quote:Original post by Lubb
-As for Majic, it''s not only a game: it was/is a marketing exercise, just as D&D was. Most of the different cards ever made were made not because they were necessary to the game, but because the owners wanted more kinds of cards to sell. The problem here is that it ruined whatever chance there was at (developing) something interesting: it is ham-fisted complexity slathered on after the fact. Majic is a puddle, a hundred miles across and an inch deep. It was real popular among kids for a short time, but (in case you haven''t noticed) it''s popularity has dropped off greatly and it never caught on with the general public.

I don''t think it''s popularity is of any relevance: surely the game can be judged on its own merits, not on how many people play it? (How many people over the age of 10 play Tic-Tac-Toe anyway?)

I maintain that details on all the cards is irrelevant. What I would analyse is the probabilistic element of balancing different kinds of cards. You can pull out individual cards as examples, but the overall concept stays the same. Example: you can talk abstractly about the statistical differences between decks that rely on 2 card combinations and 3 card combinations.

I have several misgivings about the game on a personal level: some of the rules (especially interrupts/instants/damage resolution) were never well thought out, and changed from version to version, and of course there was the marketing aspect you mention, where the relative power of the cards increased over time to maintain profitability compared to old cards. But I think that there''s still a game of reasonable complexity there than can be analysed outside of that.