Music is so much part of our lives today.

Also, I’m sure being a Tekken player adds a bias to my opinion, but I think Tekken doesn’t deserve to be relegated to the bottom of the barrel the way it was in your comparison. You stated that your opinions were going to be biased, but come on, are people really going to remember that brief disclaimer when they’re reading this assessment?

Virtua Fighter: Deeper
Soul Calibur: Better, easier controls
Tekken: WEIRD MIDDLE GROUND WITH PRESUMABLY NO REDEEMING VALUES

That aside, I’m highly pleased and impressed with the site. Keep up the great work!

FINE, I have no choice!!!! STREET FIGHTER THE MOVIE THE GAME!!!

P.S. It actually hurt for me to type that… so I’ll wait for the apology.

I also don’t dispute the psychological power of randomized packs with artificial scarcity of cards. I know all about the psychology behind that and why it’s successful. Or to put it another way, I’m well aware of why the rip-off is not more widely protested.

As I think I said before, I don’t personally have much interest in actually entering MTG tournaments. But I did have plenty of interest in playing with my friends the same game as the one played in tournaments–a game where you build your deck out of any cards you like that are legal in the format and play against others who do the same.

You could (and should) use proxies to play like this, but it’s a bit of a slippery slope. Why not use 100% proxies and never buy anything? I slipped further and further toward this until I decided it was just too much hassle and shady to play this game where I bootleg all the pieces from it. I was interested in playing “the real game” (to me, constructed where everyone has all the cards) without spending thousands of dollars. The makers of MTG have lots of reasons that they don’t want me to do that, or to define “the real game” as something different than I do. They are of course free to do that, but the only real reaction I could give was quitting.

Dear mtg online: allow me to spend $15/month and play any cards I want and you’ll be getting the same amount of money as a World of Warcraft subscription even though keeping mtg going costs only a tiny fraction of the development cost of World of Warcraft. Or, stay on your current course and get $0 from me. I understand that getting $0 from me could very well be a good business decision because there are so many people willing to be ripped off and/or people who are fine with playing without access to all the pieces. Thanks.
–Sirlin

It seems like you don’t know or even care about Sealed or Draft formats (what we call Limited). An 8-man draft may cost you $13 as a drafter for 3 or more rounds and a chance at prize - winner gets first pick of the rares, for example. That’s a good 4 hours of entertainment among friends IRL, it should be competitive enough for you, and you might get some nice Constructed-worthy rares or pretty foils. You can get a 36 booster box for ~90$, which is an extra 12 boosters for prize, order some pizzas, which could be $15 times 8 ways for a whole evening’s worth of entertainment. Also, you can play with your casual/constructed decks afterwards for infinite hours or switch it up after the draft with Guilty Gear.

I also believe you foolishly underestimate the psychology and success of a randomized product model (aka ‘ripoff’ model). Yes, when you bust a booster of Magic cards, on average, those 15 cards are worth less than the retail value of the booster by economic principle. Hopefully, the entertainment of playing with those cards more than makes up the difference. But once in a while, you do indeed open a $20 foil dual land. Because there is a possibility of this, every booster is its own little adrenaline rush.

It’s why slot machines work; it’s why lotteries work. If this isn’t appealing to you, you can try trading or purchasing singles or playsets. Magic’s secondary market has its own lucrative opportunities. Acquiring the Magic cards you want and avoiding purchasing the cards you don’t want is its own little game.

I used to be like you (the ‘all cards should be free and the playing field level, not haves vs have nots’ mentality, not the competitive Spike, as human vs human competition usually decreases fun for me because I am too compassionate). Now that I’m a mature Magic player, I understand that while on the surface I ‘hate’ having to acquire hundreds of dollars of new cards, at a visceral level, I love this challenge, partly because it resonates far louder with casual players than with Spike players. It encourages me to find other Magic players because not only can we play, we can trade for cards we need! Everyone is w1nn3r!

Yes, if all you care about is high-level Constructed Magic tournament play, there is a relatively high plateau of investment required to ‘play whatever you want whenever you want’, probably more than $1000 a year for Standard. But why stop there, if you want to compete in ANY Magic tournament, you need ALL the best cards, right? For Vintage, you need power, and my Mox playset alone cost me $1600.

Let’s say I have the potential to be the world’s best Dance Dance Revolution player. A gripe I have is that practicing on my home soft pad impairs me from performing as well on the hard pad of an arcade machine because the physics are different. Am I supposed to plop endless quarters into an arcade machine? Get a job at an arcade and Free Play at night on the machine? Purchase my own machine or build one myself? It’s an investment plateau like in Magic. Hell, even my soft pad requires me to purchase a PS2, a game, a pad, a TV (I actually use a TV Tuner card), and electricity.

Anyway, in conclusion, you should at least try drafting Magic regularly as an experiment, preferably online, gauge its level of competitiveness, fairness, economy, and fun, then revisit your over-the-top criticisms of our randomized product model.

I just got back from GDC, had a great time there and saw a lot of good panels. However, one thing that really baffled me was the award show on Wednesday. In fact, I was entirely flabbergasted at a lot…

Here’s hoping that something better shall come along. I doubt that wizards will change their policy radically, since barring some unexpected competition many people will probably still be willing to pay and some casual players spend absurd amounts.

I’m not saying that the prices for magic are reasonable. Some are some aren’t. I hate that the dual-type shock lands run from 10-25 apiece. Most people I know wouldn’t buy them unless they wanted to compete. They would proxy them instead. Regardless people will pay a premium to play the games they like. I’ll get hundreds of hours of enjoyment in the building and testing of decks and will spend dozens playing in tournaments. That quality of entertainment, that involvement with the game is worth all the money I’ve spent on it. I wish I had more success to show for it, but lacking that I still love Magic.

And while we’re on the topic of how much it costs to play a game, I have to mention guilty gear. The newest installation of the game is coming and again it’s only for the PS2 a system I don’t have. I’d like to play in tournaments for the game and sometimes I drive to austin to practice. I’ve been thinking recently of buying a japanese system, and stick built for me by desktop arcade. Along with a copy of slash and Accent core, thats at least $300 not including shipping. It doesn’t even cover the second arcade stick I’d have to buy so that my friends could play on a level ground with me. Not to mention the travel costs of playing in tournaments. Sad to say, but it’s cheaper for me to play magic.

Anyway, saying that it *only* costs 150 - $200 is not much of a defense of the game, even if it were true. It’s absolutely absurd. MTG is one of the best games in the world, but you shouldn’t play it at those prices. Or at least I hope you wouldn’t, so that the game might someday be available at a price more in line with…every other type of game ever.

–Sirlin