Demise of magic

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Originally Posted by bruizar

...It seems like entrenched magic players are completely blind to other games or any criticism at all, almost to the point of mtg being a religion. Except, the church has been corrupted and the things that made magic great have largely disappeared. ...

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It's a bit like the title of this thread being slightly misleading. Magic is not dying , but the magic the gathering game some of us knew and loved certainly is. A new magic the gathering is now appearing, which is all about fast paced splashy releases and continuous changing decks and formats.

To play competitively , the time of 'buying into a deck' are a thing of the past. The time of 'specializing in a deck' is also a thing of the past. Now you have to be continuously looking into an ever-changing meta-game and be prepared to change decks, archetypes, etc with every release and ban to suit the new environment.

Some people will love it, some people will hate it. Previous experience tells us there is a real burn-out rate in player numbers with this methodology (other games have done it before) and you survival is dependant on your ability to replace the leavers, once it stops, you're toast.

For a game like this, cardboard and high prices are anathema, so you need it to be online (less attachment to 'a collection' and way cheaper to change continuously) which leads me to the obviously painful choice Hasbro will one day have to do about either go full-on cross-breeding between both (a la pokemon) or abandon the idea that the two can be continuously compatible.

The thing is, the game we "knew" in '96, or even 2006, is well and dead. By today's standard, it was barely even alive. The whole world has changed, Magic has to change with it or pay some heavy consequences.

Not that I think that all changes are for the best. In fact, it's pretty likely that most of the changes have been for the worse, which is why most get "rolled back" after a while. But, if you really love Magic, as a game, you should applaud their efforts at dynamicism, because if they were just staunchly conservationists for the "good ol' days" the game would be dead by now.

So, what should be done? First, "vote" with your wallet. Second, don't make doom and gloom posts about how the game is "dying." Third, support what you think/feel is worth it. Let the "system" sort out the rest. The idea that if you can't have alt-art Japanese foil chase mythics than the game is not worth playing, strikes me as more "sour grapes" than anything. Now, don't get me wrong, I think the notion of "chase-cards" like that is stupid and detrimental to the game, but it doesn't stop me from supporting what I do think is good for the game.

I personally feel that Rosewater is a blight on Magic's design, but I would readily admit that I am biased. In reality, he probably has done some things to keep the game relatively healthy, but consider me skeptical about anything like "visionary" status.

Now, I am not saying you should spend money on things you don't think are worth it. I'm not saying that you must like the game's current state. It's likely a good idea to have "other hobbies" as well, be them other card games or whatever. But this doom and gloom? Not really warranted, to me. And mind you, I'm the sort of person who likes to think about teleology and eschatology.

I paint and play miniates games, I also play some of the new L5R LCG, and of course, still buy Magic cards from time to time. Nothing wrong it focusing on other things when the game is not in the place you'd like. That isn't the eschaton, that's a normal course of life, really. Like I said, support the things that you do like. If that ends up not being Magic, well, that too is a part of life. Magic is not a static object, it's a dynamic game. The paradigm today will likely not be the one is 5 years. Maybe you'll like that one more, maybe less. That's your personal preference, but it's not the pulse of the game.

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Originally Posted by H

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Not that I think that all changes are for the best. In fact, it's pretty likely that most of the changes have been for the worse, which is why most get "rolled back" after a while. But, if you really love Magic, as a game, you should applaud their efforts at dynamicism, because if they were just staunchly conservationists for the "good ol' days" the game would be dead by now.. ...

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IMO, it's not an effort at 'dynamism', it's an effort at keeping the game a viable economic concern and expanding the profits. Which, since they are a company, it's fair play. And this effect became very pronounced in these past few years.

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Originally Posted by jmlima

IMO, it's not an effort at 'dynamism', it's an effort at keeping the game a viable economic concern and expanding the profits. Which, since they are a company, it's fair play. And this effect became very pronounced in these past few years.

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Sure, but I think there is a bit more to that. Because in that pursuit, they have opened up more "ways to play" and product aimed at a more broad amount of market segments. So, yeah, it's a product and it's "final cause" will always be "to make money" but they have done things to, in my mind, "open the game up" to other ways to play besides Standard and Limited with only lip-service to other (non-rotating) formats.

If you don't want to consider that as somewhat "dynamic" then sure, I'm just not sure what one would call it then. Still, in the past, there was no notion on their part to make a product like Modern Horizons, or going a little further back, the Commander decks. That has changed. Because, like you said, the world has changed, economically, technologically, and so the game and it's marketing strategy must change.

It's not just change for change's sake, of course. It's change to survive and thrive in the current market climate.

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Originally Posted by jmlima

Previous experience tells us there is a real burn-out rate in player numbers with this methodology (other games have done it before) and you survival is dependant on your ability to replace the leavers, once it stops, you're toast.

For a game like this, cardboard and high prices are anathema, so you need it to be online (less attachment to 'a collection' and way cheaper to change continuously) which leads me to the obviously painful choice Hasbro will one day have to do about either go full-on cross-breeding between both (a la pokemon) or abandon the idea that the two can be continuously compatible.

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This is very accurate. Right now they are increasing both velocity and price, and those should be inversely related. I suspect in the short term MTG will enjoy growth from the current TCG revival that's part of a broader trend for Gen X pop culture, be it Stranger Things/Neverending Story, D&D, Magic, Terminator. This growth has and will continue to obscure the imo very real problems in the change of direction currently being advanced by wotc. Yes, Magic will readjust and abandon that which does not work, and right now it does work, but empires far greater than WOTC have fallen. There have been so many transgressions over the last 2 years that the good will of many players including myself, and the good will of LGS's is running thin. My LGS has minimized Magic to 1 draft per week because of the way that WOTC treats LGS', and would run zero drafts if he wasn't loyal to his customers.

Here are ALL the events for my country (it used to be a lot more):
https://untap.nl/event-kalender/

If you take into account the increased number of releases, you would agree there is a problem. Less time to play a new set and fewer moments to play with those cards. Why buy them in the first place if you can hardly play several times before you need to go through the spoilers again and chase the next mythic.

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Originally Posted by bruizar

If you take into account the increased number of releases, you would agree there is a problem. Less time to play a new set and fewer moments to play with those cards. Why buy them in the first place if you can hardly play several times before you need to go through the spoilers again and chase the next mythic.

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Well, I do agree that the current release paradigm might be unsustainable in the long run. However, I don't think it will kill the game by any stretch. What is more likely, to me, is that we are in a sort of "hyper-expansive" phase, partly (I think) because of Arena. I think we will see a "contractive" phase at some point, if it is the case that this expansion is unsustainable (and I think it likely is to some degree).

As for the distribution angle, well, I do think some change is coming there too. The issue at hand is that, to me, it is not clear just what that future looks like. Not being an economist by any stretch of the imagination though, I don't have a "real" idea of what direction things are headed in that respect. However, I do think the distribution model is highly antiquated and each "patch" it gets going forward only makes the core issues that much more evident.

The problem is that Wizards likely has legitimate fears about how "tied" the game's success is to "natural" and "artificial" scarcity. Again, being that I am not an economic theorist, I couldn't say intelligibly what they should do. But that is the "horizon" that I see, how to maintain the game's success, but actually "modernize" and expand the game's distribution. I don't think there is an easy answer to that though.

https://www.channelfireball.com/all-...table-release/

shoving 3 commander releases down our throats where it used to be 1 each year

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shoving 3 commander releases down our throats where it used to be 1 each year

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The above attitude only makes sense when operating under the following paradigm:

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When the whales can’t afford the game anymore, you know you have a problem.

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But the the whole premise of this is false.

This isn't a case of "whales" not being able to afford "the game" any more, it's the anecdotal experience of 1 random person no longer being able to justify buying literally everything the company releases

Maybe you get warm fuzzies from opening up your binder or storage box and having playsets of the entire card catalogue looking back at you, but I don't know why you think that you (1 random person) no longer being able to do this somehow implies the demise of the game. There were already plenty of people (the vast majority by far) who never viewed magic in this "must own everything in 4x" light so I don't see why you need to act Chicken Little for becoming part of this group. If you aren't interested in these commander cards then don't buy them. I'm not interested in limited so I don't play it. There are people who play limited as their main focus and even the simple idea of owning cards doesn't hold much appeal for them

I scrolled back and someone else already made basically the same reply to you

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I don't see why the game would die because you can't afford playsets of foils. I don't see why the game would die because you feel "priced out" because one alternate art foil is worth a lot. I don't even see how that "prices you out." If you can't have the most expensive option then all options are invalid?

I used to buy full 4x sets of every new set. I don't any more. Things change. The game won't end because you don't feel that the prices of foil sets is "worth it" though. It seems hard to believe that you are the lynchpin of the game's success. Or even people who have/had similar buying habits.

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More commander products is probably a good thing for people who like commander. There are people who prefer their formats to remain relatively stagnant but 1) In a casual format like commander you can probably still play an "out-of-date" favourite deck without much meaningful consequence and 2) The feedback to wizards from these people will necessarily be "don't sell us anything new please" which is obviously not something that a company will listen to.

There are legitimate concerns about the quality of card design making the games unfun, and a lack of organized-play support pushing competitive players away (recent announcements have alleviated this considerably), but there's no reason to burst a blood vessel just because they announced a new commander set.

Every standard legal set is legal in Commander, so Commander already gets a lot of new cards added to the card pool. Increasing the release schedule for Commander specific sets by 300% does not just impact Commander, but also Legacy and Vintage.

Death and Taxes, legacy's premiere competitive budget deck for pro's and new entrants, was destroyed by Modern Horizons with Wrenn & Six and Plague Engineer. Now there's only burn left, and maybe Astrolabe good stuff can become a viable deck, not sure yet. When 1 specialty set alone eliminates an important budget option from the meta, and the velocity of specialty sets increases, that's a disturbing trend.

Good luck playing Wrenn & Oko Threshold mirrors or playing degenerate combo.

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Originally Posted by bruizar

Increasing the release schedule for Commander specific sets by 300% does not just impact Commander, but also Legacy and Vintage.

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It justifies impact on their stock price.

They know Commander is a very popular format. Because it's an Eternal format with mostly kitchen table players, most players use cards already in their collection, cards leftover from expired decks from other formats, or cards bought cheap in the secondary market (either way, no $$ for Wizards). They're tapping into that market by making more product that appeals to the large number of players who are currently not buying much product from WOTC.

They're not aiming for the "whales" who buy foil playsets of the tier 1 Constructed cards. They target whales with other products, like Masterpieces and special releases like From the Vault.

The more concerning thing is that pushed Commander cards (aka the set sellers) aimed at Commander are going to be broken, at least in Commander.

I'm not surprised they're milking Commander - the more surprising thing is that it took them so long to milk it more, given how popular it is. Although they're going straight for the overkill, oversaturating the market until they've run things into the ground (as always).

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Originally Posted by FTW

It justifies impact on their stock price.

They know Commander is a very popular format. Because it's an Eternal format with mostly kitchen table players, most players use cards already in their collection, cards leftover from expired decks from other formats, or cards bought cheap in the secondary market (either way, no $$ for Wizards). They're tapping into that market by making more product that appeals to the large number of players who are currently not buying much product from WOTC.

They're not aiming for the "whales" who buy foil playsets of the tier 1 Constructed cards. They target whales with other products, like Masterpieces and special releases like From the Vault.

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Except whales don't collect products that are purposely branded 'collectible'. If a product reads limited edition, that's the biggest red flag for any collector. Whales come in a variety of forms, there's the completionist (wants every deck building choice and is OCD about set completion), there's the concentrator (fewest # of cards, highest total value), specialist (collector of planeswalkers, collector of angels, collector of 7th edition foils, collector of Japanese cards) and the speculator (purely in it for the money, buys out reserved list cards and relists them for a higher price). Virtually all collectors want cards in their original printing.

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Originally Posted by Barook

The more concerning thing is that pushed Commander cards (aka the set sellers) aimed at Commander are going to be broken, at least in Commander.

I'm not surprised they're milking Commander - the more surprising thing is that it took them so long to milk it more, given how popular it is. Although they're going straight for the overkill, oversaturating the market until they've run things into the ground (as always).

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Sengir, Castle Baron is confirmed. You can bet this card is going to be very good.

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Originally Posted by Barook

The more concerning thing is that pushed Commander cards (aka the set sellers) aimed at Commander are going to be broken, at least in Commander.

I'm not surprised they're milking Commander - the more surprising thing is that it took them so long to milk it more, given how popular it is. Although they're going straight for the overkill, oversaturating the market until they've run things into the ground (as always).

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Wizards is somewhat "conservative" when it comes to changing their general marketing strategy. They were in the past, seemingly, "pathologically" afraid to do much that signaled any wavering from the official line of "Standard and Limited are the formats we support." The obvious market segmentation that existed and still exists (so obvious that even I could identify it from this armchair) eventually spurred them to open up to the notion of "Commander" a few years ago, along with Modern. When the sky didn't fall, they opened up more, Eternal Masters and the like and doubled down on Modern.

Now, the shift has shifted again. They are doubling down on Commander next year and we might see a double-down on Pioneer. Even SCG has just "thrown down the gauntlet" with respect to Standard support, at least in the short term.

I had, for years, said that Standard's failure's were Legacy's "salvation." It's proven to have held a modicum of "truth." The issue, of course, is that the "salvation" isn't what we might have wanted, in a (bad) Meister Eckhart fashion, through Jacob's Ladder: "If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth."

Playables were sparse, then come in droves. The complaints come either way. So, might as well sell some product in the meantime. That, I think, is what Wizards is starting to realize. It's not about having some notion of "happy" players, or "content" players, they will never be either of those things. What you want is players who will buy. Sell to them. That is what this move toward "segmentation" is about. And it makes a lot of sense.

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Originally Posted by bruizar

Except whales don't collect products that are purposely branded 'collectible'. If a product reads limited edition, that's the biggest red flag for any collector. Whales come in a variety of forms, there's the completionist (wants every deck building choice and is OCD about set completion), there's the concentrator (fewest # of cards, highest total value), specialist (collector of planeswalkers, collector of angels, collector of 7th edition foils, collector of Japanese cards) and the speculator (purely in it for the money, buys out reserved list cards and relists them for a higher price). Virtually all collectors want cards in their original printing.

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The issue at hand is that the central assumption of your "thesis" is that these "whales" are vital and a key to the games success.

We have no data to support this notion, besides the sort of knee-jerk assumption that people who "spend more" are who the product should be catered toward. That doesn't stand to many notions of scale-effects. It's a "forced subjective" look that doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of psychological sales profiles.

Think, one person spends $1,000 per set. Or 1,000 people spend $10 per set. Who is the "best customer?" Obviously, if every individual person is the unit "customer" than the answer is clearly the one "high roller." But, if those 1,000 are a "unit" of say, casual Limited players, then they, collectively at the "best customer."

Never mind the "Second order effect" of possibly cating to those 1,000 "low-spenders" and expanding them to $15 spenders, or $20. That is your market growth. The $1,000 spender is likely capped anyway, there is no growth to be had there. I've mentioned this in the past, how "organic growth" is likely the "way of the future." It's not some great intellectual concept. I'm an idiot and even I can see it's likely trivially true. I think Wizard's has finally gotten past some of the fear that a changing model holds and is working with this idea.

There will be "growing pains" but they show the game isn't dead. It isn't dying. It's living.

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Originally Posted by bruizar

https://www.channelfireball.com/all-...table-release/

shoving 3 commander releases down our throats where it used to be 1 each year

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Am I reading the release right, that the new sets will be more like old set precon decks? 5 decks build around that set's themes seems like these will be low powered in line with the traditional precon deck.
Then the commander draft product is an enigma, but just another odd Conspiracy style set that will have a handful of cards worth paying attention to.
Then, what, some green Commander's Arsenal set that has foil Sylvan Library and Green Sun's Zenith?

None of what's listed seem at all like the original Commander products with gaudy build-around mechanics that were off the wall like "permanents you own controlled by other players"

ITT: "I hate cards. They shouldn't print new cards. I just want to play my 2/1s, and they should ban everything else because 2/1s are the only legitimate creatures in My Legacy."

For those of you who didn't read the article:
The three Commander sets are normal Commander
A simple, entry level, Commander designed to bridge the current set to Commander, and a reprint set. So there's nothing really here. It's letting us know next year's Commander anthology is Commander: Green stuff, and that t'heroes is getting a brawl deck.

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Originally Posted by H

Wizards is somewhat "conservative" when it comes to changing their general marketing strategy. They were in the past, seemingly, "pathologically" afraid to do much that signaled any wavering from the official line of "Standard and Limited are the formats we support." The obvious market segmentation that existed and still exists (so obvious that even I could identify it from this armchair) eventually spurred them to open up to the notion of "Commander" a few years ago, along with Modern. When the sky didn't fall, they opened up more, Eternal Masters and the like and doubled down on Modern.

Now, the shift has shifted again. They are doubling down on Commander next year and we might see a double-down on Pioneer. Even SCG has just "thrown down the gauntlet" with respect to Standard support, at least in the short term.

I had, for years, said that Standard's failure's were Legacy's "salvation." It's proven to have held a modicum of "truth." The issue, of course, is that the "salvation" isn't what we might have wanted, in a (bad) Meister Eckhart fashion, through Jacob's Ladder: "If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth."

Playables were sparse, then come in droves. The complaints come either way. So, might as well sell some product in the meantime. That, I think, is what Wizards is starting to realize. It's not about having some notion of "happy" players, or "content" players, they will never be either of those things. What you want is players who will buy. Sell to them. That is what this move toward "segmentation" is about. And it makes a lot of sense.



The issue at hand is that the central assumption of your "thesis" is that these "whales" are vital and a key to the games success.

We have no data to support this notion, besides the sort of knee-jerk assumption that people who "spend more" are who the product should be catered toward. That doesn't stand to many notions of scale-effects. It's a "forced subjective" look that doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of psychological sales profiles.

Think, one person spends $1,000 per set. Or 1,000 people spend $10 per set. Who is the "best customer?" Obviously, if every individual person is the unit "customer" than the answer is clearly the one "high roller." But, if those 1,000 are a "unit" of say, casual Limited players, then they, collectively at the "best customer."

Never mind the "Second order effect" of possibly cating to those 1,000 "low-spenders" and expanding them to $15 spenders, or $20. That is your market growth. The $1,000 spender is likely capped anyway, there is no growth to be had there. I've mentioned this in the past, how "organic growth" is likely the "way of the future." It's not some great intellectual concept. I'm an idiot and even I can see it's likely trivially true. I think Wizard's has finally gotten past some of the fear that a changing model holds and is working with this idea.

There will be "growing pains" but they show the game isn't dead. It isn't dying. It's living.

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There is a lot of widely publicized data about whales and separately the otaku industry. The whales ARE the ones bringing all the cash. In freemium games, a good performing game is one where 3% of the players pay, and 3% of that 3% is a whale. The rest of the player base is just cannonfodder for the whales

Why It's Scary When 0.15% Mobile Gamers Bring In 50% Of The Revenue

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...f-the-revenue/

Transformers players spending $150k grabbed headlines, but Yodo1's GCAP talk raised tough questions about responsible monetisation in mobile
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...dustry-opinion


There are even laws against digital booster packs in Japan, and they are coming to the west as well in the form of Lootbox regulation

Why Kompu Gacha was banned

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Beta...Was_Banned.php

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Originally Posted by bruizar

There is a lot of widely publicized data about whales and separately the otaku industry. The whales ARE the ones bringing all the cash. In freemium games, a good performing game is one where 3% of the players pay, and 3% of that 3% is a whale. The rest of the player base is just cannonfodder for the whales

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Fair enough, but overgeneralization is overgeneral. If it is in fact overgeneralization. It could stand to reason that the disparity is more pronounced in "freemium" games, because there, the average user spends so little (that is, nothing, plays for free). Or, maybe not. How do we know? Or should we just assume it's the markets for Magic and freemium mobile games same, for, well, "reasons."

There is, though, no "free" option in paper Magic. (I am going to leave Arena aside, because that is a different can of worms.)

Therefor, how much inference should we draw from the seeming relation of disparate things? Just because they are both "games" means that their markets are the same? Or similar? Even if similar, how similar are similar markets? Identical? To what degree does the fitting fit? What effect does differing distribution models have? And to what degrees, if so?

Sure, we can freely equate apples to oranges. Both are fruits. Both are things you eat. Both are products of plants. At the end of day though, apples aren't oranges. And the market for apples isn't the market for oranges. How many people are out for a fresh baked orange pie, rather than apple? To be tautological, the similarities end where the similarities end.

So, without sales data, market analysis, and the like, for Magic, what logical inference are we to make from digital games to paper Magic? You seem to take the position that it ought to inform us fairly completely. I don't know if it is the case such that this would be the case and so stake out a rather skeptical position on your conclusion. Feel free to consolidate your position, but I think a number of us are "unsold" on your thesis on this sort of basis.

Now, it might be the case that you are 100% right. But again, I simply am skeptical given the nature and substance of your assumptions and inferences. Time will tell, like I said, as to what the end-game is here on Wizard's choices.

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Originally Posted by H

Fair enough, but overgeneralization is overgeneral. If it is in fact overgeneralization. It could stand to reason that the disparity is more pronounced in "freemium" games, because there, the average user spends so little (that is, nothing, plays for free). Or, maybe not. How do we know? Or should we just assume it's the markets for Magic and freemium mobile games same, for, well, "reasons."

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FYI: The annual ARPU is $75 per Magic Arena player. Some people actually read the financial reports and work in the industry. That's 6.25 per month per player and most people don't pay because they are simply against paying for games, which means the distribution is skewed.

"The past year has seen several ups and downs as MTG Arena continues its open beta run toward the game’s likely release in the fall of 2019. The War of the Spark release was a big win for MTG, increasing overall interest in both digital and tabletop formats. Growth also took place on MTG Arena with an average of eight hours of weekly play per person and $75 annually spent on gems, according to Hasbro and KeyBanc Capital Markets."


You can try to talk your way out of this but industry facts are industry facts. The whole business model is about milking whales, it's been a widely known secret in the industry for years.

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Originally Posted by bruizar

FYI: The annual ARPU is $75 per Magic Arena player. Some people actually read the financial reports and work in the industry. That's 6.25 per month per player and most people don't pay because they are simply against paying for games, which means the distribution is skewed.

"The past year has seen several ups and downs as MTG Arena continues its open beta run toward the game’s likely release in the fall of 2019. The War of the Spark release was a big win for MTG, increasing overall interest in both digital and tabletop formats. Growth also took place on MTG Arena with an average of eight hours of weekly play per person and $75 annually spent on gems, according to Hasbro and KeyBanc Capital Markets."


You can try to talk your way out of this but industry facts are industry facts. The whole business model is about milking whales, it's been a widely known secret in the industry for years.

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For a guy who keeps talking about whales you should really look into what the difference between average and median are.