The real reason why Wizards of the Coast is doing this is because In-Store Play at Local Game Stores (LGSs) are now prohibited due to COVID-19.
Yeah... I'm going to have to call that out as false. Catalyst? Maybe. But the real reason? No.
It was bound to happen. If not now, then sometime in the next few years.
I'm going to agree with some of the other posters, this is a lazy move on WotC's part. To be honest, I was puzzled as to why Arena didn't utilize the DCI for registration when it first came out. Then it hit me while working on my own company database. The DCI database is probably so old and so kludged together that no one at Wizards really understands how it works anymore. How long ago was the DCI number introduced? About 20 years? How many admins worked on it and how many features were added during that time?
So the Arena guys probably came on board and, due to some combination of inexperience and hard headedness, decided to build the Arena player database from scratch. Or it could have been managements plan the entire time. Either way, management probably decided the cost of maintaining or exporting the old database to a new system wasn't worth the cost so they decided to drop the tables.
Changing databases isn't easy or cheap but it is always doable, it's just a matter of how much money anyone wants to throw at it.
exactly this.
I work in IT so those scenarios are the easy way outs. A new start if you will. Easier to just ignore the legacy code and data rather than rework it.
Looking through my own data (and it is rather abysmal - in fact maybe its best I forget this history haha), what I see are past results and people I met. Some friends, some acquaintances, others less so. But I will then recall roughly the attitudes of the environment and players at that time including my own. The LGSes I have been to etc. All the history it evokes.
This is all the way to 1997... man I was waay younger then. Playing a phasing deck and getting crushed.
I mean I can just download that as a cvs apparently at least for myself.
But this connection, this relation to the game. Like mould accumulating on the wall... is an pile that takes time to build and accumulate.
They are essentially dumping the old one to make a new one... that is the same...
Actually thinking more about, this seems like a really dumb move (not merging). The data is essentially
A bit of history that ties the players to each other and to wotc. It is a connection that other corporations
try to make but cannot get. Magic's historical depth/nostalgia is something
that has always made it stand out from other games. Yet wotc is giving that up because
they are unable to merge the data (something that should be doable).
exactly this.
I work in IT so those scenarios are the easy way outs. A new start if you will. Easier to just ignore the legacy code and data rather than rework it.
Looking through my own data (and it is rather abysmal
This is all the way to 1997... man I was waay younger then. Playing a phasing deck and getting crushed.
I mean I can just download that as a cvs apparently at least for myself.
But this connection, this relation to the game. Like mould accumulating on the wall... is an pile that takes time to build and accumulate.
WOTC just wants to delete it.
wow.
Reality is but a perception of your being --
Visit my blog!!! - http://huffalump-magic.blogspot.com/
"The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside."
—Emily Dickinson
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881
Oooh Dicey:
[dice=1]100[/dice]
They are essentially dumping the old one to make a new one... that is the same...
Actually thinking more about, this seems like a really dumb move (not merging). The data is essentially
A bit of history that ties the players to each other and to wotc. It is a connection that other corporations
try to make but cannot get. Magic's historical depth/nostalgia is something
that has always made it stand out from other games. Yet wotc is giving that up because
they are unable to merge the data (something that should be doable).
Reality is but a perception of your being --
Visit my blog!!! - http://huffalump-magic.blogspot.com/
"The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside."
—Emily Dickinson
For sales or trade, visit my blog or visit my ebay blog for my listings :http://myworld.ebay.com/arcane7828
881
Oooh Dicey:
[dice=1]100[/dice]