There is actually a very simple and effective way to deal with ID's if they are unwanted: make draws worth 0 points. If you can't finish a best-of-3 match within the time limit, you don't get any match points for failing to do so. Will this hurt some players who are up against slow players? Sure, but it might also encourage them to call a Judge instead of letting it happen. Will this hurt slower control matchups? Sure, but certain decks are already discouraged by the structure of a tournament to begin with, and a deck that cannot possibly win 2 games in 50 minutes? I don't see losing those as a loss to the tournament experience.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
I don't have a problem with Pro play that much. Rather, the issues I have with pro play are the people that cater the events, rampant cheating, etc. It's probably for the best if WoTC started moving professional level play to the online medium using something like Arena, as it's impossible for someone to cheat and the games are much easier to broadcast and watch.
This game is fun, but... it's got a lot of history and that history is a curse to the company and the people playing it.
So you're saying it's okay for a card game manufacturer like Wizards of the Coast to completely discontinue the Paper medium as a way to stick it to casual players whose been ruining MTG for competitive players? Saying that switching to an Online medium to circumvent cheating doesn't excuse DCI Judges and competitive players' incompetence to purposely allow that sort of behavior to take place. If someone is caught cheating then there needs to be accountability. How is it that the people running these events never get caught in the act when it's MTG players on Social Media who take the blame?
Given Rudy's latest YouTube video where he officially disclosed the problems going on with MTG's card stock quality, it's more than likely that Wizards of the Coast is desperately trying to replace the Paper TCG with MTG Arena. Why else would they continue to use poor card stock while making decisions that negatively effect the local game store? Poor card stock and no place to gather will cause players to turn to MTG Arena. Why would they want to take away the social aspect of the game from a 25+ year fan base who loves it the way it is?
No, they have no reason to stop paper magic. The fact is that nothing is going to stop paper competitive play unless there is a better medium for it, and even if that medium takes over as the way people play professionally, places that built their business on the paper market will still host and push paper tournament play. However, there also would be a lot less people going for it since they can now do the same thing with just buying in online and playing on their own time.
At it's core, the issue with pro play is not with pro play. The problem is caused by human nature and a really stupid idea. Games have existed as ways to fill our free time for ages and humans have always been somewhat driven by competition and wanting to one up each other. People have also historically horded resources as a part of this entire competition, since by hording a resource you can deny your competitor that resource.
So, someone came up with the truly astoundingly great idea of combining both a game and the idea of resource hording with an unregulated free market because pro capitalism. Then they decided that they should also cave to peoples selfish interests and make a reserved list to restrict older resources where the majority of those resources have no real gameplay value in this day and age and decided that it is a good idea to support non-rotating formats of competitive play to cater to these selfish interests.
Oh, you want Noble Heirarch or Snapcaster Mage because statistically it is shown as the optimal card choice and there are no alternatives? Hope you have your swiss bank account ready because SCG / CFB / and Card Kingdom have decided the price point should be around 80 dollars, and you better hope you can find a source offline to get it cheaper because the second anyone posts one up for 30-50 dollars people will just buy it and resell it like a coupon.
Basically, the entire system that has formed in competitive magic is built on the promise that decks built with strong and high price cards will net free wins since those without access to those cards due to price will be at a unique disadvantage. Slap some prize support in and congratulations, you got a toxic hellhole waiting to happen.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
At it's core, the issue with pro play is not with pro play. The problem is caused by human nature and a really stupid idea. Games have existed as ways to fill our free time for ages and humans have always been somewhat driven by competition and wanting to one up each other. People have also historically horded resources as a part of this entire competition, since by hording a resource you can deny your competitor that resource.
They do this by stockpiling tons of unopened booster boxes and sealed product as a way to drive up market inflation because as long as they remain uncirculated throughout the Secondary Market the more difficult it is for people to actually play Magic. With everyone distracted from buying singles online, this gives LGS owners a way to manipulate the Secondary Market for their own benefit instead of their own customers though not every LGS relies on this type of shady business practice. Wizards of the Coast is purposely manipulating the expected value of new cards they design months in advance in order to help LGS owners make the game more expensive.
LGS owners know that they can't rely on the Reserve List forever If Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro manages to abolish it through some kind of loophole that doesn't get them in any sort of legal trouble. So far this is the only way that LGS owners are able to turn a profit on non-Reserve List expansions because If the goose is unable to lay any golden eggs then they're going to go out of business. To answer this thread If Wizards of the Coast wants to fix competitive Magic then they need to print more Standard/Modern legal cards that are powerful enough to hold their expected value through a long period of time instead of being incompetent and lazy. Printing these types of cards in Commander Pre-Cons and Masters sets doesn't cut it.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Maybe WOTC disagrees with my assessment? Seems hilarious that shortly after this thread goes up, they decide to make GP Richmond the Reid Duke show. Obviously that idea is silly, that there's a correlation, but I do not think it is silly that this might be an experiment in determining if any players are actual draws.
Implement clocks like online. You run your 25 you lose. No draws.
This doesn't punish people going against slow players because the slow player will be the one losing. This discourages unpopular decks like Eggs and KCI without having to outright ban them. This is fair and proven.
But it's costly to implement so it'll never happen.
So you're saying it's okay for a card game manufacturer like Wizards of the Coast to completely discontinue the Paper medium as a way to stick it to casual players whose been ruining MTG for competitive players? Saying that switching to an Online medium to circumvent cheating doesn't excuse DCI Judges and competitive players' incompetence to purposely allow that sort of behavior to take place. If someone is caught cheating then there needs to be accountability. How is it that the people running these events never get caught in the act when it's MTG players on Social Media who take the blame?
Unless you propose some sort of character development program that trains MTG-players-to-be from young, talking about incompetence and accountability doesn't magically solve them either. I'll take online play for competitive events to just circumvent cheating for higher-level play, which is a marketing face for the game. On top of that, if online play circumvents the need for paper cards for higher-level play, you drastically decrease demand for chase cards, creating a thriving balanced market for the Casual Paper market.
Given Rudy's latest YouTube video where he officially disclosed the problems going on with MTG's card stock quality, it's more than likely that Wizards of the Coast is desperately trying to replace the Paper TCG with MTG Arena. Why else would they continue to use poor card stock while making decisions that negatively effect the local game store? Poor card stock and no place to gather will cause players to turn to MTG Arena. Why would they want to take away the social aspect of the game from a 25+ year fan base who loves it the way it is?
In light of the planeswalker-masterpiece debate - the answer is we did it to ourselves. An increasing number of the playerbase wants to operate like an LGS without the overheard costs and those costs usually come from providing a place to play. Easy to blame WotC for not assisting them, but it's also easy to oversee whenever they try to, the opportunists would snap the aid for themselves (not that they deserve it to begin with) while distracting attention by blaming LGS themselves (FTVs are sort of the prime example, plenty of hypocrites faulting LGS for spiking prices on a product that was functionally intended for that while in reality they just want to buy it themselves so they can profit off it).
The line between a player and a LGS is blurring and the only difference is the overhead cost of providing a place to play that no one wants to bear. Players expect to get the same benefits as LGSes get from WotC nowadays, complaining every time WotC gives LGS some benefit (FTV, BAB and so on...) and then proceed to wonder why no one wants to bear the overhead costs of running a playing space?
With Online, WotC doesn't need to care about playing space as much, so they will not pay the costs (plus they started the whole LGS system back then because they didn't want to step in the first place anyway). It all boils down to whether the people who truly care about playing space are willing to pay for the space. Anybody who "doesn't want to pay for said space" (and its not literally pay, even complaining about your LGS spiking FTV prices to prop the costs of said playing space is technically sounding an opinion you don't want to pay for the space since it cuts into your own personal gain) and then proceeds to complain about lack of playing space while criticizing everything that denies them potential profits as if they were a LGS is basically a hypocrite.
On the card stock issue: Wizards of the Coast isn't trying to kill paper magic. To understand how they think you have to take your feet out of the role of being a MtG fan and put them in the shoes of a major corporation (or Ainz Ooal Gown if you're a fan of the overlord manga). The end objective of Hasbro is to make as much money as possible, then use that money to make even more money. In a sense, they can be viewed as a person whose measure of self worth is based on how big they can make their bank account. Because the corporation as an entity is annexed from any sense of human mortality and need there is no true goal beyond "make lots of money".
Wizards of the Coast created MtG Arena because they recognized that MTGO is dated and made for poor streaming presentation. People here are thinking that Arena is being made for players, but in reality it is being built so that people can stream Magic the Gathering on social media like YouTube and Twitch. Why? Because even if someone isn't horribly familiar with the game, the sound effects, voice over work, and action on the screen make even the most lazy and boring stream of the game far more enjoyable to watch. MTGO, on the other hand, completely rides on the laurels of the person conducting the presentation. YouTube view counts and total time watched do not lie, people.
The card quality issue is also part of this money making mind set. The company wants to get away with the lowest quality printing and inking processes they can find while still producing something good enough that people will fork money over for, and I believe they have succeeded in that for the most part. People are complaining about card quality on youtube, but obviously this hasn't stopped droves of people from buying cards anyway, because how else is someone going to play the game? They got to keep up to date with the latest cards and decks, so to Hasbro it's basically a bunch of angry dogs on sticks trying to occasionally nip the owner. The dogs can try to nip them, but at the end of the day they are still eating the same dog food as before and probably in about the same quantity. Heck, if they have enough dogs they might even break the sales records on dog food.
So, basically people are kind of deluding themselves into thinking that they actually matter somehow to the company. The company doesn't care about morality, doesn't care about quality outside of cost efficiency, and doesn't care about individual people. What they do care about is the giant amorphous blob known as the consumer base that they draw money from and prod with sticks, the stockholders who want more money to inflate their sense of personal achievement, and that the people they hired up as part of this entire scheme are working their best to help achieve the objective of "make more money".
I mean, Tolarian Community College videos are kind of cute and appeal to people who are not really knowing of this, but the only way wizards is changing anything is if Hasbro goes bankrupt, the IP is set free to the wind, and by sheer luck some startup picks up the franchise and runs with it.
Kind of a nasty reality to have to type out, but I'm pretty sure there are tons of people that just don't understand this mindset and believe the company still has some kind of "we care about you" attitude with the surveys and such. Those survey's are information gathering used in statistical analysis. If someone puts a rant in the extra feedback box they might take it to someone further up the chain, but if whatever is posted there meets the expectations from risk assessment it's basically blowing hot air.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Unless you propose some sort of character development program that trains MTG-players-to-be from young, talking about incompetence and accountability doesn't magically solve them either. I'll take online play for competitive events to just circumvent cheating for higher-level play, which is a marketing face for the game. On top of that, if online play circumvents the need for paper cards for higher-level play, you drastically decrease demand for chase cards, creating a thriving balanced market for the Casual Paper market.
Except the LGS needs those chase cards in order to keep their business running where as with Rudy's recent approach by monopolizing LGS distribution as a whole due to his $1 million acquisition of MJ Holding he's playing right into Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's hands of going full digital with Magic: The Gathering. All he has to do is buy out unsold inventory from dead local game stores that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro cut ties with and sell them at cutthroat prices in order to eliminate competition from thriving local game stores. It's a win-lose situation where most local game stores won't be able to bite the hand that feeds them since they'd be forced to advance Rudy's endgame whatever it may be.
In light of the planeswalker-masterpiece debate - the answer is we did it to ourselves. An increasing number of the playerbase wants to operate like an LGS without the overheard costs and those costs usually come from providing a place to play. Easy to blame WotC for not assisting them, but it's also easy to oversee whenever they try to, the opportunists would snap the aid for themselves (not that they deserve it to begin with) while distracting attention by blaming LGS themselves (FTVs are sort of the prime example, plenty of hypocrites faulting LGS for spiking prices on a product that was functionally intended for that while in reality they just want to buy it themselves so they can profit off it).
The line between a player and a LGS is blurring and the only difference is the overhead cost of providing a place to play that no one wants to bear. Players expect to get the same benefits as LGSes get from WotC nowadays, complaining every time WotC gives LGS some benefit (FTV, BAB and so on...) and then proceed to wonder why no one wants to bear the overhead costs of running a playing space?
With Online, WotC doesn't need to care about playing space as much, so they will not pay the costs (plus they started the whole LGS system back then because they didn't want to step in the first place anyway). It all boils down to whether the people who truly care about playing space are willing to pay for the space. Anybody who "doesn't want to pay for said space" (and its not literally pay, even complaining about your LGS spiking FTV prices to prop the costs of said playing space is technically sounding an opinion you don't want to pay for the space since it cuts into your own personal gain) and then proceeds to complain about lack of playing space while criticizing everything that denies them potential profits as if they were a LGS is basically a hypocrite.
What you don't seem to understand is that the LGS is what sets Magic apart from many other tabletop games where you just pick it up and play at home. The key component to what has driven Magic over the last 25 years is that it had that "Gathering" attitude about it. It's always been about people coming to play a game at a store, not sit and play at home in their underwear. Magic doesn't play like a traditional board game where you can have a nice little casual experience at home, Magic has been a nice little paper way to compete at little levels. Think of Magic as participating in a bowling league or an organized event where it's all about people coming together at a location to compete in something where they thrive on this mentality not under the mentality of "let's go find a friend and play at home".
It's already bad enough that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro partnered up with Amazon without even realizing that they're killing Paper Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games down the line. If you need proof go to Wizards of the Coast's Job Website and look for "Channel-Development Manager". It goes into a fair bit of detail about how Wizards of the Coast wants to create a business relationship with Amazon as well as creating various direct-to-consumer initiatives. According to Mountain Man Magic on YouTube, Hasbro's trying to reach a $2 billion evaluation before they're able to sell Wizards of the Coast as a company. If they succeed then it's the end of TCG / CCG's as we know it unless another franchise other than Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokémon rises from the ashes.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
It is great to see someone taking a stand and giving suggestions to better the current state of the game. It may fall on deaf ears as usual since the pro players have regular meetings with the powers that be and little has come out of it.
I'm however worried about the potential fall out that may happen to Gerry T. Maybe he have to go back to the SCG tour circuit after Hasbro bans him for being the game into dispute.
So in regards to the issue of playing space and overhead costs that the LGS is currently struggling with, why not implement a small online sales tax that goes directly to the LGS? If these brick-and-mortar retail stores can make enough revenue to keep their business open through these online taxes then it should be enough to help pay the cost of overhead while at the same time being a win-win for both physical and online retailers. That way this doesn't end up undermining local distributors who are wanting to ship products into the LGS. I know it may sound like a harsh reality for small online retailers but it's the best chance we have at saving the LGS or what's left of it.
Wizards of the Coast's approach on the other hand doesn't care about the LGS losing tax revenue from their products being shipped through Amazon, since the only one's making money off of this is the company instead of the LGS. The real question is how are they going to pull this off without burying the national market under a landslide of tax paperwork without being forced to overcharge on products being distributed through the Secondary Market. I was against the idea of an Online Sales Tax at first however I think the U.S. Supreme Court might have actually been onto something If this is what it will take to save brick-and-mortar retail stores and shopping malls across the country.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
So in regards to the issue of playing space and overhead costs that the LGS is currently struggling with, why not implement a small online sales tax that goes directly to the LGS? If these brick-and-mortar retail stores can make enough revenue to keep their business open through these online taxes then it should be enough to help pay the cost of overhead while at the same time being a win-win for both physical and online retailers. That way this doesn't end up undermining local distributors who are wanting to ship products into the LGS. I know it may sound like a harsh reality for small online retailers but it's the best chance we have at saving the LGS or what's left of it.
Wizards of the Coast's approach on the other hand doesn't care about the LGS losing tax revenue from their products being shipped through Amazon, since the only one's making money off of this is the company instead of the LGS. The real question is how are they going to pull this off without burying the national market under a landslide of tax paperwork without being forced to overcharge on products being distributed through the Secondary Market. I was against the idea of an Online Sales Tax at first however I think the U.S. Supreme Court might have actually been onto something If this is what it will take to save brick-and-mortar retail stores and shopping malls across the country.
This covers your previous reply as well, but this post was easier to quote and I think I want to summarize what I think WotC is sending with the latest article you linked.
It was harder to pinpoint WotC's motives from the sheer decision of the Mythic Edition, but with this article, I can at the very least see the direction they're intending to head to (nothing specific or with numbers, but WotC has never ever let those numbers out because of corporate reasons, so expecting that is a futile effort).
They are now trying to the change the "fundamentals" of the genre altogether. The LGS system was something they cobbled up back then because technology wasn't as advanced and now that it has moved on with the advent of online-only CCGs, WotC is "eager" to abandon the cobbled system. To us the system seems like a fundamental, but to them it's effectively a 20+ year band-aid.
The only real problem that existed back then and still right now is "How to get as many people as possible to play a game without incurring as much overhead costs". If WotC was willing to bear the overhead costs in the beginning, there would be no LGS system, they would simply open their own brick-and-mortar stores directly in the very first place. The whole LGS system was cobbled to pass the costs and responsibility to LGS owners themselves (and a bit to distributors, but they can wiggle themselves out of it pretty easily). LGS (and physical cards) were needed back then to gather people to play. Now that technology has solved the problem, literally anywhere public can become an "LGS" or sorts, since almost everyone has a mobile device to play the game on. Look at online-only CCGs, was there ever a brick-and-mortar store for those games? No. That's the kind of upkeep they envisioned for MTG. Community Leaders organizing tournaments at the local cafe so no one has to pay the costs for space at all. Larger tournaments no doubt still cost, that's why the whole Grand Prix and above circuits had bills WotC was at least willing to foot (although they obviously looked for ways to cut costs as well...)
Your sales tax idea is bluntly put, not possible for them to enact because that's essentially just "transferring profits to overhead costs" when they literally just made it clear they don't want to pay for overhead costs in any form.
This article has clarified that decision of direction they want to take and if I'm being honest, there's nothing we can really do about it, because the LGS system was a cobbled system they kept a tight reign of control over and now they want it die a slow death, it will. It will no doubt kill the game for those firmly entrenched in the cobbled system, but it won't kill the game itself as long as their transition to the different demographic succeeds and that's basically the actual risk they're taking now. Why "kill" the cobbled system now then? Because the actual process might take an entire decade or so to really finish. Actually to be more accurate, inverse law means by pushing for the change in "fundamentals/demographic", it naturally kills the old cobbled system anyway, in fact everything they're doing now is slowing the death process instead.
The question was never "how to keep the fundamentals alive by pumping money", it was "the fundamentals were flawed because they costs money, how do we find a new fundamental that costs way less". 20 years of technology finally provided the answer for the gameplay itself and the general non-gaming demographic moving from physical to online as well provided the demographic as well.
And like I said, it's not necessarily bad, for it also fixes the aftereffects of integrity issues of competitive play (it would be nice to fix the integrity issue itself for sure, but realistically how does a gaming company do that?) to ensure the results are fair for pro play. But that's like a drop in the bucket for the whole problem the pro scene is facing, if Gerry Thompson's decision was anything to go by. That probably needs another post by itself.
This covers your previous reply as well, but this post was easier to quote and I think I want to summarize what I think WotC is sending with the latest article you linked.
It was harder to pinpoint WotC's motives from the sheer decision of the Mythic Edition, but with this article, I can at the very least see the direction they're intending to head to (nothing specific or with numbers, but WotC has never ever let those numbers out because of corporate reasons, so expecting that is a futile effort).
They are now trying to the change the "fundamentals" of the genre altogether. The LGS system was something they cobbled up back then because technology wasn't as advanced and now that it has moved on with the advent of online-only CCGs, WotC is "eager" to abandon the cobbled system. To us the system seems like a fundamental, but to them it's effectively a 20+ year band-aid.
Changing "fundamentals" as in wanting to compete with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo in the Video Game Industry which was never really their strong suit to begin with. Online-only CCGs such as MTG Arena and Hearthstone are really nothing more than Video Games pretending to be Card Games with the false advertisement that they provide the kind of direct human interaction that players get from playing at an LGS when it's actually farther from the truth based on personal experience.
The only real problem that existed back then and still right now is "How to get as many people as possible to play a game without incurring as much overhead costs". If WotC was willing to bear the overhead costs in the beginning, there would be no LGS system, they would simply open their own brick-and-mortar stores directly in the very first place. The whole LGS system was cobbled to pass the costs and responsibility to LGS owners themselves (and a bit to distributors, but they can wiggle themselves out of it pretty easily). LGS (and physical cards) were needed back then to gather people to play. Now that technology has solved the problem, literally anywhere public can become an "LGS" or sorts, since almost everyone has a mobile device to play the game on. Look at online-only CCGs, was there ever a brick-and-mortar store for those games? No. That's the kind of upkeep they envisioned for MTG. Community Leaders organizing tournaments at the local cafe so no one has to pay the costs for space at all. Larger tournaments no doubt still cost, that's why the whole Grand Prix and above circuits had bills WotC was at least willing to foot (although they obviously looked for ways to cut costs as well...)
Technology didn't necessarily solve the problem when it's the fault of the next generation of players who refused to take the mantle from their predecessors who understood the importance of the LGS and Paper CCGs. It's really the next generation of players that are missing out on a unique gaming experience that most people in my generation haven't been able to capitalize on since the rise of Amusement Arcades in the 90's and early to mid 2000's due to next-gen consoles outperforming them. Similar to the overhead costs of the LGS, the local Arcade had it's own set of problems with quarter/token crunching though removing it quickly took the challenge away from what originally made it enticing.
The sad reality is that gaming culture itself nowadays doesn't want us to actively socialize with anyone out in public anymore because technology has made us more anti-social by being stuck in our own echo chambers while giving off the illusion that it isn't. The reason why I got into Paper CCG's in the first place was because I felt more rewarded for my efforts, achievements, and memories I've forged with the people I've met as opposed to just sitting at home playing Video Games against an AI with no connection toward. Online Co-op is nothing like what old Co-op was back in the day where you had a buddy or relative come by to your house and play games with. Then again that probably says a lot about my social life.
Your sales tax idea is bluntly put, not possible for them to enact because that's essentially just "transferring profits to overhead costs" when they literally just made it clear they don't want to pay for overhead costs in any form.
This article has clarified that decision of direction they want to take and if I'm being honest, there's nothing we can really do about it, because the LGS system was a cobbled system they kept a tight reign of control over and now they want it die a slow death, it will. It will no doubt kill the game for those firmly entrenched in the cobbled system, but it won't kill the game itself as long as their transition to the different demographic succeeds and that's basically the actual risk they're taking now. Why "kill" the cobbled system now then? Because the actual process might take an entire decade or so to really finish. Actually to be more accurate, inverse law means by pushing for the change in "fundamentals/demographic", it naturally kills the old cobbled system anyway, in fact everything they're doing now is slowing the death process instead.
The question was never "how to keep the fundamentals alive by pumping money", it was "the fundamentals were flawed because they costs money, how do we find a new fundamental that costs way less". 20 years of technology finally provided the answer for the gameplay itself and the general non-gaming demographic moving from physical to online as well provided the demographic as well.
And like I said, it's not necessarily bad, for it also fixes the aftereffects of integrity issues of competitive play (it would be nice to fix the integrity issue itself for sure, but realistically how does a gaming company do that?) to ensure the results are fair for pro play. But that's like a drop in the bucket for the whole problem the pro scene is facing, if Gerry Thompson's decision was anything to go by. That probably needs another post by itself.
If that's the case then people are getting a much different gameplay experience that's less rewarding compared to the one that they'd be missing out on. It isn't just something that can easily be replicated that 20 years of advanced technology can somehow fix. Are we going to get to a point where in order to create that sense of immersion from Paper CCG's and the local Arcade that we need advanced image recognition technology in order to reach this type of gaming experience where imagination becomes pointless? Apparently Yu-Gi-Oh! is one step ahead of Magic on that department.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Changing "fundamentals" as in wanting to compete with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo in the Video Game Industry which was never really their strong suit to begin with. Online-only CCGs such as MTG Arena and Hearthstone are really nothing more than Video Games pretending to be Card Games with the false advertisement that they provide the kind of direct human interaction that players get from playing at an LGS when it's actually farther from the truth based on personal experience.
Technology didn't necessarily solve the problem when it's the fault of the next generation of players who refused to take the mantle from their predecessors who understood the importance of the LGS and Paper CCGs. It's really the next generation of players that are missing out on a unique gaming experience that most people in my generation haven't been able to capitalize on since the rise of Amusement Arcades in the 90's and early to mid 2000's due to next-gen consoles outperforming them. Similar to the overhead costs of the LGS, the local Arcade had it's own set of problems with quarter/token crunching though removing it quickly took the challenge away from what originally made it enticing.
The sad reality is that gaming culture itself nowadays doesn't want us to actively socialize with anyone out in public anymore because technology has made us more anti-social by being stuck in our own echo chambers while giving off the illusion that it isn't. The reason why I got into Paper CCG's in the first place was because I felt more rewarded for my efforts, achievements, and memories I've forged with the people I've met as opposed to just sitting at home playing Video Games against an AI with no connection toward. Online Co-op is nothing like what old Co-op was back in the day where you had a buddy or relative come by to your house and play games with. Then again that probably says a lot about my social life.
If that's the case then people are getting a much different gameplay experience that's less rewarding compared to the one that they'd be missing out on. It isn't just something that can easily be replicated that 20 years of advanced technology can somehow fix. Are we going to get to a point where in order to create that sense of immersion from Paper CCG's and the local Arcade that we need advanced image recognition technology in order to reach this type of gaming experience where imagination becomes pointless?
As a player of the game myself, I understand the essence of where you're coming from, but at the end of the day, times have changed and WotC is already lagging behind in many aspects.
It's not about a matter of WotC choosing to compete with video games, it's that gaming itself has changed to cover so much of a demographic thanks to the advent of technology (basically mobile games) that by default MTG (and all TCGs as well) are automatically in competition with the games of today for time. More and more people say "Why travel to a LGS to play Magic when I can stay in the comfort of my home and play X Mobile Game?" You may have defined the card game as "it must have the social aspect to be considered one", but apparently the majority of the gaming market (which all TCGs are a speck of dust of) beg to differ, so the "cards games of today" don't need the social aspect.
"The fault of the next generation of players" really just sounds like an "Old man yelling at cloud" argument. I mean it's easily flipped around that the next generation can just say "It's the fault of the former generation of players for not realizing the advantages of modern gaming (e.g. less time traveled = more time playing... and I can even play while travelling literally) and not pushing for change of the future" and that "WotC is so slow to the latest trends because of their pandering to the old vocal minority of "social" players slowing being isolated to oblivion anyway".
Your sad reality scenario is indeed true (that gaming is inherently becoming more and more asocial), but that only means that's where all the money is at. Turns out people who don't want or are too lazy/tired to socialize are becoming more and are willing to spend more money overall. WotC's interest is only in following the money where it goes, because seriously who wants to spend their own resources going against the tide, especially when you have thousands of other competitors who will obliterate you by going with the tide and taking most of the business with them.
Will the next generation of players get something less rewarding? From our perspective, yes. But since they've never experienced it, does it matter to them? No... and on top of that whether an experience is rewarding is actually very subjective, it's never correct to say "old-school tcgs are 100% more rewarding than the new era of gaming". Someone who had nothing but terrible LGS experiences would easily say new gaming is the best thing that ever happened to him and from his or her perspective that's not wrong at all.
Long Story Cut Short, Gaming is effectively becoming asocial and WotC either adapts to cater to this crowd, or can let the game die/enter low tide for a decade plus otherwise, because there's literally no such option as causing a resurgence mentality of social gaming to all gamers - if they had such powers, everyone would have started playing DnD instead of MMORPGs back in the 2000s when the similar case happened to MTG's older sibling. That being said, MMORPGS had its own flaws and you did point out OCGs have theirs as well, but it also took about a decade plus for MMORPGs to fall out of favor (and DnD didn't really gain too much from their fall either) and we've only started the era of OCGs... although it still doesn't help indirectly Mobile games are a threat to anything that aren't mobile because convenience is a master at spoiling the audience.
The social aspect of old-school gaming may be a major reason for you to have gotten to the game, but it was always a side-benefit of the nature of the game (which like I said was considered costly to them and hence a band-aid) and was never a priority to its creators like it was to your demographic of players. Technology opened up another demographic of players that needed less maintenance cost and so that's where the industry is headed towards instead. So crudely put, the "unique social aspect" important to you isn't important to the other demographic, but your aspects have overhead costs creators don't want to bear, so they changed their demographics instead (helps that asocial lazy gamers would more likely pay more to get ahead, which led to the one aspect of RNG packs that TCGs originally had to leak into the Loot Boxes of today).
Doesn't help the initial demographic of players back then are also "dying" off in the sense real life priorities take over as they age and gaming becomes a luxury they can only afford when they have that little time and the conveniences of "lazy/modern" gaming meets those requirements. Combined that the new generation of gamers naturally enter the market "lazy" because of parenting styles (even TCGs were seen as "lazy" back in its heydays compared to playing sport games) and we've entered the same cycle, just one floor deeper.
It's not me you have to convince about the benefits of old-school gaming. It's not even WotC you have to convince, because they simply put their nose in the direction of money. It's literally a whole generation of gamers and the aging population of old-school gamers who have no time to play you have to convince, otherwise all the doom and gloom you stated will naturally come to pass, but it will not be considered as such by the people fine with it.
I'm sort of bouncing back and forth with the recent story from Gerry Thompson, but not for reasons that are actively apparent. For those that are not familiar with how moderation works on the MagicTCG reddit, they are essentially an unofficial affiliate of Wizards of the Coast itself due to the high volume of traffic to the site along with the use of promotional material, the linking to official Wizards affiliate articles from Star City Games, Channel Fireball, etc.
The fact his article is staying up means that Wizards of the Coast at least views the article to have merit and wants to use it to act as a point of criticism to answer. However, the feeling I'm getting is that they want a one way conversation and do not want the other side to have the power to provide counter arguments or to point out any straw man type issues. This kind of thing happens a lot in politics, where it is not written in the official rulebook that one can or can not deny their competitor time on the pedestal. I'm pretty sure that the sub has already taken action against him in a way that we can't see.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It is great to see someone taking a stand and giving suggestions to better the current state of the game. It may fall on deaf ears as usual since the pro players have regular meetings with the powers that be and little has come out of it.
I'm however worried about the potential fall out that may happen to Gerry T. Maybe he have to go back to the SCG tour circuit after Hasbro bans him for being the game into dispute.
Firstly let me say that I have nearly ZERO respect for Gerry T. so my response will naturally be skewed. We will just say he supports an organization/platform with his tournament winnings/sale of his tournament trophy that I am in 100% opposition to.
I do side with his position on WotC being a mess. But the absolute entitlement mentality of them paying a pro player a "living wage" is ridiculous to me. Its a flippin' card game when its all said and done. With that said, players should not be taken advantage of and it seems they are doing so according to him. That I can support even if I don't support him overall. Don't worry one minute, just means he has to go out and get a regular job like the rest of us do every workday of the year. I'm not shedding a tear for him or for WotC. I see blame on both sides, albeit more on Wizards. I better not say much more on it.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
But the absolute entitlement mentality of them paying a pro player a "living wage" is ridiculous to me. Its a flippin' card game when its all said and done. With that said, players should not be taken advantage of and it seems they are doing so according to him. That I can support even if I don't support him overall. Don't worry one minute, just means he has to go out and get a regular job like the rest of us do every workday of the year. I'm not shedding a tear for him or for WotC. I see blame on both sides, albeit more on Wizards. I better not say much more on it.
You're missing his point if you think this is entirely a wage thing. He's not outright asking for more money in return for being an MTG player, he's saying WotC needs to either up the pay or stop playing up the myth of a "professional magic player". His entire point is that people are disillusioned by their marketing strategy and its hurting the game, not that he should be able to retire on tournament winnings. MTG Tournament winnings aren't his primary source of income to begin with.
But the absolute entitlement mentality of them paying a pro player a "living wage" is ridiculous to me. Its a flippin' card game when its all said and done. With that said, players should not be taken advantage of and it seems they are doing so according to him. That I can support even if I don't support him overall. Don't worry one minute, just means he has to go out and get a regular job like the rest of us do every workday of the year. I'm not shedding a tear for him or for WotC. I see blame on both sides, albeit more on Wizards. I better not say much more on it.
You're missing his point if you think this is entirely a wage thing. He's not outright asking for more money in return for being an MTG player, he's saying WotC needs to either up the pay or stop playing up the myth of a "professional magic player". His entire point is that people are disillusioned by their marketing strategy and its hurting the game, not that he should be able to retire on tournament winnings. MTG Tournament winnings aren't his primary source of income to begin with.
To me it really does seem the way I described earlier, but... your point on the disillusion in marketing strategy hurting the game is spot on. If he says that in his "manifesto" then I would agree with that point for sure.
The wiser thing to do I believe would have been to compete, try to win, do his best, THEN use that as a platform for change from WotC.
Frankly, I think there is an opportunity for an outside body to run a competing league for Magic. Just like in the earliest days of Baseball here in the United States. Competing Leagues of teams formed, fought it out and some went by the wayside. If WotC/Hasbro can't run things correctly, then someone on the outside can and should. We see this already with Star City Games and their schedule of events. Competition breeds success. Monopoly breeds complacency and we see this with WotC. Maybe that is what he is getting at, I'm not sure.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
As a player of the game myself, I understand the essence of where you're coming from, but at the end of the day, times have changed and WotC is already lagging behind in many aspects.
Well regardless Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro needs to figure out a way for the LGS to monetize Magic support without going out of business. I'm not just talking about Star City Games, Card Kingdom, and Channel Fireball but more along the lines of small business LGS support overall. Sure you can play at home or invite your own friends but Magic and Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games in general wouldn't be able to grow without giving people meeting places. Most of these companies are already bad at finding places to host Organized Play events. Overall it's a terrible outcome but when have corporations actually cared about anything ahead of what's currently happening now?
It's not about a matter of WotC choosing to compete with video games, it's that gaming itself has changed to cover so much of a demographic thanks to the advent of technology (basically mobile games) that by default MTG (and all TCGs as well) are automatically in competition with the games of today for time. More and more people say "Why travel to a LGS to play Magic when I can stay in the comfort of my home and play X Mobile Game?" You may have defined the card game as "it must have the social aspect to be considered one", but apparently the majority of the gaming market (which all TCGs are a speck of dust of) beg to differ, so the "cards games of today" don't need the social aspect.
If the "card games of today" didn't need the social aspect that made them what they are then there would really be no point to them now would it? It's not so much that Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games are being pressured by Online / Digital Card Games when Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't understand the role that the Local Game Store plays. They've become so successful as a company that they completely forgot about what made Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games what they are today. Given the recent situation with Gerry Thompson they no longer value their entrenched players to the point where they literally kept the date of the World Championships a secret.
If they truly cared about the Local Game Store which is the bedrock of Magic's success then they wouldn't have partnered up with Amazon, Walmart, and Target as a way to undermine the Local Game Store by releasing products that are only accessible through those retailers instead of local distributors who ship these products to Local Game Stores. Maybe If they'd quit encouraging online play so much with Magic Arena by creating an incentive to buy physical Magic products similar to what Pokémon TCG does with code cards that you can redeem online for digital products on Magic Arena then it'd be a win/win for the LGS and online retailers. I am a bit surprised that other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games haven't followed suit on this idea.
"The fault of the next generation of players" really just sounds like an "Old man yelling at cloud" argument. I mean it's easily flipped around that the next generation can just say "It's the fault of the former generation of players for not realizing the advantages of modern gaming (e.g. less time traveled = more time playing... and I can even play while travelling literally) and not pushing for change of the future" and that "WotC is so slow to the latest trends because of their pandering to the old vocal minority of "social" players slowing being isolated to oblivion anyway".
How is WotC pandering to the old vocal minority of "social" players necessarily a bad thing when that's the target demographic that they should be prioritizing the most on? The current demographic that WotC is catering toward doesn't have a clue about the 25 year history of Magic since they're unfamiliar with what the culture was like back in the 90's and 2000's. I get that they're trying to bring new people into the game but you don't do it by alienating a loyal customer base that's been with you almost since the game's inception. Better yet why doesn't WotC hire employees based on their ability to actually get the work done? Nobody is anything because of what they say they are, they are what they are BECAUSE of what they've done.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't need to follow the latest trends, they just need to go back to having better communication with the people who are passionate enough about Magic that want to see the game continue to succeed in the long term. Magic Arena isn't the answer when it should solely be a replacement for MTGO and nothing else. What would be the point of a company manufacturing physical cards If no one has a place to meet and play the game out in public? It's like I said before, Magic wasn't designed like most traditional board games with Monopoly and Scrabble where you can just take it home and play with your friends in your underwear.
What makes Magic stand out from traditional board games is the collectible aspect of assembling a deck of cards to see whose the strongest all while unlocking infinite possibilities that isn't contained in one box similar to the distribution of Living Card Games where everything is already handed out for you but where's the fun in that? Sure it costs less when most players would rather have more freedom building unique decks that aren't cookie-cutter. I'm not even sure If Richard Garfield's new Living Card Game, "KeyForge" solves most of the issues that people have with it. Then again Living Card Games don't interest me as much as Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games do.
Your sad reality scenario is indeed true (that gaming is inherently becoming more and more asocial), but that only means that's where all the money is at. Turns out people who don't want or are too lazy/tired to socialize are becoming more and are willing to spend more money overall. WotC's interest is only in following the money where it goes, because seriously who wants to spend their own resources going against the tide, especially when you have thousands of other competitors who will obliterate you by going with the tide and taking most of the business with them.
Gaming culture failed in our society because it never addressed the real concerns people had with it. There was either a lack of motivation, creativity, or both. Then again a lot of people expect too much from a hobby, but if you go into it expecting to make profit and get mad when that doesn't happen then it's no longer a hobby to you. The only people that should expect to make money is the Publisher/Developer, everyone involved with production and distribution, and the LGS. Everyone else is expecting too much and should collect their thoughts and really think hard as to why they're doing it.
With a proper distribution model a company can sell plenty of product and players do not have to rely on a Secondary Market. Players should always opt to trade, buy from their store, or from each other locally anyways. Without the LGS you're back to having secret meetings in someone's mom's basement. I'm well aware of the fact that the LGS business model is flawed when there's no sense in abandoning it for a new business model that nobody asked for. Physical Comics are still thriving even though people are able to read Japanese Manga online with English Subtitles. It might not be a good analogy but it's something.
Will the next generation of players get something less rewarding? From our perspective, yes. But since they've never experienced it, does it matter to them? No... and on top of that whether an experience is rewarding is actually very subjective, it's never correct to say "old-school tcgs are 100% more rewarding than the new era of gaming". Someone who had nothing but terrible LGS experiences would easily say new gaming is the best thing that ever happened to him and from his or her perspective that's not wrong at all.
Just because someone has had a terrible LGS experience that's made them lose interest doesn't mean that everyone else feels the exact same way. It really all boils down to the community and the atmosphere, sure it's not perfect but you make the best of what you got as long as you feel comfortable doing what you're passionate about. Maybe it's not enough or it isn't your thing, that's fine. The only time it becomes a problem is when the status quo is challenged with people wanting to maintain it and If they want to maintain it let them. Why should Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro be the one's to say that they shouldn't?
The problem is that young millennials aren't willing to give old-school gaming a chance because they're pressured into following the latest trends in gaming culture whether it's through advertisements or they don't think that it's cool enough being driven into the mindset that graphics matter to them more than gameplay. In the end it's up to us to give the next generation a chance at gaming opportunities that they might pass on to their descendants since they're not as familiar with it as we are. If we succeed in "passing the torch" then at least we've accomplished something that both generations are mutually passionate about.
Long Story Cut Short, Gaming is effectively becoming asocial and WotC either adapts to cater to this crowd, or can let the game die/enter low tide for a decade plus otherwise, because there's literally no such option as causing a resurgence mentality of social gaming to all gamers - if they had such powers, everyone would have started playing DnD instead of MMORPGs back in the 2000s when the similar case happened to MTG's older sibling. That being said, MMORPGS had its own flaws and you did point out OCGs have theirs as well, but it also took about a decade plus for MMORPGs to fall out of favor (and DnD didn't really gain too much from their fall either) and we've only started the era of OCGs... although it still doesn't help indirectly Mobile games are a threat to anything that aren't mobile because convenience is a master at spoiling the audience.
That's what happens when you trade away inconvienance for convienance where everyone seems to have this false narrative that inconvienance is a bad thing when it's not. It's really what you're willing to do to help make that inconvienance feel like a convienance where the digital world we live in gives off the illusion that we don't need to put in the manual labor to get what we want when in reality there's a greater sense of reward from manual labor.
The social aspect of old-school gaming may be a major reason for you to have gotten to the game, but it was always a side-benefit of the nature of the game (which like I said was considered costly to them and hence a band-aid) and was never a priority to its creators like it was to your demographic of players. Technology opened up another demographic of players that needed less maintenance cost and so that's where the industry is headed towards instead. So crudely put, the "unique social aspect" important to you isn't important to the other demographic, but your aspects have overhead costs creators don't want to bear, so they changed their demographics instead (helps that asocial lazy gamers would more likely pay more to get ahead, which led to the one aspect of RNG packs that TCGs originally had to leak into the Loot Boxes of today).
If this demographic of players you speak of care more about less maintenance cost for their gaming products then why don't they stick with Next-Gen Consoles / Handhelds by Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo? Why does it have to be Online / Digital Card Games with Magic Arena and Hearthstone? Like I said before, I think Magic Arena is a much needed upgrade to MTGO but nothing else to really affect Paper Magic as a whole which sadly only makes up about 35% of Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's total revenue of Magic compared to MTGO which was more successful.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
On the card stock issue: Wizards of the Coast isn't trying to kill paper magic. To understand how they think you have to take your feet out of the role of being a MtG fan and put them in the shoes of a major corporation (or Ainz Ooal Gown if you're a fan of the overlord manga). The end objective of Hasbro is to make as much money as possible, then use that money to make even more money. In a sense, they can be viewed as a person whose measure of self worth is based on how big they can make their bank account. Because the corporation as an entity is annexed from any sense of human mortality and need there is no true goal beyond "make lots of money".
Wizards of the Coast created MtG Arena because they recognized that MTGO is dated and made for poor streaming presentation. People here are thinking that Arena is being made for players, but in reality it is being built so that people can stream Magic the Gathering on social media like YouTube and Twitch. Why? Because even if someone isn't horribly familiar with the game, the sound effects, voice over work, and action on the screen make even the most lazy and boring stream of the game far more enjoyable to watch. MTGO, on the other hand, completely rides on the laurels of the person conducting the presentation. YouTube view counts and total time watched do not lie, people.
The card quality issue is also part of this money making mind set. The company wants to get away with the lowest quality printing and inking processes they can find while still producing something good enough that people will fork money over for, and I believe they have succeeded in that for the most part. People are complaining about card quality on youtube, but obviously this hasn't stopped droves of people from buying cards anyway, because how else is someone going to play the game? They got to keep up to date with the latest cards and decks, so to Hasbro it's basically a bunch of angry dogs on sticks trying to occasionally nip the owner. The dogs can try to nip them, but at the end of the day they are still eating the same dog food as before and probably in about the same quantity. Heck, if they have enough dogs they might even break the sales records on dog food.
So, basically people are kind of deluding themselves into thinking that they actually matter somehow to the company. The company doesn't care about morality, doesn't care about quality outside of cost efficiency, and doesn't care about individual people. What they do care about is the giant amorphous blob known as the consumer base that they draw money from and prod with sticks, the stockholders who want more money to inflate their sense of personal achievement, and that the people they hired up as part of this entire scheme are working their best to help achieve the objective of "make more money".
I mean, Tolarian Community College videos are kind of cute and appeal to people who are not really knowing of this, but the only way wizards is changing anything is if Hasbro goes bankrupt, the IP is set free to the wind, and by sheer luck some startup picks up the franchise and runs with it.
Kind of a nasty reality to have to type out, but I'm pretty sure there are tons of people that just don't understand this mindset and believe the company still has some kind of "we care about you" attitude with the surveys and such. Those survey's are information gathering used in statistical analysis. If someone puts a rant in the extra feedback box they might take it to someone further up the chain, but if whatever is posted there meets the expectations from risk assessment it's basically blowing hot air.
I think we will see changes before Hasbro goes bankrupt, we are seeing them now. Like you said companies only care about profit, so when Wizard's Magic starts losing profit as it is right now, things start moving. Latest quarterly came out and in the category Magic is in only Monopoly made an increase in profits while the rest of the category lost a collective 50 million in profit. I do not know how much of that is on Magic, but we can view some of Wizard's action to see how affected they are by it.
They spat out a bunch of different products which seem to have had mixed reviews at best, they are trying to cut out the middle man with selling specialty product on their web site but quickly cave to Channel fireball to try and sell them at the events too to pull in more event players. Then there is also the Amazon deal now. Wizards right now is trying to find every possible way to move as much sealed product they can as fast as they can. Not sure what the end result of this will be but I do not see LGSs doing better for it, and with them go the fan base as we lose out major meeting places.
What I think might happen in the end is if all this cash grabbing fails with complete disregard to the players, both pro and normal, Wizard's Magic might hit a major low. At such a point we might end up with Hasbro getting involved and possible restaffing to save the cash cow.
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Never forget whose grace and favor led to your success and always give your thanks, otherwise you might be doomed to loose it.
I got a feeling that if more LGS close their doors and FNM play becomes more limited, the game across the board will fare worse. The problem is that people are becoming far more socially isolated in their off hours thanks to changes in technology and culture. For many people, the only way they can play magic in paper is by attending a local gaming event, so without an LGS nearby they have no way to play with the cards they purchased and will either have to convert over to being a pure collector, or adopt MTG Arena and sell off their current collection.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It's not surprising that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is actively discontinuing Organized Play events given the popularity of EDH / Commander as the format of choice for most Magic players. The company is noticing through online surveys that casual players in their 40's who were in their teens or 20's when Magic was first released in 1993 are the one's spending the most amount of money mostly due to having a stable income while raising their own family. Most casual players could care less about what's going on in the Pro Scene and the only reason why they wouldn't support their Local Game Store is mostly due to the negative experiences they've had of dealing with the lack of maturity from people in their community who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Well regardless Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro needs to figure out a way for the LGS to monetize Magic support without going out of business. I'm not just talking about Star City Games, Card Kingdom, and Channel Fireball but more along the lines of small business LGS support overall. Sure you can play at home or invite your own friends but Magic and Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games in general wouldn't be able to grow without giving people meeting places. Most of these companies are already bad at finding places to host Organized Play events. Overall it's a terrible outcome but when have corporations actually cared about anything ahead of what's currently happening now?
Before we begin, let me hammer down some points as bluntly as possible, because if I just get into the details it'll be the typical endless loop of debate again. Firstly, As I mentioned in my previous post in the part you didn't quote, convincing me changes nothing. In fact convincing WotC changes nothing either because what they're doing is in response to the movement of the entire industry and if you had any notion WotC has the power to change that movement by themselves perish the thought. WotC "changing back" would definitely keep old players happy, but this leads to my next point...
Which is that everything you are passionate about represents a dying demographic because the shift in the industry's direction. WotC is basically left with two choices: to change themselves to the new direction, abandon the old, dying demographic in favor of attracting the growing demographic of the new direction, or they cater to their old, dying demographic and die together with them.
All your talk about "growing the game" no longer works, because the techniques used by WotC back then are too slow and doesn't work on the now-changed introductory gaming demographic of (asocial, impatient) younger players. If you have some revolutionary technique you know will work that can change the young of today to have the same mindset of those who started playing MTG in the 90s, do let WotC know (no don't let me know, I don't have any power to enact such a change). It's easy to be optimistic and fire point blank statements of growing the games, but reality is there is probably no such revolutionary technique. If you're wondering why the change even happened in the first place since it literally needs a revolutionary technique... the advent of technology I've been rambling about on is the precise technique the revolutionized gaming to its unfortunate current state. So unless you have a way to de-revolutionize technology on its own or successfully create something like instantaneous teleportation, you won't be able to change something technology warped so easily.
This is the crux of the change and why I chose my stand to understand why WotC decided on the directional change - technology has already warped the entire landscape of gaming, which in turn has rendered both TCGs and the people pasionate about it to be a dying demographic. Realistically there's no way for a single company like WotC (or even Hasbro) to accomplish any reversal on its own (even the technology that warped the landscape wasn't done overnight by a singular entity/company), so they chose to go with the flow. I call this the crux because this is the main reason for a lot of the points you've raised (and I'm rebutting) about.
If the "card games of today" didn't need the social aspect that made them what they are then there would really be no point to them now would it? It's not so much that Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games are being pressured by Online / Digital Card Games when Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't understand the role that the Local Game Store plays. They've become so successful as a company that they completely forgot about what made Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games what they are today. Given the recent situation with Gerry Thompson they no longer value their entrenched players to the point where they literally kept the date of the World Championships a secret.
If they truly cared about the Local Game Store which is the bedrock of Magic's success then they wouldn't have partnered up with Amazon, Walmart, and Target as a way to undermine the Local Game Store by releasing products that are only accessible through those retailers instead of local distributors who ship these products to Local Game Stores. Maybe If they'd quit encouraging online play so much with Magic Arena by creating an incentive to buy physical Magic products similar to what Pokémon TCG does with code cards that you can redeem online for digital products on Magic Arena then it'd be a win/win for the LGS and online retailers. I am a bit surprised that other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games haven't followed suit on this idea.
"There's no point to them" is a subjective statement, one that no doubt we old players have, but here's where my crux hits - we are a dying demographic and that renders our perspective pointless in itself to the majority. Likewise, we all understand the importance of the LGS system in regards to the structure of TCGs, but when the entirely of TCGs are a dying demographic to begin with, what is the importance of something only important to an going-to-be obsolete gaming structure where the landscape of all gaming is concerned?
Likewise, in reverse, as far as the new demographic is concerned, Amazon, Walmart, Targets are the important aspects of their own structure of their own gaming structures (which we perceive as "lazy asocial" gaming), but they're the growing demographic that WotC is concerned with meeting the important needs of.
Also, the pro scene issues are not as relevant to the specific differences we're debating about, maintaining good pro scenes are a necessity to both types of demographics (unlike the LGS system) and I can see WotC's mistakes there hurt them with their new demographic.
Finally, don't ever use Pokemon as a comparison point, because frankly speaking, the game itself and even its online components are mediocre (sure their online looks better than MTG's, but it's mediocre by general gaming industry standards)... even Pokemon GO was a bad mobile game (by mobile game standards) at launch and is only passable at best currently. Pokemon is a unique outlier when it comes to almost anything in the industry because of its unique leverage of being the highest-grossing franchise. Just slapping the name onto anything will instantaneously make it a hit. If overpriced cafes can get away with profits just by using the name for a theme, what more about a CCG system (especially since Pokemon is synonymous with collecting by now)?
How is WotC pandering to the old vocal minority of "social" players necessarily a bad thing when that's the target demographic that they should be prioritizing the most on? The current demographic that WotC is catering toward doesn't have a clue about the 25 year history of Magic since they're unfamiliar with what the culture was like back in the 90's and 2000's. I get that they're trying to bring new people into the game but you don't do it by alienating a loyal customer base that's been with you almost since the game's inception. Better yet why doesn't WotC hire employees based on their ability to actually get the work done? Nobody is anything because of what they say they are, they are what they are BECAUSE of what they've done.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't need to follow the latest trends, they just need to go back to having better communication with the people who are passionate enough about Magic that want to see the game continue to succeed in the long term. Magic Arena isn't the answer when it should solely be a replacement for MTGO and nothing else. What would be the point of a company manufacturing physical cards If no one has a place to meet and play the game? It's like I said before, Magic wasn't designed like most traditional board games with Monopoly and Scrabble where you can just take it home and play with your friends in your underwear.
What makes Magic stand out from traditional board games is the collectible aspect of assembling a deck of cards to see whose the strongest all while unlocking infinite possibilities that isn't contained in one box similar to the distribution of Living Card Games where everything is already handed out for you but where's the fun in that? Sure it costs less when most players would rather have more freedom building unique decks that aren't cookie-cutter. I'm not even sure If Richard Garfield's new Living Card Game, "KeyForge" solves most of the issues that people have with it. Then again Living Card Games don't interest me as much as Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games do.
Here's where we directly clash - you think that we are the main demographic WoTC should be concentrating and pandering to because of our history, but from the recent article WotC posted I can see they put it in nicest PR way possible, that it is not the case. We are a dying demographic and our history is only buying us the grace of a slow death. Our history and loyalty combined with their best efforts back then still cannot match the landscape-warping changes technology has brought with it (along with the entire change of how new players analyze and decide to start playing games) and now WotC has "betrayed" us to flow with the tide of those changes. Only the current culture generates money from new players, which are a lot more numerous than old players back then mainly because it's a culture built around convenience of access. For every 1 "hardworking" player you need to print a card and set up a LGS (in the system) for, you easily have a dozen of "lazy" new-generation gamer playing MTGA on a mobile device you don't even need to print a card for... and the "hardworking" player only works hard mostly for the social aspect, it's not like he or she would spend as much as a dozen new-generation players.
Gaming culture failed in our society because it never addressed the real concerns people had with it. There was either a lack of motivation, creativity, or both. Then again a lot of people expect too much from a hobby, but if you go into it expecting to make profit and get mad when that doesn't happen then it's no longer a hobby to you. The only people that should expect to make money is the Publisher/Developer, everyone involved with production and distribution, and the LGS. Everyone else is expecting too much and should collect their thoughts and really think hard as to why they're doing it.
With a proper distribution model a company can sell plenty of product and players do not have to rely on a Secondary Market. Players should always opt to trade, buy from their store, or from each other locally anyways. Without the LGS you're back to having secret meetings in someone's mom's basement. I'm well aware of the fact that the LGS business model is flawed when there's no sense in abandoning it for a new business model that nobody asked for. Physical Comics are still thriving even though people are able to read Japanese Manga online with English Subtitles. It might not be a good analogy but it's something.
"Gaming culture failed society" - I have issues with that statement because Culture is inherently shaped by the majority... of society to begin with, not the other way round. Society failed to cultivate a "good gaming culture" is the actual statement, but as everyone knows blaming society for anything even when its true is like using a water hose against an incoming tsunami. Technology created lazy uninspired people, who naturally form the bulk of society and bled that lack of motivation into the gaming culture/industry is how this all really rolled out.
Your analogy with comics/manga is a lot better than the "culture failed society statement" and while you admitted it wasn't the best of comparisons, I feel that those differences need to be raised - it's not hard to state that generally more people collect comics than cards (and I'd argue that more people actually collect Pokemon cards than MTG cards once you put the franchise power into play) and its natural that a "dying" medium (even Comics are eroding over to digital) with more collectors will stand longer (or die slower) than one with less.
Manga is a unique outlier, mainly due to national cultural differences. Japan is very, very big on the "support local" stance. Just look at the Anime Industry, those discs are way overpriced by global standards and solely kept afloat by the domestic market. Once you take into account that literally everything about MTG is pretty much American (both for and shaped by), I think Manga is too far off due to cultural differences from the likes of even comics to be an example.
Just because someone has had a terrible LGS experience that's made them lose interest doesn't mean that everyone else feels the exact same way. It really all boils down to the community and the atmosphere, sure it's not perfect but you make the best of what you got as long as you feel comfortable doing what you're passionate about. Maybe it's not enough or it isn't your thing, that's fine. The only time it becomes a problem is when the status quo is challenged with people wanting to maintain it and If they want to maintain it let them. Why should Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro be the one's to say that they shouldn't?
The problem is that young millennials aren't willing to give old-school gaming a chance because they're pressured into following the latest trends in gaming culture whether it's through advertisements or they don't think that it's cool enough being driven into the mindset that graphics matter to them more than gameplay. In the end it's up to us to give the next generation a chance at gaming opportunities that they might pass on to their descendants since they're not as familiar with it as we are. If we succeed in "passing the torch" then at least we've accomplished something that both generations are mutually passionate about.
MTG is not an isolated game, it's naturally included in the overall competition of the entire industry. You speak of fighting to maintain the status quo, but did you fight for the same maintenance when the same happened the MTG's "brothers and sisters" in the industry (e.g. MMORPGS causing the decline of DnD?) This is a case of "I didn't fight when they came for X, I didn't fight when they came for Y, and now I cannot fight when it comes to claim MTG because X and Y are no longer around." The same is happening within the video game industry with the loot box incidents, because the industry decided to let the first few through, companies started escalating it and then now people (and countries) are starting to combat it. I'm afraid with the tabletop industry against technology its a much, much lopsided fight not in the favor of the tables.
Talking about "passing the torch" is honestly, just empty talk. Where were all the responsible actions of the older generation to ensure responsible use of technology in the industry taken so that we could even pass the torch? Instead we're now left with blaming the newer generation for not receiving our torch when they already crafted one of their own from (literal) devices we left them fiddling with because we didn't want to handle to responsibility of those.
That's what happens when you trade away inconvienance for convienance where everyone seems to have this false narrative that inconvienance is a bad thing when it's not. It's really what you're willing to do to help make that inconvienance feel like a convienance where the digital world we live in gives off the illusion that we don't need to put in the manual labor to get what we want when in reality there's a greater sense of reward from manual labor.
A whole new different demographic have different priorities than another. Just like you think without a "social aspect", a TCG and/or game is essentially worthless, the new generation is brought up to prioritize convenience. If a game is not convenient, to them the game is essentially as worthless as a game with no social aspect is to you. Once again your talk about "labor for reward" isn't wrong, but it's something we already failed to cultivate into the next generation so it's empty talk to them at this point of time.
If this demographic of players you speak of care more about less maintenance cost for their gaming products then why don't they stick with Next-Gen Consoles / Handhelds by Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo? Why does it have to be Online / Digital Card Games with Magic Arena and Hearthstone? Like I said before, I think Magic Arena is a much needed upgrade to MTGO but nothing else to really affect Paper Magic as a whole which sadly only makes up about 35% of Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's total revenue of Magic compared to MTGO which was more successful.
I say "demographic", but it also effectively covers "generation". In our generation we could segregate people who wanted/preferred convenience to their video console games because there were enough liked-minded people like yourself for it. The next generation doesn't have that - it's almost entirely consisting of "convenience" players brought up by the likes of mobile gaming. There are definitely still some like-minded ones in the new generation, but its also certain their percentages are much, much lower than the previous generation, to the point we are the irrelevant market because we're just that small. Any sub-industry like MTG, whose main market is these irrelevant, dying demographic of players, have to either make it so that their main market WAS us, or they will die along with us.
At the end of the day, your opinions are definitely not wrong and I do agree with them on a personal level, but on a generational level we've failed to cultivate this mindset to the immediate next generation and now we suffer the consequences. Even if we start to cultivate this mindset to the generation following theirs, it will take at least another decade to reap the fruits of labor.
EDIT: Spelling, structural and some other mistakes.
They got D&D, but it is no where near the profits of MTG. The current solution they have at the moment is to combine MTG with D&D via the plane shift series, which they are releasing as a supplementary book now. The problem is that the books are revealing just how poorly fleshed out the MTG settings are vs the core settings that built what D&D has become. Not that I ever turn down supplements as there are cool things in those books, like avens and playable vampires.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
They got D&D, but it is no where near the profits of MTG. The current solution they have at the moment is to combine MTG with D&D via the plane shift series, which they are releasing as a supplementary book now. The problem is that the books are revealing just how poorly fleshed out the MTG settings are vs the core settings that built what D&D has become. Not that I ever turn down supplements as there are cool things in those books, like avens and playable vampires.
The fact that there's a D&D movie set for 2021 tells me that Hasbro either knows that there's better name recognition or it would easier to come up with a movie for that brand than it would for MTG. lol
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
No, they have no reason to stop paper magic. The fact is that nothing is going to stop paper competitive play unless there is a better medium for it, and even if that medium takes over as the way people play professionally, places that built their business on the paper market will still host and push paper tournament play. However, there also would be a lot less people going for it since they can now do the same thing with just buying in online and playing on their own time.
At it's core, the issue with pro play is not with pro play. The problem is caused by human nature and a really stupid idea. Games have existed as ways to fill our free time for ages and humans have always been somewhat driven by competition and wanting to one up each other. People have also historically horded resources as a part of this entire competition, since by hording a resource you can deny your competitor that resource.
So, someone came up with the truly astoundingly great idea of combining both a game and the idea of resource hording with an unregulated free market because pro capitalism. Then they decided that they should also cave to peoples selfish interests and make a reserved list to restrict older resources where the majority of those resources have no real gameplay value in this day and age and decided that it is a good idea to support non-rotating formats of competitive play to cater to these selfish interests.
Oh, you want Noble Heirarch or Snapcaster Mage because statistically it is shown as the optimal card choice and there are no alternatives? Hope you have your swiss bank account ready because SCG / CFB / and Card Kingdom have decided the price point should be around 80 dollars, and you better hope you can find a source offline to get it cheaper because the second anyone posts one up for 30-50 dollars people will just buy it and resell it like a coupon.
Basically, the entire system that has formed in competitive magic is built on the promise that decks built with strong and high price cards will net free wins since those without access to those cards due to price will be at a unique disadvantage. Slap some prize support in and congratulations, you got a toxic hellhole waiting to happen.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
LGS owners know that they can't rely on the Reserve List forever If Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro manages to abolish it through some kind of loophole that doesn't get them in any sort of legal trouble. So far this is the only way that LGS owners are able to turn a profit on non-Reserve List expansions because If the goose is unable to lay any golden eggs then they're going to go out of business. To answer this thread If Wizards of the Coast wants to fix competitive Magic then they need to print more Standard/Modern legal cards that are powerful enough to hold their expected value through a long period of time instead of being incompetent and lazy. Printing these types of cards in Commander Pre-Cons and Masters sets doesn't cut it.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
This doesn't punish people going against slow players because the slow player will be the one losing. This discourages unpopular decks like Eggs and KCI without having to outright ban them. This is fair and proven.
But it's costly to implement so it'll never happen.
Unless you propose some sort of character development program that trains MTG-players-to-be from young, talking about incompetence and accountability doesn't magically solve them either. I'll take online play for competitive events to just circumvent cheating for higher-level play, which is a marketing face for the game. On top of that, if online play circumvents the need for paper cards for higher-level play, you drastically decrease demand for chase cards, creating a thriving balanced market for the Casual Paper market.
In light of the planeswalker-masterpiece debate - the answer is we did it to ourselves. An increasing number of the playerbase wants to operate like an LGS without the overheard costs and those costs usually come from providing a place to play. Easy to blame WotC for not assisting them, but it's also easy to oversee whenever they try to, the opportunists would snap the aid for themselves (not that they deserve it to begin with) while distracting attention by blaming LGS themselves (FTVs are sort of the prime example, plenty of hypocrites faulting LGS for spiking prices on a product that was functionally intended for that while in reality they just want to buy it themselves so they can profit off it).
The line between a player and a LGS is blurring and the only difference is the overhead cost of providing a place to play that no one wants to bear. Players expect to get the same benefits as LGSes get from WotC nowadays, complaining every time WotC gives LGS some benefit (FTV, BAB and so on...) and then proceed to wonder why no one wants to bear the overhead costs of running a playing space?
With Online, WotC doesn't need to care about playing space as much, so they will not pay the costs (plus they started the whole LGS system back then because they didn't want to step in the first place anyway). It all boils down to whether the people who truly care about playing space are willing to pay for the space. Anybody who "doesn't want to pay for said space" (and its not literally pay, even complaining about your LGS spiking FTV prices to prop the costs of said playing space is technically sounding an opinion you don't want to pay for the space since it cuts into your own personal gain) and then proceeds to complain about lack of playing space while criticizing everything that denies them potential profits as if they were a LGS is basically a hypocrite.
Wizards of the Coast created MtG Arena because they recognized that MTGO is dated and made for poor streaming presentation. People here are thinking that Arena is being made for players, but in reality it is being built so that people can stream Magic the Gathering on social media like YouTube and Twitch. Why? Because even if someone isn't horribly familiar with the game, the sound effects, voice over work, and action on the screen make even the most lazy and boring stream of the game far more enjoyable to watch. MTGO, on the other hand, completely rides on the laurels of the person conducting the presentation. YouTube view counts and total time watched do not lie, people.
The card quality issue is also part of this money making mind set. The company wants to get away with the lowest quality printing and inking processes they can find while still producing something good enough that people will fork money over for, and I believe they have succeeded in that for the most part. People are complaining about card quality on youtube, but obviously this hasn't stopped droves of people from buying cards anyway, because how else is someone going to play the game? They got to keep up to date with the latest cards and decks, so to Hasbro it's basically a bunch of angry dogs on sticks trying to occasionally nip the owner. The dogs can try to nip them, but at the end of the day they are still eating the same dog food as before and probably in about the same quantity. Heck, if they have enough dogs they might even break the sales records on dog food.
So, basically people are kind of deluding themselves into thinking that they actually matter somehow to the company. The company doesn't care about morality, doesn't care about quality outside of cost efficiency, and doesn't care about individual people. What they do care about is the giant amorphous blob known as the consumer base that they draw money from and prod with sticks, the stockholders who want more money to inflate their sense of personal achievement, and that the people they hired up as part of this entire scheme are working their best to help achieve the objective of "make more money".
I mean, Tolarian Community College videos are kind of cute and appeal to people who are not really knowing of this, but the only way wizards is changing anything is if Hasbro goes bankrupt, the IP is set free to the wind, and by sheer luck some startup picks up the franchise and runs with it.
Kind of a nasty reality to have to type out, but I'm pretty sure there are tons of people that just don't understand this mindset and believe the company still has some kind of "we care about you" attitude with the surveys and such. Those survey's are information gathering used in statistical analysis. If someone puts a rant in the extra feedback box they might take it to someone further up the chain, but if whatever is posted there meets the expectations from risk assessment it's basically blowing hot air.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It's already bad enough that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro partnered up with Amazon without even realizing that they're killing Paper Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games down the line. If you need proof go to Wizards of the Coast's Job Website and look for "Channel-Development Manager". It goes into a fair bit of detail about how Wizards of the Coast wants to create a business relationship with Amazon as well as creating various direct-to-consumer initiatives. According to Mountain Man Magic on YouTube, Hasbro's trying to reach a $2 billion evaluation before they're able to sell Wizards of the Coast as a company. If they succeed then it's the end of TCG / CCG's as we know it unless another franchise other than Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokémon rises from the ashes.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
It is great to see someone taking a stand and giving suggestions to better the current state of the game. It may fall on deaf ears as usual since the pro players have regular meetings with the powers that be and little has come out of it.
I'm however worried about the potential fall out that may happen to Gerry T. Maybe he have to go back to the SCG tour circuit after Hasbro bans him for being the game into dispute.
Wizards of the Coast's approach on the other hand doesn't care about the LGS losing tax revenue from their products being shipped through Amazon, since the only one's making money off of this is the company instead of the LGS. The real question is how are they going to pull this off without burying the national market under a landslide of tax paperwork without being forced to overcharge on products being distributed through the Secondary Market. I was against the idea of an Online Sales Tax at first however I think the U.S. Supreme Court might have actually been onto something If this is what it will take to save brick-and-mortar retail stores and shopping malls across the country.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
This covers your previous reply as well, but this post was easier to quote and I think I want to summarize what I think WotC is sending with the latest article you linked.
It was harder to pinpoint WotC's motives from the sheer decision of the Mythic Edition, but with this article, I can at the very least see the direction they're intending to head to (nothing specific or with numbers, but WotC has never ever let those numbers out because of corporate reasons, so expecting that is a futile effort).
They are now trying to the change the "fundamentals" of the genre altogether. The LGS system was something they cobbled up back then because technology wasn't as advanced and now that it has moved on with the advent of online-only CCGs, WotC is "eager" to abandon the cobbled system. To us the system seems like a fundamental, but to them it's effectively a 20+ year band-aid.
The only real problem that existed back then and still right now is "How to get as many people as possible to play a game without incurring as much overhead costs". If WotC was willing to bear the overhead costs in the beginning, there would be no LGS system, they would simply open their own brick-and-mortar stores directly in the very first place. The whole LGS system was cobbled to pass the costs and responsibility to LGS owners themselves (and a bit to distributors, but they can wiggle themselves out of it pretty easily). LGS (and physical cards) were needed back then to gather people to play. Now that technology has solved the problem, literally anywhere public can become an "LGS" or sorts, since almost everyone has a mobile device to play the game on. Look at online-only CCGs, was there ever a brick-and-mortar store for those games? No. That's the kind of upkeep they envisioned for MTG. Community Leaders organizing tournaments at the local cafe so no one has to pay the costs for space at all. Larger tournaments no doubt still cost, that's why the whole Grand Prix and above circuits had bills WotC was at least willing to foot (although they obviously looked for ways to cut costs as well...)
Your sales tax idea is bluntly put, not possible for them to enact because that's essentially just "transferring profits to overhead costs" when they literally just made it clear they don't want to pay for overhead costs in any form.
This article has clarified that decision of direction they want to take and if I'm being honest, there's nothing we can really do about it, because the LGS system was a cobbled system they kept a tight reign of control over and now they want it die a slow death, it will. It will no doubt kill the game for those firmly entrenched in the cobbled system, but it won't kill the game itself as long as their transition to the different demographic succeeds and that's basically the actual risk they're taking now. Why "kill" the cobbled system now then? Because the actual process might take an entire decade or so to really finish. Actually to be more accurate, inverse law means by pushing for the change in "fundamentals/demographic", it naturally kills the old cobbled system anyway, in fact everything they're doing now is slowing the death process instead.
The question was never "how to keep the fundamentals alive by pumping money", it was "the fundamentals were flawed because they costs money, how do we find a new fundamental that costs way less". 20 years of technology finally provided the answer for the gameplay itself and the general non-gaming demographic moving from physical to online as well provided the demographic as well.
And like I said, it's not necessarily bad, for it also fixes the aftereffects of integrity issues of competitive play (it would be nice to fix the integrity issue itself for sure, but realistically how does a gaming company do that?) to ensure the results are fair for pro play. But that's like a drop in the bucket for the whole problem the pro scene is facing, if Gerry Thompson's decision was anything to go by. That probably needs another post by itself.
The sad reality is that gaming culture itself nowadays doesn't want us to actively socialize with anyone out in public anymore because technology has made us more anti-social by being stuck in our own echo chambers while giving off the illusion that it isn't. The reason why I got into Paper CCG's in the first place was because I felt more rewarded for my efforts, achievements, and memories I've forged with the people I've met as opposed to just sitting at home playing Video Games against an AI with no connection toward. Online Co-op is nothing like what old Co-op was back in the day where you had a buddy or relative come by to your house and play games with. Then again that probably says a lot about my social life. If that's the case then people are getting a much different gameplay experience that's less rewarding compared to the one that they'd be missing out on. It isn't just something that can easily be replicated that 20 years of advanced technology can somehow fix. Are we going to get to a point where in order to create that sense of immersion from Paper CCG's and the local Arcade that we need advanced image recognition technology in order to reach this type of gaming experience where imagination becomes pointless? Apparently Yu-Gi-Oh! is one step ahead of Magic on that department.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
As a player of the game myself, I understand the essence of where you're coming from, but at the end of the day, times have changed and WotC is already lagging behind in many aspects.
It's not about a matter of WotC choosing to compete with video games, it's that gaming itself has changed to cover so much of a demographic thanks to the advent of technology (basically mobile games) that by default MTG (and all TCGs as well) are automatically in competition with the games of today for time. More and more people say "Why travel to a LGS to play Magic when I can stay in the comfort of my home and play X Mobile Game?" You may have defined the card game as "it must have the social aspect to be considered one", but apparently the majority of the gaming market (which all TCGs are a speck of dust of) beg to differ, so the "cards games of today" don't need the social aspect.
"The fault of the next generation of players" really just sounds like an "Old man yelling at cloud" argument. I mean it's easily flipped around that the next generation can just say "It's the fault of the former generation of players for not realizing the advantages of modern gaming (e.g. less time traveled = more time playing... and I can even play while travelling literally) and not pushing for change of the future" and that "WotC is so slow to the latest trends because of their pandering to the old vocal minority of "social" players slowing being isolated to oblivion anyway".
Your sad reality scenario is indeed true (that gaming is inherently becoming more and more asocial), but that only means that's where all the money is at. Turns out people who don't want or are too lazy/tired to socialize are becoming more and are willing to spend more money overall. WotC's interest is only in following the money where it goes, because seriously who wants to spend their own resources going against the tide, especially when you have thousands of other competitors who will obliterate you by going with the tide and taking most of the business with them.
Will the next generation of players get something less rewarding? From our perspective, yes. But since they've never experienced it, does it matter to them? No... and on top of that whether an experience is rewarding is actually very subjective, it's never correct to say "old-school tcgs are 100% more rewarding than the new era of gaming". Someone who had nothing but terrible LGS experiences would easily say new gaming is the best thing that ever happened to him and from his or her perspective that's not wrong at all.
Long Story Cut Short, Gaming is effectively becoming asocial and WotC either adapts to cater to this crowd, or can let the game die/enter low tide for a decade plus otherwise, because there's literally no such option as causing a resurgence mentality of social gaming to all gamers - if they had such powers, everyone would have started playing DnD instead of MMORPGs back in the 2000s when the similar case happened to MTG's older sibling. That being said, MMORPGS had its own flaws and you did point out OCGs have theirs as well, but it also took about a decade plus for MMORPGs to fall out of favor (and DnD didn't really gain too much from their fall either) and we've only started the era of OCGs... although it still doesn't help indirectly Mobile games are a threat to anything that aren't mobile because convenience is a master at spoiling the audience.
The social aspect of old-school gaming may be a major reason for you to have gotten to the game, but it was always a side-benefit of the nature of the game (which like I said was considered costly to them and hence a band-aid) and was never a priority to its creators like it was to your demographic of players. Technology opened up another demographic of players that needed less maintenance cost and so that's where the industry is headed towards instead. So crudely put, the "unique social aspect" important to you isn't important to the other demographic, but your aspects have overhead costs creators don't want to bear, so they changed their demographics instead (helps that asocial lazy gamers would more likely pay more to get ahead, which led to the one aspect of RNG packs that TCGs originally had to leak into the Loot Boxes of today).
Doesn't help the initial demographic of players back then are also "dying" off in the sense real life priorities take over as they age and gaming becomes a luxury they can only afford when they have that little time and the conveniences of "lazy/modern" gaming meets those requirements. Combined that the new generation of gamers naturally enter the market "lazy" because of parenting styles (even TCGs were seen as "lazy" back in its heydays compared to playing sport games) and we've entered the same cycle, just one floor deeper.
It's not me you have to convince about the benefits of old-school gaming. It's not even WotC you have to convince, because they simply put their nose in the direction of money. It's literally a whole generation of gamers and the aging population of old-school gamers who have no time to play you have to convince, otherwise all the doom and gloom you stated will naturally come to pass, but it will not be considered as such by the people fine with it.
The fact his article is staying up means that Wizards of the Coast at least views the article to have merit and wants to use it to act as a point of criticism to answer. However, the feeling I'm getting is that they want a one way conversation and do not want the other side to have the power to provide counter arguments or to point out any straw man type issues. This kind of thing happens a lot in politics, where it is not written in the official rulebook that one can or can not deny their competitor time on the pedestal. I'm pretty sure that the sub has already taken action against him in a way that we can't see.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Firstly let me say that I have nearly ZERO respect for Gerry T. so my response will naturally be skewed. We will just say he supports an organization/platform with his tournament winnings/sale of his tournament trophy that I am in 100% opposition to.
I do side with his position on WotC being a mess. But the absolute entitlement mentality of them paying a pro player a "living wage" is ridiculous to me. Its a flippin' card game when its all said and done. With that said, players should not be taken advantage of and it seems they are doing so according to him. That I can support even if I don't support him overall. Don't worry one minute, just means he has to go out and get a regular job like the rest of us do every workday of the year. I'm not shedding a tear for him or for WotC. I see blame on both sides, albeit more on Wizards. I better not say much more on it.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
You're missing his point if you think this is entirely a wage thing. He's not outright asking for more money in return for being an MTG player, he's saying WotC needs to either up the pay or stop playing up the myth of a "professional magic player". His entire point is that people are disillusioned by their marketing strategy and its hurting the game, not that he should be able to retire on tournament winnings. MTG Tournament winnings aren't his primary source of income to begin with.
To me it really does seem the way I described earlier, but... your point on the disillusion in marketing strategy hurting the game is spot on. If he says that in his "manifesto" then I would agree with that point for sure.
The wiser thing to do I believe would have been to compete, try to win, do his best, THEN use that as a platform for change from WotC.
Frankly, I think there is an opportunity for an outside body to run a competing league for Magic. Just like in the earliest days of Baseball here in the United States. Competing Leagues of teams formed, fought it out and some went by the wayside. If WotC/Hasbro can't run things correctly, then someone on the outside can and should. We see this already with Star City Games and their schedule of events. Competition breeds success. Monopoly breeds complacency and we see this with WotC. Maybe that is what he is getting at, I'm not sure.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
If the "card games of today" didn't need the social aspect that made them what they are then there would really be no point to them now would it? It's not so much that Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games are being pressured by Online / Digital Card Games when Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't understand the role that the Local Game Store plays. They've become so successful as a company that they completely forgot about what made Magic and other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games what they are today. Given the recent situation with Gerry Thompson they no longer value their entrenched players to the point where they literally kept the date of the World Championships a secret.
If they truly cared about the Local Game Store which is the bedrock of Magic's success then they wouldn't have partnered up with Amazon, Walmart, and Target as a way to undermine the Local Game Store by releasing products that are only accessible through those retailers instead of local distributors who ship these products to Local Game Stores. Maybe If they'd quit encouraging online play so much with Magic Arena by creating an incentive to buy physical Magic products similar to what Pokémon TCG does with code cards that you can redeem online for digital products on Magic Arena then it'd be a win/win for the LGS and online retailers. I am a bit surprised that other Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games haven't followed suit on this idea.
How is WotC pandering to the old vocal minority of "social" players necessarily a bad thing when that's the target demographic that they should be prioritizing the most on? The current demographic that WotC is catering toward doesn't have a clue about the 25 year history of Magic since they're unfamiliar with what the culture was like back in the 90's and 2000's. I get that they're trying to bring new people into the game but you don't do it by alienating a loyal customer base that's been with you almost since the game's inception. Better yet why doesn't WotC hire employees based on their ability to actually get the work done? Nobody is anything because of what they say they are, they are what they are BECAUSE of what they've done.
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't need to follow the latest trends, they just need to go back to having better communication with the people who are passionate enough about Magic that want to see the game continue to succeed in the long term. Magic Arena isn't the answer when it should solely be a replacement for MTGO and nothing else. What would be the point of a company manufacturing physical cards If no one has a place to meet and play the game out in public? It's like I said before, Magic wasn't designed like most traditional board games with Monopoly and Scrabble where you can just take it home and play with your friends in your underwear.
What makes Magic stand out from traditional board games is the collectible aspect of assembling a deck of cards to see whose the strongest all while unlocking infinite possibilities that isn't contained in one box similar to the distribution of Living Card Games where everything is already handed out for you but where's the fun in that? Sure it costs less when most players would rather have more freedom building unique decks that aren't cookie-cutter. I'm not even sure If Richard Garfield's new Living Card Game, "KeyForge" solves most of the issues that people have with it. Then again Living Card Games don't interest me as much as Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games do.
Gaming culture failed in our society because it never addressed the real concerns people had with it. There was either a lack of motivation, creativity, or both. Then again a lot of people expect too much from a hobby, but if you go into it expecting to make profit and get mad when that doesn't happen then it's no longer a hobby to you. The only people that should expect to make money is the Publisher/Developer, everyone involved with production and distribution, and the LGS. Everyone else is expecting too much and should collect their thoughts and really think hard as to why they're doing it.
With a proper distribution model a company can sell plenty of product and players do not have to rely on a Secondary Market. Players should always opt to trade, buy from their store, or from each other locally anyways. Without the LGS you're back to having secret meetings in someone's mom's basement. I'm well aware of the fact that the LGS business model is flawed when there's no sense in abandoning it for a new business model that nobody asked for. Physical Comics are still thriving even though people are able to read Japanese Manga online with English Subtitles. It might not be a good analogy but it's something.
Just because someone has had a terrible LGS experience that's made them lose interest doesn't mean that everyone else feels the exact same way. It really all boils down to the community and the atmosphere, sure it's not perfect but you make the best of what you got as long as you feel comfortable doing what you're passionate about. Maybe it's not enough or it isn't your thing, that's fine. The only time it becomes a problem is when the status quo is challenged with people wanting to maintain it and If they want to maintain it let them. Why should Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro be the one's to say that they shouldn't?
The problem is that young millennials aren't willing to give old-school gaming a chance because they're pressured into following the latest trends in gaming culture whether it's through advertisements or they don't think that it's cool enough being driven into the mindset that graphics matter to them more than gameplay. In the end it's up to us to give the next generation a chance at gaming opportunities that they might pass on to their descendants since they're not as familiar with it as we are. If we succeed in "passing the torch" then at least we've accomplished something that both generations are mutually passionate about.
That's what happens when you trade away inconvienance for convienance where everyone seems to have this false narrative that inconvienance is a bad thing when it's not. It's really what you're willing to do to help make that inconvienance feel like a convienance where the digital world we live in gives off the illusion that we don't need to put in the manual labor to get what we want when in reality there's a greater sense of reward from manual labor.
If this demographic of players you speak of care more about less maintenance cost for their gaming products then why don't they stick with Next-Gen Consoles / Handhelds by Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo? Why does it have to be Online / Digital Card Games with Magic Arena and Hearthstone? Like I said before, I think Magic Arena is a much needed upgrade to MTGO but nothing else to really affect Paper Magic as a whole which sadly only makes up about 35% of Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's total revenue of Magic compared to MTGO which was more successful.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I think we will see changes before Hasbro goes bankrupt, we are seeing them now. Like you said companies only care about profit, so when Wizard's Magic starts losing profit as it is right now, things start moving. Latest quarterly came out and in the category Magic is in only Monopoly made an increase in profits while the rest of the category lost a collective 50 million in profit. I do not know how much of that is on Magic, but we can view some of Wizard's action to see how affected they are by it.
They spat out a bunch of different products which seem to have had mixed reviews at best, they are trying to cut out the middle man with selling specialty product on their web site but quickly cave to Channel fireball to try and sell them at the events too to pull in more event players. Then there is also the Amazon deal now. Wizards right now is trying to find every possible way to move as much sealed product they can as fast as they can. Not sure what the end result of this will be but I do not see LGSs doing better for it, and with them go the fan base as we lose out major meeting places.
What I think might happen in the end is if all this cash grabbing fails with complete disregard to the players, both pro and normal, Wizard's Magic might hit a major low. At such a point we might end up with Hasbro getting involved and possible restaffing to save the cash cow.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Before we begin, let me hammer down some points as bluntly as possible, because if I just get into the details it'll be the typical endless loop of debate again. Firstly, As I mentioned in my previous post in the part you didn't quote, convincing me changes nothing. In fact convincing WotC changes nothing either because what they're doing is in response to the movement of the entire industry and if you had any notion WotC has the power to change that movement by themselves perish the thought. WotC "changing back" would definitely keep old players happy, but this leads to my next point...
Which is that everything you are passionate about represents a dying demographic because the shift in the industry's direction. WotC is basically left with two choices: to change themselves to the new direction, abandon the old, dying demographic in favor of attracting the growing demographic of the new direction, or they cater to their old, dying demographic and die together with them.
All your talk about "growing the game" no longer works, because the techniques used by WotC back then are too slow and doesn't work on the now-changed introductory gaming demographic of (asocial, impatient) younger players. If you have some revolutionary technique you know will work that can change the young of today to have the same mindset of those who started playing MTG in the 90s, do let WotC know (no don't let me know, I don't have any power to enact such a change). It's easy to be optimistic and fire point blank statements of growing the games, but reality is there is probably no such revolutionary technique. If you're wondering why the change even happened in the first place since it literally needs a revolutionary technique... the advent of technology I've been rambling about on is the precise technique the revolutionized gaming to its unfortunate current state. So unless you have a way to de-revolutionize technology on its own or successfully create something like instantaneous teleportation, you won't be able to change something technology warped so easily.
This is the crux of the change and why I chose my stand to understand why WotC decided on the directional change - technology has already warped the entire landscape of gaming, which in turn has rendered both TCGs and the people pasionate about it to be a dying demographic. Realistically there's no way for a single company like WotC (or even Hasbro) to accomplish any reversal on its own (even the technology that warped the landscape wasn't done overnight by a singular entity/company), so they chose to go with the flow. I call this the crux because this is the main reason for a lot of the points you've raised (and I'm rebutting) about.
"There's no point to them" is a subjective statement, one that no doubt we old players have, but here's where my crux hits - we are a dying demographic and that renders our perspective pointless in itself to the majority. Likewise, we all understand the importance of the LGS system in regards to the structure of TCGs, but when the entirely of TCGs are a dying demographic to begin with, what is the importance of something only important to an going-to-be obsolete gaming structure where the landscape of all gaming is concerned?
Likewise, in reverse, as far as the new demographic is concerned, Amazon, Walmart, Targets are the important aspects of their own structure of their own gaming structures (which we perceive as "lazy asocial" gaming), but they're the growing demographic that WotC is concerned with meeting the important needs of.
Also, the pro scene issues are not as relevant to the specific differences we're debating about, maintaining good pro scenes are a necessity to both types of demographics (unlike the LGS system) and I can see WotC's mistakes there hurt them with their new demographic.
Finally, don't ever use Pokemon as a comparison point, because frankly speaking, the game itself and even its online components are mediocre (sure their online looks better than MTG's, but it's mediocre by general gaming industry standards)... even Pokemon GO was a bad mobile game (by mobile game standards) at launch and is only passable at best currently. Pokemon is a unique outlier when it comes to almost anything in the industry because of its unique leverage of being the highest-grossing franchise. Just slapping the name onto anything will instantaneously make it a hit. If overpriced cafes can get away with profits just by using the name for a theme, what more about a CCG system (especially since Pokemon is synonymous with collecting by now)?
Here's where we directly clash - you think that we are the main demographic WoTC should be concentrating and pandering to because of our history, but from the recent article WotC posted I can see they put it in nicest PR way possible, that it is not the case. We are a dying demographic and our history is only buying us the grace of a slow death. Our history and loyalty combined with their best efforts back then still cannot match the landscape-warping changes technology has brought with it (along with the entire change of how new players analyze and decide to start playing games) and now WotC has "betrayed" us to flow with the tide of those changes. Only the current culture generates money from new players, which are a lot more numerous than old players back then mainly because it's a culture built around convenience of access. For every 1 "hardworking" player you need to print a card and set up a LGS (in the system) for, you easily have a dozen of "lazy" new-generation gamer playing MTGA on a mobile device you don't even need to print a card for... and the "hardworking" player only works hard mostly for the social aspect, it's not like he or she would spend as much as a dozen new-generation players.
"Gaming culture failed society" - I have issues with that statement because Culture is inherently shaped by the majority... of society to begin with, not the other way round. Society failed to cultivate a "good gaming culture" is the actual statement, but as everyone knows blaming society for anything even when its true is like using a water hose against an incoming tsunami. Technology created lazy uninspired people, who naturally form the bulk of society and bled that lack of motivation into the gaming culture/industry is how this all really rolled out.
Your analogy with comics/manga is a lot better than the "culture failed society statement" and while you admitted it wasn't the best of comparisons, I feel that those differences need to be raised - it's not hard to state that generally more people collect comics than cards (and I'd argue that more people actually collect Pokemon cards than MTG cards once you put the franchise power into play) and its natural that a "dying" medium (even Comics are eroding over to digital) with more collectors will stand longer (or die slower) than one with less.
Manga is a unique outlier, mainly due to national cultural differences. Japan is very, very big on the "support local" stance. Just look at the Anime Industry, those discs are way overpriced by global standards and solely kept afloat by the domestic market. Once you take into account that literally everything about MTG is pretty much American (both for and shaped by), I think Manga is too far off due to cultural differences from the likes of even comics to be an example.
MTG is not an isolated game, it's naturally included in the overall competition of the entire industry. You speak of fighting to maintain the status quo, but did you fight for the same maintenance when the same happened the MTG's "brothers and sisters" in the industry (e.g. MMORPGS causing the decline of DnD?) This is a case of "I didn't fight when they came for X, I didn't fight when they came for Y, and now I cannot fight when it comes to claim MTG because X and Y are no longer around." The same is happening within the video game industry with the loot box incidents, because the industry decided to let the first few through, companies started escalating it and then now people (and countries) are starting to combat it. I'm afraid with the tabletop industry against technology its a much, much lopsided fight not in the favor of the tables.
Talking about "passing the torch" is honestly, just empty talk. Where were all the responsible actions of the older generation to ensure responsible use of technology in the industry taken so that we could even pass the torch? Instead we're now left with blaming the newer generation for not receiving our torch when they already crafted one of their own from (literal) devices we left them fiddling with because we didn't want to handle to responsibility of those.
A whole new different demographic have different priorities than another. Just like you think without a "social aspect", a TCG and/or game is essentially worthless, the new generation is brought up to prioritize convenience. If a game is not convenient, to them the game is essentially as worthless as a game with no social aspect is to you. Once again your talk about "labor for reward" isn't wrong, but it's something we already failed to cultivate into the next generation so it's empty talk to them at this point of time.
I say "demographic", but it also effectively covers "generation". In our generation we could segregate people who wanted/preferred convenience to their video console games because there were enough liked-minded people like yourself for it. The next generation doesn't have that - it's almost entirely consisting of "convenience" players brought up by the likes of mobile gaming. There are definitely still some like-minded ones in the new generation, but its also certain their percentages are much, much lower than the previous generation, to the point we are the irrelevant market because we're just that small. Any sub-industry like MTG, whose main market is these irrelevant, dying demographic of players, have to either make it so that their main market WAS us, or they will die along with us.
At the end of the day, your opinions are definitely not wrong and I do agree with them on a personal level, but on a generational level we've failed to cultivate this mindset to the immediate next generation and now we suffer the consequences. Even if we start to cultivate this mindset to the generation following theirs, it will take at least another decade to reap the fruits of labor.
EDIT: Spelling, structural and some other mistakes.
They also showed off some stuff at The Alliance Open House
Also Hasbro is in the habit of mothballing not selling off lines that aren't up to snuff.
EDIT II: Spring of this year charts of the Top 10 Hobby Channel Collectible Games, Top 3 Mass Market Channel Collectible Games and Top 5 Collectible Games
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The fact that there's a D&D movie set for 2021 tells me that Hasbro either knows that there's better name recognition or it would easier to come up with a movie for that brand than it would for MTG. lol