Secondary markets exist with any successful card game, but that doesn’t prevent hobby stores from selling products. We don’t believe this should be very different for Altered. The laws of supply and demand will work the same way here.
Oversell the product in retail and prices will decrease online. Not enough products sold in retail, and too much demand online? Prices will skyrocket and people will buy retail products. And of course, there are plenty of customers that don’t strictly follow this reasoning and simply love opening booster packs.
Let’s also not forget that opening boosters means opening unique cards, which in some cases will be incredibly valuable and an endless source of joy for those lucky enough to find them.