Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

How Magic the Gathering Began, and Where it Goes Next

posted by cmn32480 on Saturday July 11 2015, @02:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the its-just-a-card-game dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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.
...
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

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
How Magic the Gathering Began, and Where it Goes Next | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 35 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:23AM (#208035)
    If the rules don't expand, there are only so many combinations of new cards that could be made that would be worthy contributions to the existing pool before all sensible combinations are exhausted rendering nothing left to add to the game. That wouldn't work well for the business model to keep people buying more and more.

  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:24PM

    by Francis (5544) on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:24PM (#208132)

    As opposed to the people who stop buying cards because every few years they have to start their collections over again? Or the people who never start because the rules have become a jumbled mess?

    I stopped playing right after 4th edition came out and a large part of it was that I would have had to start over if I wanted to play in tournaments and trying to adapt to new rules with old cards was a headache, even when just playing with friends. I still have all my cards, but I'm not really interested in the sort of investment necessary to keep up. There's been at least 6 full editions since then and each edition is ridiculously expensive if you want to be competitive. There's something for competitions where you start with a couple of starter decks and have to see what you can make of them.