So is there any empirical evidence by now, one way or the other...

So is there any empirical evidence by now, one way or the other, as to how the representation push affected MtG's bottom line?

WotC (and Hasbro in general) keep their actual sales numbers very close to their vest, at least as far as I've seen. MaRo, Stoddard and similar reps say in very general terms, "MtG sales continue to rise", but that's pretty much it.

If anyone can find actual sales numbers over the course of the last 4 years or so, please link them.

There's so damn many variables it's impossible to say one way or the other even if you have all the numbers.
In all likelihood, it did basically nothing.

>Black Greeks
>Tranny Khan
>Female Ghostbuster
>Gay Kings
>We Wuz Godkings
>Female Pirates
>Gay Beefcake Jace
>sales continue to climb
heres hoping return to dominaria has two major left and right factions with open gay sex and a sexchanged black woman urza, if fact give it a year and the text box will teplace his and her with xe/xhe/xhey/xheir

Female pirates and male sirens is a pretty funny way to make pirates less generic honestly, it's the best flavor change they've done in a while

the people who give a shit about representation are happy
the people who give a shit about the game don't really mind
the people who shit themselves about other people's life choices continue to shit themselves

/thread

Its not even a new idea. Its an old idea just with genderbending.

Why do fags pretend that taking things and gender bending or race bending is something innovative?

>Hurr durr let's take other cultures' histories and fill them with gay niggers
No.

Gay niggers are everywhere, user. Just look in the mirror!

>"representation"
>bottom line

PC culture is shitty corporate culture

Male sirens are a relatively new idea, but female pirates have been in pirate media for fucking ages.

I don't really care who are on my cards as long as the art is good, but if the new direction stops me from playing with fucktards like you then fuck yeah I'm buying some cards this weekend

>but female pirates have been in pirate media for fucking ages.

This, it's guaranteed a movie featuring pirates will include female pirates.

Not to mention in real life. There were a surprising amount of fairly successful female pirates

the idea that black people and gay people didn't exist in almost every ancient culture is probably not even the stupidest thing you believe

Even China?

Black people existing in ancient cultures is debatable depending on geography but plausible in a setting where long-distance travel is cheap and easy. Gay people, meanwhile, are a thing stretching back into our common ancestry.

>Remotely, distantly possible = Not only wuz we kangz, we wuz kangs everwhar.

To be fair the way sexuality arises within various cultures isn't necessary a known subject. Plenty of various cultures condoned what we would consider homosexuality while not actually different it into its own distinct entity. The idea that homosexuality was everywhere in ancient Greece, for example, misunderstands that in many cases those relationships were so far removed from our current labels as to render them useless.

That guy is still wrong though, probably moreso since he probably does a million things a day his ancestors would consider alien, and still decided to use them to justify something they may not even have had the same concept of.

I think if it's affected sales anywhere, it's actually D&D. No one is going to play a black people tribal so the "I can play characters like me" thing doesn't translate as well. Meanwhile, 5e pointing out shit you've always been able to do or rather, the buzz created by the backlash against it (seriously each time you get buttblasted about this stuff you help create exact the narrative these companies want) got a lot of people who were curious about D&D to try it.

Or, and consider this, there were also white people lots of places too. Maybe, just maybe, DNA tests even in northern Europe show some wacky traveling happened. Same with remote villages in many places. Some random Viking goes to become a Byzantine guard, decides that sucks and he could basically go to most major countries.

Mass migration? Not necessarily, but a few randos ending up in an exotic location? Happened all the time.

Also the planes aren't representative of a single country, they're an entire planet.

You're the Tumblr guy who tries to proves blacks always innundated Europe using paintings as evidence, aren't you?

Ah, but you yourself drive home the nail in the "everyone can be everywhere" excuse.
These aren't a single connected world, it's a gaggle of planes. Unless you expect us to believe that all planes somehow independently evolved humans, they had to come from somewhere.
And if they were ethnically diverse in the distant forgotten past, they'd likely have interbred that diversity out. If they weren't diverse when they immigrated, then there's no reason for an ethnicity not congruent with the plane's monobiome to have emerged.

Because let's face it, biological differences don't happen for no reason, and when the entire plane is "island pirate planet" there's no reason for any biological differences to arise in just one place.

I mean, the real issue is tokenism and how it makes the Other stand out and become even more Other, because that's horribly offensive and disruptive to immersion and suspension of disbelief. The solution is MORE "gay niggers" if anything. .

Ha, a funny story about that. In China, we used to think black people were golems, and that their black skin was a balm that could be wiped off for medicinal purposes. There were like one or two, and they were slaves.

My grandmother, who fled China during the Cultural Revolution, still believes black people are demons. I tell her, those are Muslims.

>our current labels
Sucking dick or getting your bum punched for pleasure and/or comfort. I think that about covers it.

This whole "Greeks weren't OUR homos" shit needs to end.

It doesn't remotely begin to cover it.

That's.... mildly disturbing. What country do you live in?

>ancient cultures
>cave paintings
it's not my fault you received a poor basic education

READING COMPREHENSION

>READING COMPREHENSION
he said his grandmother fled china. he could live anywhere in the world.

> "representation" push

Let's call it what it is -- a ham-fisted attempt to normalize the abnormal for political purposes.

None of this matters. None of this shit has ever affected MtGs sales whether its from over or under representation. Its just something for fags to argue about on the internet. If you care about the game you'd complain about a ton of other shit than muh representation

>normal
>white
>heterosexual
>christian
>masculine

that's a delicately built log cabin of insecurity you've got there.

>Unless you expect us to believe that all planes somehow independently evolved humans, they had to come from somewhere.

I would argue you're making an enormous leap of logic for a fantasy world. It may well be humans were birthed from the earth itself in any given fantasy realm, or that there was actually one true dimension that fractured into infinitesimal planes. Or, and hear me out, all the planes are made up inside people's heads. Many fantasy worlds are made with songs for fucks sake.

>And if they were ethnically diverse in the distant forgotten past, they'd likely have interbred that diversity out.

That's not how genes work. That's like looking at mammals in the few hundred thousand years post dinosaurs and wondering why they aren't all exactly the same since they've all come from the same stock. Sexual reproduction over long periods of time doesn't eliminate every trait like some sort of magic eraser, and many genes don't work like a pea's color. Actually even peas don't act like you're describing. Different traits are passed to different offspring. The idea that somehow skin color will all blur to the same shade is assuming that once inherited an allele will never be able to be what it previously was.
Also the plane is based on real pirates, who were historically ridiculously diverse. If anything you're just a whinny wimp who should grow some balls.

Except the entire plane isn't "island pirate planet". You're ignoring the fact that ixalan is a continent on the plane, and the legion of dusk inhabits a larger continent. And maybe "gay niggers" deserve some representation because there are actually gay niggers irl and i can't name more than 3 from TV or movies. So maybe shut the fuck up?

Wow. If this is how pro-diversity advocates treat each other I'm glad I'm not a SJW.

Wait do people really get upset or feel unwelcome simply because a 1:1 representation isn't included?

Watching the woke crew go at it with each other is hilarious because you guys are all literally saying the same thing but also are extremely egotistical so you lash out at someone saying the same thing because you won't to be the most woke of all

What the fuck are you even talking about? Can you not follow a reply chain? One user is arguing that niggers are over represented, the other is arguing that its entirely plausible to have these people in settings they wouldn't be the majority in irl.

Mate, learn to fucking read.

There is nothing wrong with a little diversity or trying something new like Male Sirens. The problem is listening to the crazies that take things too far.

Am I the only person who doesn't care at all about whether the cards are non binary gay black people or not? I don't play mtg for the lore and as long as the card art and flavor text is interesting I don't care. Just make decent cards

>Unless you expect us to believe that all planes somehow independently evolved humans

I do expect that.

You joke, but I would be shocked it they didn't implement gender neutral pronouns in the textbox within the next 12 months.

People have inquired as to why WotC doesn't use the shorter singular "they/their" over the more long-winded "he/his or she/her" they currently use and the answer is grammatical correctness. They adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style.

>and i can't name more than 3 from TV or movies.
how much gay niggers do you need to name

>the answer is grammatical correctness.
That's also really poor reasoning. Not only because singular they has been in use for over 300 years, or because style guides aren't authorities on grammatical correctness, but also because the templating they use is already, arguably, grammatically incorrect in several places which they attempt to explain away as the cards not being written in English but rather Magicese.

Probably not all that much, because people who aren't insuffereble spergs don't care about that stuff

I'm not an insufferable sperg, but it's basically the straw that broke the camel's back for me as to why I stopped playing magic.

There's a lot of other factors, but when the two statues dudes ended up getting their own commander deck, that's when I finally just gave up,

>Black Greeks
Literally the only triggering thing on the list

>other cultures' history
Ah, yes, I remember the span of Egyptian history during which the entire nation was slave to an ancient dragon.

Greece (specifically Alexander the Great) conquered Egypt around 332 BC.

The idea that white people and white conquerors didn't exist in almost every ancient culture is probably not even the stupidest cucked thing you believe.

That would have been sick.

Macedonia conquered Egypt and did a little Helenizing up until Alexanders death when the Ptolemaic dynasty started an Egyptaboo kingdom in Egypt that was entirely distinct from the other Hellenistic states that succeeded Alexanders empire.

Also, ever seen a Copt?

No, no empirical evidence and most likely never going to be any. It's just too many factors that you wouldn't be able to measure it empirically.

But the way I see it has changed nothing, the people at my lgs still complain about the same things, cards being too expensive and terrible metas.

Honestly, the funniest part of the diversity push has been watching people try to argue that representation doesn't matter when the entire reason it upsets them is that they feel threatened by a decrease in their own representation.

ouch

Uh, planeswalkers. There is literally a group of people who can go anywhere they want, without having any of the usual difficulties distant travel has.

They can have kids. Those kids then have kids.

That's just polite way of saying "no niggers pls".