This spate of C&Ds by Hasbro is rather hypocritical of them considering that in the past they've been quite tolerant, if not supportive, of Transformers fan stuff. Granted, Transformers is a bigger media franchise than MTG or My Little Pony, but still.
Dear Hasbro executives and members of the Wizards team,
In February 2013, lawyers acting on your behalf issued a Cease & Desist letter threatening legal action to an individual associated with the Cockatrice project. The Cockatrice project is a small open-source community software project devoted to providing a "virtual tabletop" that allows friends and users across the Internet to play a variety of games with one another as if they were sitting around a table together.
One such game that people can play using the Cockatrice software is Magic: The Gathering. Presumably, it was the discovery that people were doing this that motivated you to attempt to shut down the project by threatening corporate legal action against an individual programmer. Although it is far from clear, legally speaking, that any breach of rights occurred -- no Magic: The Gathering materials were distributed with the software at all, for example -- this is of little practical significance, as those responsible for the threat are well aware. Few individuals have the resources to withstand legal attacks from a corporation with annual revenues exceeding $4 billion; such threats need not have merit to be effective.
The purpose of this letter is not to argue the details of a body of copyright law that is considered even by experts in the field to be murky and completely inadequate to the realities of the Internet age. The purpose, rather, is to argue that by choosing to make such a threat, you have taken the first step down a path that places you at odds with your fans and customers -- and hence, in the end, at odds with yourselves.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am no one in particular, other than an individual who enjoys Magic: The Gathering and who deeply appreciates the effort that has gone into its making over many years. You have no reason to hear me, save one: if with these words I did not represent a substantial fraction of your Internet-connected customer base, this letter would never have been brought to your attention.
The action you have taken is profoundly short-sighted. It demonstrates clearly to the public and to your shareholders that significant decisions at your firm are being taken on the basis of obsolete reactive corporate instincts, with a complete lack of understanding of the Internet-connected world in which we all now live, and in which -- like it or not -- you must now operate.
Projects such as Cockatrice pose no threat to your business -- quite the contrary. Free tools such as the Cockatrice software are used most often by experienced players to support their investments in products like Magic: The Gathering, and by those for whom purchasing such products is at this moment not an option. Such tools do not take resources away from you; rather, they make the Magic community larger and more diverse, by providing additional ways to engage with the game that complement official distribution channels. They bring you customers you otherwise would not have, and they enable existing customers to immerse themselves in your products more deeply.
This is not to say that you should not be wary of such projects. Clearly, if they evolve to offer a superset of the functionality that your official online products provide, the userbase of those products may shrink. But there is a correct business strategy here, and an incorrect one. The incorrect strategy is to view such community projects as a negative threat and to attempt to exterminate them -- this is cutting off your nose to spite your face. The correct strategy is to view the "competition" from such projects as a positive challenge to make your own online offerings better and better; to always offer something bigger and greater than anyone else can. You have enormous resources at your disposal, unlike the individuals who work on community projects in their free time, so this should never be a problem for you.
You should also be aware that shutting down community software projects with legal threats is a tactic that cannot succeed in its aim in the long run, even if -- contrary to this letter's assertion -- you believe that aim is in your interest. Sure, you can make life difficult for some of your customers who have chosen to work on such projects out of love of the game, and you may manage to derail some community-developed tools and services in the short term. But this is the Internet age -- the source code for all such software can easily be made public and replicated across the Internet a millionfold, and tools and services can easily be developed and hosted anonymously. If you truly wish to fight this process, you will be starting a war with your own customers that will require the devotion of ever larger amounts of resources to destroying the work of others, and that you cannot hope to win in the end anyway.
You are at a crossroads. You still have time. You can make an honest effort to rethink your business strategy in light of the realities of today's interconnected world. If any of the decision-makers at your firm are capable of understanding these realities, they will certainly reach the same conclusions as this letter, since these conclusions have long been understood and accepted by people and businesses who truly understand the culture and technology of the Internet.
On the other hand, you can proceed down the path on which you've now set foot, and decide that destroying the work of your own fans and customers is more important to your business strategy than developing better products. We, your customers, hope you choose the other option. But we also know that, either way, reality will win out in the end. The only question is whether your business will survive it. Firms that focus on creation and excellence prosper. Firms whose strategies depend on destroying the work of others always fail in the end.
We are confident this letter will reach the right people at your company, and we look forward to a creative and prosperous future with you as your customers and partners.
---
^
I think the above will be received with laughs by WotC.
They can't shut down Cocka 100% obviously any kid knows that. But they can make it hard enough so Cocka don't cannibalize their revenue by offering a free mtg alternative.
Destroying the work of fans is the right thing to do when fans are destroying their profits, despite their intentions. Cockatrice can and will be used for the deck testing which is what WotC and Hasbro supports. All you need is a friend who also plays and have access to internet. What they are doing is shutting down Cockatrice's main servers which provided a free alternative for MTGO.
^
I think the above will be received with laughs by WotC.
They can't shut down Cocka 100% obviously any kid knows that. But they can make it hard enough so Cocka don't cannibalize their revenue by offering a free mtg alternative.
Destroying the work of fans is the right thing to do when fans are destroying their profits, despite their intentions. Cockatrice can and will be used for the deck testing which is what WotC and Hasbro supports. All you need is a friend who also plays and have access to internet. What they are doing is shutting down Cockatrice's main servers which provided a free alternative for MTGO.
Seeing Cockatrice as a competitor to MTGO is simply wrong. They offer extremely different functionality and are used with completely different intentions. I won't repeat what exists in this thread repeatedly, as you've obviously not bothered to understand it or possibly read it at all.
It has been explained in multiple ways how this C&D effort can actually prove detrimental to WotC and Hasbro. No one has made a valid argument for how Cockatrice's existence serves to reduce revenue.
The only way this effort could serve WotC/Hasbro in a favorable fashion would be if they were releasing a product that actually competed with Cockatrice. To define what I'm speaking of, such a product would "Allow for the testing of constructed decks in an online format without prior purchase of the individual cards associated with that deck."
If players are left with the alternative of needing to buy every card with which they would like to test in their decks without knowing their value, or to simply not test at all - the result for MtG will be disastrous. In no way does this effort serve to benefit the game or Hasbro, as the amount players allocate to spend on MtG will not suddenly increase, nor will they suddenly want to maintain multiple collections (online and offline).
If their intentions are successful and they manage to eliminate the online non-MTGO community entirely, the population of the game will simply drop. Many players who would otherwise invest in the game will find that passion diminished and may seek alternate hobbies. Those players who are introduced to MtG via Cockatrice as a 'see if you like the game' trial, will no longer have that opportunity and thus will never become hooked and end up procuring online or offline cards to further their experience.
Chances are far higher that their effort is simply ineffective (people will find alternative servers, reuse the code under new names, and I'm already aware of multiple other programs that serve a similar function). In this case, all they're managing to do is to disrupt a community of players. In each occurrence of these efforts, some players will simply decide not to bother continuing to play the game at all. Others will simply grow in disdain for Hasbro/WotC and reduce any desire to to contribute to their revenues.
Finally, as has been mentioned previously but I'll repeat: the *best* solution is for Hasbro to offer a similar paid-for product (described in detail previously in this thread). If they included this product as an aspect of MtGO, then they'll need only minor amounts of work (the core client and code used for gameplay would remain), they'll increase the quality of the product (MtGO serves as a far superior platform for playing the game compared to Cockatrice/etc which lack rules enforcement), and they could attain revenue through offering this product. This would offer a superior product, offer a revenue source from it, and by bringing all the MtG players into one location (MtGO), the community that builds around the product will be larger and players will feel more inclined to remain a part of it (even when it costs them money to do so).
I just don't understand why they don't offer the ability to build any deck, and then play it like 10 times or something.
People keep saying if cockatrice is shut down that will make interest drop in Hasbro/Magic etc...this flat out isn't true, people will still play. As long they don't make cards where there is only one competitive deck or something the game will continue to grow and they know it.
Those players who are introduced to MtG via Cockatrice as a 'see if you like the game' trial, will no longer have that opportunity and thus will never become hooked and end up procuring online or offline cards to further their experience.
I think this is the only pro-Cockatrice argument that matters IMO. I buy that Cockatrice give people the oppotunity to test, but that's not necessarily going to stop you from buying cards because if you are hardcore enough to test decks you probably aren't going to quit the game because Cockatrice doesn't exist. But giving new players a free "trial" way of getting into the game... that's what I think will hurt them the most.
They've done their part to make it easy for casual players to get into the game. Between Commander, Event decks, pre-releases and whatnot. There are a lot more ways for casual players to get into the game. But having a free online playable version of the game makes it VERY easy to introduce friends that don't want to invest money in something they aren't sure about but still want to give it a shot.
And furthermore, it makes it much easier to transition from casual to hardcore player. If you don't see yourself as that good, you probably aren't going to be as comfortable dropping 400 dollars in singles to make a Jund deck. But if you start playing something like Cockatrice, the first thing they do is they'll try to make the best deck they can online now that everything is free... and they get used to playing that deck and think "hey, I can play this in real life if I spend the money on it". So if they happen to have a decent job and not as many bills to pay, they can afford to drop the money, but more importantly they are more comfortable doing so.
This is exactly how I made the transition from casual to hardcore. I used to be the guy that made Beast Bidding decks (Patriarch's Bidding + the cycling Beasts from Onslaught block). And maybe 5-10 dollars a month on magic outside of tournament costs. Now I'm rocking a Jund deck that on a month by month basis I'm probably spending 50-100 dollars on. If something like Cockatrice didn't exist, I seriously doubt I would be the player I am today.
They also sent C&D to many other things, like the guy whose user name was the same as one of their product, MLP: Fighting is Magic and more. Guess their next step will be targeting all the bronies making fan stuff.
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Casual crazy magic player, otaku maniac, unrully cosplayer, what did you expect me to be?
They also sent C&D to many other things, like the guy whose user name was the same as one of their product, MLP: Fighting is Magic and more. Guess their next step will be targeting all the bronies making fan stuff.
If true, the pure number of people on these forums that will need new sig pictures...
Seeing Cockatrice as a competitor to MTGO is simply wrong. They offer extremely different functionality and are used with completely different intentions. I won't repeat what exists in this thread repeatedly, as you've obviously not bothered to understand it or possibly read it at all.
It absolutely is a competitor. It offers identical functionality as a retail offering for free.
It has been explained in multiple ways how this C&D effort can actually prove detrimental to WotC and Hasbro. No one has made a valid argument for how Cockatrice's existence serves to reduce revenue.
No it hasn't. People are mad they can't keep playing/testing for free. Hasbro doesn't care about people not paying for it's goods and services. You weren't spending money anyway.
As for the "I'm going to buy less cards because of this" argument, that gets trotted out ever single time Hasbro does anything like this, people shout and scream how stupid Hasbro is and how they aren't buying any more cards and this is going to cost them business. And then Hasbro sells more MTG cards than ever before.
When Player Rewards went away hoards of people were shouting that they will never go to FNM again. Yet FNM attendance is at an all time high
So for people saying that because Cockatrice is down they wil buy less cards, I don't believe you. That claim has been made multiple times in the past and never come to pass.
The only way this effort could serve WotC/Hasbro in a favorable fashion would be if they were releasing a product that actually competed with Cockatrice. To define what I'm speaking of, such a product would "Allow for the testing of constructed decks in an online format without prior purchase of the individual cards associated with that deck."
Testing = playing. You want Hasbro to spend the time, money, and resources to build a platform that lets you enjoy their game for free. That's not going to happen. Hasbro is not a charity.
If players are left with the alternative of needing to buy every card with which they would like to test in their decks without knowing their value, or to simply not test at all - the result for MtG will be disastrous.
Pretty sure MTG was doing just fine growth wise before Cockatrice ever existed. I'm pretty sure it will do just fine with Cockatrice gone.
In no way does this effort serve to benefit the game or Hasbro, as the amount players allocate to spend on MtG will not suddenly increase, nor will they suddenly want to maintain multiple collections (online and offline).
Removing a free product that give people a way to enjoy the output of your work without paying for it benefits Hasbro greatly. That's why they did what they did.
If their intentions are successful and they manage to eliminate the online non-MTGO community entirely, the population of the game will simply drop. Many players who would otherwise invest in the game will find that passion diminished and may seek alternate hobbies. Those players who are introduced to MtG via Cockatrice as a 'see if you like the game' trial, will no longer have that opportunity and thus will never become hooked and end up procuring online or offline cards to further their experience.
Proof for this very big claim?
Chances are far higher that their effort is simply ineffective (people will find alternative servers, reuse the code under new names, and I'm already aware of multiple other programs that serve a similar function). In this case, all they're managing to do is to disrupt a community of players. In each occurrence of these efforts, some players will simply decide not to bother continuing to play the game at all. Others will simply grow in disdain for Hasbro/WotC and reduce any desire to to contribute to their revenues.
In each case Hasbro will be pushing away players that weren't spending money in the first place. Neither Hasbro nor anyone else cares about those players.
I think you have a pretty poor understanding of how elasticity works, or at least would work in this situation. Additionally, your example of gasoline is pretty off base, and I think it really shows how little you know about basic economics. Gasoline is not an elastic good, the demand is pretty much always constant.
That may be true in the short term, but the long term price elasticity of gasoline is about -0.6. While this is still relatively inelastic, there absolutely is an effect of demand when gasoline prices go up. Moreover, in this case we are talking about the cross-elasticity on demand between two goods. If someone started giving away ethanol for free, you'd bet your little economic behind that demand for gasoline would drop, no matter how price inelastic gasoline is. [Disclaimer: I used to teach economics in an MBA program.]
Now this is an assumption, but I think it's pretty safe assumption because I haven't seen anyone flocking to MTGO now that cockatrice is down. Another assumption but probably some truth to it, is that cockatrice players are already putting money into magic the gathering, most likely through paper.
There is only one thing we know is true here, which is that these are all assumptions. You have no evidence or data to back them up. Without defending Hasbro one way or another, I would argue that they are in a much better position to judge the economic harm of Cockatrice than anyone here, including you and me. However, judging by their cease and desist letter, I conclude that they have determined that it is in their overall economic interest to try to shut Cockatrice down (at least in its current implementation).
Even if it is true that Cockatrice, taken as a whole, enables more revenue in paper card sales than it destroys Magic online revenue (which I doubt), I presume Hasbro still perceives there is a net positive economic value associated with protecting its intellectual property.
Valarin, you are one of the worst when it comes to rising the ''Cockatrice is Evil'' debate, so please, don't bring it here cause you are one of those that made the other thread close. This thread should be used to keep up informing peoples about what is happening with the C&D, what's happening about it and where the procedures are right now, not debating about Cockatrice against MTGO.
So thanks to keep this thread at that and not derailed to an out of context subject.
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Casual crazy magic player, otaku maniac, unrully cosplayer, what did you expect me to be?
This is a real shame; I use that program for a lot of deck idea testing. This will probably cost them money from me in the long run.
Eh, every single time Hasbro takes away a freebie people shout how much money it's going to cost them and how much less they are going to spend and how they aren't going to buy cards anymore and how Hasbro will rue the day they made that decision and they'll see how wrong they were when sales plummet. Yet MTG is bigger and more popular and profitable than ever before, so apparently all those people didn't really amount to much.
I'll make the prediction now: Shutting down Cockatrice won't hurt Hasbro's business one bit, and Magic will keep chugging right along like nothing happened.
Valarin, you are one of the worst when it comes to rising the ''Cockatrice is Evil'' debate, so please, don't bring it here cause you are one of those that made the other thread close. This thread should be used to keep up informing peoples about what is happening with the C&D, what's happening about it and where the procedures are right now, not debating about Cockatrice against MTGO.
So thanks to keep this thread at that and not derailed to an out of context subject.
Valarin's entire response situates from the premise that 'people who use Cockatrice do not spend money on Magic', which I am absolutely certain is wrong. If you remove that premise, all of his arguments fall apart. He also blatantly ignores aspects of posts he disagrees with (like the suggestion for Hasbro to charge to offer a similar product, mentioned repeatedly). He very obviously has one rather extreme bias ('no one cares' about Cockatrice players), and then attempts to bend any bit of truth he can into fitting that bias. It comes off incredibly similar to racist hate speech in which the speaker has adopted an opinion, regardless of fact, and seeks to contort everything they see to agree with that opinion.
I will admit to very likely having less information than Hasbro on the subject. There are ways in which this could serve as beneficial for the game in the long run, but in order for this to end up that way there's some core component to Hasbro's endgame that we're missing. \
Until I'm brought aware of some other aspect of this situation, it's hard to see this C&D as anything more than the equivalent of Metallica attempting to prevent their music from being downloaded for free online. At best, it will fail - you simply can't, under any known strategy, prevent the use of programs like Cockatrice and many others from being used. At worst, this may fail while also creating resentment or any number of other negative side effects (loss of consumer confidence in the product, as an example). The best possible solution is, at least from experience, something resembling iTunes - a product that offers a compromise between the previously existing extremes (buy an entire cd at significant markup with lack of confidence in other songs on the cd; or spend no money at all to get individual songs for free). Offering a legal, ethical and higher quality (or lower risk) alternative for what consumers consider a reasonable costs will eliminate their desire to bother with alternative sources. The structure obviously already exists in things like DotP, but the functionality is too reduced (via lack of deck construction and card choices) to server the desired purpose.
I should add that I'm not personally effected by this. I'm lucky enough to have enough flexible income to consistently have a playset (or multiple) of all relevant cards in formats I play competitively. (There's some significant gaps in my collection when it comes to Vintage, I'll confess). However, I play with many friends that cannot possibly afford to do this and I am highly concerned for what they will do if faced with a loss of a testing option in the future. Luckily for us, we don't test via Cockatrice anyway, but I loathe the notion that: 'First they came for Cockatrice,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't on Cockatrice.'
(Inspired by Martin Niemoller)
Cockatrice offers a service that MTGO doesn't. Proxy playtesting is a real need - people would pay for. MAc users would pay for it. Let MTGO step up and provide this functionality. Cockatrice doesn't provide tournaments with prizes or pro tour invites. If they were stealing business then there should have been a big jump in MTGO usage. I doubt there was a change. Besides at least on Cockatrice you and your opponent can ( usually ) figure out how Pillar of Flame works. MTGO couldn't even during a major tournament.
The assertion that Cockatrice and MTGO offer "identical functionality" makes me think that someone has never bothered downloading Cockatrice or has even visited the Website. The most casual perusal will reveal such an assertion to be patently false.
Cockatrice is not in any way aware of the rules of MTG. It has no AI and no way of enforcing rules. One of the primary attractions of MTGO is the fact that it does, and barring interesting bits like the recent bugginess of Pillar of Flame, it tends to do a very good job of it. For many people, this will be a compelling reason to play MTGO, and Cockatrice simply doesn't have it.
Cockatrice also does not allow for true competitive play. No prizes are awarded. MTGO offers actual monetary value to the point that a dedicated player can essentially play it for free and perhaps make a small profit. Besides, how many Pro Tour invites has Cockatrice given out?
Given that the two programs are in no way identical or even offer anything close to the same functionality, the course that Hasbro has chosen is nothing if not ill advised. Of course they can shut it down. They have money and Cockatrice, by its very design, does not. Whether there is any merit to their argument is entirely irrelevant. What is relevant is that to whatever degree, when an industry declares war on its own customers, it never ends well. Hasbro has done that here...the Cockatrice author undoubtedly created the software because of his love of the game and his desire to have other people love the game, given that he's an individual who distributes it for free, and Hasbro has stomped on it.
Not to take the discussion into these waters, but there is a precedent: for how many years in a row did the record industry see losses? In that case, it's not piracy but the refusal to provide customers what they want (decent music at an acceptable price). The industry has slowly begun to realize that and has slowly changed its model, and for the first time in 15 years, it actually reported a profit this year.
Similarly, Hasbro doesn't provide the service that Cockatrice does, a service that some Hasbro customers appreciate. Much like with music piracy (though arguably less illegal), Cockatrice will continue to provide that service despite whatever efforts Hasbro makes to stop it (I will, for instance, go home from work today and play a few games via Cockatrice to prepare for the SCG Open this weekend). I seriously doubt that Hasbro's action will lead to the fifteen years of unprofitability that the RIAA campaign did, but it serves them no purpose while representing the real risk of turning off their own customers.
To those who say there is no 'free' alternative to M:TGO: Isn't DotP free or essentially free?
(I could be wrong... but even if DotP isn't free, the cost for it is nominal - like three dollars.)
In any case, I don't think there exists a significant demographic worth catering to, that is both:
A) Not happy about paying the fee for DotP, when they can get it for free on Cockatrice.
B) Going to buy lots of cards IRL, when they can get it for free on Cockatrice.
I think this is a very logical move for WotC, especially with the rumors of them trying to sync up paper and online.
If you are a casual player, you have DotP. If you are a Spike, you have M:TGO.
If you are somewhere in between, and relying on Cockatrice?
There's a good chance you'll lean toward one way or the other... which I think is exactly the plan.
Duel of the Planeswalker seem to only offer preconstruced decks with unlockable cards for each decks only.
As for not paying for cards in real life, I use Cockatrice to make decks, test them, then buy them in real life after a certain period of testing. I have this defender deck that I need to build after finishing my Kitsune's Protection deck. So no, I'm not interested by the Hasbro'n Wizard digital product. Also, Cockatrice has almost all of my IRL decks in it since I can't go to any FNM or other evening of any day of the week event due to work.
They don't offer me what I seek. If they offered an alternative where you purchase a license for 10$ and have access to all the cards and a huge community to make and test decks with, as well as an analysis tool included (Cockatrice offers that service) and an easy search function, then yeah, I would consider migrating to a Hasbro product for my deck testing.
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Duel of the Planeswalker seem to only offer preconstruced decks with unlockable cards for each decks only.
As for not paying for cards in real life, I use Cockatrice to make decks, test them, then buy them in real life after a certain period of testing. I have this defender deck that I need to build after finishing my Kitsune's Protection deck. So no, I'm not interested by the Hasbro'n Wizard digital product. Also, Cockatrice has almost all of my IRL decks in it since I can't go to any FNM or other evening of any day of the week event due to work.
They don't offer me what I seek. If they offered an alternative where you purchase a license for 10$ and have access to all the cards and a huge community to make and test decks with, as well as an analysis tool included (Cockatrice offers that service) and an easy search function, then yeah, I would consider migrating to a Hasbro product for my deck testing.
That would be a good idea as well.
I think they could get away with charging more money, or maybe even a monthly fee to have something like that. If they did something like this, they would have to go even further and load it with special features... you mentioned an analysis tool, perhaps some kind of way to show replays of your games and then the regular rules infrastructure that MTGO has.
I know people wouldn't be too excited about paying money when Cockatrice was for free, but I think there are plenty of people out there that would do a 1 time fee or small monthly fee for something like this. I mean, the headache of explaining the rules to a newer player alone makes this thing worth the money.
Also, it would be a good idea to perhaps load recent tournament results into MTGO with a button you can click to automatically make the deck... that takes the hassle out of making a bunch of decks for a gauntlet if you and a friend are testing online. And from the perspective of WoTC, this is good because presumably it's encouragement to buy deck in real life (presumably that's why you are testing the deck). If anything it's exposing more people to the professional scene (and not everyone knows how where to find what has been winning major tournaments recently).
Edit: Maybe I'm over confidant that such a program would be that great, but I just think after seeing stuff like WoW be so successful... they already have the content to make such a system happen with MTG. It doesn't make sense to me why they wouldn't do it unless they think it would cut into their profits from RL magic (as in, people stop buying cards and only play the free version).
The assertion that Cockatrice and MTGO offer "identical functionality" makes me think that someone has never bothered downloading Cockatrice or has even visited the Website. The most casual perusal will reveal such an assertion to be patently false.
I don't know that anybody has claimed that they are identical. I, for one, said specifically that Cockatrice is an imperfect substitute. But that matters little when the cost of using Cockatrice is zero. Even an imperfect substitute will lower demand of a superior good if the price is right.
Cockatrice is not in any way aware of the rules of MTG. It has no AI and no way of enforcing rules.
Since we don't know the justification behind the C&D letter or, specifically, which features Hasbro Deutschland GmbH objects to, to suggest that the legal objection is even related to the implementaiton of Magic's rules is pure speculation on your part. But just for grins, off the top of my head, here are some of the Magic rules that Cockatrice is clearly aware of, either in its design or rules enforcement.
- The concept of different zones (graveyard, exile, battlefield)
- The concept of a stack
- The steps of a turn
- The use of mana pools
- An opening hand of seven cards
- Mulliganing to one less card
- Cards entering the battlefield tapped
It's clearly not Magic Online. But to somehow suggest that Cockatrice is just this virtual online playmat on which you can sandbox any game, is also completely false. The purpose of Cockatrice is to play Magic, to do so online, and to do so at no cost to the user.
I don't know that anybody has claimed that they are identical. I, for one, said specifically that Cockatrice is an imperfect substitute. But that matters little when the cost of using Cockatrice is zero. Even an imperfect substitute will lower demand of a superior good if the price is right.
Since we don't know the justification behind the C&D letter or, specifically, which features Hasbro Deutschland GmbH objects to, to suggest that the legal objection is even related to the implementaiton of Magic's rules is pure speculation on your part. But just for grins, off the top of my head, here are some of the Magic rules that Cockatrice is clearly aware of, either in its design or rules enforcement.
- The concept of different zones (graveyard, exile, battlefield)
- The concept of a stack
- The steps of a turn
- The use of mana pools
- An opening hand of seven cards
- Mulliganing to one less card
- Cards entering the battlefield tapped
It's clearly not Magic Online. But to somehow suggest that Cockatrice is just this virtual online playmat on which you can sandbox any game, is also completely false. The purpose of Cockatrice is to play Magic, to do so online, and to do so at no cost to the user.
The concept of the different zones: Yugi-Oh! has them.
Stack: Can be used as an alternate zone.
Steps of the turns: Yugi-Oh! has them and those that aren't used is for generalisation of the steps.
Mana pools: Nice number counters.
Opening hand of seven cards: Yugi-Oh! also starts at seven cards.
Mulliganing to -1 card: Yugi-Oh! is also like that.
Cards entering the field tapped: Guess what, in Yugi-Oh!, some cards can be entered ''tapped'' or 'face down''.
Cockatrice could also be used for playing Yugi-Oh! and it could have been Konami who would have sent the C&D if there as a huge Yugi-Oh! community (altought I doubt they would have done that). So your argument that Cockatrice has knowledge of the MTG rules is wrong. And just so you know, a player can go tweek the cards.XML to make any cards enter the field tapped or untapped.
And it's not also Yugi-Oh! that can be played on Cockatrice. Poker, Duel Masters, Kaijudo, Pokemon and many other trading card games can be played on it! Many has rules in common with MTG.
So your argument juts lost it's strenght.
Now back on the real topic. Does anyone have some new info on what's happening between MBruke and Hasbro Germany?
Mana pools: Nice number counters.
Opening hand of seven cards: Yugi-Oh! also starts at seven cards.
Mulliganing to -1 card: Yugi-Oh! is also like that.
Nice trolling, 11/10, would read again.
Yugioh has nothing of those. Yugioh's counters are actually like the regular counters of MtG, not the mana pool. Opening hand in Yugioh is FIVE cards. There is no mulligan on Yugioh.
They tried to sue Asus because there was the word transformer in it's tablet name, then once again when they added prime to the second's gen name.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/03/asus-beats-hasbros-transformer-prime-lawsuit/
Dear Hasbro executives and members of the Wizards team,
In February 2013, lawyers acting on your behalf issued a Cease & Desist letter threatening legal action to an individual associated with the Cockatrice project. The Cockatrice project is a small open-source community software project devoted to providing a "virtual tabletop" that allows friends and users across the Internet to play a variety of games with one another as if they were sitting around a table together.
One such game that people can play using the Cockatrice software is Magic: The Gathering. Presumably, it was the discovery that people were doing this that motivated you to attempt to shut down the project by threatening corporate legal action against an individual programmer. Although it is far from clear, legally speaking, that any breach of rights occurred -- no Magic: The Gathering materials were distributed with the software at all, for example -- this is of little practical significance, as those responsible for the threat are well aware. Few individuals have the resources to withstand legal attacks from a corporation with annual revenues exceeding $4 billion; such threats need not have merit to be effective.
The purpose of this letter is not to argue the details of a body of copyright law that is considered even by experts in the field to be murky and completely inadequate to the realities of the Internet age. The purpose, rather, is to argue that by choosing to make such a threat, you have taken the first step down a path that places you at odds with your fans and customers -- and hence, in the end, at odds with yourselves.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am no one in particular, other than an individual who enjoys Magic: The Gathering and who deeply appreciates the effort that has gone into its making over many years. You have no reason to hear me, save one: if with these words I did not represent a substantial fraction of your Internet-connected customer base, this letter would never have been brought to your attention.
The action you have taken is profoundly short-sighted. It demonstrates clearly to the public and to your shareholders that significant decisions at your firm are being taken on the basis of obsolete reactive corporate instincts, with a complete lack of understanding of the Internet-connected world in which we all now live, and in which -- like it or not -- you must now operate.
Projects such as Cockatrice pose no threat to your business -- quite the contrary. Free tools such as the Cockatrice software are used most often by experienced players to support their investments in products like Magic: The Gathering, and by those for whom purchasing such products is at this moment not an option. Such tools do not take resources away from you; rather, they make the Magic community larger and more diverse, by providing additional ways to engage with the game that complement official distribution channels. They bring you customers you otherwise would not have, and they enable existing customers to immerse themselves in your products more deeply.
This is not to say that you should not be wary of such projects. Clearly, if they evolve to offer a superset of the functionality that your official online products provide, the userbase of those products may shrink. But there is a correct business strategy here, and an incorrect one. The incorrect strategy is to view such community projects as a negative threat and to attempt to exterminate them -- this is cutting off your nose to spite your face. The correct strategy is to view the "competition" from such projects as a positive challenge to make your own online offerings better and better; to always offer something bigger and greater than anyone else can. You have enormous resources at your disposal, unlike the individuals who work on community projects in their free time, so this should never be a problem for you.
You should also be aware that shutting down community software projects with legal threats is a tactic that cannot succeed in its aim in the long run, even if -- contrary to this letter's assertion -- you believe that aim is in your interest. Sure, you can make life difficult for some of your customers who have chosen to work on such projects out of love of the game, and you may manage to derail some community-developed tools and services in the short term. But this is the Internet age -- the source code for all such software can easily be made public and replicated across the Internet a millionfold, and tools and services can easily be developed and hosted anonymously. If you truly wish to fight this process, you will be starting a war with your own customers that will require the devotion of ever larger amounts of resources to destroying the work of others, and that you cannot hope to win in the end anyway.
You are at a crossroads. You still have time. You can make an honest effort to rethink your business strategy in light of the realities of today's interconnected world. If any of the decision-makers at your firm are capable of understanding these realities, they will certainly reach the same conclusions as this letter, since these conclusions have long been understood and accepted by people and businesses who truly understand the culture and technology of the Internet.
On the other hand, you can proceed down the path on which you've now set foot, and decide that destroying the work of your own fans and customers is more important to your business strategy than developing better products. We, your customers, hope you choose the other option. But we also know that, either way, reality will win out in the end. The only question is whether your business will survive it. Firms that focus on creation and excellence prosper. Firms whose strategies depend on destroying the work of others always fail in the end.
We are confident this letter will reach the right people at your company, and we look forward to a creative and prosperous future with you as your customers and partners.
---
I think the above will be received with laughs by WotC.
They can't shut down Cocka 100% obviously any kid knows that. But they can make it hard enough so Cocka don't cannibalize their revenue by offering a free mtg alternative.
Destroying the work of fans is the right thing to do when fans are destroying their profits, despite their intentions. Cockatrice can and will be used for the deck testing which is what WotC and Hasbro supports. All you need is a friend who also plays and have access to internet. What they are doing is shutting down Cockatrice's main servers which provided a free alternative for MTGO.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Seeing Cockatrice as a competitor to MTGO is simply wrong. They offer extremely different functionality and are used with completely different intentions. I won't repeat what exists in this thread repeatedly, as you've obviously not bothered to understand it or possibly read it at all.
It has been explained in multiple ways how this C&D effort can actually prove detrimental to WotC and Hasbro. No one has made a valid argument for how Cockatrice's existence serves to reduce revenue.
The only way this effort could serve WotC/Hasbro in a favorable fashion would be if they were releasing a product that actually competed with Cockatrice. To define what I'm speaking of, such a product would "Allow for the testing of constructed decks in an online format without prior purchase of the individual cards associated with that deck."
If players are left with the alternative of needing to buy every card with which they would like to test in their decks without knowing their value, or to simply not test at all - the result for MtG will be disastrous. In no way does this effort serve to benefit the game or Hasbro, as the amount players allocate to spend on MtG will not suddenly increase, nor will they suddenly want to maintain multiple collections (online and offline).
If their intentions are successful and they manage to eliminate the online non-MTGO community entirely, the population of the game will simply drop. Many players who would otherwise invest in the game will find that passion diminished and may seek alternate hobbies. Those players who are introduced to MtG via Cockatrice as a 'see if you like the game' trial, will no longer have that opportunity and thus will never become hooked and end up procuring online or offline cards to further their experience.
Chances are far higher that their effort is simply ineffective (people will find alternative servers, reuse the code under new names, and I'm already aware of multiple other programs that serve a similar function). In this case, all they're managing to do is to disrupt a community of players. In each occurrence of these efforts, some players will simply decide not to bother continuing to play the game at all. Others will simply grow in disdain for Hasbro/WotC and reduce any desire to to contribute to their revenues.
Finally, as has been mentioned previously but I'll repeat: the *best* solution is for Hasbro to offer a similar paid-for product (described in detail previously in this thread). If they included this product as an aspect of MtGO, then they'll need only minor amounts of work (the core client and code used for gameplay would remain), they'll increase the quality of the product (MtGO serves as a far superior platform for playing the game compared to Cockatrice/etc which lack rules enforcement), and they could attain revenue through offering this product. This would offer a superior product, offer a revenue source from it, and by bringing all the MtG players into one location (MtGO), the community that builds around the product will be larger and players will feel more inclined to remain a part of it (even when it costs them money to do so).
People keep saying if cockatrice is shut down that will make interest drop in Hasbro/Magic etc...this flat out isn't true, people will still play. As long they don't make cards where there is only one competitive deck or something the game will continue to grow and they know it.
I think this is the only pro-Cockatrice argument that matters IMO. I buy that Cockatrice give people the oppotunity to test, but that's not necessarily going to stop you from buying cards because if you are hardcore enough to test decks you probably aren't going to quit the game because Cockatrice doesn't exist. But giving new players a free "trial" way of getting into the game... that's what I think will hurt them the most.
They've done their part to make it easy for casual players to get into the game. Between Commander, Event decks, pre-releases and whatnot. There are a lot more ways for casual players to get into the game. But having a free online playable version of the game makes it VERY easy to introduce friends that don't want to invest money in something they aren't sure about but still want to give it a shot.
And furthermore, it makes it much easier to transition from casual to hardcore player. If you don't see yourself as that good, you probably aren't going to be as comfortable dropping 400 dollars in singles to make a Jund deck. But if you start playing something like Cockatrice, the first thing they do is they'll try to make the best deck they can online now that everything is free... and they get used to playing that deck and think "hey, I can play this in real life if I spend the money on it". So if they happen to have a decent job and not as many bills to pay, they can afford to drop the money, but more importantly they are more comfortable doing so.
This is exactly how I made the transition from casual to hardcore. I used to be the guy that made Beast Bidding decks (Patriarch's Bidding + the cycling Beasts from Onslaught block). And maybe 5-10 dollars a month on magic outside of tournament costs. Now I'm rocking a Jund deck that on a month by month basis I'm probably spending 50-100 dollars on. If something like Cockatrice didn't exist, I seriously doubt I would be the player I am today.
That's not a fan work. What I meant by fanwork is something along the lines of Transformers: Mosaic.
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Club Flamingo Wins: 10
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EDH Decks
BG Vicious Varolz | RW Jor Kadeen, the Mean Machine | RG Atarka: Muh_Dragons.dec (WIP) | WU Brago, Blink Eternal (WIP)
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If true, the pure number of people on these forums that will need new sig pictures...
It absolutely is a competitor. It offers identical functionality as a retail offering for free.
No it hasn't. People are mad they can't keep playing/testing for free. Hasbro doesn't care about people not paying for it's goods and services. You weren't spending money anyway.
As for the "I'm going to buy less cards because of this" argument, that gets trotted out ever single time Hasbro does anything like this, people shout and scream how stupid Hasbro is and how they aren't buying any more cards and this is going to cost them business. And then Hasbro sells more MTG cards than ever before.
When Player Rewards went away hoards of people were shouting that they will never go to FNM again. Yet FNM attendance is at an all time high
So for people saying that because Cockatrice is down they wil buy less cards, I don't believe you. That claim has been made multiple times in the past and never come to pass.
Testing = playing. You want Hasbro to spend the time, money, and resources to build a platform that lets you enjoy their game for free. That's not going to happen. Hasbro is not a charity.
Pretty sure MTG was doing just fine growth wise before Cockatrice ever existed. I'm pretty sure it will do just fine with Cockatrice gone.
Removing a free product that give people a way to enjoy the output of your work without paying for it benefits Hasbro greatly. That's why they did what they did.
Proof for this very big claim?
In each case Hasbro will be pushing away players that weren't spending money in the first place. Neither Hasbro nor anyone else cares about those players.
According to WotC, Magic Online accouts for 30-50% of Magic revenue (source: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/818/818114p1.html), so this is clearly false.
There is only one thing we know is true here, which is that these are all assumptions. You have no evidence or data to back them up. Without defending Hasbro one way or another, I would argue that they are in a much better position to judge the economic harm of Cockatrice than anyone here, including you and me. However, judging by their cease and desist letter, I conclude that they have determined that it is in their overall economic interest to try to shut Cockatrice down (at least in its current implementation).
Even if it is true that Cockatrice, taken as a whole, enables more revenue in paper card sales than it destroys Magic online revenue (which I doubt), I presume Hasbro still perceives there is a net positive economic value associated with protecting its intellectual property.
So thanks to keep this thread at that and not derailed to an out of context subject.
Eh, every single time Hasbro takes away a freebie people shout how much money it's going to cost them and how much less they are going to spend and how they aren't going to buy cards anymore and how Hasbro will rue the day they made that decision and they'll see how wrong they were when sales plummet. Yet MTG is bigger and more popular and profitable than ever before, so apparently all those people didn't really amount to much.
I'll make the prediction now: Shutting down Cockatrice won't hurt Hasbro's business one bit, and Magic will keep chugging right along like nothing happened.
Valarin's entire response situates from the premise that 'people who use Cockatrice do not spend money on Magic', which I am absolutely certain is wrong. If you remove that premise, all of his arguments fall apart. He also blatantly ignores aspects of posts he disagrees with (like the suggestion for Hasbro to charge to offer a similar product, mentioned repeatedly). He very obviously has one rather extreme bias ('no one cares' about Cockatrice players), and then attempts to bend any bit of truth he can into fitting that bias. It comes off incredibly similar to racist hate speech in which the speaker has adopted an opinion, regardless of fact, and seeks to contort everything they see to agree with that opinion.
I will admit to very likely having less information than Hasbro on the subject. There are ways in which this could serve as beneficial for the game in the long run, but in order for this to end up that way there's some core component to Hasbro's endgame that we're missing. \
Until I'm brought aware of some other aspect of this situation, it's hard to see this C&D as anything more than the equivalent of Metallica attempting to prevent their music from being downloaded for free online. At best, it will fail - you simply can't, under any known strategy, prevent the use of programs like Cockatrice and many others from being used. At worst, this may fail while also creating resentment or any number of other negative side effects (loss of consumer confidence in the product, as an example). The best possible solution is, at least from experience, something resembling iTunes - a product that offers a compromise between the previously existing extremes (buy an entire cd at significant markup with lack of confidence in other songs on the cd; or spend no money at all to get individual songs for free). Offering a legal, ethical and higher quality (or lower risk) alternative for what consumers consider a reasonable costs will eliminate their desire to bother with alternative sources. The structure obviously already exists in things like DotP, but the functionality is too reduced (via lack of deck construction and card choices) to server the desired purpose.
I should add that I'm not personally effected by this. I'm lucky enough to have enough flexible income to consistently have a playset (or multiple) of all relevant cards in formats I play competitively. (There's some significant gaps in my collection when it comes to Vintage, I'll confess). However, I play with many friends that cannot possibly afford to do this and I am highly concerned for what they will do if faced with a loss of a testing option in the future. Luckily for us, we don't test via Cockatrice anyway, but I loathe the notion that:
'First they came for Cockatrice,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't on Cockatrice.'
(Inspired by Martin Niemoller)
Cockatrice is not in any way aware of the rules of MTG. It has no AI and no way of enforcing rules. One of the primary attractions of MTGO is the fact that it does, and barring interesting bits like the recent bugginess of Pillar of Flame, it tends to do a very good job of it. For many people, this will be a compelling reason to play MTGO, and Cockatrice simply doesn't have it.
Cockatrice also does not allow for true competitive play. No prizes are awarded. MTGO offers actual monetary value to the point that a dedicated player can essentially play it for free and perhaps make a small profit. Besides, how many Pro Tour invites has Cockatrice given out?
Given that the two programs are in no way identical or even offer anything close to the same functionality, the course that Hasbro has chosen is nothing if not ill advised. Of course they can shut it down. They have money and Cockatrice, by its very design, does not. Whether there is any merit to their argument is entirely irrelevant. What is relevant is that to whatever degree, when an industry declares war on its own customers, it never ends well. Hasbro has done that here...the Cockatrice author undoubtedly created the software because of his love of the game and his desire to have other people love the game, given that he's an individual who distributes it for free, and Hasbro has stomped on it.
Not to take the discussion into these waters, but there is a precedent: for how many years in a row did the record industry see losses? In that case, it's not piracy but the refusal to provide customers what they want (decent music at an acceptable price). The industry has slowly begun to realize that and has slowly changed its model, and for the first time in 15 years, it actually reported a profit this year.
Similarly, Hasbro doesn't provide the service that Cockatrice does, a service that some Hasbro customers appreciate. Much like with music piracy (though arguably less illegal), Cockatrice will continue to provide that service despite whatever efforts Hasbro makes to stop it (I will, for instance, go home from work today and play a few games via Cockatrice to prepare for the SCG Open this weekend). I seriously doubt that Hasbro's action will lead to the fifteen years of unprofitability that the RIAA campaign did, but it serves them no purpose while representing the real risk of turning off their own customers.
GBW Melira Pod WBG
BW Tokens WB
(I could be wrong... but even if DotP isn't free, the cost for it is nominal - like three dollars.)
In any case, I don't think there exists a significant demographic worth catering to, that is both:
A) Not happy about paying the fee for DotP, when they can get it for free on Cockatrice.
B) Going to buy lots of cards IRL, when they can get it for free on Cockatrice.
I think this is a very logical move for WotC, especially with the rumors of them trying to sync up paper and online.
If you are a casual player, you have DotP. If you are a Spike, you have M:TGO.
If you are somewhere in between, and relying on Cockatrice?
There's a good chance you'll lean toward one way or the other... which I think is exactly the plan.
As for not paying for cards in real life, I use Cockatrice to make decks, test them, then buy them in real life after a certain period of testing. I have this defender deck that I need to build after finishing my Kitsune's Protection deck. So no, I'm not interested by the Hasbro'n Wizard digital product. Also, Cockatrice has almost all of my IRL decks in it since I can't go to any FNM or other evening of any day of the week event due to work.
They don't offer me what I seek. If they offered an alternative where you purchase a license for 10$ and have access to all the cards and a huge community to make and test decks with, as well as an analysis tool included (Cockatrice offers that service) and an easy search function, then yeah, I would consider migrating to a Hasbro product for my deck testing.
That would be a good idea as well.
I think they could get away with charging more money, or maybe even a monthly fee to have something like that. If they did something like this, they would have to go even further and load it with special features... you mentioned an analysis tool, perhaps some kind of way to show replays of your games and then the regular rules infrastructure that MTGO has.
I know people wouldn't be too excited about paying money when Cockatrice was for free, but I think there are plenty of people out there that would do a 1 time fee or small monthly fee for something like this. I mean, the headache of explaining the rules to a newer player alone makes this thing worth the money.
Also, it would be a good idea to perhaps load recent tournament results into MTGO with a button you can click to automatically make the deck... that takes the hassle out of making a bunch of decks for a gauntlet if you and a friend are testing online. And from the perspective of WoTC, this is good because presumably it's encouragement to buy deck in real life (presumably that's why you are testing the deck). If anything it's exposing more people to the professional scene (and not everyone knows how where to find what has been winning major tournaments recently).
Edit: Maybe I'm over confidant that such a program would be that great, but I just think after seeing stuff like WoW be so successful... they already have the content to make such a system happen with MTG. It doesn't make sense to me why they wouldn't do it unless they think it would cut into their profits from RL magic (as in, people stop buying cards and only play the free version).
Since we don't know the justification behind the C&D letter or, specifically, which features Hasbro Deutschland GmbH objects to, to suggest that the legal objection is even related to the implementaiton of Magic's rules is pure speculation on your part. But just for grins, off the top of my head, here are some of the Magic rules that Cockatrice is clearly aware of, either in its design or rules enforcement.
- The concept of different zones (graveyard, exile, battlefield)
- The concept of a stack
- The steps of a turn
- The use of mana pools
- An opening hand of seven cards
- Mulliganing to one less card
- Cards entering the battlefield tapped
It's clearly not Magic Online. But to somehow suggest that Cockatrice is just this virtual online playmat on which you can sandbox any game, is also completely false. The purpose of Cockatrice is to play Magic, to do so online, and to do so at no cost to the user.
The concept of the different zones: Yugi-Oh! has them.
Stack: Can be used as an alternate zone.
Steps of the turns: Yugi-Oh! has them and those that aren't used is for generalisation of the steps.
Mana pools: Nice number counters.
Opening hand of seven cards: Yugi-Oh! also starts at seven cards.
Mulliganing to -1 card: Yugi-Oh! is also like that.
Cards entering the field tapped: Guess what, in Yugi-Oh!, some cards can be entered ''tapped'' or 'face down''.
Cockatrice could also be used for playing Yugi-Oh! and it could have been Konami who would have sent the C&D if there as a huge Yugi-Oh! community (altought I doubt they would have done that). So your argument that Cockatrice has knowledge of the MTG rules is wrong. And just so you know, a player can go tweek the cards.XML to make any cards enter the field tapped or untapped.
And it's not also Yugi-Oh! that can be played on Cockatrice. Poker, Duel Masters, Kaijudo, Pokemon and many other trading card games can be played on it! Many has rules in common with MTG.
So your argument juts lost it's strenght.
Now back on the real topic. Does anyone have some new info on what's happening between MBruke and Hasbro Germany?
Nice trolling, 11/10, would read again.
Yugioh has nothing of those. Yugioh's counters are actually like the regular counters of MtG, not the mana pool. Opening hand in Yugioh is FIVE cards. There is no mulligan on Yugioh.
Have all of them.
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