Magic: The Gathering Online and Why It Failed to Garner a Following
And How Magic: The Gathering Arena May Help
Magic: The Gathering is a game created by Richard Garfield and published in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, publishers of the Dungeons and Dragons franchise of tabletop role-playing games. Despite its age, it continues to thrive with over twenty million players globally with its only real competition being Yu-Gi-Oh! It wouldn’t sound unreasonable for many to call Magic the original competitive TCG. As such, it was also the earliest to go online. In 2002, Magic: The Gathering Online officially went up. For $9.99, one could purchase the client allowing them to collect digital versions of cards. They could also play in official tournaments. However, despite coming out in 2002, the game has only amassed about 300,000, players and has yet to become the cultural phenomenon that not only its cardboard parent has gained, but even against much younger peers such as Hearthstone.
But, there is excellent news for Hearthstone players interested in Magic and Magic players interested in playing online. Wizards of the Coast announced Magic: The Gathering Arena in September of 2017. This would be their third attempt to branch into the online market and their first time reaching into the e-sports setting with their game. But, in order for M:TG Arena to succeed, there are some problems they must face in order to compete.
The first problem with Magic: The Gathering Online is the financial barrier. The fact that one must pay an entry fee on top of buying cards makes many look for free alternatives. In order for M:TG Arena to succeed, it must be free to play. Games such as these appeal to fans of the existing game and casual players who may be interested. If someone pays upfront before playing the game, they expect everything the game has to offer upfront. The price for M:TG Online is simply a price to allow the player to potentially play. This is essentially paying for nothing and is no better than buying a season pass for a game. Not to mention, The Elder Scrolls Legends, Hearthstone, and even Force of Will offer free entry. From what has been posted online, it seems Wizards wants to go this route.
Another note similar to the free entry is collecting cards. Having a method in which players can obtain cards for free can convince players to stick around. Having the option to craft booster packs or individual cards makes the game feel as though it’s not pay to win. It becomes pay for ease, which is more acceptable in free to play games. In addition, making real life booster packs contain codes for online booster packs can expand both markets. For pre-constructed decks such as the Planeswalker decks, having a code that unlocks all the cards in game would be a plus.
The second need is a more intuitive UI. The M:TG Online UI is terrible, unintuitive, and prone to frequent crashes. A bad UI will kill a game faster than they can tap an Island. Not only this, but with a game that can become as complex as Magic can be, being able to understand the board state at a glance is imperative. This is especially compulsory if Wizards decides to branch into formats like Vintage or Commander.
Next, the game needs to be available on multiple operating systems. At the moment, M:TG Online is only available on Windows OS, severely limiting the potential player base. Artists and programmers, who may be running AppleOS and Linux/Ubuntu respectively, are left out of a game they may be interested. Further down the line, investing in mobile and console versions may be relevant to the interests of Wizards, but upon release, it needs to be available on all major operating systems.
Other than these few notes, M:TG Arena seems like the perfect tool to grab old and new players. I requested a closed beta key, so hopefully I’ll be able to update this in the future. M:TG Arena has a high potential to succeed considering how long the original game has been in existence. I hope for the best for this game. Sleep tight.
