Quote Originally Posted by TsumiBand View Post
I dare say this describes the problem better than it defeats it. There are a *ton* of kinds of games out there, the mobile gaming scene is A Real Thing, getting good at any of the above games is not a small time investment unless you're like the Doogie Howser of Steam or something and you just intuit every game you download -- oh and speaking of Steam, unless you're frugal and cautious as fuck and you methodically play through a game before you buy a new one, your Steam library probably looks like my Netflix library; a ton of titles that you look at over and over and are kind of unwilling to touch. This doesn't directly affect Magic, but it still has to find space and time among a given player's backlog of Humble Bundles that they haven't even cracked yet.

TLDR, consumers have only so much time and trend towards owning an embarrassment of riches in the choices they have at their disposal, so it's only naturally that people would favor activities with the least perceived points of failure. This sucks for Magic because it is not only a terrible video game (it's secretly a real-time game involving very patient people that ignore the rules until they don't want to anymore), but it has always been a lousy one-player game; you need to either have a venue or set a date to have people over for a game or two. Meanwhile, you can reach into your pocket and dick around with Hearthstone (for example) on your lunch break.
Oh yeah, not saying those things aren't still competing with MtG for attention, just that they aren't currently winning because "kids these days" are all about instant gratification. I just think WotC is doing a fairly poor job at making the idea of investing that time and energy into Magic an attractive option. Quality of experience between LGSs is all over the map. Same for coverage, even for major events. What little advertising they do never speaks to the strengths of the game. Remember this from the late 90s?



That still makes me want to play more than anything I've seen on the WotC site in years. Here I Rule? Get the fuck out! Here I bring some janky brew and go for margaritas between rounds to shoot the shit with other aging nerds.