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What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

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Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#11

Post by imancit »

gohrt wrote: post #10

Why do players think it's acceptable to have an "economy" for trading virtual gamepieces? Why don't they walk away and play game/culture that charges a flat fee or a time/usage-based subscription?

In short, because Magic is one of the best games ever designed, and this is the only sanctioned way to play the full game online. Magic online was created a long, long time ago before more modern concepts of game monetization (freemium / mtx based) were developed. It's ended up as something more akin to an online poker room than a gaming server.

Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#12

Post by dublinben »

gohrt wrote: post #10

Why do players think it's acceptable to have an "economy" for trading virtual gamepieces? Why don't they walk away and play game/culture that charges a flat fee or a time/usage-based subscription?

MTG, like many other collectible card games, is as much about the "economy" and the collecting aspect, as it is about actually 'playing' the game. This has unsurprisingly carried onto the official online version as well.

Those who don't want to pay, have always been able to play for free with GccG and others.

Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#13

Post by brandnewlow »

imancit wrote: post #11
gohrt wrote: post #10

Why do players think it's acceptable to have an "economy" for trading virtual gamepieces? Why don't they walk away and play game/culture that charges a flat fee or a time/usage-based subscription?

In short, because Magic is one of the best games ever designed, and this is the only sanctioned way to play the full game online. Magic online was created a long, long time ago before more modern concepts of game monetization (freemium / mtx based) were developed. It's ended up as something more akin to an online poker room than a gaming server.

I get why people think it's silly and so forth, but I can't agree more with "one of the best games ever designed." Richard Garfield gave the world something really tremendous with MtG

Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#15

Post by jpreiland »

lacker wrote: post #9
thom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if they just had a flat monthly fee for infinite phantom drafts, I would love that. Although having played on beta servers, infinite would probably be the wrong number as everyone just drops at the first sign of trouble.

Maybe infinite drafts + some ELO that people care about. Or Hearthstone style where you don't have to face the opponents you just drafted against.

Not facing who you just drafted against would be absolutely horrible. Magic sets are designed with draft in mind, and the draft tournament structure takes advantage of the rotating aspect of the draft portion. When you see your 14 potential picks, you know that a number of them are coming back to you and you get to pick another one later. You also know that every card you don't pick is potentially going to be in one of your opponent's decks.

Being aware of what's opened in a draft as well as what's being passed has an impact on how you pick (for example: tons of red cards keep going by - table isn't into red, so you can A) wheel red cards easier, and B) bank on not running into a hyper aggressive deck and build accordingly). If you were thrown into a match against someone who didn't draft at your table, they might have a deck that wasn't supported by the collective pool opened at your table and you'll be caught completely off guard.

Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#17

Post by jerf »

gohrt wrote: post #10

Why do players think it's acceptable to have an "economy" for trading virtual gamepieces? Why don't they walk away and play game/culture that charges a flat fee or a time/usage-based subscription?

Pretty much all that is necessary for an "economy" to develop is some form of scarcity, the ability to trade reasonably freely, and the ability of the traders to set prices. If you've got that, you'll get a market of one sort or another, and it's not hard to even accidentally end up meeting one of the conditions when you didn't mean to. Charging flat fees or usage-based subscription fees is not enough to guarantee that an economy will still not emerge... MMORPGs have those things and economies, too.

(There's not much guarantee about what sort of economy you'll get... it's easy to get one that pathological in some sense, either psychological or mathematical. But you'll get something.)

Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#18

Post by wlesieutre »

thom wrote: post #6
brandnewlow wrote: post #2

I've played online now and then for about 10 years. For me, the biggest difference was the addition of phantom events. Unlike normal online tournements, where you have to buy some packs to paticipate, with phantom events you just pay a price. In return you don't get to keep the cards you play with. For people just looking to play, not to compete or build a collection, phantom events make way more sense. I have to ima…

Yeah, if they just had a flat monthly fee for infinite phantom drafts, I would love that. Although having played on beta servers, infinite would probably be the wrong number as everyone just drops at the first sign of trouble.

If there's a monthly fee, they can just penalize players who disconnect. The usual barrier to that is free games where if you penalize/ban somebody they'll just come back with a new account.

Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#19

Post by carapace »

nosuchthing wrote: post #16

The whole concept of collectable cards feels like a scam, right alongside the freemium pay-for-virtual-clothing hustle.

When all my friends got into MtG back in high school I said, "I'll play but I'm going to make my own cards. I don't want to buy them from the store." But no one would go for it. I never understood. I used to say, "But there are no actual wizards at Wizards of the Coast."

Re: What Broke the Magic Online Economy?

#20

Post by Sone7 »

carapace wrote: post #19
nosuchthing wrote: post #16

The whole concept of collectable cards feels like a scam, right alongside the freemium pay-for-virtual-clothing hustle.

When all my friends got into MtG back in high school I said, "I'll play but I'm going to make my own cards. I don't want to buy them from the store." But no one would go for it. I never understood. I used to say, "But there are no actual wizards at Wizards of the Coast."

cough cockatrice
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