To address the random above – We’re gonna go with the “Magic as a console” argument – I like that. We’re not really talking about one game, or ‘all video games weighed against Magic” – it’s kind of like that mid range ideal. This whole discussion is actually a way to segue to the reasons that Magic is a such a successful product, and where it needs to improve, and really that’s what any designer/fan should be tuning in to. Speaking of which for things along that line I would recommend checking out http://www.threedonkeys.com/blog/ – Richard Garfield’s latest blog – to see what sort of things he had in mind and still has in mind when it comes to designing games. The lessons apply across the board for any design.

- Timmy and Billy
So one of the discussion I’ve been having lately with friends is the deck designer vs. deck player argument. Basically I have some great Johnny sort of friends who like to spend time making these excellent decks. Which is fine, and as you know I’ve got about 30 decks to go at a moments notice. But ultimately, I am not a deck designer. I may tweak existing ideas but I personally would rather spend my time learning how to play Magic better vs. learning how to make the best deck. I think this argument carries over into the accessibility argument for Magic and “Video Games’ .

Let’s take two 13 year old boys. – Timmy and Billy. Let’s say Timmy is interested in Magic. He sees his friend playing and after watching a bit he decides he’s going to go to his first FNM. – Well if it’s constructed he’s probably screwed. The days of 5 dollar extended competitive decks are long gone (Flame blast RIP). So if he’s “lucky” enough to get into a draft or sealed event he doesn’t know his ass from a Shivan Dragon and probabably scrubs out pretty early. That’s after paying the standard 14 to 24 US dollars. If he decides hey he’s still interested – maybe he’s got some friends who are helping him out – and he practices for a few weeks may be he’s finally ready to go 1-2 or even 2-1 in a draft, and maybe someone loans him a deck for constructed or whatever and he’s started building his collection, maybe got mom to buy him a few packs or if he’s lucky, a box, and we’re ready to go. Go Timmy!

Billy, in the meantime, has bought a used 45 US dollar copy of Call of Duty 4. In the time that Timmy has spent trying to learn the game, Billy has joined a clan, chats up all the kids at school, spent time on the internet learning the maps etc. While Timmy was learning, Billy *was getting good*.

Yes as the guys who have put 16 years into Magic we can say yeah, it’s worth it in the long run. But we all know immediate gratification is a successful strategy. How does Magic the Gathering deliver immediate gratification?

Games vs. Magic – Shareware.
You talk about creative destruction and how it makes Magic better, as if Magic has a patent on rebuilding itself. If one look at any Game genres as a whole, it’s nothing but creative destruction. Games constantly take themselves apart and rebuild and bring back completely new but familiar experiences. And they steal from each other pretty freely. See the Mario/Zelda franchise. Hell, look at Desktop Defense. The game is *FREE* and there are a million different variations on it on Kongregate, or you can download Pixeljunk Monsters for whole different experience on it.
And what’s even crazier is that Video Games offer the ability for you re-create it yourself – look at Source, Halo 3, Team fortress, There is no Counter Strike or Desktop Tower (itself a user-designed Star Craft level) analog in Magic – no one has taken the “source code” of magic and successfully translated into a competing product – There is no user owned version of it – and if they could, Wizards would no doubt sue them. They seem to have forgotten the other label that appears on the back of every Magic card.

Please, tell me where the other Deckmaster products are.

Where is the leveraging of the IP? Does every freaking Magic card have to have the Dragon, Zombie, Goblin, and scantily clad elf/fairie/nymph on it? You want to know why more people aren’t into Magic, maybe it’s seeing yet another Vampire or Legolas clone on the Magic adverts. Where is Mafia, the Deckmaster product? Why are we still settling for using these early 1900′s Tolkien rip off IP? Where are the educational historical Magic Products? The game I can play in my civics class and get away with it because it’s learning?

On popular culture –
It’s not about being a dork, James, it’s about how the culture at large views the hobby. It actually has nothing to do with the playerbase at all, it has to do with how Wizards successfuly leverages the product. Look at Zynga, for example. How many freaking Mafia, Farmville, and Texas Hold’em offers do you a get a day? **Millions** of people are playing those games, right now. Total population on MTGO? About 30K. You can claim superior product but the end result is that Wizards is not making it easy. Zynga wants to get someone, they make an app and you press accept. Why in God’s name can I play D&D mini-adventures but there is no Magic app on Facebook?

In other Earth-shattering news that will bring about much useful discussion:

The Sun emits more heat into the universe than Earth’s moon. Discuss.

Magic isn’t one game. It is a collection of games stuffed into one massive set of rules. Cards, in fact, don’t last forever. Some don’t get played at all except as a joke. EDH? That’s a game. Standard? That’s a game. If one only enjoys playing Lorwyn block draft, he isn’t going to be doing it for any amazing amount of time.

Elephants are bigger than hamsters, discuss.

Fighter Jets fly faster than passenger planes. Anything incredible we can learn from that discussion?

You CAN compare any two things, I suppose. But it isn’t helpful or encouraging of any real debate. You also specify you only want to compare magic to any one game (while allowing magic to morph into all of its variants) without specifying a game. That could even be a possible discussion that would end up with some manner of benefit.

My 20 favorite video games are better than any 1 video game.

Now there’s a discussion that we can get some useful discussion from. My 20 favorite games are always the best 20 games out at the time. You can only pick one game to put up against them. When one of the 20 becomes less fun for me, I will put a newer/better one in it’s place. Now what can we learn from this? My favorites have amazing staying power, because my favorites will always be my favorites and the games I most enjoy playing. Any single game you pick (even if I really enjoy it) will eventually grow old and be replaced by my new favorite. Thus my favorites have staying power.

It seems to me that at every point you make, you try to highlight a different (and sometimes conflicting) aspect of magic that caters to your conclusion. Cards retain value? Not really. Some has-been cards aren’t worth crap although in their prime they were costly. The VAST majority of cards aren’t worth the paper they are printed on, much less the money you spent on them. This is plainly visible in MTGO, where the one rare from your pack can almost always be seen for sale for 25 cents. Invest four dollars and before you have even opened the pack, you have lost three fifty. You gleefully dismiss all the worthless cards and focus only on the amazing ones (that most people don’t have).

In closing, I would like to say that gold bars have more staying power than Mars bars.

i think the problem that i keep coming up against is that everyone takes the stance that i’m arguing: magic is better than all video games collectively. i’ve not tried to make that claim. i’m saying that magic is better than any one game.

i personally don’t like the cost argument simply because plenty of things cost more than other things: volkswagon vs. audi. the ability to charge more is reflected by the value–or so we’re told/taught/socialized. that being said, it’s not the cost that’s driving the value but the value (and scarcity) that drives the cost. the cost is an effect, not a cause. also on cost, keeping up with the game systems and hot new releases is very expensive. heck, i’d have to buy a tv then get the $300 system and then i could start buying games. you only get one remote with gaming systems now too; so i’d have to buy another one of those. oh, and most of the games that seem to “stick around” for longer than a month are all subscription based so i’m stuck paying another monthly bill. i just think that the cost-based arguments aren’t going to lead us anywhere. there’s costs associated with anything and everything. the one thing i can say about costs associated with magic is that at least we can sell our cards for something; video games aren’t worth a piece of chalk after a year or so. the guy who traded his car for the black lotus? probably a good move.

gamers are still considered dorks, doesn’t matter what game they’re playing. it’s just getting cooler to be a dork. culturally, the “jocks” and “female-equivalents” have a strangle hold on what’s cool and what’s not. or maybe this is a personal perception; all my non-gamer friends, of which i have many many more than gamer-friends, consider me a bit of an odd ball for loving mtg so much. i’m a black sheep maybe…either way, it’s just not cool to game. but that’s okay; i don’t game because i think it’s cool. gaming cuz it’s cool makes it uncool. lol. that was me trying to be a hipster.

i also don’t really agree with the argument that because 50-85% of the game is the same, that’s a hole in my argument. if it was 100% different, wouldn’t it be a different game? we’d no longer be able to call it “Magic.” it’d be “Wizards’ Plane-Walker” or “Draw 7″ or whatever. Settlers of Catan is still Settlers even though they added Seafares.

about it for now i guess. thanks, X!

So the first thing I need to lay down is that since 2001 I’ve been working with industry-leading Video Game publishers in designing, developing, testing, and scouting genre-defining, profitable intellectual property. In that time I can honestly say I’ve connected on a personal level with *thousands* of gamers from around the world and I make my business to understand the motivations of gamers. So I feel like I know what I’m talking about when I ramble like this.

While I personally find Magic the Gathering to be a refreshing alternative to Video and other competitive games I think the jury is still out on whether the product is flat out “better” than video games as a whole. In fact, I could say it’s like comparing apples to oranges. But if you want to go that route I’ll just put down a couple of things first and then when I get some time I’ll follow up on your points.

1. Cost. Magic the Gathering has an incredibly prohibitive cost of entry. Yes it’s easy to get into and people do donations etc. but at the end of the day it just costs more to play Magic than it does to play on any particular console plus the 10 most worthy titles on the market. And that’s saying a lot. I can remember back in 1994 when a friend wound up trading his CAR for a black lotus. You just can’t say that about video games.

2. Story. Wizards has learned the hard way – it’s just not possible to tell a quality story through the venue of the cards. Any arguments there have a gander at this excellent article – http://mtgsalvation.com/129-remember-the-weatherlight-part-come-sail-away.html

3. Favorable Cultural impact. Go sample 10 to 20 of your non-magic playing friends and ask them what they think of Magic. Compare that to say, COD4, WOW, or Madden. That’s if they’ve even heard of Magic. While one method of entertainment has achieved cultural acceptance, Magic still has an extremely long way to go. This also applies to female cultural acceptance. There are decent amount of female gamers, but none of them will touch Magic with a ten foot pool. When you can get basically any girl into Magic, (see tetris, soul calibur) then I’ll say it’s great.

4. Complexity. Magic’s barrier of entry is intense – You can pick up the basics of Settlers in an afternoon. Magic takes forever to learn.

- the creative destruction argument is good but there are some holes there. Magic has some very solid areas that don’t change, (lands, zones, the color wheel) and the core fundamentals of magic rules havent’ changed all that much over the years. No matter what set it doing to come out, Black will always kill stuff, Red gonna burn some shit, Blue’s gonna fly, White’s gonna embody order, and Green’s got cheap beef. Yeah details will change and there will be powerful outliers but you can rely on roughly 50-85% of the set to basically to be a slightly tweaked version of something you’ve seen before.

ok 15 minutes, lawl.

the title is mtg vs a video game because i can compare mtg (one game) to all other games individually: any one game vs. mtg will lose. i won’t be playing that single video game 15 years from now. nobody will be playing madden 2000 in 2009 (unless they’re clueless and/or really weird).

my conclusion with this comparison is that magic is fundamentally better; i then provided my reasoning. if we were to compare all video games over the entire arc of time (including those games yet to be made), then the comparison does break down. i even tried to address this concern by stating that the clever entrepreneur who can figure out a way around the software-hardware constraints inherent to video games will make a serious killing: “move over mr. gates; you’ve been trumped.” you even addressed it in your comment: “[mtg represented as] The console can evolve with very little effort, and this is a huge constraint for video games that’s absent in Magic.” exactly; it’s absent. that’s why it’s better.

from the first printing of any set, there are certain cards that are never played outside of someone getting stuck with it 15th pick! lol.

but here’s the real crux of why i don’t see mtg as a platform (though i love the thought-provoking counter-argument!): i’m not playing with an N64. i’m still playing with the same base hardware in mtg: cardboard.

it is what it is.

So, if I read you correctly, Magic has a faster cycle of creative destruction than video games do, and so it’s easier to make the game fresh and new (currently 4 times a year). Furthermore, Magic thrives on this, and is built around the cycle of creative destruction, whereas for various reasons, video game software conflicts with this modus operandi…

I guess I’m just thinking that the main difference between magic and video games is the speed at which the cycle of creative destruction occurs. Clearly video games evolve and change, and these changes are every bit as paradigm-shifting as they are within Magic. A Wii motion-sensitive controller was as unimaginable to a player of NES donkey kong back in the 80s as a planeswalker was to someone cracking open the new and exciting “Gold” cards like Bartel Runeaxe or whatever back in ’94.

I think the analogy can be changed slightly to make video games and magic cards appear nearly identical. Think of Magic as a platform, like the Sega Dreamcast or something, rather than as the video games. Think of each set, or each card like a new video game instead.

So Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, etc. are analagous to the N64, the Dreamcast, the xBox, etc. Even better, think of Magic as the Nintendo line of systems. Think of the 6th edition rules changes as the release of the Super Nintendo. Card Frame redesign as the launch of N64, etc. Now the games can be compared relatively easily with sets or individual cycles or cards within sets.

My point here is that no particular sub-set of cards has any lifespan that’s so much greater than that of a video game. Spellbombs in Mirrodin… do they have a longer lifespan than Mario 64?

Changing gears slightly…

I agree that magic seems to have an easier time creating new and destroying old paradigms than do video games, but this, I think, comes largely from the fact that Magic is ALL software, and they don’t have to concern themselves as much with the hardware…

The hardware of Magic is the floor rules. It’s contained in the heads of all the players and judges. Magic, the game, benefits from having no (or very little) overhead gobbled up in the next new console machine. The console can evolve with very little effort, and this is a huge constraint for video games that’s absent in Magic.

The software of Magic are the cards and sets. Compared to the software of video games, the cost to produce this card-software is very low. You don’t need a team of computer scientists, just a bunch of gamers. You don’t need silicon and code, just cardboard and ink. So the low cost of developing Magic’s “software” also speeds up the development cycle, and makes the available options much wider.

I think the concept of creative destruction is present in both genres, and the innovation cycle accounts for the appeal and freshness of both types of games. I think the phenomenon is just more pronounced and perhaps “sped up” a bit within Magic.

“I love playing platform games like Mario” is analagous to saying “I love playing Magic.”

“I love playing video games” is more like saying “I love CCGs.”

I think comparing Magic to any particular video game, or even to video GAMES generally, is comparing an apple and an orange.

“Why Magic the Gathering is like a really fucking good console that evolves over time and keeps getting better” would have been a better title for this article though. It’s a false distinction comparing Magic and Madden 2009 though. You can compare Madden 2009 to something between Tarmogoyf and Future Sight though… somewhere in there the analogy lines up.

I sure agree with the statement, but I’m not sure it follows from the argument.

I love the topic though! And I’m not entirely sure of what I’m arguing here… meaning I’m not sure I’m right or you’re wrong or what… I just like the debate. Interesting stuff.

Nice work James.

A couple years ago I got started in general boardgaming. This not only included MTG, but also great games such as Catan like you mentioned. Also, games such as Puerto Rico, Agricola, Race for the Galaxy, etc. These quickly replaced my video gaming time every week. For two reasons, first, like you explained, there is the creative destruction element to them. While there are expansions for these, if you have a gaming group that explores a game’s possibilities for even just a few gameplays, you will noticed changes in strategy and gameplay. The fact there are so many routes to win (timing, resources, boardspace, etc.) it keeps the game nearly limitless. MTG takes this to crazy levels by introducing a thousand new options every year. Absolutely nuts!

Secondly, I think a huge part of it is the social aspect of the game. Sure, Majora’s Mask is possibly the best Video Game ever, but in the end, what do you accomplish? It’s a past-time that only you (may) benefit from. Between my time spent playing Morrowind and Magic: The Gathering, I can tell you that I have met a lot of new faces around town playing the latter.
I strongl believe Boardgames and Card Games strongly encourage social interaction while single player video games do the opposite.

So, there’s my tidbit. Good read!