First, this isn't a "the sky is falling, Magic is dead" thread. But there are quite a few things going that are worth discussing imho.
Chris Cocks is the CEO of WotC now, leading to a stronger (and much necessary) focus on the digital department. Right now, MTGO is getting its ass kicked by several competitors. I don't think the 20 million $ number is accurate and should be higher, given rough estimates calculated from league runs and trophies, but it also shouldn't be anyway near the often quoted 100 million $ mark by the community.
Now why is that a problem for WotC? Maro has stated on his blog that Magic Duels is nowadays their main way to get new people into (paper) Magic. But with their competition being not crap like Wizards' digital department, it will significantly cut down the rate of new players. And we're seeing already the effects of this, as Magic's growth has slowed down to single digit numbers.
What certainly doesn't help the case for Wizards is that their R&D went to shit as well: Their cash cow Standard has been plagued by massive problems for several years in a row now - be it Siege Rhino, Collected Company, Dual/Fetchland mana bases that costs 500$+ for half a year of Standard and now the recent bannings plus the change of B&R announcements. Looking at the results of PT Aether Revolt, it has 8/8 aggro decks in the Top 8, with 6 of them being Mardu Vehicles. But they, at least the Neo Twin combo (which they completely missed, btw) isn't destroying the format. Balanced format is balanced. Scrapheap Scrounger was a 31/32 in that Top 8. It's puzzling how they don't include safety valves like Rest in Peace anymore.
It seems that WotC has entered full panic mode due dropping tournament attendance, considering how quickly they've revoked the accelerated rotation schedule, the introduction of Masterpieces to make "normal" Magic cards cheaper and the new B&R schedule. Yet they still don't know how to fix their stuff.
Magic just isn't on the right path these days. I think the cards that get printed reflect what the players want, but not what is good for the game.
Players want cards that are always useful, old cards valuable cards reprinted, packs and specific singles to be available everywhere, and for the cards they buy to be powerful in comparison to all previous cards printed. Players don't want powerful hate cards, to be told no by their opponents too much, to be color or mana screwed, to have their lands destroyed, or to lose before they get their chance to play cards.
So, Wizards tries to do it all, with each concession in design for players resulting in a hit to brand and future of the game.
Narrow powerful cards are much less common. Some valueable old cards become less valuable to entice people to buy the new set. Every set is printed so much that collectibility is not a relevant word; the best cards are worth little and the other cards are worth nothing. Standard has overpowered cards, and they dominate the tournament scene while they are in print. Control as an archetype has been on a steady downturn for a decade. Control was preceded in the death by combo. Combo needs effective counter spells in the environment for it to be healthy, and people hate effective counter spells being played against them. Every couple years there is a not terrible combo deck, but it rarely lasts. Combo was preceded in death by land kill, which will really never return.
This is probably just a 2 am rant, but I am just a little bit disappointed with the way this game has developed recently. Magic isn't in a space where it can double the returns to Hasbro again by some trick. I get the feeling that high double digit growth year after year after year set the bar too high. When reality set in that saturation happened, small money grabs that players were clammoring for became the norm to boost profits. That is a slippery slope that leads to significantly diminished perception of value of their products.
I'm not saying the sky is falling either, but I would like to see a big left turn coming up ahead.
I'm also not trying to say that magic good old days were perfect either. Losing to cuneo blue and sinkhole decks wasn't fun. However, those mechanics need to be somewhat playable, in my opinion.
Can't speak about standard, but from both a limited and a Legacy perspective, I've really enjoyed both Kaladesh and Aether Revolt.
It would help, if the last 8 years of sets didn't all feel the same for standard or if pices are artificially driven by the 4th rarity and WotC Co-Op with vendors. All that is paired with the inability to deliver an Online Platform to recruit new players within a season mode tied to Standard. It baffles me that there are successful cardgames popping up left and right in AppStores while WotC/Hasbro are unable to even release MTGO for non-Windows platforms
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They said so themselves.
It can't run on non-Windows OS without starting to code it from scratch due to their reliance on Windows-only programs. The responsible people just didn't care enough until Hearthstone took over the market.We did miss the interaction with Saheeli, however, and that has led to some . . . interesting decks in Standard. While we were pushing for more combo decks in Standard with Aether Revolt, this is not the kind of deck we would intentionally take a risk with. In hindsight, Felidar Guardian definitely should've said "creature or artifact." Pro Tour Aether Revolt is this weekend, and we'll be watching to see how these decks do.
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You'd never design a computer game like Garfield designed Magic: the Gathering. The complexity of shared turns, the massive swath of card types, many other rules minutia from a game programming perspective make it far more complex. That being said, WotC has utterly butchered Magic Online, but stuff like Hearthstone was ground up digital only and the mechanics are designed as such.
They're also trying to be like Hearthstone without understanding what makes that game good.
I'll guess people will never be happy, but five years ago we would've been here claming the fall of the game for other reasons, with the good old days still being better. Yes, they're having some big problems right now, but I'll argue it was all for improving the game and moving to, you know, the new century. I won't claim to like and defend all their shots, but the "good old days" brought them to bee just another name owned by Asbro, which tell us a lot. About the price of old and new card I don't know how to put it, but here in Italy politicians from the 60/70 used to say: "Give a communist a house and a piece of land and you'll have a perfect conservative."
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Source for its growth being only single digit numbers? I'm not sure I've seen data on its growth before and I'm curious about it.
Siege Rhino was annoying, but I don't think it was any worse than the usual Standard screw-ups. The dual/fetchland was a catastrophically bad idea to the point I'm baffled they did it. I don't even think dual/fetchland is inherently a bad idea for Standard (you do have to be cautious with it, though), but to do it while having no hate whatsoever for it? That's a terrible idea. Lack of hate for it resulted in the awkward fact you'd end up with better mana in a 3-color deck than a 2-color deck.What certainly doesn't help the case for Wizards is that their R&D went to shit as well: Their cash cow Standard has been plagued by massive problems for several years in a row now - be it Siege Rhino, Collected Company, Dual/Fetchland mana bases that costs 500$+ for half a year of Standard and now the recent bannings plus the change of B&R announcements.
What is especially odd is the order they did it in. It was fetchlands, then battlelands. Here's the problem. With that kind of manabase, the fetchlands will be more in demand, because you'll be running more of them than the battlelands. But the fetchlands were from the older set no longer being opened as frequently. So with that order, they made all the demand be for the older set rather than the current one. This meant the expense was greater than if the fetchlands were in Battle for Zendikar. If it had been the other way around, players might not have been driven off as much as the fetchlands would be cheaper. But even from their own perspective, it also meant that Wizards of the Coast benefitted less because the greater desire for fetchlands wasn't causing increased interest in the current set they were pushing, but the older set.
I seem to remember some complaints here back when Rest In Peace was spoiled about how the graveyard hate was becoming too powerful or something. That said, Rest In Peace would've been a good card to have around; if it had been legal Emrakul probably wouldn't have gotten banned. But as you note, it's puzzling they didn't do that... normally they always followed up a block by printing some stuff to hate on the previous block's mechanics to ensure they didn't stay too powerful. Stony Silence after Scars, Rest In Piece after Innistrad, Burning Earth after Return to Ravnica, Back to Nature after Theros.Looking at the results of PT Aether Revolt, it has 8/8 aggro decks in the Top 8, with 6 of them being Mardu Vehicles. But they, at least the Neo Twin combo (which they completely missed, btw) isn't destroying the format. Balanced format is balanced. Scrapheap Scrounger was a 31/32 in that Top 8. It's puzzling how they don't include safety valves like Rest in Peace anymore.
Well the accelerated rotation schedule was a pretty bad idea from the get-go. Two-set blocks was a reasonable idea, but I don't know why they decided they had to accelerate rotation at the same time. Maybe they were just stuck on the "let's rotate after each block" mentality.It seems that WotC has entered full panic mode due dropping tournament attendance, considering how quickly they've revoked the accelerated rotation schedule, the introduction of Masterpieces to make "normal" Magic cards cheaper and the new B&R schedule. Yet they still don't know how to fix their stuff.
I don't think Masterpieces are really panic mode. I think they would've done that regardless, as expeditions were apparently popular on the whole. There's a big difference between doing something, then quickly reversing on it (rotation) compared to doing something, then deciding to keep doing it (Expeditions/Masterpieces). The former can be a sign of "panic," but not so much the latter.
I'm not a fan of masterpieces since they look like a pretty blatant cash grab, but they're not a 'state of the game' problem.
I think R&D went off the rails a bit with the whole 'creatures are powerful' new world order thing. Part of that is that planeswalkers seem to have displaced creatures as efficient victory conditions, so creatures have been shifted more toward splashy immediate effects that were once more the domain of non-creature spells.
I also feel like R&D screwed up the current standard environment because they wanted to ensure that vehicles and graveyard synergies were strong in constructed.
If the numbers from OP's article are accurate, it's just more writing on the wall. Gamers continue to see a substantial shift with what interests them. For all the strengths MTG has, playing the game in person cannot compete with digital games moving forward (meaning both digital collectible games and "esport" video games).
I'm equating Magic's situation to video rental stores being overtaken by Netflix (or digital media in general). Magic/Hasbro may financially stable today, but I honestly question its future --- especially as young gamers grow up with digital apps/digital ccgs in place of Magic. That has already happened with university students not understanding Blockbuster. You could also equate the situation to Millennials cutting out traditional cable television.
Magic's online client was designed in the late 90s and implemented in the early 00's. It hasn't adjusted to a marketplace centered around iOS/Android/free-to-play games. IMO everyone is glossing over Magic's Achilles's heel: complex rules and economics. Magic has so many cards, numerous phases with sub-rules to remember during a turn, "the stack", and keywords on basically every card. Sometimes competitive rules or card errata change. That's daunting for new players. I've tried playing different board games and card games with similar amounts of verbiage and just shut down.
By contrast, I've dabbled in Hearthstone. It's a bit too straightforward when you come from competitive legacy play, but I no doubt see its appeal. It has a slick interface, is simpler to play, and cost me $0 for several hours. Unlike MTG, Hearthstone can adjust errata, numbers, and create complicated-to-do-by-hand mechanics because it is digital. Economically, if I wanted to put money into Hearthstone (or a digital game), $100 goes a lot further than it does in MTG (paper or online).
This part of the article resonates with me the most as to why I believe Magic is in trouble moving forward:
Unless I'm mistaken, there is no "grind" for Magic Online. The client is just a digital representation of the paper game. IIRC, there's no free-to-play aspect. You're paying full retail for a business model created in the 90s (boosters, theme decks, etc). The appeal of watching someone play Magic on a stream is prohibited by 1) the client looking like crap and 2) the game being complicated.SuperData also noted that 7.6 percent of digital card game players in the U.S. buy in-game content. Many digital card games, including Hearthstone, are free-to-play, and buying digital packs is usually the fastest way to get new cards.
Also, 86 percent of digital card game players watch online videos of other people playing digital card games. This includes influencers who broadcast and upload their play sessions on sites like Twitch and YouTube as well as esports tournaments. Many watch as a way to learn new strategies.
So is the sky falling? I was under the impression we're beyond peak-MTG. It began its slow decent years ago. Can't exactly put my finger on when, but the game has felt stale to me since Modern became a thing.
Shareholder earnings remarks
Go to Page 7.
Game category up my 9%, led by PIE-FACE (the fuck is this? ) and then MtG as the fastest growing games.
I've also looked through the other shareholder papers. Nothing disproves the slowed down growth of Magic, especially how certain categories are lumped together.
This is pie face: http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/webapp/...game-b70630000
As for their numbers, there's a lot of noise within their data. Nothing concrete for MTG aside "the 8th straight year of growth
in MAGIC: THE GATHERING". There are veiled references to Magic doing well, but there's number distortion and spin as Hasbro is a giant with a "$1.4 billion gaming portfolio". Internationally their franchise brand revenues are up 3% (MTG lumped in there).
From what I've glanced, Hasbro increased its profit margins but "...had higher expenses associated with investments to profitably grow Hasbro for the long term. These include investments in MAGIC: THE GATHERING and our consumer products teams; higher depreciation from our investment in IT systems; and higher compensation expense associated with our stronger performance." I can't parse out how much of the MTGO factors into said IT investment.
@ Warden
There is literally ZERO need for WotC to create a client being able to cover all the complicated mechanics from more than 2 decades.
They can focus on a client with the mechanical niveau the MTG 2013 platform (PSN) introduced. Basic mechanics and interface worked fine, but the game had no lasting appeal as the game was very limited in terms of deckbuilding, collecting and compeditive play. Why not create a cross platform client able to handle current T2 mechanics and rules for a season and then add the mechanics and cards of the next one paired with a ranking/reward system just like Hearthstone?
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One thing they can't screw up is that feeling and smell of cracking packs.
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