This is not a physical deck of cards that needs shuffling. They are using some kind of generator/algorithm to give you the opening hand and determine the card order sequence. A mulligan should in no way be influenced by how many hands you've seen in the digital world.
It is quite possible for a computer to treat a deck of virtual cards the same as a deck of physical cards (e.g. take the 'card' objects, randomize them into a new deck, then randomize the card objects in that new deck into another new deck). Furthermore, true randomization is one of those computer programming issues that is substantially more difficult in practice than in concept, which makes it very believable that they merely screwed something up.
I am wondering if data can prove a player’s rate of actual monetary spending vs grinding for gold daily and causality with the mana error.
In short, are they messing with free to play players so that players who spend money notice better results?
I don't think so. It wouldn't make monetary sense.
Firstly, the difference observed by the study is exploitable; i.e. you can take advantage of it by running slightly fewer lands than in real magic with a reduced consequence, as long as you know not to keep two or fewer lands on your first hand. I don't know what rank or payment status the accounts used to collect that data were, but practicality suggests that they were the minimum needed and thus should have been penalized if your concern is accurate.
Secondly, players would need to notice the difference, and then attribute that difference to their spending habits, in order for them to have an incentive to spend more money and increase profit for WotC. It wouldn't help them to go about this so subtly. If that much thought and deliberation was placed into the decision, then it seems unlikely they would decide that any resulting small increase in revenue would be worth the potential to tremendously damage their reputation if the manipulations were discovered.
On the other hand I can confirm as a software engineer that these sorts of errors are easy to make. That MTG Arena's user base is much larger than many other applications only means so much in terms of being able to assume that it's any more robust in design as a result. WotC are historically not at the top of the heap when it comes to sound software design, and I would wager a guess that it's because they are a tabletop and card game company first and foremost; their management likely doesn't fully understand good software practices or what a digital development team needs to succeed.
It is quite possible for a computer to treat a deck of virtual cards the same as a deck of physical cards (e.g. take the 'card' objects, randomize them into a new deck, then randomize the card objects in that new deck into another new deck). Furthermore, true randomization is one of those computer programming issues that is substantially more difficult in practice than in concept, which makes it very believable that they merely screwed something up.
I don't think so. It wouldn't make monetary sense.
Firstly, the difference observed by the study is exploitable; i.e. you can take advantage of it by running slightly fewer lands than in real magic with a reduced consequence, as long as you know not to keep two or fewer lands on your first hand. I don't know what rank or payment status the accounts used to collect that data were, but practicality suggests that they were the minimum needed and thus should have been penalized if your concern is accurate.
Secondly, players would need to notice the difference, and then attribute that difference to their spending habits, in order for them to have an incentive to spend more money and increase profit for WotC. It wouldn't help them to go about this so subtly. If that much thought and deliberation was placed into the decision, then it seems unlikely they would decide that any resulting small increase in revenue would be worth the potential to tremendously damage their reputation if the manipulations were discovered.
On the other hand I can confirm as a software engineer that these sorts of errors are easy to make. That MTG Arena's user base is much larger than many other applications only means so much in terms of being able to assume that it's any more robust in design as a result. WotC are historically not at the top of the heap when it comes to sound software design, and I would wager a guess that it's because they are a tabletop and card game company first and foremost; their management likely doesn't fully understand good software practices or what a digital development team needs to succeed.
- Rabid Wombat