the whole site protrader only.
I have to also say that this is a disappointment for me. Free content can still be monetized by advertisements….a paid membership is just not for me now.
Hello JP,
We totally understand that a paid membership isn’t for everyone, or at least not all the time. We’d love to earn our way into your plans for the future, but if not I hope you’ll still continue to enjoy the free content and features on our site.
According to this announcement Derek Ma dlem’s article should be free. Yet, it cuts off like the others… only available for protraders.
Disappointed with this, one of my favorite MTG sites, I just hope it doesn’t go the route of others and limit the free content to a article or less daily.
Hey Aidan,
I hope we can continue to be one of your favorite sites, whether that’s as part of a ProTrader membership or just the free content. I think you’ll find that there are a lot of tools and information available to ProTraders, but if you decide that’s not for you right now I’m sure you’ll still be able to enjoy the free content we’re able to provide.
I’m hearing a lot of “it’s only 5 dollars” talk, but its another 5 dollars on top of the 65 other things we pay for monthly and it adds up the same. I read the articles here everyday and am seriously annoyed that most of the content is going to move. I have never commented on a post before but had to on this one. Very surprised that there isn’t more people expressing disappointment.
This
Hey Joe,
I can certainly understand the frustration, and I hope that we are able to fit into your monthly budget. If not, we understand and hope that you’ll continue to enjoy the free content. At the same time, I hope you can understand, as someone who has read the articles daily, why we feel our authors deserve to be valued as they are with this move.
I completely agree with you. I too had not posted a comment until this. $5 a month is actually a lot of money. If I am trying to get into MTG finance $5 a month will erase a lot of profit from trades/ sales.
Yeah I’m disappointed too!! How does owning a $1000 collection mean that $4.99 a month is worth it to me?? I guess in $45 days I’ll be happy, or does that mean the new Protrader writers will be leaving the site.
Also, there used to be a little double arrow type icon to view a previous article…I haven’t seen it recently and can’t view any older articles. Am I just having issues or was there a change to the site?
Hey Spencer,
To clarify, our writers aren’t going anywhere. We are following a model similar to SCG where premium articles are “unlocked” after a certain amount of time. We do this so readers can see the value of the product they’ll receive if they choose to sign up for a membership.
To answer the question about owning $1000 in cards, it’s mostly a general statement. The idea is that if you are invested enough into this game then the content and tools available to ProTraders justify the cost.
Well, this is a bummer for me, too. I’m from Europe and feel that reading the articles here gave me an edge over others (I made 10€ in short notice on the Foil Command Tower Spec), but committing myself to pay per month via credit card or something, is just not my style. I’ll still read the free articles, though.
One more (unrelated) thing: I tried PUCATRADE and quite like it, but apparently a lot of people don’t take grading cards very seriously, which leaves me in a position where I have to open cases left and right. And I’m not quite sure if it justifies the invested time here (though I was able to sell BASIC-LANDS for profit…).
Hello Fuquan,
I know a lot of what we write about concerning the US market may not seem like it applies to Europe, but I’ve talked to many Europeans who have told me that the market there sometimes lags behind the US, making the movements seen over here a good sign of what’s to come over there, so I see how you’d have an advantage. If you decide to sign up I hope we can continue to give you that edge, but if not I’m sure you’ll still be able to enjoy the free articles!
Guys.. guys… There’s like TRIPLE the number of articles on this site now. A few of the new extra ones are protrader for 45 days…
They HAVE to pay the bills somehow don’t they? I mean, servers don’t pay for themselves, food doesn’t magically appear in authors’ kids’ mouths, etc.
Be happy with the new improved mtgprice.
Actually there are much less free articles now. Seems like at most one a day. None so far today.
I have not been able to access any of the premium content for the last 2 days, despite opening a new protrader membership on this email address specificially for it. Right now I feel like I have two bugged accounts. if someone could help me address this I would appreciate it and I have also emailed the webmaster.
Not sure if you’re experiencing the same issue I thought I had, but I didn’t pay attention to the fact that I received several emails from MTGPrice when I signed up. One of the emails contained separate login credentials for the WordPress portion of the site (note, this is different from the actual MTGPrice.com site). Before I realized this, I hit the “Forgot password?” link at the very top left of this page and just reset it. That’s when I made the above-mentioned realization.
Don’t know if that’ll address the issue you’re having, but if it does, you’re welcome. 🙂
The amount of people bitching over the subscription for this service is mind blowing. I supported the Kickstarter to help get the App of the ground and I got 9 months of ProTrader access along with the playmat.(Nolan Nasser is an amazing artist) When my subscription is due, I will renew as I made enough from the arbitrage tool in the first two weeks to pay for a year of service. Quit expecting the best in Finance to give away everything, that is the exact opposite of what finance is. …
Sorry to see that their is pay content. I’ve been coming here for a long time. Disappointment. I am going elsewhere.
I don’t mind $4.99 a month, hell I signed up and paid the $39.99 for a year. I purchased the Protrader upgrade on 19 Apr it has been almost 3 weeks (the money came out of my account) but still no access. I may have missed a step when signing up, if so My Bad. I have sent several emails asking for help. Any help would be welcome.
James
It’s amazing that as soon as the QS writers appeared on this site, it went to pay for content. Such a coincidence!
If i wanted QS writers, I’d have kept my QS account.
Thanks for the great free content over the last year.
Yeah, I agree, 3 out of the 4 articles currently on homepage are only for ProTraders. You’ve been working hard all right, trying to monetize the site. I’m gonna use a different site for my MTG pricing needs. Hopefully someone starts another site with similar content, where all the articles are for everyone!
-J