Could not find a subforum that seemed more appropriate for this kind of discussion so apologies in advance if this is in the wrong subforum.
I'd like to quickly introduce myself: I am a young magic player who started about a month or two ago. However, I was taken by the depth of the game and I spend a lot of time on gatherer brewing and looking at potential combos. My favorite format is currently Commander due to it's unique style of play and because I can enjoy myself with my friends. Anyway, I've noticed that MTG Salvation is one of the better communities for discussion.
The topic of this thread is in reference to sites like Scryfall and MTGgoldfish. Sites that hold a database of magic cards and information pertaining to them. I'm wondering how they stay afloat or turn a profit.
As somebody who is a fan of spreadsheets and quantifying information, I've thought about making a similar site that could try and put a rating on a card based on the format it's in. Something community-driven like old gatherer, but more mechanic-based. A site that could inform players of alternate routes to take in the current meta, so as to reduce netdecking and foster more creative environments in all formats.
Honestly, even if it's just keeping the site afloat with minimal profitability, it would still be nice.
I can't speak for every site but most sites like Salvation stay afloat by means of advertisement revenue. Gatherer itself is Wizards owned and thus the source of a lot of the information as far as sites pulling automation for new sets and such. MTGSalvation is run day to day by a volunteer moderator staff such as myself who want to see the site succeed so all of the cool spoilers that get added and day to day duties fall on volunteers.
We are owned by Curse gaming who does at time put in development time for us to fix bugs and improve what we have as well. The amount of time they can dedicate to us specifically though does vary due to owning many different sites and their development team is supported by the ad revenue of all of their sites combined. We do have a number of requests (bugs and improvements) that we do stockpile for them with different levels of priority. When we get another pass of development many of them will be addressed by the developers.
I am not saying that having a format rating for cards would not be helpful, I just don't know where it would fall in our requests. The commander forum does have a top 50 list which has not been updated in the last year or so due to failing community involvement near the end but its still been maintained fairly well.
Also, not to promote another site but you can check out EDHREC as it does to some degree have the functionality you might be looking for. If you search for a commander it puts together a list of often used cards from a database of many decks across many sites.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Thank you very much for the reply. With this new insight I suppose I'll look into alternate methods of funding via donations, partner/owner-ships, both, etc...
I have used EDHREC and I think it's a very useful tool, but I find it limited in scope for the purpose of general magic deck-building.
Ideally the site would be a database as powerful or even more powerful than gatherer (which is where the information would initially be sought from). However, it would have the added utility of market price and utility tags (e.g. Lightning Bolt $2.44 [TargetedDamage=3]). I don't have a system set in place yet or a business plan, I am just an enthusiastic programmer that would like to see what amazing things this community could create with such powerful tools.
Anyway, thanks again for the information. Have a good night.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'd like to quickly introduce myself: I am a young magic player who started about a month or two ago. However, I was taken by the depth of the game and I spend a lot of time on gatherer brewing and looking at potential combos. My favorite format is currently Commander due to it's unique style of play and because I can enjoy myself with my friends. Anyway, I've noticed that MTG Salvation is one of the better communities for discussion.
The topic of this thread is in reference to sites like Scryfall and MTGgoldfish. Sites that hold a database of magic cards and information pertaining to them. I'm wondering how they stay afloat or turn a profit.
As somebody who is a fan of spreadsheets and quantifying information, I've thought about making a similar site that could try and put a rating on a card based on the format it's in. Something community-driven like old gatherer, but more mechanic-based. A site that could inform players of alternate routes to take in the current meta, so as to reduce netdecking and foster more creative environments in all formats.
Honestly, even if it's just keeping the site afloat with minimal profitability, it would still be nice.
We are owned by Curse gaming who does at time put in development time for us to fix bugs and improve what we have as well. The amount of time they can dedicate to us specifically though does vary due to owning many different sites and their development team is supported by the ad revenue of all of their sites combined. We do have a number of requests (bugs and improvements) that we do stockpile for them with different levels of priority. When we get another pass of development many of them will be addressed by the developers.
I am not saying that having a format rating for cards would not be helpful, I just don't know where it would fall in our requests. The commander forum does have a top 50 list which has not been updated in the last year or so due to failing community involvement near the end but its still been maintained fairly well.
Also, not to promote another site but you can check out EDHREC as it does to some degree have the functionality you might be looking for. If you search for a commander it puts together a list of often used cards from a database of many decks across many sites.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I have used EDHREC and I think it's a very useful tool, but I find it limited in scope for the purpose of general magic deck-building.
Ideally the site would be a database as powerful or even more powerful than gatherer (which is where the information would initially be sought from). However, it would have the added utility of market price and utility tags (e.g. Lightning Bolt $2.44 [TargetedDamage=3]). I don't have a system set in place yet or a business plan, I am just an enthusiastic programmer that would like to see what amazing things this community could create with such powerful tools.
Anyway, thanks again for the information. Have a good night.