Devil's advocate: if they've been doing this for years (and I do agree wholeheartedly with you personally) then has it really been detrimental to game health? Presumably they have metrics indicating positive growth or they wouldn't be pushing in this direction.

Maybe it just means old players like us are no longer the target and it's to the long-term benefit of the game to tell us to pound sand as they have for years.

Hasbro announced they intended to double revenue in five years, and apparently did it in half that. So you’re right, they are profiting a lot off of the changes they’ve made. It includes things like selling a $1000 “Magic 30th Anniversary” that has 4 beta booster “packs” that have different backs so aren’t legal in any tournament play but otherwise look like the Black Lotus and Moxes that are absurdly expensive now.

It's a fair question, and one I don't really have the answer to without internal WotC metrics. I really think it depends on how we define "game health" (and whether we, the players, define it the same way that they do).

I'd say the game is healthy if people keep playing, the community grows, the meta isn't stale, and there's still interest in the game. By that metric, the game feels unhealthy to me.

I would _guess_ that WotC is most concerned with overall revenue (and potential for future revenue). I would bet that any reduced player counts have been offset by sales of higher-margin product (so numbers probably look decent right now). But, long term, I think these actions have hurt the brand, so the next product will have to have a higher price to make up for fewer sales.

Of course, I'm just theorizing here. I have no inside info and most of my feelings (especially as a no-longer-player) are driven by what I hear from friends and read online (the latter of which, of course, skews negative).

Also keep in mind the idea that the loudest percentages are not usually representative.

Just because it seems like everyone is leaving WotC properties doesn't mean they actually are.

Yeah absolutely! Hard to say anything with conviction at this point.

Anecdotally, many friends and I played religiously from middle school through college. Nearly all of them have stopped, most have sold their cards. Of course, we got older/more busy during that time, but we also have more disposable income (and chose not to spend it on cards). So, it certainly feels like my sphere has left, personally.

It’s strange for me to hear takes like this. I have thousands of dollars in magic cards from the 90s, but stopped playing when I became an adult.

During the pandemic I started playing Arena, and was astonished to discover I could play entirely for free. I haven’t paid them a dime since the last tournament I went to in the 2010s.

As far as I can tell there is a HUGE amount of play on Arena. Presumably someone is paying for that, but it’s not me.

So from my perspective WotC has done the opposite of the money grab they’re accused of.

I'll be the devil here-- I played a Magic event with my teenage son last year and it was a blast. We're not big collectors, but over the holidays we got some commander decks and I played with my sons.

It's amazing to me that they have kept Magic that relevant and commercial that long. People always complain about "greedy" corporations but guess what? Greedy corporations make the books, movies, video games, board games that you play. If they were failing no one would complain. In these spaces complaints about your motives come with success.

That's totally fair! I'm glad you enjoyed it. At its core, Magic is a great game and I really do wish for its success. I just think WotC is compromising the long-term health of the game in the name of short-term profits (which is not unusual in big companies).

> People always complain about "greedy" corporations but guess what? Greedy corporations make the books, movies, video games, board games that you play.

I will push back here a bit - I play a lot of videogames from small-medium size indie studios (I play relatively few AAA videogames anymore) specifically for their perceived lack of greed. Sure, anyone selling a game wants it to be profitable and fund future games, but indies aren't doing so by selling "Gold Editions" of their $70 game that exist purely to squeeze money out of players. Indie devs make a game and hope to be lucky enough that it gets enough press (and good reviews) to bring in revenue.

My career has been in video games and I agree that many medium sized studios are not greedy, they probably have higher motives in general. A lot of these projects are made for love not money and stay that way. But there are types of video games that take a lot of money to be made. They would never be made for love, or by a community, because you can't run a creative project on that scale except as a business. There is no open source model for movies, novels or video games in my opinion. You can say those people making games as a business are greedy but in my experience they have pretty similar ethics to people in any business, for better or worse.

Yep, this is an all-too-normal letdown from WotC. They really are trying to milk their franchises, without concern for their longevity. That's too bad.

For me, this is more reason to continue with the D&D 3.5 and pathfinder ecosystems for my RPGs.