Magic The Gathering 40% Decline in Players

There have been lots of reports of Magic in a decline recently and the recent quarterly was a decline in revenue too. What do you think Veeky Forums, how many years left does MTG have?

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Do girls like that really play? I started in middle school back in the early-2000s, but never cared enough to learn the rules properly, so I quit in a few months and went back to 40k

Shitty userbase consisting of outright thieves, retards, and crybabies.

Not long.

...

Yes, of course people play MTG on the floor in an uncomfortable position with the product placement facing the camera.

I mean, I wouldn't put too much stock into what Maro says offhand as a way to virtue signal on his blogatog

But I wouldn't surprised if casual players have declined because of stuff like free to play Pokemon and Hearthstone. And the shit going on lately about banning people who aren't cultural marxists isn't going to help

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Poor card quality lately, sad! I remember back just about 5 years ago when MTG was starting to look up. What happened Veeky Forums? Why is MTG so shit now?

i had much amusement comrade, I almost thought you were a nazi!

>See the same shitty hate thread spammed over and over again for days now
>Turns out /pol/ was behind it all
Color me SHOCKED

>WotC refuses to give proper funding to D&D
>5e still manages to be best selling D&D since 1E, most popular edition in decades, normie news articles everywhere about "D&D renaissance"
>WotC pours all their money into MtG
>Rapidly declining sales and playerbase
can someone who understands business explain this

I'll never understand you MTG players! To me, that sounds so uncomfortable!

Nah, that's cointel posting. People from Reddit or perhaps even WoTC posting on /pol/ to get screencaps to discredit legitimate complaints.

Yeah, they're super-low quality! Not to mention the value of cards had really dropped. Heck, my local store is on the brink of closing and coutnerfeits are really good. It really makes me want to move to digital! It's not like the good old days anymore. So yeah, I'm moving to digital and MtG is dying!

Am I as blatant as you are yet, senpai?

My local store is on the brink of closing and counterfeits are so good now. What should I do? I feel like liquidating half my collection and diversifying my cardboard investments into digital product like hearthstone.

>tfw can still remember the golden age of MTG

No, it hasn't. The earlier figure of 20 million from the Guardian was regarding the total number of people who have purchased Magic over an unknown span of time (probably the last year). The later figure of 12 million from Maro was regarding people actually playing the fucking game. That said I would not be in the least surprised if the playerbase is shrinking, because BfZ was openly stated by Maro to be his most disappointing production and really everything has been abysmal since then. When that set hit attendance at my LGS for MTG crashed and hasn't moved much since.

Is this for real? Christ, what faggots.

thinking about arin playing mtg...

If you want someone who understands business, look on a different site.
My pet theory is that they've managed to get themselves stuck in a feedback bubble where they're told that the best course of action is the one they want to take and not the one that's actually good for the game

>We aren't shilling and infiltrating boards. y-you're the ones doing it all!

WotC is bad at business. News at 11.

No, seriously, it's because they're being run by idiots. Hasbro doesn't understand their properties and is running it like the toy business despite it not being like that at all other than being an entertainment product. WotC is being severely mismanaged from the ground up and no one is doing anything about it because people still give them money.

My local store just did a closing sale. I'm buylisting my cards and heading over to a digital offering from a quality company. The counterfeits are very scary these days too and even the real cards have defects now. Remember back before MTG was dying when it was really good?

So strange; my FLGS's owner is raking in the bux from MtG; the store basically keeps itself open and he lives off the profits from selling cards. He bitches how shitty the customers he sells to online are, but who can blame him? Look at the typical MtG player.

Come the fuck on mate.

Investing in hearthstone is basically just gambling. The game is pretty much just two random number generators people pretend to control anyways

Even with Mtg's shrinking player base its still more profitable than DnD, considering just the price you have to pay to get into standard.

DnD is still a niche hobby even with shows like stranger things bringing it closer to the main stream.

I know but looking at the spreadsheet of my card investments I really need to divest and diversify.

So strange; my FLGS's owner is raking in the bux from MtG; the store basically keeps itself open and he lives off the profits from selling cards. He bitches how shitty the customers he sells to online are, but who can blame him? Look at the typical MtG player.

When the thread got moved there were multiple /pol/ posts about Veeky Forums being "compromised". I saw a thread about increasing /pol/ posts on Veeky Forums recently too, and that soon all boards would fall in line.

It's such a ridiculous open secret that /pol/ wants the entire site to be /pol/, and yet you get these persistent denials and the "nuh-uh Veeky Forums was always like we are now". Fucking nightmare to have day in and day out.

Yes, of course. It's definitely just the people you dislike shitposting. You are entirely trustworthy and would never deceive us, even if you thought it would score you a victory in the culture war or give you a leg-up in the speculation game.

Try investing in other, unrelated businesses. Real ones and not games.
Can you even fucking sell hearthstone cards?

Veeky Forums is compromised alright, but not by /pol/.

So basically, a successful D&D still isn't as profitable as a failing MtG?

This is how scared people act, user. /pol/acks are scared. They are scared of change, and they are scared of what will happen when the soibois actually do start coming for them in the night and the lynchings begin.

There will be blood.

Serious question though but do you think the decline in the playerbase will be permament?

The alternatives are huge now and dominate the digital arena. I can't imagine a kid nowadays going into MTG over hearthstone/shadowverse/etc

Yes.

MTG is basically legal gambling. Of course it makes more money than selling books.

It will be discontinued in some two years, you heard it here first. Competition is really fierce with Hearthstone and others, which have:

>cheaper prices
>no need to memorize corner cases
>better support
>convenience of play
>no need to listen to some autist screeching into your ears

Magic might be a better game overall, but it can't provide those. Arena will either fail or kill the paper game if it succeeds anyway.

Play what you want, user. Other people's decision shouldn't influence whatever game you want to play. These are the kinds of hard choices that adults make.

So, they're scared of a thing that will never happen?

That's like asking if the decrease in phone booths will be permanent now that everyone is using mobile phones.

This is my hypothesis too. Until MTG has a good digital product that can compete with valve, blizzard, etc they will continue to decline.

The earlier catalyst for growth was the MTG video game being pretty successful.

pretty much, The average casual MTG player spends about as much as the average DnD group and are about 10 times as numerous, to say nothing of the wales who flood in for FMNs.

Plus there's the fact that you get threads like this day after day, built around misinformation that has been crudely cobbled out of scraps of googled statistics. It doesn't matter how many times you point out that it's wrong, they'll keep posting it again and again and there will be more people who read it and blindly believe it than people who question the truth of it.

Gone are there days when you could actually trust what someone said on the internet. Every post or comment or tweet is just another bullet fired in this ridiculous fucking culture war.

Yeah, they are. It's about as likely as the blacks and hispanics coming for them in the night, and their precious white race being abolished.

And now you know how silly it all really sounds to non-retards.

Other than this entire issue being based off a single blogpost where the number wasn't even backed up in the slightest, Yes.
Or rather. I think that it's the increase in players that was the temporary thing. Magic became a fad a few years ago, so they started to greedily expand, and now that people are leaving to move on to the next fad, Wizards is left with a supply chain that's in shambles (I can go more into this) and a bunch of trained behaviors that really aren't good for keeping the people that are staying behind

I see it like board games vs videogames. The fan base of MTG will decrease, but there will always be enough people who enjoy it to allow Wizards to keep making Magic. Assuming they keep making a quality product of course, it would only take a few years of bad draft/standard for them to have a huge issue on their hands

How is magic arena looking? Could it save MTG?

the idea is pretty good but I'm not sure why they copied hearthstone UI and graphics.

Presumably cause the hearthstone UI was copied from some of the earlier MtG digital games

>How is magic arena looking? Could it save MTG?

It will kill the paper game if it succeeds in its goal of being a competitor to Hearthstone.

I may not agree with /pol/, but I will fight for their right to speak freely.

Seriously, I love the idea of arena but I think it looks gross. It looks nothing like magic, even the cards are completely different looking

They literally looked at hearthstone, and told the designers to copy it. I hate it. I love the layout of MTGO because it's bare bones, it looks exactly like paper magic, and there's no clutter

I'm not from /pol/ though. That's a cointel post and this thread is full of it.

They really should start stealing ideas from force of will with full arts and card quality.

True that. People find it easier to just believe the info that reassures them or is from the side they buy into than look anything up. Which just ultimately prolongs and worsens this cycle of the most accusatory and dramatic folks becoming the main voices of their groups.

Yeah, fuck whites.

Fuck all this sjw/alt right boogey man shit. It has nothing to do with the decline of popularity of the game. The game is suffering because there were 5 cuking cards banned in standard. Look at mtg's history there is always a downswing in popularity when standard has power level issues. It happened in combo winter/urza's block, original mirrodin, caw blade, and just recently with the last few sets.

No one's stopping them from speaking freely. They've been speaking freely for a pretty long while now.

The issue is that they're using most of this speaking of theirs to push their politics on other people and recruit them to their side. I refuse to take part in this daft battle of identity politics. Neither side is better than the other.

MTGO gets a lot of shit, but it really just is Magic being played online. The rules of the game are so intricate and there are so many opportunities to respond to things that the client just needed to be that way. You can't make Magic run smoother without making it less like Magic.

Full art is something I'm personally opposed to since it can make cards a pain in the ass to read sometimes. Higher card quality would be nice. But apparently at some point, wizards decided that making sure everyone was playing with trash was the most fun so that's what they're aiming for.

>the problem isn't that their talking
>the problem is that they're saying things I think are icky

As will I. It's a shame they wouldn't do the same.

Are you sure though? Hasbro/wotc have forever tried to keep their digital products intentionally shitty or hamstrung to not compete with paper.

Except that isn't what was said at all. The issue isn't what they're saying, the issue is the intention behind their words. They aren't benign, they're insidious.

I'm probably autistic, I'm an accountant and love spreadsheets, but I love MTGO. Just like you said, it's complex because that's required for a game like Magic

It's not hard to learn either, play half a dozen games and you're hitting all the right buttons without a second thought. What needs to be overhauled is the financial side to it, and how you buy and sell singles. Using bots is confusing as fuck to normies who just want to play a better version of hearthstone

No, it's *how* they're talking. When they destroy all other talk in their path and drown everything out with their talk, that's the issue. They're saying "I have free speech" but they're doing it in a way that denies other people the freedom to talk about literally anything else.

Since when has /pol/ tried to prevent discussion?

DOS attacks.

Its because they're saying things that are inherently disingenuous. If they had a point sure, but they post the same bait threads over and over

See, you think their insidious because you disagree with them. If they were saying things you like, you'd be cheering on their loud and boisterous voice

MTGO revenue is garbage compared to the market

20,000,000 revenue 2016 for mtgo
1,200,000,000 market for digital cards in 2016

It has a shit market share because it's been so horribly managed.

>projecting this hard
Mods, please. You did us a favor with the other thread; can you deport this one too?

Is that digital cards for all online card games combined?

The issue with MTGO is, because it's old as fuck, it's financial system is outdated as fuck. But they can't change that, because people have thousands of dollars invested in it. But they can't keep it the way it is now long term, because it's a terrible financial system for an online platform

But this is the thing: they couldn't make their digital product better than the paper one so they didn't outcompete themselves. But now that Hearthstone and other CCGs are doing it, this worry doesn't make sense anymore - if they won't outcompete the paper card game, other developers will. They were the only legit CCG in the market, now they aren't.

So now they have a choice of seriously getting into the online card game market or not. If they don't, then eventually the paper game might just become obsolete by the cheaper, faster, more convenient online games, and even if it doesn't, it will be a lot of money they will not be making.

But this is the catch: if they manage to compete with Hearthstone, they might just end up outcompeting their own printed card game. It is a dilemma that will be really hard for them to get out of.

Why are you on this thread, if you don't even want to discuss?

>please help mods, he said something icky

The general attitude that straight white men should be the only ones ever allowed to have a social platform.

It'll be even worse when Valve releases Artifact
>MTG level gameplay (not dumbed down hearthstone style)
>all cards unlocked from the start
>only thing you pay for is cosmetics/art/borders/etc
>cross-over cosmetics with Dota 2
>Valve has quietly hired former WotC people to help on game design & balance
MTG is fucked desu

Except no, I'm not saying that. I think they are insidious because their statements, techniques and methodology are built around redpilling other people. They don't want to have an honest conversation, they want to recruit. That's what I take issue with, being seen as either an obstacle to be knocked over or fodder for their front lines. They can say what they like even if I subjectively disagree with them, I will just point out if it's objectively wrong.

stop shitting up the thread.

From what I've heard standard is basically shit right now and has been for some time. The playerbase might not be so "Sticky" to the product with more and more alternatives existing in digital space.

Any projections as to what this will do to modern prices? They are already on the decline due to reprint. It would be interesting if the existing playerbase shifts towards modern and revenue is stymied. This would make them focus more on reprints to sell the latest product which in turn tanks modern prices and makes it more appealing to standard.

A self fulfilling prophecy of dead standard unless they make it more fun than modern.

I'll play it if they add in decks and cards for other valve IPs
Maybe then we can have a new half life game

Will it have sexy art? This is important. Shadowverse is weebshit; it's lame. I prefer western cheesecake these days.

I think what they should do is this

First off, all pro tournaments are done in paper, no questions asked
Have drafts and standard on arena. Don't put eternal formats into arena, even if it was possible. That way, if someone wants to only draft and play standard, they can stay on arena. But the more serious people who want to either try to compete or play legacy/EDH/modern/whatever, they have to buy paper cards. And obviously every standard set is printed both in paper and arena, to keep eternal formats growing like they have been

They seem to have been trying to compete and have failed. Keep in mind they are probably conservative and don't see the actual threat of digital. It's been a very slow response and Hasbro has a track record of being unable to do any digital products of success.

>shitting up a shitfest
Okay hoss. This thread is not about MtG. Neither was the other one. They are seeing to that, and you aren't going to valiantly save it. So just let it die and go discuss how bad standard is in the thread that already exists for that purpose.

"Redpilling" someone is just slang for convincing them. That's what anyone who takes part in political discussions or debates tries to do, they try to convince other people to agree with them

They use terms like redpilling because they understand the power of memes and popular terms to set themselves apart in people's minds from other political ideas

Is there even a screenshot of artefact yet?

It's just revenge for overwatch cramping on TF2 right? Giving out a f2p card game with all cards.

Maybe. The newer game might actually be the better one this time though

>all cards unlocked from the start
So what stops everyone from just playing the top two decks in the meta?

Perhaps once upon a time. Not anymore.

availability is not a balancing mechanism, it's a pay 2 win mechanism.

You have no idea how non-TCGs work, do you.

Not public stuff yet, no. I've been friends with a couple high up dota people for a long time so I've heard things.

Probably new releases and/or the ability to counterplay and change the meta. I mean Legacy meta changes all the time even without new Legacy-tier cards. Also limited formats etc

>It will kill the paper game if it succeeds
The same way MTGO killed paper magic? Don't even try to argue that MTGO is a failure, they run it in a shoestring budget and people play 24/7

It helps balance at least some. I guarantee you there's tons of people who don't play tier one decks at local tournaments because those decks are too expensive for them, so they play a deck that can still win games, but isn't the best deck in the format

The money they make off MTGO is nothing near the money their digital competitors make, which some executive certainly sees as a failure.

That's still not more balance.

Artifact looks weird, like a very creative take or trying to mimic a game of dota itself. Three lanes/boards, hero cards, item cards you buy, etc. It probably doesn't' play anything like mtg/hearthstone

That's what I'm saying; that's the main focus of LCGs and whatnot; they have to be more balanced because there's nothing behind a paywall. You have to make more of your card pool relevant to succeed.

>See, you think their insidious because you disagree with them.

They're insidious because of fucking thisThey're liars, lack academic rigors and actively take advantage of the limitations of human cognition to push their agenda.

Not necessarily, look at PTCG, it has a good online model and an actually growing playerbase in both paper and digital formats. The recent regional in Europe was the biggest event in the game's history.

How about you stop trying push your perception of the game on other people? What do you have to gain from convincing other people that MtG is dead?