So I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to make Magic: the Gathering into a professional game. I think that it would need to follow a similar model to other professional sports like the NFL or the MLB. Here is how I think that we can accomplish this.
First of all, we would have to figure out a system of how to create the "team". I've put some different thoughts into this, and I think that the easiest way to accomplish this is actually create teams, you sign a contract to play a certain amount of matches with that team. After those matches are complete, it is up to the team and player to negotiate a new contract or the player is free to pursue a new contract with a different team. I know this sounds crazy, but I really think that it could work.
So the next question is where does the money come from? Well, it would come from sponsor's such as stores and products. There is more then enough stars in Magic: the Gathering now that having them endorse your product during matches (like wearing something or commercials between games) is actually worth it. So what is the incentive for the player? Well, you would get people to practice with, the sponsorship dollars to cover living costs, and the chance to play in an expanded organized play.
So what is this expanded organized play that I speak of? This is something that would take some time to develop and work on, but the basic concept would be that on any given night, your team would play another team. I'm thinking something like this:
1. You would have a draft format where you would have 4 members from each team form your 8 man draft pod. Then you would play all 4 members from the opposing team.
2. You would have a Standard Constructed format with 4 members from each team form your 8 man pod and you would play each member of the opposing team.
That would give you about a 4 hour event during the week sometime probably in the evening.
Then on weekends when there is no Pro Tour or Grand Prix (which these events could eventually be phased out and Wizards could completely focus on developing games) you would have tournaments. These tournaments would have prizes that you would play for.
1. Your 8 man team would play against another 8 man team and the winner would move on.
2. In the event of an odd number of teams, the team that is in first place in the standings at that time would get a bye. Seeding in the first round would be random for these events.
Then we could develop a Championship weekend, where the top 8 teams would have a play off during a weekend to crown a champion for the season!
So how would we hold all of these events? Well, you would stream everything on Twitch or Youtube! Imagine being able to go to Twitch, and you could decided to watch the whole draft from one person's "seat". You could watch them draft their deck, watch them build their deck, and then watch them play their matches. We would have to figure out a way to do this, but I think it could be done. So you would have 8 different cameras for that, then you would have 4 tables for the matches. Then we would do the same thing for the constructed portion of the match, 8 cameras for the players "seat" and then 4 tables for matches. But this would take a lot of money and resources, so this is something that would have to be worked towards.
For now, I would imagine these events would have to be held on MTGO.
Anyway, that's just scratching the surface of this. Let's have a serious discussion on this, because we can no longer rely on Wizards/Hasbro to develop a professional scene of this great game that we love.
Ive read the first paragraph and i'm going to break your bubble right away...
First, playing cards is not a sport
People can't even agree that playing chess or poker is a sport, and I wouldnt, so you're a long way home...
Second of all, you need audience for that and there aren't...MTG is a closed circle compare to whats out there..... you cant even get starcraft competition on tv like in asian countries and your thinking of an mtg broadcast?!?!?!
Eitherway, maybe you'll get supporter here and there and good luck with your project but i'm not gonna attend/watch this and i've known mtg since their beginning. So here were my thoughs on the matter
There is an audience, actually a very large audience that wants better broadcasting (I never said anything about on TV, I used the future of broadcasting, which is streaming) for this game. For the example of commercials, you could easily set it up that you hit a button and a commercial plays while the players are sideboarding.
Probably calling it a professional sport was a bad use of words. Perhaps professional gaming would be a better term.
I wasn't really trying to get a supporter per say, but rather get ideas flowing for an alternative to relying on WotC/Hasbro to make this into a professional game.
I don't think Magic has the audience for it. Before you argue that Magic has a very large audience keep in mind that approximately 60 million people play poker in the U.S. and approximately 6 million people play Magic WORLDWIDE. So it's at best 1/10th as popular as poker and it took poker until March 30, 2003 for the WPT to be televised on a seasonal basis (more than just the WSOP main event). That said, I don't think completely changing the game is necessary. The best thing for Magic to gain visibility would be to develop a "pocket cam" like Steve Lipscomb did for poker then televise the ProTour and market the product to a cable network, I'm thinking the SciFi channel. Good luck.
Well, if you look at any given pro on twitter, they have usually several thousand followers. If you have a meet (the matches of team vs team in my crude concept) where several top players are playing (sure some of those followers are overlapped), you could very easily have broadcast with 20,000+ viewers, which is where the game needs to get to start getting where it needs to be.
If you want to be a pro, you would need to learn how to develop your brand to be able to sign better contracts as you go. If you know that you could bring 20,000+ viewers to a meet; 10,000+ hits a couple days a week to a website; help move singles and other types of merchandise; I think that you would have a pretty good value to a team. It's really no different then someone that bats .300 every year or can rush for 1,000+ yards a season. The more value you bring to a team, the more you make.
And instead of just saying it won't work, why not add ideas of what could work? If games like League of Legends and Hearthstone can do it, why can't a game that has 6 million people already invested into it do something? Sure, it would require some better software, but that is a different topic for a different day. Part of what makes these successful events is the competitive scene, and the current one for Magic: the Gathering doesn't work for this for some reason.
And instead of just saying it won't work, why not add ideas of what could work? If games like League of Legends and Hearthstone can do it, why can't a game that has 6 million people already invested into it do something? Sure, it would require some better software, but that is a different topic for a different day. Part of what makes these successful events is the competitive scene, and the current one for Magic: the Gathering doesn't work for this for some reason.
That's exactly what I did by saying that the best way to do it is by using a "pocket cam" like is used in the WPT to produce a product that you could market to cable networks. Apparently you don't like that idea, but you like your ideas. If you aren't open to criticism that's your choice but then I won't waste my time providing input. So have a nice day.
The thing is we already have access to players hands during games. We can even watch a player draft a deck in live time. The other thing is that like you said yourself is that MTG as a whole is only 1/10th as popular as something that had a hard time getting "there" in poker. Presenting the game to cable providers is not where the game should look to go, but rather to streaming on the internet so that it is more accessible worldwide and easier to have live events at your own schedule. I think that the broadcast that they were starting to do with the Super Leagues was a step in the right direction. MTGO needs a broadcasting mode as well.
I'm open to criticism, that's why I'm trying to have a conversation about it because I love this game and want to see it flurish.
They have the capability of filming one person draft, anyone can do that with a standard camera. But what I'm thinking is do a draft like the WPT does with poker. You get access to all 8 players hands simultaneously via a pocket cam installed at a draft table. That's the best way I can think of making it more interesting. Agreed that streaming may be more feasible.
You shouldn't try to force something into a sport. Starcraft 2 lost a huge amount of its player base because Blizzard forced it into an esport and made design decisions that favored progamers and spectators. Essentially, changes were made to make the game harder (so it's easier for the most skilled players to show off their abilities) and flashier (so spectators get to see more explosions and other exciting stuff). Unfortunately, these changes are terrible for most players who just play for fun.
Making the game harder, i.e. raising the skill floor, results in a huge barrier to entry for beginners. You need to do a lot just to be able to play Starcraft 2 at a baseline level, and very few people are willing to do that for a game that's not even F2P. There are abilities that should be on autocast but are not because otherwise players wouldn't need any skill to use them, even though they require no brainpower to use (the question is not whether you should use Inject Larvae but whether you can do it as soon as it goes off cooldown). There are activated abilities (Adept Shades, Meditanks, Fast Regen Mutalisks, etc.) that result in combat that looks exciting to viewers but feel absolutely ridiculous and comical from a gameplay perspective (yaketysax.mp3 would be appropriate).
Making the game flashier was accomplished by speeding up the game (start with 12 workers instead of 6, less resources per base, extremely lethal combat). Right now, fights are over so quickly that if you're not paying attention at the right time, you can lose your army in an instant. Oftentimes when you hear the unit is under attack voiceline for your units, it will have been too late, and you'll go to a screen filled with the corpses of your units quickly being covered by the fog of war.
To sum it up, Blizzard went Full Yawgmoth and threw Timmy and Johnny down the well so he could lavish all of his attention on Spike. Not that Spike is an ******** (he's awesome in his own way), but sacrificing most of the player base to cater to Spike is detrimental to the health of the game. Or at least, it used to be, because Blizzard realized a month ago that their super-casual game mode added as an afterthought (Coop Mode) was being played more than actual ladder games. Player numbers skyrocketed until they got their fill of the handful of coop missions released until it dipped again.
I don't think Magic has the audience for it. Before you argue that Magic has a very large audience keep in mind that approximately 60 million people play poker in the U.S. and approximately 6 million people play Magic WORLDWIDE. So it's at best 1/10th as popular as poker and it took poker until March 30, 2003 for the WPT to be televised on a seasonal basis (more than just the WSOP main event).
That "6 million" figure is something like 10 years out of date. Nowadays it's supposedly around 20 million.
Love the game. Been playing on and off since Alpha. Could not name ya one pro player and have no desire to watch other people play on tv/online. Well maybe if they were using Un cards. Maybe.
Anyway, they say that MTG has never been better...maybe some people would love to see that....i have my doubts but who knows...older people love to watch golf...maybe younger people would love to watch this....lol
Anyway my only suggestion would probably be to compare this to something similar in size...computer game type is probably the closest...
Ive read the first paragraph and i'm going to break your bubble right away...
First, playing cards is not a sport
People can't even agree that playing chess or poker is a sport, and I wouldnt, so you're a long way home...
Second of all, you need audience for that and there aren't...MTG is a closed circle compare to whats out there..... you cant even get starcraft competition on tv like in asian countries and your thinking of an mtg broadcast?!?!?!
Eitherway, maybe you'll get supporter here and there and good luck with your project but i'm not gonna attend/watch this and i've known mtg since their beginning. So here were my thoughs on the matter
Well, I have to disagree. I think those games can be considered sport. Such as the game of Go.
Why can't a card game have a pro following like MLB? Im not saying that it could happen now, or very quickly. I wouldn't dismiss it right off the batt.
I watch a whole lot of MtG on Twitch, mostly limited and also a small bit of standard, individuals playing MtGO or coverage live from big events (mostly coverage from WotC).
Unfortunately, I agree with others (not on this thread) who have expressed the opinion that on the whole MtG is not a good spectator game.
Other games are much better for spectators because you typically do not need to know the rules to be able to enjoy watching. Anyone can watch a first-person shooter and understand what is going on, for the most part. Hearthstone is a much easier game to understand for spectators. Poker is easier to understand, plus there are (as indicated earlier in this thread) a whole lot more poker players.
Because of this, I think it would be very difficult to rely on advertisers to shell out money for sponsorships, except with their understanding that the revenue generated would be limited to those of us who actually enjoy watching MtG.
Both LOL and Hearthstone are essentially F2P. Magic is far from it, Magic has a HUJE competitive money barrier, with it comes preconceived notions of P2Win. Hearthstone was essentially carried 100% by the IP it was based on and the company behind it. There were tons of digital CCGs and none of them came close to Hearthstone for that very reason.
If you're not making a physical effort requiring particular skills (whether it is strenght, precision, endurance, etc); that doesnt count as a sport in my book...
And like I said, Poker and Chess are not consider a sport even though some people are trying to push for that...I don't see any difference with MTG
Calling this a sport is kind of an insult to anybody who does sports
I dont see any problem using the term Profesional gaming or boardgame
chess.com is more meaningfull than a comity who has interest in calling this a sport
And for Nightshade's opinion, it's not because you sweat physically and mentally that it means sports, some people are doing that sitting on a chair doing nothing...or working for the purpose of argumentation. And you forgot about Luck in your list of skills...*sarcasm*
Like I said, calling it profesionnal gaming is a better term to acknowledge players devotion to the game
Sorry Mtgbeginnings for highjaking your post having more a discussion whether chess is a sport or not
But I think Hagalaz's finally got that an essaie on Chess.com answering that specific question is more meaningfull than the Olympics commity adding chess to their list of activities but decided to go on the road of ignoring what he just read by doing the ostrich
Mtgbeninnings, I wish you luck in your project and make sure your not throwing yourself head first enforcing it to happen but more feeling IF it can happen
Maybe asking for a poll whether people would be interested to watch this broadcast... with multiple answer such no, sometimes, casually...
I think mtg salvation can host a poll? But truthfully I think it would be best to ask a couple of mtg online shop to host this on their website so that you can reach a wider list of people who buys mtg products but doesnt bother coming over here...
I do not know why you would be offended by this? Is it a threat of some kind to athletes that games of the mind are on the same level? Well I should not generalize and say all, because not everyone thinks that way. I am just sorry you think so.
Anyways, I do not find issue with calling it a sport. Chess, Go or the case may be MTG.(though I am ok if MTG would be more categorized as professional gaming).
Once in a while I'll watch a video of a match on youtube or goldfish. Typically a grand prix match. More so to get a feel for the decks. Not too interested in the idea of a Tv channel or the like. Buttttt I might be inclined to watch it every now and then
Ive read the first paragraph and i'm going to break your bubble right away...
First, playing cards is not a sport
People can't even agree that playing chess or poker is a sport, and I wouldnt, so you're a long way home...
Second of all, you need audience for that and there aren't...MTG is a closed circle compare to whats out there..... you cant even get starcraft competition on tv like in asian countries and your thinking of an mtg broadcast?!?!?!
Eitherway, maybe you'll get supporter here and there and good luck with your project but i'm not gonna attend/watch this and i've known mtg since their beginning. So here were my thoughs on the matter
I agree with you that playing cards isn't a sport. But it's widely considered a sport along with other activities I don't think qualify like chess, spelling competitions and golf.
I agree with you that playing cards isn't a sport. But it's widely considered a sport along with other activities I don't think qualify like chess, spelling competitions and golf.
Funny thing about golf is that, some years back, a group of scientists did an experiment that proved golf performance did indeed improve with athleticism. Of course, e-sports are a thing, so people have long since stopped pretending there is a link between the word and athletics.
I agree with you that playing cards isn't a sport. But it's widely considered a sport along with other activities I don't think qualify like chess, spelling competitions and golf.
Funny thing about golf is that, some years back, a group of scientists did an experiment that proved golf performance did indeed improve with athleticism. Of course, e-sports are a thing, so people have long since stopped pretending there is a link between the word and athletics.
First of all, we would have to figure out a system of how to create the "team". I've put some different thoughts into this, and I think that the easiest way to accomplish this is actually create teams, you sign a contract to play a certain amount of matches with that team. After those matches are complete, it is up to the team and player to negotiate a new contract or the player is free to pursue a new contract with a different team. I know this sounds crazy, but I really think that it could work.
So the next question is where does the money come from? Well, it would come from sponsor's such as stores and products. There is more then enough stars in Magic: the Gathering now that having them endorse your product during matches (like wearing something or commercials between games) is actually worth it. So what is the incentive for the player? Well, you would get people to practice with, the sponsorship dollars to cover living costs, and the chance to play in an expanded organized play.
So what is this expanded organized play that I speak of? This is something that would take some time to develop and work on, but the basic concept would be that on any given night, your team would play another team. I'm thinking something like this:
1. You would have a draft format where you would have 4 members from each team form your 8 man draft pod. Then you would play all 4 members from the opposing team.
2. You would have a Standard Constructed format with 4 members from each team form your 8 man pod and you would play each member of the opposing team.
That would give you about a 4 hour event during the week sometime probably in the evening.
Then on weekends when there is no Pro Tour or Grand Prix (which these events could eventually be phased out and Wizards could completely focus on developing games) you would have tournaments. These tournaments would have prizes that you would play for.
1. Your 8 man team would play against another 8 man team and the winner would move on.
2. In the event of an odd number of teams, the team that is in first place in the standings at that time would get a bye. Seeding in the first round would be random for these events.
Then we could develop a Championship weekend, where the top 8 teams would have a play off during a weekend to crown a champion for the season!
So how would we hold all of these events? Well, you would stream everything on Twitch or Youtube! Imagine being able to go to Twitch, and you could decided to watch the whole draft from one person's "seat". You could watch them draft their deck, watch them build their deck, and then watch them play their matches. We would have to figure out a way to do this, but I think it could be done. So you would have 8 different cameras for that, then you would have 4 tables for the matches. Then we would do the same thing for the constructed portion of the match, 8 cameras for the players "seat" and then 4 tables for matches. But this would take a lot of money and resources, so this is something that would have to be worked towards.
For now, I would imagine these events would have to be held on MTGO.
Anyway, that's just scratching the surface of this. Let's have a serious discussion on this, because we can no longer rely on Wizards/Hasbro to develop a professional scene of this great game that we love.
youtube
articles
Ive read the first paragraph and i'm going to break your bubble right away...
First, playing cards is not a sport
People can't even agree that playing chess or poker is a sport, and I wouldnt, so you're a long way home...
Second of all, you need audience for that and there aren't...MTG is a closed circle compare to whats out there..... you cant even get starcraft competition on tv like in asian countries and your thinking of an mtg broadcast?!?!?!
Eitherway, maybe you'll get supporter here and there and good luck with your project but i'm not gonna attend/watch this and i've known mtg since their beginning. So here were my thoughs on the matter
Probably calling it a professional sport was a bad use of words. Perhaps professional gaming would be a better term.
I wasn't really trying to get a supporter per say, but rather get ideas flowing for an alternative to relying on WotC/Hasbro to make this into a professional game.
youtube
articles
If you want to be a pro, you would need to learn how to develop your brand to be able to sign better contracts as you go. If you know that you could bring 20,000+ viewers to a meet; 10,000+ hits a couple days a week to a website; help move singles and other types of merchandise; I think that you would have a pretty good value to a team. It's really no different then someone that bats .300 every year or can rush for 1,000+ yards a season. The more value you bring to a team, the more you make.
And instead of just saying it won't work, why not add ideas of what could work? If games like League of Legends and Hearthstone can do it, why can't a game that has 6 million people already invested into it do something? Sure, it would require some better software, but that is a different topic for a different day. Part of what makes these successful events is the competitive scene, and the current one for Magic: the Gathering doesn't work for this for some reason.
youtube
articles
That's exactly what I did by saying that the best way to do it is by using a "pocket cam" like is used in the WPT to produce a product that you could market to cable networks. Apparently you don't like that idea, but you like your ideas. If you aren't open to criticism that's your choice but then I won't waste my time providing input. So have a nice day.
I'm open to criticism, that's why I'm trying to have a conversation about it because I love this game and want to see it flurish.
youtube
articles
Making the game harder, i.e. raising the skill floor, results in a huge barrier to entry for beginners. You need to do a lot just to be able to play Starcraft 2 at a baseline level, and very few people are willing to do that for a game that's not even F2P. There are abilities that should be on autocast but are not because otherwise players wouldn't need any skill to use them, even though they require no brainpower to use (the question is not whether you should use Inject Larvae but whether you can do it as soon as it goes off cooldown). There are activated abilities (Adept Shades, Meditanks, Fast Regen Mutalisks, etc.) that result in combat that looks exciting to viewers but feel absolutely ridiculous and comical from a gameplay perspective (yaketysax.mp3 would be appropriate).
Making the game flashier was accomplished by speeding up the game (start with 12 workers instead of 6, less resources per base, extremely lethal combat). Right now, fights are over so quickly that if you're not paying attention at the right time, you can lose your army in an instant. Oftentimes when you hear the unit is under attack voiceline for your units, it will have been too late, and you'll go to a screen filled with the corpses of your units quickly being covered by the fog of war.
To sum it up, Blizzard went Full Yawgmoth and threw Timmy and Johnny down the well so he could lavish all of his attention on Spike. Not that Spike is an ******** (he's awesome in his own way), but sacrificing most of the player base to cater to Spike is detrimental to the health of the game. Or at least, it used to be, because Blizzard realized a month ago that their super-casual game mode added as an afterthought (Coop Mode) was being played more than actual ladder games. Player numbers skyrocketed until they got their fill of the handful of coop missions released until it dipped again.
Anyway, they say that MTG has never been better...maybe some people would love to see that....i have my doubts but who knows...older people love to watch golf...maybe younger people would love to watch this....lol
Anyway my only suggestion would probably be to compare this to something similar in size...computer game type is probably the closest...
Good luck
Well, I have to disagree. I think those games can be considered sport. Such as the game of Go.
Why can't a card game have a pro following like MLB? Im not saying that it could happen now, or very quickly. I wouldn't dismiss it right off the batt.
Unfortunately, I agree with others (not on this thread) who have expressed the opinion that on the whole MtG is not a good spectator game.
Other games are much better for spectators because you typically do not need to know the rules to be able to enjoy watching. Anyone can watch a first-person shooter and understand what is going on, for the most part. Hearthstone is a much easier game to understand for spectators. Poker is easier to understand, plus there are (as indicated earlier in this thread) a whole lot more poker players.
Because of this, I think it would be very difficult to rely on advertisers to shell out money for sponsorships, except with their understanding that the revenue generated would be limited to those of us who actually enjoy watching MtG.
If you're not making a physical effort requiring particular skills (whether it is strenght, precision, endurance, etc); that doesnt count as a sport in my book...
And like I said, Poker and Chess are not consider a sport even though some people are trying to push for that...I don't see any difference with MTG
Calling this a sport is kind of an insult to anybody who does sports
I dont see any problem using the term Profesional gaming or boardgame
https://www.chess.com/article/view/is-chess-a-sport
chess.com is more meaningfull than a comity who has interest in calling this a sport
And for Nightshade's opinion, it's not because you sweat physically and mentally that it means sports, some people are doing that sitting on a chair doing nothing...or working for the purpose of argumentation. And you forgot about Luck in your list of skills...*sarcasm*
Like I said, calling it profesionnal gaming is a better term to acknowledge players devotion to the game
But I think Hagalaz's finally got that an essaie on Chess.com answering that specific question is more meaningfull than the Olympics commity adding chess to their list of activities but decided to go on the road of ignoring what he just read by doing the ostrich
Mtgbeninnings, I wish you luck in your project and make sure your not throwing yourself head first enforcing it to happen but more feeling IF it can happen
Maybe asking for a poll whether people would be interested to watch this broadcast... with multiple answer such no, sometimes, casually...
I think mtg salvation can host a poll? But truthfully I think it would be best to ask a couple of mtg online shop to host this on their website so that you can reach a wider list of people who buys mtg products but doesnt bother coming over here...
I think WarAngel just added a good point
Anyways, I do not find issue with calling it a sport. Chess, Go or the case may be MTG.(though I am ok if MTG would be more categorized as professional gaming).
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/32840_Team-MetaGameGurus.html
Look for me on MTGO, sslater
Follow me on Twitter, @slatertheman
My youtube channel:https://www.youtube.com/user/sslater22710
I agree with you that playing cards isn't a sport. But it's widely considered a sport along with other activities I don't think qualify like chess, spelling competitions and golf.
Funny thing about golf is that, some years back, a group of scientists did an experiment that proved golf performance did indeed improve with athleticism. Of course, e-sports are a thing, so people have long since stopped pretending there is a link between the word and athletics.
I was being facetious