Source Dorks is a pop culture blog written by a circle of friends who frequently meet to play games and geek out at Source Comics and Games in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Mayfair Games Fixes Prices
Hot on the heels of the supreme court's legalization of price fixing Mayfair, the publisher of Settlers of Catan, has sent a memo to retailers capping discounts of their product at 20%.
This is the article that caused me to go back and reread the decision.
I think the Supreme Court decision is the right one. The Sherman Antitrust Act is at best obsolete. It was written during a time when most goods were commodities, barriers to entry were very high, and price transparency was low. A few big oil/train/auto etc barons with enough capital could get together and set prices. Today, we have much more product differentiation and loyalties, high capital efficiency, and easy price comparisons. The same law can't protect us from concentrated seller power, which is now in the hands of producers vs retailers.
The Supreme Court was right to beging to make the law irrelevant. It's up to Congress to come up with a law that better matches the economics of today.
This is the article that caused me to go back and reread the decision.
ReplyDeleteI think the Supreme Court decision is the right one. The Sherman Antitrust Act is at best obsolete. It was written during a time when most goods were commodities, barriers to entry were very high, and price transparency was low. A few big oil/train/auto etc barons with enough capital could get together and set prices. Today, we have much more product differentiation and loyalties, high capital efficiency, and easy price comparisons. The same law can't protect us from concentrated seller power, which is now in the hands of producers vs retailers.
The Supreme Court was right to beging to make the law irrelevant. It's up to Congress to come up with a law that better matches the economics of today.
And Mayfair makes shitty games anyway.
Oh, and here's Fast Eddie's take:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/06-12-98.html