Why is WotC Prioritizing Digital Formats?
General forum
Posted on March 28, 2023, 9:34 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I saw this post, and I am very displeased that WotC is prioritizing digital play to the point that paper cards are being designed in such a way as to play better in digital formats, since the game was physical long before it was digital, so I feel that the physical game should always have priority over any digital formats.
What does everyone else say about this? Why is WotC prioritizing digital play over physical play?
wallisface says... #3
That comment doesn’t stipulate that they’re prioritising digital over paper - just that they’re taking digital play into account with their decision making.
Wotc need to make sure that both digital and paper play runs smoothly - as they have to support both platforms. By acknowledging one they’re not inherently giving it preferential treatment. It would be silly for them to ignore an entire market
March 28, 2023 10:24 p.m.
Because more people have 0 friends and 0 means of contact with humanity than people who have friends who do have contact with humanity. In other words, more people would rather sit in a basement on their mothers computer than go outside and play games in a public area.
March 29, 2023 6:37 p.m.
Is it verified that WotC makes more on digital? Surprising if true since enough people pay comical amounts for paper, even if WotC gets nothing directly out of secondary I feel like they are still staggeringly good at picking our pockets. Drops are pretty much a license to print $30-50 bills, boxes of boosters keep getting pricier, I think it's a bit more complex.
I think the issue is that execs look at the wild profits that the video game industry makes, then look at their measly few billion and feel like they are 'leaving money on the table', because tabletop gaming is tiny bananas compared to the change people dump into online games. In addition, Arena was a big attempt to normalize MtG, and to make it way more accessible, MtG is brutal to learn on your own, Arena Standard is very good at teaching you the basics, while Historic has enough complexity to hold attention/prepare new players for Commander, the 'crown jewel' of WotC.
As for 'designing cards for Arena' we very much have Alchemy as the actual 'explicitly online' design space, unless it died? Anyways, cards in general have been getting simplified, drawbacks have become rare, and hard-to-play-right effects barely existed before Arena already, so I'm not sure that Arena has created a real problem, the NWO design space already existed iirc.
March 30, 2023 7:03 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
shadow63, do you have any evidence of that?
vasarto77, will you please not make such presumptions or play into old stereotypes?
March 30, 2023 8:19 p.m.
Demondragon they don't need to print or ship digital cards and it's direct to customer
March 30, 2023 9:47 p.m.
wallisface says... #8
shadow63 you’re massively over simplifying it. They might not have to deal with physical product, but they still need to add in code for every one of these cards - and development time isn’t cheap (added to that they actually need to implement code for every card twice - Arena and MTGO). The Arena/MTGO systems also don’t exist without effort, and the initial costs to create them would have cost a ton. Then they’ve got to have support teams dealing with bugs, server downtime/upgrades, and general customer complaints. Developer wages aren’t cheap either.
I’m not saying digital is more expensive than paper, but it’s by no means clean-cut as to which one has a higher profit margin.
Doing a google on where WotC gets their revenue, most people seem to think they make 25% of their profits from digital, and 75% of their profits from physical/tabletop (which will include dnd). Even if digital is cheaper for them to maintain (and we can’t be sure that’s the case), they’re making most of their money from physical platforms.
March 30, 2023 10:20 p.m.
Daveslab2022 says... #9
Things change. For thousands of years we didn’t have cars. Should we stop using cars because horse-drawn carriages existed first and some people feel they should be prioritized? No. That’s silly. As the digital age progresses (we’re really only 40 or so years into it, btw), we’re going to see a push to more digital and electronic systems. For a plethora of reasons.
Ease of access. You can access a game of magic anywhere you want anytime you want. Before 2017, that wasn’t possible.
More functionality/capabilities. Regardless of if you like the MTG Arena digital only cards or not, it is impossible to deny that they increase the design space a ton, and allow for different things to happen.
And for other reasons I can’t think. So I don’t think the question you’re asking is really “why is WOTC preferring digital over paper” it’s, “why is HUMANITY preferring digital to analog.”
April 1, 2023 1:27 a.m.
I think what some of us are asking is what evidence people have to back up their assertion that WotC prefers digital cards to paper cards?
Wizards has been printing more and more different types of physical product, over the last couple of years.
Tonnes of Commander precons, many different treatments for each card, now three different types of set boosters, Secret Lair, the Universes Beyond decks, etc.
Just because YOU don't like playing paper Magic doesn't mean that it has died at your LGS.
Some people love Magic as an excuse to get out of the house. I am one.
I don't have any proof that paper Magic is more popular. I'd just like to see some proof for either side of the equation.
shadow63 says... #2
They make more money on digital cards
March 28, 2023 10:23 p.m.