To read this thread, one would believe that Magic is coming to an end at any moment...
Interest in hobbies ebbs and flows. Certainly there has been quite a bit flowing away from MTG at this point in time, as sets have become poorer quality (on many different fronts) and the player numbers hit an all time high a few years ago. However, relatively speaking, things haven't been poor for a "long" time and there is plenty of opportunity to 'right the ship'.
The reinstatement of the Modern Pro Tour, the improvement of the transparency in the ban/unban decisions, the creation of a new online client are all potentially very positive things.
All of the speculative downside people are talking about with the creation of Arena and the possible elimination of MTGO is simply that, speculative.
It appears that GP and regional event numbers are still quite good. Decklists are quite diverse, with many different types of decks making appearances in the top 8 lists. Etc. etc.
So sell it all off. Hell I did it last month after the youtube drama because I don't want to support WOTC anymore. Maybe things'll change and I'll come back, but the whole "woe is me" attitude just strikes me as an attention-grab. Modern is a non-rotating format that allows players to maintain some value in their collection through its playability. WOTC has to try to appeal to the "is it fun" issue with a wide range of players who like a wide range of playstyles. Right now you can compete, and win, with 20 different decks, ergo 20 different decks have cards retaining value. The moment WOTC shows favoritism to certain decks or certain playstyles over others is the moment the market is hit to a point where people may not care about it thinking "well what if WOTC decides my collection isn't how the game is meant to be played?"
The weird thing is that this is a pretty fair format right now, between jeskai flash, grixis shadow, and mardu pyromancer putting up results online and in paper.
The reddit thread on the mtg arena economy has a lot of discussion.
It doesn't make sense for them to sustain two clients. But maybe mtgo doesn't cost much to upkeep. Streamer Michael Jacob had a great point when mtgo crashed the other day during the pre-release. The client crashes every time during the Pre-release, so instead of buying/renting more servers or hiring more people during this time, they don't spend any money in preparation for a huge influx of players. Instead of spending X thousands of dollars on making the product better, they just reimburse people which affects their bottom line by maybe a couple hundred dollars. So maybe some bean counter will figure out that you can keep mtgo on life support and it will still be a cash cow. But I think limited players have to be the ones spending the most money on on mtgo. Arena directly competes with that. They'll probably string mtgo along until they can find a way to make even more money.
The other interesting point was that they will make another non rotating format so you can actually use your standard cards that got rotated out. Apparently wotc article writers hinted at this in some articles but no source article was given. This kind of messes with modern, which sucks since modern is in a great place right now.
I think the long term picture is when will paper magic die? Isn't the notion of playing paper cards archaic now? This is further pointed out with all these standard bannings. The physical medium aspect is such a huge limitation. In hearthstone or dota 2 (very popular digital games), they just patch stuff that's overpowered, they don't have to ban anything they just tweak the code to fix it. What's the next innovation in digital design space? How can we have digital tournaments that simulate the 1 on 1 experience where you can try to read people and use bluffs? Can people play on a big tablet with additional screens to show your hand? What technology can they add to improve the tournament and viewer experience? It's not an if paper magic will die, but when.
Ok, let's stop with the Depression in here. I mean, what would we do if this was a Standard forum and we were just off of 4 bannings?
Modern is still doing great, and there's a PT coming up and probably some unbans after it. Buckle up, enjoy the best mtg format.
Hopefully, I will. Catching the UWR Mirror Final at SCG was the best thing I could have hoped for for my interest in the game. That doesnt mean its a bad idea for me personally to liquidate a bunch of stuff I dont need. I'm not, ever, realistically going to play anything that isnt UWR, or URx, and I dont like the Discard vs Counter fight that happens when I build Grixis (I like Counters more) so...why wait?
I know myself, I know what I want, and thats that.
Playing in person is far more fun to me than on mtgo. MTGO is to practice for my events in paper.
I'd lose a ton of interest if I didn't have something to look forward to going to
Magic is kind of low on my priority list.
Family, Work, Muay Thai, Gym, Overwatch, and then Magic and some other games. Its near impossible for me to get out to paper, while late night Magic on MTGO, gets that itch done.
I've read more and apparently Wizards intends to keep both running, so...I dont know how to take that. The MTGO client is objectively one of the worst apps I've used. Its embarrassingly bad, so I would hope they would invest to update it, but if Arena is soaking up dev time...I dont know.
Playing in person is far more fun to me than on mtgo. MTGO is to practice for my events in paper.
I'd lose a ton of interest if I didn't have something to look forward to going to
I can't stand mtgo because I can't stand the idea of paying for something I already own. And if I'm not paying extra to perfectly mirror my paper decks (which went through a LOT of flux the past two years), then it's no better than any other pc game in terms of free time entertainment. I sold out of my online account some time in the past year and use any free time for pc gaming on racing sims. Magic is best played in paper anyway.
I don't feel paper is enough practice for my deck unless you have a large testing group of skillful players.
I've personally given up playing competitively enough to need that extensive practice anymore. FNMs are fine until I find another deck I love as much as Twin or the format evolves in such a way where paying $60+ to play in a 15-round Modern event is worthwhile. Even with upcoming Vegas and LA GPs, I'm only planning to play side events. I have no interest in trying to play Modern at a 15-round event.
In my world (the real work world I live in that is) those things dont matter. Is MTGO profitable? If so, its only due to Standard. There is no way they keep it up if they have Arena.
Maybe it limps along as a legacy supported app, but new sets? Thats a whole code base updated every time, for Standard.
I just dont see it.
I've sold all my MTGO stuff that isnt for my UWR deck just now.
You sold it just now? Wouldn't it take a while for mtgos prices fall hard?
Why wait till the prices fall, I'll just sell out of all the stuff I already sold in paper when I was grossed out by the meta (ETron as a deck makes me physically ill).
I'm not using them, dont really want them, and I'm not convinced that Wizards is going to support MTGO long term.
EDIT: I mean its like this. I know what I want to be playing, when I'm playing this game. I know what I want to experience during the game, and I know what I dont like (pretty much every other deck I've tried). I'm losing nothing by selling out now, especially since a lot of what I had, has gone up.
Same as in Paper really, so its all good. I just hope Snaps stay's high I got them a fair bit cheaper. :]
I sold basically all of my MTGO collection back when Arena was first announced. Maybe it was after? Don't remember. But it was around 09/2017. I saved my MTGO TradeBinder file so I could periodically reappraise my collection every few weeks. Sadly, I did not track it; missed data opportunity. But anecdotally, I can say that my collection NEVER went higher than what I appraised it at on that day. It fell by about 20% over the next month, gradually rose back to around what I sold it for, and since the recent Arena announcement, fell by another 9%. I'm totally comfortable with the sale and really think Arena is going to destroy the MTGO economy in the long-term. I don't want to be holding the bag when Wizards drops the MTGO-killing announcement out of the blue, or some other announcement that causes a sellout panic.
I sold basically all of my MTGO collection back when Arena was first announced. Maybe it was after? Don't remember. But it was around 09/2017. I saved my MTGO TradeBinder file so I could periodically reappraise my collection every few weeks. Sadly, I did not track it; missed data opportunity. But anecdotally, I can say that my collection NEVER went higher than what I appraised it at on that day. It fell by about 20% over the next month, gradually rose back to around what I sold it for, and since the recent Arena announcement, fell by another 9%. I'm totally comfortable with the sale and really think Arena is going to destroy the MTGO economy in the long-term. I don't want to be holding the bag when Wizards drops the MTGO-killing announcement out of the blue, or some other announcement that causes a sellout panic.
I sold my mtgo collection back when they announced play points mid 2015. I came back last month since modern looked like it was in a good spot. I estimate my collection lost 50% of it's value. I'm not sure if it was due to play points, but they did reprint a ton of cards in chests and released a ton of masters sets. I had all the vintages decks too, and the rock decks in modern aren't that good anymore so lilis, bobs and goyfs are pretty cheap.
I agree that mtgo won't be here long term, or at least the value will continue to get sucked out. Doesn't a lot of the profit to developers of free to play games come from whales? The people that spend thousands of dollars make it so people who spend 10s of dollars can play? It doesn't seem like mtgo is capitalizing on that market. Foiling out your deck on mtgo is actually bad due to lagging your computer and foils often cost less than non-foils.
I would say mtgo would get killed before modern. Has anyone studied the history as to why wotc ended extended?
Sigh, maybe I'll sell off the mtgo stuff except to practice with jund and junk.
I was thinking about it today, if it's announced it's going under, it'll literally be over half a grand I'd lose. Lack of playing mtgo would compel me to sell off a lot of my paper collection, too.
I'd sell off all my blue staples, keep GBx, the Tron stuff, and even sell off the tax stuff. I don't have a lot of play time outside of GBx and Eldrazi Tron (which fell out of favor hard and hasn't been touched in a bit).
I want to be semi competitive, and like I said, without the reps on mtgo, it feels hard to do that without a play test group.
Modern is still doing great, and there's a PT coming up and probably some unbans after it. Buckle up, enjoy the best mtg format.
That's exactly what makes no sense to me whatsoever, does the left and right hand not communicate at Wizards? How can you be forced (essentially a total of three times now) to have a Modern Pro Tour, and then not let Modern be a format for your newest Magic Online platform?
It's so simple, they are either horrendously stupid or attempting to deceive us. That should be warning bells for any Magic Online collection.
Its a lot of work to get the entire modern card pool on arena. They're obviously, and rightfully, more interested in getting standard and limited running first.
They mentioned its possible for modern to eventually make it onto arena, but I just can't see it making business sense yet.
I don't think it makes them stupid or deceitful.
I also do agree that MTGO will definitely persist in some sort of "barebones" state for quite a while. The question isn't will wizards wholly kill it, but will wizards half-killing it cause enough players to leave, to mean its not worth bothering with anymore, which I don't think anyone can answer just yet.
Wizards is still really just dipping its toes in digital magic.
Depressing conversation on here. Is the MTGO revenue from league fees, ticket purchases, etc. really so marginal compared to the cost to support?
It's not that simple. You have also to take into account that MTGO has been built on what now is an obsolete platform and does not even provide support for mobile gaming. When people compare arena to duels they are ignoring WotC's mission statement for arena that is vastly different from duels. They want arena to be THE platform for standard. They never envisaged duels assuming that role.
...
I think the long term picture is when will paper magic die? Isn't the notion of playing paper cards archaic now? This is further pointed out with all these standard bannings. The physical medium aspect is such a huge limitation. In hearthstone or dota 2 (very popular digital games), they just patch stuff that's overpowered, they don't have to ban anything they just tweak the code to fix it. ...
Yes, that is already a major tension that will only get worse the further WotC pursues turning magic into an eSports. For that, they will require the ability to quickly balance the online game and you risk either a disconnect between online and paper, or one of them suffering heavily for the other's evil deeds...
There's a reason wizards said they won't be killing off mtgo and modern is a big part of that. Existing collections.
What's probably going to happen is something like this:
1) arena launches. New collections start to build.
2) wizards figures out some way to slowly implement modern cards into the engine over period of time
3) over that time period, modern players and people with collections will migrate over to the new platform
4) once this migration has ended (could take a long while) they'll shut down mtgo.
Saying "yeah we'll can mtgo in a couple of years" isn't good PR. They'd risk backlash and panic. In reality that's probably what's going to happen but in the meantime there will be some sort of migration of players and their cards. There has to be, simply put. There isn't a reasonable alternative. They are also probably still figuring out how to do it; but it'll happen for sure.
My guess? Everyone with an mtgo collection will receive a code or serial number which is essentially a big ol' list of what you own. You'll be able to redeem it in the new engine. Just a guess but seems like the easiest and most likely option.
Of course you don't say, "mtgo is going to die soon". It is going to happen though
I see no reason why they can't eventually make modern playable. It's understandable if it's standard first, it's a lot of coding.
Can't they make it so players HAVE to buy cards from them and then use that 4x card copy limit? That way, they shut off the ability for secondary markets like Cardhoarder from stealing profits from their online shop.
My guess? Everyone with an mtgo collection will receive a code or serial number which is essentially a big ol' list of what you own. You'll be able to redeem it in the new engine. Just a guess but seems like the easiest and most likely option.
That would make a mockery of the economical system they are implementing in the game... Not to mention it would create an interesting second-hand market for collections...
My guess? Everyone with an mtgo collection will receive a code or serial number which is essentially a big ol' list of what you own. You'll be able to redeem it in the new engine. Just a guess but seems like the easiest and most likely option.
That would make a mockery of the economical system they are implementing in the game...
It would also literally cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to the fan base, though. People won't just turn their head, it's not like losing 60 dollars for an xbox one game.
Modern is still doing great, and there's a PT coming up and probably some unbans after it. Buckle up, enjoy the best mtg format.
That's exactly what makes no sense to me whatsoever, does the left and right hand not communicate at Wizards? How can you be forced (essentially a total of three times now) to have a Modern Pro Tour, and then not let Modern be a format for your newest Magic Online platform?
It's so simple, they are either horrendously stupid or attempting to deceive us. That should be warning bells for any Magic Online collection.
I've been saying this for years. The disconnect between departments at WotC is horrendous. I just cannot imagine being in charge of a multi million dollar business and not at least, for instance, considering how new cards will affect older formats. They seem to be doing better in that regard but in general the cognitive dissonance is alive and well at WotC; they have a severe lack of communication between departments that has led to multiple standard bannings and awful standard metas, and has severly impacted modern such as through busting the format with delve and mishandling the unban and reban of GGT when all the new dredge cards were already in development. Modern is thriving despite their handling of it, not because of it.
My guess? Everyone with an mtgo collection will receive a code or serial number which is essentially a big ol' list of what you own. You'll be able to redeem it in the new engine. Just a guess but seems like the easiest and most likely option.
That would make a mockery of the economical system they are implementing in the game... Not to mention it would create an interesting second-hand market for collections...
I mean, take the barebones like 12-or-whatever words I suggested and sprinkle in some actual logistics, ID confirmation, account merging or whatever needs to happen and sure, it's still probably the easiest option?
I just can't see them leaving people's investment in their platform to just rot and gather dust. Some kind of equivalent exchange will *need* to happen. At the very least it's fair to expect such an exchange to happen.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Modern is still doing great, and there's a PT coming up and probably some unbans after it. Buckle up, enjoy the best mtg format.
That's exactly what makes no sense to me whatsoever, does the left and right hand not communicate at Wizards? How can you be forced (essentially a total of three times now) to have a Modern Pro Tour, and then not let Modern be a format for your newest Magic Online platform?
It's so simple, they are either horrendously stupid or attempting to deceive us. That should be warning bells for any Magic Online collection.
I've been saying this for years. The disconnect between departments at WotC is horrendous. I just cannot imagine being in charge of a multi million dollar business and not at least, for instance, considering how new cards will affect older formats. They seem to be doing better in that regard but in general the cognitive dissonance is alive and well at WotC; they have a severe lack of communication between departments that has led to multiple standard bannings and awful standard metas, and has severly impacted modern such as through busting the format with delve and mishandling the unban and reban of GGT when all the new dredge cards were already in development. Modern is thriving despite their handling of it, not because of it.
*had a severe lack of communication.
Pretty well documented now that there's a new team involved in the development of new sets and Modern is something they are considering.
I'm not suggesting that this team will have all the answers and solve every problem, but their actual job is to address the problem you say exists. So as far as the average magic player should be concerned, as of now they are addressing this issue.
As we all (should) know though, changes to today's philosophy on product and r&d won't hit actual store-shelves for a year or two. We have a little while to wait, and in the meantime we have direct evidence that wizards has been slightly tweaking upcoming sets to account for issues in the current landscape of the game. Tiny pushes or controls here and there can make or break a card and/or even a whole strategy, so they have demonstrated a willingness and a new kind of understanding of their product and how to combat certain issues. The picture is positive.
Now, is everything suddenly hunky-dory and perfect? Of course not. Will the game likely be in a far better place in two years' time? Seems that way. The pendulum swung pretty far for wizards r&d in the direction of 'safe' design and as a result they've made a few mistakes along the way (lack of powerful answers is one example). Some of these they have directly addressed to the community. Going forwards we can see the pendulum swinging back towards the middle and a more balanced, mature game coming out of it.
Not everything is doom and destruction! (although from these forums you'd be hard pressed to see otherwise haha)
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I think they are still showing a lack of communication evidenced by the Arena/MTGO/Modern PT talk of the past few pages. I understand it is a tricky situation for them, and I am genuinely enthusiastic for how they have become more open in the ban announcements and the fact that they have implemented a new play team, but those don't mean the problem is automatically fixed. Especially considering your point that we won't really taste the fruits of their labor for 1-3 years we have no idea how this team will help. Adding a new feature is one thing, but implementing it properly is another. I guess time will tell. I'm cautiously optimistic while remaining somewhat worried by historical evidence.
Depressing conversation on here. Is the MTGO revenue from league fees, ticket purchases, etc. really so marginal compared to the cost to support?
It's not that simple. You have also to take into account that MTGO has been built on what now is an obsolete platform and does not even provide support for mobile gaming. When people compare arena to duels they are ignoring WotC's mission statement for arena that is vastly different from duels. They want arena to be THE platform for standard. They never envisaged duels assuming that role.
At the end of the day, it usually is (almost) that simple. If revenue (both direct and indirect) is greater than cost (again both direct and direct), companies are loathe to shut down a profitable product/service/LoB. Unless one of those two is trending negatively, showing poor long-term feasibility. Or there's a shortage of capital that would be better reallocated to something higher NPV.
I suppose the argument for WoTC moving everything to Arena would center on those two caveats.
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Interest in hobbies ebbs and flows. Certainly there has been quite a bit flowing away from MTG at this point in time, as sets have become poorer quality (on many different fronts) and the player numbers hit an all time high a few years ago. However, relatively speaking, things haven't been poor for a "long" time and there is plenty of opportunity to 'right the ship'.
The reinstatement of the Modern Pro Tour, the improvement of the transparency in the ban/unban decisions, the creation of a new online client are all potentially very positive things.
All of the speculative downside people are talking about with the creation of Arena and the possible elimination of MTGO is simply that, speculative.
It appears that GP and regional event numbers are still quite good. Decklists are quite diverse, with many different types of decks making appearances in the top 8 lists. Etc. etc.
The sky really isn't on fire just yet fellas.
The weird thing is that this is a pretty fair format right now, between jeskai flash, grixis shadow, and mardu pyromancer putting up results online and in paper.
It doesn't make sense for them to sustain two clients. But maybe mtgo doesn't cost much to upkeep. Streamer Michael Jacob had a great point when mtgo crashed the other day during the pre-release. The client crashes every time during the Pre-release, so instead of buying/renting more servers or hiring more people during this time, they don't spend any money in preparation for a huge influx of players. Instead of spending X thousands of dollars on making the product better, they just reimburse people which affects their bottom line by maybe a couple hundred dollars. So maybe some bean counter will figure out that you can keep mtgo on life support and it will still be a cash cow. But I think limited players have to be the ones spending the most money on on mtgo. Arena directly competes with that. They'll probably string mtgo along until they can find a way to make even more money.
The other interesting point was that they will make another non rotating format so you can actually use your standard cards that got rotated out. Apparently wotc article writers hinted at this in some articles but no source article was given. This kind of messes with modern, which sucks since modern is in a great place right now.
I think the long term picture is when will paper magic die? Isn't the notion of playing paper cards archaic now? This is further pointed out with all these standard bannings. The physical medium aspect is such a huge limitation. In hearthstone or dota 2 (very popular digital games), they just patch stuff that's overpowered, they don't have to ban anything they just tweak the code to fix it. What's the next innovation in digital design space? How can we have digital tournaments that simulate the 1 on 1 experience where you can try to read people and use bluffs? Can people play on a big tablet with additional screens to show your hand? What technology can they add to improve the tournament and viewer experience? It's not an if paper magic will die, but when.
Hopefully, I will. Catching the UWR Mirror Final at SCG was the best thing I could have hoped for for my interest in the game. That doesnt mean its a bad idea for me personally to liquidate a bunch of stuff I dont need. I'm not, ever, realistically going to play anything that isnt UWR, or URx, and I dont like the Discard vs Counter fight that happens when I build Grixis (I like Counters more) so...why wait?
I know myself, I know what I want, and thats that.
Spirits
I'd lose a ton of interest if I didn't have something to look forward to going to
Magic is kind of low on my priority list.
Family, Work, Muay Thai, Gym, Overwatch, and then Magic and some other games. Its near impossible for me to get out to paper, while late night Magic on MTGO, gets that itch done.
I've read more and apparently Wizards intends to keep both running, so...I dont know how to take that. The MTGO client is objectively one of the worst apps I've used. Its embarrassingly bad, so I would hope they would invest to update it, but if Arena is soaking up dev time...I dont know.
Different teams maybe.
Spirits
I can't stand mtgo because I can't stand the idea of paying for something I already own. And if I'm not paying extra to perfectly mirror my paper decks (which went through a LOT of flux the past two years), then it's no better than any other pc game in terms of free time entertainment. I sold out of my online account some time in the past year and use any free time for pc gaming on racing sims. Magic is best played in paper anyway.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I've personally given up playing competitively enough to need that extensive practice anymore. FNMs are fine until I find another deck I love as much as Twin or the format evolves in such a way where paying $60+ to play in a 15-round Modern event is worthwhile. Even with upcoming Vegas and LA GPs, I'm only planning to play side events. I have no interest in trying to play Modern at a 15-round event.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I sold basically all of my MTGO collection back when Arena was first announced. Maybe it was after? Don't remember. But it was around 09/2017. I saved my MTGO TradeBinder file so I could periodically reappraise my collection every few weeks. Sadly, I did not track it; missed data opportunity. But anecdotally, I can say that my collection NEVER went higher than what I appraised it at on that day. It fell by about 20% over the next month, gradually rose back to around what I sold it for, and since the recent Arena announcement, fell by another 9%. I'm totally comfortable with the sale and really think Arena is going to destroy the MTGO economy in the long-term. I don't want to be holding the bag when Wizards drops the MTGO-killing announcement out of the blue, or some other announcement that causes a sellout panic.
I sold my mtgo collection back when they announced play points mid 2015. I came back last month since modern looked like it was in a good spot. I estimate my collection lost 50% of it's value. I'm not sure if it was due to play points, but they did reprint a ton of cards in chests and released a ton of masters sets. I had all the vintages decks too, and the rock decks in modern aren't that good anymore so lilis, bobs and goyfs are pretty cheap.
There's an overall trend of prices dropping though. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/index/modern#online
I agree that mtgo won't be here long term, or at least the value will continue to get sucked out. Doesn't a lot of the profit to developers of free to play games come from whales? The people that spend thousands of dollars make it so people who spend 10s of dollars can play? It doesn't seem like mtgo is capitalizing on that market. Foiling out your deck on mtgo is actually bad due to lagging your computer and foils often cost less than non-foils.
I would say mtgo would get killed before modern. Has anyone studied the history as to why wotc ended extended?
Sigh, maybe I'll sell off the mtgo stuff except to practice with jund and junk.
I was thinking about it today, if it's announced it's going under, it'll literally be over half a grand I'd lose. Lack of playing mtgo would compel me to sell off a lot of my paper collection, too.
I'd sell off all my blue staples, keep GBx, the Tron stuff, and even sell off the tax stuff. I don't have a lot of play time outside of GBx and Eldrazi Tron (which fell out of favor hard and hasn't been touched in a bit).
I want to be semi competitive, and like I said, without the reps on mtgo, it feels hard to do that without a play test group.
That's exactly what makes no sense to me whatsoever, does the left and right hand not communicate at Wizards? How can you be forced (essentially a total of three times now) to have a Modern Pro Tour, and then not let Modern be a format for your newest Magic Online platform?
It's so simple, they are either horrendously stupid or attempting to deceive us. That should be warning bells for any Magic Online collection.
They mentioned its possible for modern to eventually make it onto arena, but I just can't see it making business sense yet.
I don't think it makes them stupid or deceitful.
I also do agree that MTGO will definitely persist in some sort of "barebones" state for quite a while. The question isn't will wizards wholly kill it, but will wizards half-killing it cause enough players to leave, to mean its not worth bothering with anymore, which I don't think anyone can answer just yet.
Wizards is still really just dipping its toes in digital magic.
It's not that simple. You have also to take into account that MTGO has been built on what now is an obsolete platform and does not even provide support for mobile gaming. When people compare arena to duels they are ignoring WotC's mission statement for arena that is vastly different from duels. They want arena to be THE platform for standard. They never envisaged duels assuming that role.
Yes, that is already a major tension that will only get worse the further WotC pursues turning magic into an eSports. For that, they will require the ability to quickly balance the online game and you risk either a disconnect between online and paper, or one of them suffering heavily for the other's evil deeds...
There's a reason wizards said they won't be killing off mtgo and modern is a big part of that. Existing collections.
What's probably going to happen is something like this:
1) arena launches. New collections start to build.
2) wizards figures out some way to slowly implement modern cards into the engine over period of time
3) over that time period, modern players and people with collections will migrate over to the new platform
4) once this migration has ended (could take a long while) they'll shut down mtgo.
Saying "yeah we'll can mtgo in a couple of years" isn't good PR. They'd risk backlash and panic. In reality that's probably what's going to happen but in the meantime there will be some sort of migration of players and their cards. There has to be, simply put. There isn't a reasonable alternative. They are also probably still figuring out how to do it; but it'll happen for sure.
My guess? Everyone with an mtgo collection will receive a code or serial number which is essentially a big ol' list of what you own. You'll be able to redeem it in the new engine. Just a guess but seems like the easiest and most likely option.
I see no reason why they can't eventually make modern playable. It's understandable if it's standard first, it's a lot of coding.
Can't they make it so players HAVE to buy cards from them and then use that 4x card copy limit? That way, they shut off the ability for secondary markets like Cardhoarder from stealing profits from their online shop.
That would make a mockery of the economical system they are implementing in the game... Not to mention it would create an interesting second-hand market for collections...
It would also literally cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to the fan base, though. People won't just turn their head, it's not like losing 60 dollars for an xbox one game.
I've been saying this for years. The disconnect between departments at WotC is horrendous. I just cannot imagine being in charge of a multi million dollar business and not at least, for instance, considering how new cards will affect older formats. They seem to be doing better in that regard but in general the cognitive dissonance is alive and well at WotC; they have a severe lack of communication between departments that has led to multiple standard bannings and awful standard metas, and has severly impacted modern such as through busting the format with delve and mishandling the unban and reban of GGT when all the new dredge cards were already in development. Modern is thriving despite their handling of it, not because of it.
I mean, take the barebones like 12-or-whatever words I suggested and sprinkle in some actual logistics, ID confirmation, account merging or whatever needs to happen and sure, it's still probably the easiest option?
I just can't see them leaving people's investment in their platform to just rot and gather dust. Some kind of equivalent exchange will *need* to happen. At the very least it's fair to expect such an exchange to happen.
*had a severe lack of communication.
Pretty well documented now that there's a new team involved in the development of new sets and Modern is something they are considering.
I'm not suggesting that this team will have all the answers and solve every problem, but their actual job is to address the problem you say exists. So as far as the average magic player should be concerned, as of now they are addressing this issue.
As we all (should) know though, changes to today's philosophy on product and r&d won't hit actual store-shelves for a year or two. We have a little while to wait, and in the meantime we have direct evidence that wizards has been slightly tweaking upcoming sets to account for issues in the current landscape of the game. Tiny pushes or controls here and there can make or break a card and/or even a whole strategy, so they have demonstrated a willingness and a new kind of understanding of their product and how to combat certain issues. The picture is positive.
Now, is everything suddenly hunky-dory and perfect? Of course not. Will the game likely be in a far better place in two years' time? Seems that way. The pendulum swung pretty far for wizards r&d in the direction of 'safe' design and as a result they've made a few mistakes along the way (lack of powerful answers is one example). Some of these they have directly addressed to the community. Going forwards we can see the pendulum swinging back towards the middle and a more balanced, mature game coming out of it.
Not everything is doom and destruction! (although from these forums you'd be hard pressed to see otherwise haha)
At the end of the day, it usually is (almost) that simple. If revenue (both direct and indirect) is greater than cost (again both direct and direct), companies are loathe to shut down a profitable product/service/LoB. Unless one of those two is trending negatively, showing poor long-term feasibility. Or there's a shortage of capital that would be better reallocated to something higher NPV.
I suppose the argument for WoTC moving everything to Arena would center on those two caveats.