Magic: the Gathering did not ruin gaming
A few months ago I got into a 30 second discussion with someone who I already had no respect for. His views continued to justify why I consider him a half-witted dip$#!+).
He honestly believes that Magic: the Gathering and its owner, Wizards of the Coast, ruined role-playing.
He actually believes that all of the games that existed pre-Magic that died when Magic consumed our money, were worth keeping.
I’m sorry, but common sense and the basic ideals of capitalism explain why those games died. I claim no in-depth knowledge of every little detail, but as a consumer I understand why I didn’t buy something (I had no interest or I had tried it and not liked it or the game concept seemed “eh” to me).
Magic was, and still can be, a fun game. Most of the companies and games that died were probably barely treading water. I even have some minor inside view on one company.
In the early 1990’s I worked as a standard factory monkey at Ral Partha (now reborn of sorts as Iron Wind Metals). The company itself didn’t seem that bad to me from where I was. The worst I saw was that hard work got you so far, but ass-kissing got you a little further. I didn’t quite qualify for either (I’m not a physically quick person, and being nice to someone for long term while lying to them is not something I can do).
They gave their employees a lot of perks. Two 20-minute breaks, rather than the usual two 10-minutes breaks I’ve had at other factories. And they let you take home one or two figures a night, or buy them for $2 a pound. That’s a pretty sweet deal to any gamer, even if it was lead.
And their employees were certainly not the upper crust of society. There were a lot of Harley’s in their parking lot and several cars were filled with smoke during breaks. And I’m not talking cigarette smoke. (No, I never joined in. I’m about as anti-drug as you can get.)
But I found out what happened to RP years later. Tom Meier, a part-owner and original sculptor for RP, wrote in his short auto-biography that RP was run by people who basically didn’t know what they were doing but thought they did (not his words exactly, but close enough). And from what I’ve read, TSR had that same dilemma when they were dying.
And this part I know is a fact; Ral Partha’s continued existence was built upon role-player money. A good portion of the money they made was when a gamer had a couple of extra dollars after buying a D&D product. That gamer would buy a mini or two and leave the store with no money in hand.
What do you think happened when Magic entered the scene? You cold spend $3 on a figure that you probably might use once or twice in a year, or you could spend that same $3 on a pack of cards that you might be able to use immediately. For many, including myself, it was a no-brainer.
I was laid off from RP about 6 months before Magic made its debut around here. And it would be an understatement if I were to say that I was not happy with RP at that point. RP had been losing money all along, or were treading water. If anything were to disturb the status-quo, they would be screwed.
Then Magic came out around here. It started off pretty small, but once people started playing it, it was everywhere. On busy days the non-Magic players would sometimes throw fits because there was no space for them.
So now draw a similar picture with TSR. They had been poorly run and had been releasing worthless crap for years. I stilled played D&D, but it was not often and I certainly didn’t buy everything they put on the shelves.
I honestly thought that the emergence of Magic would wake TSR out of its malaise and force it to compete. I thought they would stop releasing the worthless junk they had been making and would then get back to putting something on the shelves I would want to buy.
I mean, seriously, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, and others were not something I had any interest in, and I wasn’t alone. Yes, I bought the Dark Sun campaign setting, but I was not impressed with it and didn’t spend another penny on it.
But I was wrong. TSR was in bad shape, just like RP. They both were the king of the mountain for their respective fields of business and they were both mismanaged into ruin.
Magic: the Gathering was just the last push that was needed to knock them both off the mountain. Both companies didn’t die immediately, but they were on borrowed time.
What does this have to do with Magic ruining role-playing?
Pretty simple I think. Draw similar lines for all of the game companies out there that went poof.
I’m not saying that they were all mismanaged or that their games weren’t any fun to those who played them.
I’m saying that Magic cleaned all of the trash off of the game table. Yes it took down some things that might have been worth keeping, but I’m ok with that because the net result was worth much more to me.
Dungeons and Dragons was saved by WotC. WotC bought TSR to save D&D (not to steal the art for Magic illustrations).
They not only saved it from oblivion they remade it and fixed it. And then they allowed other game companies to add on to their revived D&D.
And now some idiot is telling me that Magic ruined the world of gaming.
Puh-lease. Do the world a favor and never breed. It will save nature from selecting your progeny for extinction.
And that brings me to my next argument. There are too many stupid people in this country. Let us all solve this problem by removing warning stickers from lawn mowers, toasters, and hair-dryers.
(Remember, these are my opinions. I might be missing a fact or two in the equation, but I doubt any new revelations could change my opinion.)
He honestly believes that Magic: the Gathering and its owner, Wizards of the Coast, ruined role-playing.
He actually believes that all of the games that existed pre-Magic that died when Magic consumed our money, were worth keeping.
I’m sorry, but common sense and the basic ideals of capitalism explain why those games died. I claim no in-depth knowledge of every little detail, but as a consumer I understand why I didn’t buy something (I had no interest or I had tried it and not liked it or the game concept seemed “eh” to me).
Magic was, and still can be, a fun game. Most of the companies and games that died were probably barely treading water. I even have some minor inside view on one company.
In the early 1990’s I worked as a standard factory monkey at Ral Partha (now reborn of sorts as Iron Wind Metals). The company itself didn’t seem that bad to me from where I was. The worst I saw was that hard work got you so far, but ass-kissing got you a little further. I didn’t quite qualify for either (I’m not a physically quick person, and being nice to someone for long term while lying to them is not something I can do).
They gave their employees a lot of perks. Two 20-minute breaks, rather than the usual two 10-minutes breaks I’ve had at other factories. And they let you take home one or two figures a night, or buy them for $2 a pound. That’s a pretty sweet deal to any gamer, even if it was lead.
And their employees were certainly not the upper crust of society. There were a lot of Harley’s in their parking lot and several cars were filled with smoke during breaks. And I’m not talking cigarette smoke. (No, I never joined in. I’m about as anti-drug as you can get.)
But I found out what happened to RP years later. Tom Meier, a part-owner and original sculptor for RP, wrote in his short auto-biography that RP was run by people who basically didn’t know what they were doing but thought they did (not his words exactly, but close enough). And from what I’ve read, TSR had that same dilemma when they were dying.
And this part I know is a fact; Ral Partha’s continued existence was built upon role-player money. A good portion of the money they made was when a gamer had a couple of extra dollars after buying a D&D product. That gamer would buy a mini or two and leave the store with no money in hand.
What do you think happened when Magic entered the scene? You cold spend $3 on a figure that you probably might use once or twice in a year, or you could spend that same $3 on a pack of cards that you might be able to use immediately. For many, including myself, it was a no-brainer.
I was laid off from RP about 6 months before Magic made its debut around here. And it would be an understatement if I were to say that I was not happy with RP at that point. RP had been losing money all along, or were treading water. If anything were to disturb the status-quo, they would be screwed.
Then Magic came out around here. It started off pretty small, but once people started playing it, it was everywhere. On busy days the non-Magic players would sometimes throw fits because there was no space for them.
So now draw a similar picture with TSR. They had been poorly run and had been releasing worthless crap for years. I stilled played D&D, but it was not often and I certainly didn’t buy everything they put on the shelves.
I honestly thought that the emergence of Magic would wake TSR out of its malaise and force it to compete. I thought they would stop releasing the worthless junk they had been making and would then get back to putting something on the shelves I would want to buy.
I mean, seriously, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, and others were not something I had any interest in, and I wasn’t alone. Yes, I bought the Dark Sun campaign setting, but I was not impressed with it and didn’t spend another penny on it.
But I was wrong. TSR was in bad shape, just like RP. They both were the king of the mountain for their respective fields of business and they were both mismanaged into ruin.
Magic: the Gathering was just the last push that was needed to knock them both off the mountain. Both companies didn’t die immediately, but they were on borrowed time.
What does this have to do with Magic ruining role-playing?
Pretty simple I think. Draw similar lines for all of the game companies out there that went poof.
I’m not saying that they were all mismanaged or that their games weren’t any fun to those who played them.
I’m saying that Magic cleaned all of the trash off of the game table. Yes it took down some things that might have been worth keeping, but I’m ok with that because the net result was worth much more to me.
Dungeons and Dragons was saved by WotC. WotC bought TSR to save D&D (not to steal the art for Magic illustrations).
They not only saved it from oblivion they remade it and fixed it. And then they allowed other game companies to add on to their revived D&D.
And now some idiot is telling me that Magic ruined the world of gaming.
Puh-lease. Do the world a favor and never breed. It will save nature from selecting your progeny for extinction.
And that brings me to my next argument. There are too many stupid people in this country. Let us all solve this problem by removing warning stickers from lawn mowers, toasters, and hair-dryers.
(Remember, these are my opinions. I might be missing a fact or two in the equation, but I doubt any new revelations could change my opinion.)
posted by BlueBlackRed at 7:57 PM
3 Comments:
I really liked this entry, and I wanted to share my own story with Magic.
When I was in 6th grade, so I guess this was 1999, I played both basketball and football and was generally one of those cool jock kids. I had heard of Dungeons and Dragons from this one kid in a class, but it really seemed way too nerdy for someone like me to try out, but he did introduce me to Magic and Star Wars Card Game. This was a reasonable leap because I loved to play cards and this was just another card game, right?
Although, making the leap to D&D was too nerdy for me for a while, I got slowly more and more steeped in Magic. This helped me get into Final Fantasy III, which in turn further fueled my love of things roleplaying.
Fast forward four years and I'm a sophomore in high school. I now am a varsity wide receiver and a wrestler and I still play Magic, by this time I've stopped caring so much about my social image and when a friend suggest we all try a level 1 scenario in D&D, I'm game.
I've been playing pen and paper games ever since, all thanks to Magic. There would have been no Dungeons and Dragons, no Vampire, and no Steve Jackson Games for me if it hadn't been for Magic.
And now, people just a few years younger than me were weened on Pokemon cards and Yugioh, it really has become something cool for people in elementary school and middle school, even for freshman now in high school. The same goes for videogames, they're moving out of the (large) preserve of nerds and in vogue with everyone. Sure, a lot of people outgrow Yugioh or Pokemon, but I think in a few years a lot will remember with fond nostalgia their youth spend around a coffee table battling a Squirtle with Pikachu and take up Magic, or take up D&D as a more adult continuation. I think that'll be a great day for all RPG players
Excellent story and point.
Magic led you to an improved version of D&D.
While for me, a superior game led me away from D&D and to Magic.
Magic Saved D&D, I too remember playing some of the crap TSR was shoveling out in the early 90's. I climbed on the Magic band wagon in 1994 and never looked back until a few years ago, D&D is hardly the same animal, its been streamlined and is much less burdensome to play (especially with the mini models). While I'll never be into D&D like I was, it is much better than it was.
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