Stuck in the middle
November 8th 2010 05:51
During my MBA course, I may not always have paid as much attention as my lecturers would have liked, but I did pick up on certain aspects of strategic analysis. It is important for a business to know its competitors, and Magic is lucky enough to have few direct ones. Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! are aimed at a younger audience, while Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t seem to fit as well with people’s mood as it used to, and The Spoils is not yet established in the market.
Competition could come from very unexpected quarters. In a recent discussion on the price of mythic rares used in Standard, I heard someone remark “There’s a $300 PS3 Slim now, and the Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year edition is like $60. I know which [between those two and the Tier 1 netdeck we were discussing] is going to be more fun in two years.” I never thought of these products as competing before – while I love video games, I’ve known other Magic players who lacked the motor skills to play Pong – but my associate’s remark got me thinking.
On all of the criteria he was thinking of – ongoing aesthetic appeal, the ability to continue playing with old favorites for ever – there is, in the abstract, no reason why Magic couldn’t match video gaming. The only wrinkle is that their sales model depends on us buying new sets. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this in the abstract, but some of the methods they choose are not entirely consistent with maintaining public goodwill. I’m talking about the constant emphasis on competitive Standard tournaments, the jargon about old cards “leaving” and players having to “say good-bye,” and Aaron Forsythe’s Twitter comments on individual cards which inevitably degenerate into head-shaking about how awful Homelands and Time Spiral were.
No other company that I’m aware of tries to make its fans feel guilty for liking other of its own products. You don’t see Rocksteady Studios previewing Arkham City by saying “Arkham Asylum was so terrible and poorly designed.” They don’t try to argue that Asylum was perfect, and have even pointed out one or two of its flaws, but they seem to understand that certain ways of expressing that sentiment could lead to shooting themselves in the foot. If we’re supposed to understand that Wizards of the Coast releases cards that they intend to produce a “perfect” or close-to-it Standard environment and that represent the pinnacle of game design, then it follows that previous card sets were “perfect” and the pinnacle for their time. At some point, Magic’s fans are going to realize that this means that either the old cards which Forsythe criticizes are still good now, or the new sets will be getting slammed on Twitter in a couple of years. When that day comes, I imagine the makers of The Spoils are going to find they have a lot of new friends.
Competition could come from very unexpected quarters. In a recent discussion on the price of mythic rares used in Standard, I heard someone remark “There’s a $300 PS3 Slim now, and the Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year edition is like $60. I know which [between those two and the Tier 1 netdeck we were discussing] is going to be more fun in two years.” I never thought of these products as competing before – while I love video games, I’ve known other Magic players who lacked the motor skills to play Pong – but my associate’s remark got me thinking.
On all of the criteria he was thinking of – ongoing aesthetic appeal, the ability to continue playing with old favorites for ever – there is, in the abstract, no reason why Magic couldn’t match video gaming. The only wrinkle is that their sales model depends on us buying new sets. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this in the abstract, but some of the methods they choose are not entirely consistent with maintaining public goodwill. I’m talking about the constant emphasis on competitive Standard tournaments, the jargon about old cards “leaving” and players having to “say good-bye,” and Aaron Forsythe’s Twitter comments on individual cards which inevitably degenerate into head-shaking about how awful Homelands and Time Spiral were.
No other company that I’m aware of tries to make its fans feel guilty for liking other of its own products. You don’t see Rocksteady Studios previewing Arkham City by saying “Arkham Asylum was so terrible and poorly designed.” They don’t try to argue that Asylum was perfect, and have even pointed out one or two of its flaws, but they seem to understand that certain ways of expressing that sentiment could lead to shooting themselves in the foot. If we’re supposed to understand that Wizards of the Coast releases cards that they intend to produce a “perfect” or close-to-it Standard environment and that represent the pinnacle of game design, then it follows that previous card sets were “perfect” and the pinnacle for their time. At some point, Magic’s fans are going to realize that this means that either the old cards which Forsythe criticizes are still good now, or the new sets will be getting slammed on Twitter in a couple of years. When that day comes, I imagine the makers of The Spoils are going to find they have a lot of new friends.
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