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tegyriusA few years ago, I poked at the online port of Magic: The Gathering as a possible mechanism for recapturing that particular part of my misspent youth. It was a good enough investment of time and money but I dropped it because no one else I knew was playing it.
I'm still on the email list, though. Yesterday, I got a customer survey. And they made the mistake of offering a text box for comments.
I am a disaffected former player. I started with Beta in 1993, during my freshman year of college. I played regularly through the late 1990s, until my college gaming groups entered their post-degree diasporas. I've tried to come back to the game a few times since but it's been a non-starter because of social circle interest and scheduling issues.
I have no interest in competitive play. I have no interest in going to a store for pick-up games or organized events with players whose objective is competition. Magic is a nostalgia property for me, an opportunity to return to my roots as a gamer.
Earlier this year, a bunch of my old gaming buddies arranged to meet at a convention in our hometown. The convention was really an excuse, a structure around which to build a reunion. As part of this effort, I tried to find a few starter deck boxes and booster packs so we could have an evening of casual deckbuilding and play. What I found was that WotC has abandoned that model entirely, turning to something that looks like a season- or subscription-based game. There is no core set any more. Every starter deck is pre-built. It is impossible to play the way I did when I got into the game, when it was one of the foci of my social life. And I'm not at all interested in playing a game that's build solely to monetize tournaments.
Goodbye, Magic.
I'm still on the email list, though. Yesterday, I got a customer survey. And they made the mistake of offering a text box for comments.
I am a disaffected former player. I started with Beta in 1993, during my freshman year of college. I played regularly through the late 1990s, until my college gaming groups entered their post-degree diasporas. I've tried to come back to the game a few times since but it's been a non-starter because of social circle interest and scheduling issues.
I have no interest in competitive play. I have no interest in going to a store for pick-up games or organized events with players whose objective is competition. Magic is a nostalgia property for me, an opportunity to return to my roots as a gamer.
Earlier this year, a bunch of my old gaming buddies arranged to meet at a convention in our hometown. The convention was really an excuse, a structure around which to build a reunion. As part of this effort, I tried to find a few starter deck boxes and booster packs so we could have an evening of casual deckbuilding and play. What I found was that WotC has abandoned that model entirely, turning to something that looks like a season- or subscription-based game. There is no core set any more. Every starter deck is pre-built. It is impossible to play the way I did when I got into the game, when it was one of the foci of my social life. And I'm not at all interested in playing a game that's build solely to monetize tournaments.
Goodbye, Magic.