Reading your various responses about the volume of sets being printed and the reasoning behind it, I understand the explanation of “sets all selling well, more people playing Magic than ever before, if something changes we’ll adapt.”
But as someone who analyzes data for a living, I know that there has to be much more to the story than just those immediate high level metrics. For example, what percentage of new players that started as FF fans are going to still be playing 6-months from now? And what about the conservation of design space? Power creep? Burnout within wotc? Basically, is the current pace of set releases and the resulting changes in the player base truly sustainable?Sometimes the impacts of your choices aren’t born out in the data until it’s too late to correct the mistakes. As someone who loves Magic, this is what I worry about.
It seems to me that, while perhaps anecdotal, the opinions of people who read your blog could potentially be seen as a leading indicator of enfranchised player sentiment. But, of course, I could be completely wrong about how closely my own sentiments align with the majority of blog readers…
This sentiment isn't new. The popularity of Universes Beyond, for example, goes back many years. I get posts about how it's bad for the game. I explain our data says there's an audience for it, lots of people play it, and it starts selling really well. Posters claim that it's a short-lived thing, that even though it's doing well now, it's going to spell problems long-term for the game.
But the line of play and sales (and other various positive indicators) keeps going up. Yes, the current signs might seem good, the posters say, but it's spelling doom. It's appealing to a new audience that won't have the staying power of the enfranchised audience.
So, we do a lot of research into who is buying Universes Beyond, and lo and behold it's mostly the enfranchised players. The second biggest group is lapsed players. The Universes Beyond products continue to do well. Even more people are playing, sales go up even more.
This loop keeps continuing. We're many years in now. Universe Beyond is no longer a new thing. Is there some point where we can accept that Universes Beyond is actually doing good things for Magic? It's raising awareness (Magic's brand awareness is at an all-time high), it's bringing in new players in record number, it's bringing back lapsed players in record numbers, and the enfranchised players are rating the sets highly.
This is a question to all the Universes Beyond naysayers. Is there anything that can happen with the product where you can accept that it's had a positive affect on Magic as a whole?
What is it going to take for you to realize that Universes Beyond is not Magic? You've sold out and fortnite-ified the game. It brings back lapsed players TEMPORARILY until they have consumed the product they want and then they move on. The rate of set releases and UB are not sustainable, and this will come back to bite you
