Signal versus noise: why market research never goes out of style
August 3rd 2008 02:18
I have quite the conundrum on my hands. I need to visit Magic forums to stay connected to my fellow enthusiasts (well, the 15% or so of them who hang out on forums, anyway), but the forums are less and less effective at connecting me to those enthusiasts. The signal-to-noise ratio is at an all-time low.
Sure, it’s Shards of Alara rumor season, which most people generally read as “open season for speculating that all my favorite themes and cards and the most powerful cards from the last Standard season are on the verge of being reprinted.” But these days it’s something more than that, and sadly, it’s Wizards of the Coast’s own fault (partly).
The last three core sets had a promotion called Selecting Eighth (Ninth/Tenth) Edition. The basic premise was that Research and Development presented two (or more) cards and said “Pick which of these cards will be reprinted in the core set.” There were also votes between alternate art and flavor text, but the card vs. card votes got the most attention. The really important content decisions were all made internally, but their reasoning was that they could drum up interest in the next Core Set by dangling the possibility that interesting old favorites would return to the Standard format and by giving people a feeling that they were participating in the development process.
Unfortunately, they misread the audience. The section of Magic’s fans that spend a significant amount of time on the forums discussing and debating future set content is not representative of the market. Specifically, it is skewed towards tournament players and away from more casual players, not to mention art and flavor enthusiasts. The only effect the “Selecting…” polls had was to convince those people that they knew as much (or more) about game design than the PhD holders who are actual members of R and D. So these days whatever actual content the forums still have is lost in a sea of “I am positive this is what’s in the next set” and “I think Mark Rosewater should print this to fix the Standard format.”
Don't get me wrong - every game's fans know what they want and what they don't want. But Magic is unique in having a subset of its fans who believe they know are better than the pros when it comes to the technical work. Halo's fans have strong ideas about what kinds of multiplayer arenas they like, but they don't claim to know how to code weapon drop points. Sure, some of Wizards’ employees are known to read forums simply because they’re there, but if they could in any way replace traditional market research , they wouldn’t do so much market research! 'Fraid that means you, MTG Salvation. Wizards of the Coast doesn’t care what you think.
And before someone tries to refute me by pointing out that Matt Drudge started on the internet and now gets interviewed by CNN… he is not a forum crawler, he is a blogger, like my well-read and probably very attractive neighbors here on Orble. He signs his real name. He posts actual discussion points, not six-page multi-quotes interspersed with “Hallowed Fountain IS NOT bad for Standard! IS NOT IS NOT IS NOT!!!1”
Next post: Shards of Alara art previews!
Those numbers are way too high to describe a real forum, but you get the idea
Sure, it’s Shards of Alara rumor season, which most people generally read as “open season for speculating that all my favorite themes and cards and the most powerful cards from the last Standard season are on the verge of being reprinted.” But these days it’s something more than that, and sadly, it’s Wizards of the Coast’s own fault (partly).
I will never forgive the art department for putting the Versailles Palace on a card I can’t stand the idea of.
The last three core sets had a promotion called Selecting Eighth (Ninth/Tenth) Edition. The basic premise was that Research and Development presented two (or more) cards and said “Pick which of these cards will be reprinted in the core set.” There were also votes between alternate art and flavor text, but the card vs. card votes got the most attention. The really important content decisions were all made internally, but their reasoning was that they could drum up interest in the next Core Set by dangling the possibility that interesting old favorites would return to the Standard format and by giving people a feeling that they were participating in the development process.
Both of these interesting and well-designed cards lost their polls!
Unfortunately, they misread the audience. The section of Magic’s fans that spend a significant amount of time on the forums discussing and debating future set content is not representative of the market. Specifically, it is skewed towards tournament players and away from more casual players, not to mention art and flavor enthusiasts. The only effect the “Selecting…” polls had was to convince those people that they knew as much (or more) about game design than the PhD holders who are actual members of R and D. So these days whatever actual content the forums still have is lost in a sea of “I am positive this is what’s in the next set” and “I think Mark Rosewater should print this to fix the Standard format.”
Gee, d’you think Richard Garfield would have wasted all those years getting a PhD in math if all you needed to be a game designer was a blurry custom avatar and an inability to use punctuation?
Don't get me wrong - every game's fans know what they want and what they don't want. But Magic is unique in having a subset of its fans who believe they know are better than the pros when it comes to the technical work. Halo's fans have strong ideas about what kinds of multiplayer arenas they like, but they don't claim to know how to code weapon drop points. Sure, some of Wizards’ employees are known to read forums simply because they’re there, but if they could in any way replace traditional market research , they wouldn’t do so much market research! 'Fraid that means you, MTG Salvation. Wizards of the Coast doesn’t care what you think.
And before someone tries to refute me by pointing out that Matt Drudge started on the internet and now gets interviewed by CNN… he is not a forum crawler, he is a blogger, like my well-read and probably very attractive neighbors here on Orble. He signs his real name. He posts actual discussion points, not six-page multi-quotes interspersed with “Hallowed Fountain IS NOT bad for Standard! IS NOT IS NOT IS NOT!!!1”
Courtesy of xkcd.
Next post: Shards of Alara art previews!
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Comment by Anonymous
Nobody ever said anything about market research in the MTGSalvation thread you used as a screenshot. It's a simple opinion thread, asking each poster what they think will be in. I'm not attempting to justify people's statements, but there isn't a justification for yours. You jump to conclusions, and make judgements on, why people post.
I don't see you signing your name, and your 'discussion points' are poorly organized, include generalizations, and jump to (incorrect) conclusions.
- Aaron Leete (Hazen of MTGSalvation)
Comment by MP13
For instance, the coffee shop I stop by always has a group of people talking about the worlds problems. They discuss events and give their opinions concerning them.
I check the MTGSalvation forums about twice a day. I look for spoilers and flip through some card creation posts. People often have interesting ideas, despite a lot of mechanical failures or miswordings.
You will always get people that firmly believe they know better than Wizards, but again that is not unlike real life. To trash a forum due to a small population would be like trashing everyone you know because someone might have said something you don't agree with.
Cheers