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The game originated in the early 1990s in the mind of Richard Garfield, at the time a graduate student working towards a PhD in combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. A life-long tabletop gamer, he had approached a publisher to pitch an idea for a game about programming robots, only to be told that the company needed something more portable and cheaper to produce.
Magic was Garfield's response, and it involved one major innovation that set it apart from any game previously released.
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Magic's latest set marks a turning point for the game. Magic Origins focuses on five of the game's most popular recurring characters – a move that provides a jumping-on point for new players intimidated by over two decades' worth of accumulated storylines.
I played D&D, Gamma World, Traveller, and many RPG's avidly into college, but when I first saw Magic and its $20 price for a single card I discovered there were lines I would not cross. As an adult I have a civil engineering friend whom I've watched over the last decade and a half disappear and then emerge, going cold turkey, only to re-submerge for another year. For those who took up Magic, why did you take it up and do you still play?
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday July 11 2015, @04:34PM
When I saw that it was basically $160 or so minimum to put together a credibly competitive deck, I knew I didn't have that kind of money to throw around. And when I saw friends of mine with $3000 worth of cards, that clinched it for me - no game is worth that much, especially when other very interesting games are available for much less cash. Heck, D&D was a much cheaper hobby - $60 for books or so, $10 worth of dice, some sheets of paper, and a bit of creativity and off you go on your adventures.
And of course they continued the card upgrade treadmill. Otherwise, how could they keep players buying tons of cards?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.