I think the point being made is that fun comes in different forms for different people and that the fun of winning is not always the same as the fun that a casual player may have particularly in terms of prize support.
Just for referrence since you brought it up before:
The demographics are not merely "mumbo jumbo" spewed out by WOTC but a pretty carefully thought out area of psychology that was pioneered by people like Briggs and Myers and what Maro (the person who wrote that article you trashed so blithely) did was take their studies about personalities and apply it (imho rather successfully) to categories of WoTC customers ("Spikes, Timmys and Johnnys" with some sides of "Melvins and Vorthos") aka Magic players. Wizards were not the first ones to do so by the way since other games have long talked about hearts and spades and other forms of gamer personalities.
Spikes are essentially the ones who play magic primarily for the thrill of the win and don't really care much how they get there. It isn't always so cut and dried with spikes because they can be a composite of Spike + Johnny and Timmy but generally people who care most about winning are acknowledged as Spikes.
Timmys on the other hand care very much for winning in a fun, flashy and stylish fashion and sometimes get side tracked into worrying more about whether both players are having fun (and playing "fair") than about the game ending. Timmy is the guy who thinks if you win by being a jerk you have ruined the game.
Johnny is the mad scientist and this is pretty straight forward usually in that Johnny likes to invent new and interesting ways to use his (and his opponents) cards. This isn't necessarily in order to win but maybe to get the highest possible life total(s) or most permanents possible on the board. Johnny is the player most likely to combo out.
I am a Timmy Johnny with some small amount of Spike. I used to be more Spiky and less Timmy and a lot less Johnny. Do you see how that works? It might be a bit boxy and confining to use labels like this but the analogies work and the names mostly feel apt (if awkwardly and very exclusive of non-male players. So maybe the names should be more gender neutral.)
It is not a trite marketing tool because the community has largely adopted the terminology and accepts the meanings (because they are pretty apt.)
OK back to "What is fun??" Which Ferret a well known old time magic writer posited was entirely impossible to definitively define. (Because everyone has a different idea of fun.) But certain types of players can and do recognize some ways of fun as being preferable to others. (The destination is most important.)
Those who are more spiky and competitive tend to think of winning prizes as the best fun. Those who are less Spiky and more casual in their approaches to the game see having fun as an experiential thing that happens with the journey rather than the destination. "Man I lost that game, the match and went 0-4 but despite scrubbing out it was fun! I got to do x, y and z and learned something new. Also the pizza party was a gas!"
You write as if there is a contradiction between having fun and winning.
The opposite is true.
It is also true that a player who plays seldom and wins perhaps 2 out of 7 matches at a prerelease might have had more fun than the winner of that prerelease. No one who is new and/or plays seldom expects to win(much) in any game/sport. The thrill of winning two of those matches might weigh more than what it means for LSV to win 7 out of 7.
Competitively it might be a greater achievement to win just a little than to win a lot, depending on resources/how new you are. This is true with success in any form of game/sport/activity.
As I've said, it really varies store to store. Your experience sounds much closer to my experience a decade+ ago in Albuquerque. My experiences in Seattle, Denver, and Portland are mostly quite different. Sometimes you must seek out those stores, which is maybe why I have such a different experience. In ABQ, I played for myself and enjoyed the competitiveness. In the other cities, I played paper with my wife, sister-in-law, and her fiance. None of those three are about competitive magic, but enjoy playing and have thoroughly enjoyed prereleases, despite generally not having great records. They see prizes purely as a bonus, not something they expect of make the difference between a good and bad experience. When trying to find places to play, I specifically looked for places that would work well with my family, which meant casual. Obviously I have been fortunate in that I've lived in cities with a large enough MTG scene to accommodate that.
As to the online prereleases, I played in them and am at least somewhat sad to see them go.
I'm going to say something that a lot of competitive players, and particularly MTGO players often forgot--
I play Magic because the game is fun.
I don't always need a great EV, or a grind. I don't need assured value, as the experience has generally been worth the money for me (which is why I didn't play online core set prereleases--those sets were not fun). Often I just enjoy playing the game, even on MTGO. There are plenty of those players on MTGO, they just generally aren't the ones that are super active off the program.
This is response to both of your posts. When I speak of casual, I refer to people who rarely play tournament magic, mostly with friends without a formal structure. So, the high number of people who only play prerelease tournaments would count as casual. I have no intentions toward insulting those types of players, as they can be quite skilled--just like a tournament player might not actually be that skilled.
Again, I believe you are imputing your experiences to the broader population. Here are some examples in the Portland area:
The shop I played BFZ release was filled with players more concerned with winning than having a good time. The prize payout was more heavily weighted toward the top (2-2 got 2 packs, 3-1 got 4 packs, 3-0-1 8 packs, 4-0 12 packs, IIRC).
For Oath, the shop had a lower payout (top was 8 packs I believe), but ordered pizza for all players, and each player got a pack. Players here were much more occupied with having fun and hanging out with winning. This does ***not*** mean they did not try to win. It just means that they were happy because they were playing and having fun, not necessarily because they were winning.
I cannot remember where I went for SoI at this time, and I missed EM.
For Kaladesh, the shop was very mixed--there were players whose main concern was winning, some who wanted just to play, and there was even 2 or 3 that just wanted to play to look at the art, because they liked it that much. The prizes were more top heavy.
For Aether Revolt, I went to a shop that was clearly more casual oriented. The people there had fun regardless of position, they simply wanted to have fun. Many mentioned only going to prereleases. There was 3 groups of friends (mine included) that made up 10-12 of the 13 person tournaments. Everyone got a prize if they stayed to the end. The judge calls I witnessed were never a contest--it was a question of intention and how fixable the issue was, or explanations of cards and board states.
It really varies shop by shop. A shop can greatly influence the orientation with prize structure, staff, and judging. Surely, there are some players where a prerelease is just 'event number 2' but there are also plenty of players who play in them for a very different purpose.
Any person (player, TO, judge or whoever) acting unwelcoming to any player at prerelease should get his head examined.
I do not particularly know what people mean with casual, spike or whatever. Only rarely have I faced opponents who do not do their best to win in mtg games/matches. I do remember reading an article about Spike-Timmy-Johnny, but that was only wotc drivel like many other bullshit things/articles they put out on the mothership.
It seems to me that people write about "casual" players like they are close to mentally challenged or something, that they like different things like kid-aged-10-12-years-stuff or something, helvault, building thopters, etc. Sanctioned mtg play rarely have people below 16-18 years old in the shops/places that I have played in.
I agree that prereleases were even better before when people didnt know cards in advance, but still today it is event number2 (probably shared with limited GPs) behind the PT itself.
normally stores should be actually casual players oriented since they buy the most product.
here the stores are way more spike oriented let's say even though I find the prize support ridiculous after I got used to modo prize payouts.
The thing is, casual players are not really welcome in the stores and they usually totally die to tier 1 decks from wannabe pro players or terribly die in limited to good decks piloted by players playing fairly well. On the other hand for some reason for prereleases those players that do not come to the store normally or do not actively play Magic show up. Often those are casual players that lose most of the matches but enjoy opening packs of a new set and playing with those cards. They like the promos and they also like all those things like Helvault opening. Achievements and such weren't ever well accepted but ugin packs or other things that could actually be sold were good for everyone.
I guess in other places in the world te situation is different and I expect there can be really nice casual prereleases somewhere, or at least that's what I heard and what I saw in photos from such events on the internet.
I used to go to prereleases because I liked the thrill when no one knew a single card and everyone had to start from zero (and I was usually winning those prereleases). But this is not true anymore. If you come to our prerelease people know the cards, they build good decks and will be pretty harsh when you miss trigger or play a sorcery at an instant speed and it doesn't matter if you will be at last table or playing at the first one. It is true that since there is a lot of casual players judges have to answer some strange questions. For example no one from the players normally coming to the store would ask a question about Crew or how the 3/4 Elephant for 1 mana works. But the casual players ask the most strange questions about it. So reading the judge notes is not a bad thing because even if you think it is a stupid question, the players actually ask those.
I don't like the special foils/additional rare because it makes the experience way worse, but still it is better than playing with a predetermined rare (that was awful!).
As for prereleases on MODO. I'm glad they are gone. Because they cost a lot of tix and the prizes were laughable. And who the hell would be paying additional 5 tix to get a promo pack? I know this has been changed etc. changes were made so it got better...but uh. Playing those prereleases was not really positive EV. Releases were way better because those already rewarded good prize support. For me there was nothing that made those prereleases special and I always wanted the prerelease to be over as soon as possible.
Tell me, who played in prerelease events? Why did you play in them? Because apart from playing with cards that are not yet legal anywhere I never saw a reason to participate in them (different avatar? a foil card? uh?)
Actually reasons come to my mind - getting QPs. Because at prereleases it was very easy to grind those. And the second reason is ... if a Limited GP was held and this was the only possibility to play the format prior the GP.
Honestly I'm glad there are no more prereleases. The releases were good as they brought many tix always. But regular events right from the beginning seems good for everyone.
Prizes are a factor, but the more important factor is prestige.
All shops I know have this situation at prereleases, that matches are tense and thrilling, and that judge calls tend to be problematic (at least more than usual), and I know many shops.
A place cant really be "casual" or "spike" oriented, unless you weigh the prize factor at high. It is more what the players put in it than what any TO/judge urges/wants them to be.
I know of people that do all the things you say no one likes. Similarly, I know of several shops here that are more casual--flatter payouts that give prizes all the way to last, for instance. There is a wide range of experiences, but anecdotally, I have played at far more places that are casual oriented than those oriented at spikes.
I do not know of someone who tries to collect prerelease foils, also the helvault and build-thopters are not interesting to anyone - these things do not make the prerelease special.
The paper prerelease is less casual, players are generally more excited to do their best at the prerelease events compared to the ordinary fnm events. Prizes are bigger because of larger turnout. Being a judge at a prerelease is not easy.
MtgO has never really had a prerelease, for the reason that it has been at least 2-3 weeks delayed.
That has not been true for me. The unresponsiveness is certainly a thing but I get "Oh I am sorry, I missed this!" a lot more than I used to. And very few people are actually worth blocking/reporting.
There's a link to all the details on the tribal apocalypse main page.
Round 1 is underdog.
Round 2 is best deck that went undefeated at an event.
Round 3 is new deck that didn't go undefeated at an event.
Round 4 is build from scratch under special rules, AKA my round.
So what exactly is the format for the invitational? I assume it's different decks for every round like last year but what are the requirements for each round?
The reason they didn't do it online is because they couldn't program all those draft changing cards for MTGO at all, the fact that the cards aren't useful after a game probably never even came up.
That was the big hook of the set, but there is no hope of them ever redoing the whole MTGO draft engine for the few odd cards that want to make it do new things.
I've played Hearthstone, and I don't mean to knock anyone who likes it, but all the flashy animations and sound effects seem to me to exist solely to cover up how basic and uninteresting the game actually is.
Magic to me is cool because it has instants and interesting interactions. To my understanding Hearthstone has none of that (I admit I didn't get much farther than defeating the first few tutorial opponents, but it made me so bored to do even that much).
I don't care what they try to do with Magic Digital Next as long as it doesn't involve changing or merging with MTGO at all. If they made some changes to Magic Online they could easily increase their Twitch viewership.
Here's one more thing... I play Magic Online because the paper game exists. I have no desire to play a CCG with no real paper counterpart. Magic Online is just my way of fitting Magic the Gathering into the life of a responsible and busy adult with a family. Every time I'm playing online I wish I was playing paper... Just sayin'...
Nice work on the article Joshua. This is an important topic.
I had forgotten about that. That might actually be one of the few times Wizards acknowledged the secondary market--they knew LGSs were going to charge above MSRP, so it didn't matter. That's the best I got.
I think the point being made is that fun comes in different forms for different people and that the fun of winning is not always the same as the fun that a casual player may have particularly in terms of prize support.
Just for referrence since you brought it up before:
The demographics are not merely "mumbo jumbo" spewed out by WOTC but a pretty carefully thought out area of psychology that was pioneered by people like Briggs and Myers and what Maro (the person who wrote that article you trashed so blithely) did was take their studies about personalities and apply it (imho rather successfully) to categories of WoTC customers ("Spikes, Timmys and Johnnys" with some sides of "Melvins and Vorthos") aka Magic players. Wizards were not the first ones to do so by the way since other games have long talked about hearts and spades and other forms of gamer personalities.
Spikes are essentially the ones who play magic primarily for the thrill of the win and don't really care much how they get there. It isn't always so cut and dried with spikes because they can be a composite of Spike + Johnny and Timmy but generally people who care most about winning are acknowledged as Spikes.
Timmys on the other hand care very much for winning in a fun, flashy and stylish fashion and sometimes get side tracked into worrying more about whether both players are having fun (and playing "fair") than about the game ending. Timmy is the guy who thinks if you win by being a jerk you have ruined the game.
Johnny is the mad scientist and this is pretty straight forward usually in that Johnny likes to invent new and interesting ways to use his (and his opponents) cards. This isn't necessarily in order to win but maybe to get the highest possible life total(s) or most permanents possible on the board. Johnny is the player most likely to combo out.
I am a Timmy Johnny with some small amount of Spike. I used to be more Spiky and less Timmy and a lot less Johnny. Do you see how that works? It might be a bit boxy and confining to use labels like this but the analogies work and the names mostly feel apt (if awkwardly and very exclusive of non-male players. So maybe the names should be more gender neutral.)
It is not a trite marketing tool because the community has largely adopted the terminology and accepts the meanings (because they are pretty apt.)
OK back to "What is fun??" Which Ferret a well known old time magic writer posited was entirely impossible to definitively define. (Because everyone has a different idea of fun.) But certain types of players can and do recognize some ways of fun as being preferable to others. (The destination is most important.)
Those who are more spiky and competitive tend to think of winning prizes as the best fun. Those who are less Spiky and more casual in their approaches to the game see having fun as an experiential thing that happens with the journey rather than the destination. "Man I lost that game, the match and went 0-4 but despite scrubbing out it was fun! I got to do x, y and z and learned something new. Also the pizza party was a gas!"
Do you see? If not well I did give it a shot.
You write as if there is a contradiction between having fun and winning.
The opposite is true.
It is also true that a player who plays seldom and wins perhaps 2 out of 7 matches at a prerelease might have had more fun than the winner of that prerelease. No one who is new and/or plays seldom expects to win(much) in any game/sport. The thrill of winning two of those matches might weigh more than what it means for LSV to win 7 out of 7.
Competitively it might be a greater achievement to win just a little than to win a lot, depending on resources/how new you are. This is true with success in any form of game/sport/activity.
I could probably spend all day reading your thoughts on this subject.
As I've said, it really varies store to store. Your experience sounds much closer to my experience a decade+ ago in Albuquerque. My experiences in Seattle, Denver, and Portland are mostly quite different. Sometimes you must seek out those stores, which is maybe why I have such a different experience. In ABQ, I played for myself and enjoyed the competitiveness. In the other cities, I played paper with my wife, sister-in-law, and her fiance. None of those three are about competitive magic, but enjoy playing and have thoroughly enjoyed prereleases, despite generally not having great records. They see prizes purely as a bonus, not something they expect of make the difference between a good and bad experience. When trying to find places to play, I specifically looked for places that would work well with my family, which meant casual. Obviously I have been fortunate in that I've lived in cities with a large enough MTG scene to accommodate that.
As to the online prereleases, I played in them and am at least somewhat sad to see them go.
I'm going to say something that a lot of competitive players, and particularly MTGO players often forgot--
I play Magic because the game is fun.
I don't always need a great EV, or a grind. I don't need assured value, as the experience has generally been worth the money for me (which is why I didn't play online core set prereleases--those sets were not fun). Often I just enjoy playing the game, even on MTGO. There are plenty of those players on MTGO, they just generally aren't the ones that are super active off the program.
This is response to both of your posts. When I speak of casual, I refer to people who rarely play tournament magic, mostly with friends without a formal structure. So, the high number of people who only play prerelease tournaments would count as casual. I have no intentions toward insulting those types of players, as they can be quite skilled--just like a tournament player might not actually be that skilled.
Again, I believe you are imputing your experiences to the broader population. Here are some examples in the Portland area:
The shop I played BFZ release was filled with players more concerned with winning than having a good time. The prize payout was more heavily weighted toward the top (2-2 got 2 packs, 3-1 got 4 packs, 3-0-1 8 packs, 4-0 12 packs, IIRC).
For Oath, the shop had a lower payout (top was 8 packs I believe), but ordered pizza for all players, and each player got a pack. Players here were much more occupied with having fun and hanging out with winning. This does ***not*** mean they did not try to win. It just means that they were happy because they were playing and having fun, not necessarily because they were winning.
I cannot remember where I went for SoI at this time, and I missed EM.
For Kaladesh, the shop was very mixed--there were players whose main concern was winning, some who wanted just to play, and there was even 2 or 3 that just wanted to play to look at the art, because they liked it that much. The prizes were more top heavy.
For Aether Revolt, I went to a shop that was clearly more casual oriented. The people there had fun regardless of position, they simply wanted to have fun. Many mentioned only going to prereleases. There was 3 groups of friends (mine included) that made up 10-12 of the 13 person tournaments. Everyone got a prize if they stayed to the end. The judge calls I witnessed were never a contest--it was a question of intention and how fixable the issue was, or explanations of cards and board states.
It really varies shop by shop. A shop can greatly influence the orientation with prize structure, staff, and judging. Surely, there are some players where a prerelease is just 'event number 2' but there are also plenty of players who play in them for a very different purpose.
Any person (player, TO, judge or whoever) acting unwelcoming to any player at prerelease should get his head examined.
I do not particularly know what people mean with casual, spike or whatever. Only rarely have I faced opponents who do not do their best to win in mtg games/matches. I do remember reading an article about Spike-Timmy-Johnny, but that was only wotc drivel like many other bullshit things/articles they put out on the mothership.
It seems to me that people write about "casual" players like they are close to mentally challenged or something, that they like different things like kid-aged-10-12-years-stuff or something, helvault, building thopters, etc. Sanctioned mtg play rarely have people below 16-18 years old in the shops/places that I have played in.
I agree that prereleases were even better before when people didnt know cards in advance, but still today it is event number2 (probably shared with limited GPs) behind the PT itself.
normally stores should be actually casual players oriented since they buy the most product.
here the stores are way more spike oriented let's say even though I find the prize support ridiculous after I got used to modo prize payouts.
The thing is, casual players are not really welcome in the stores and they usually totally die to tier 1 decks from wannabe pro players or terribly die in limited to good decks piloted by players playing fairly well. On the other hand for some reason for prereleases those players that do not come to the store normally or do not actively play Magic show up. Often those are casual players that lose most of the matches but enjoy opening packs of a new set and playing with those cards. They like the promos and they also like all those things like Helvault opening. Achievements and such weren't ever well accepted but ugin packs or other things that could actually be sold were good for everyone.
I guess in other places in the world te situation is different and I expect there can be really nice casual prereleases somewhere, or at least that's what I heard and what I saw in photos from such events on the internet.
I used to go to prereleases because I liked the thrill when no one knew a single card and everyone had to start from zero (and I was usually winning those prereleases). But this is not true anymore. If you come to our prerelease people know the cards, they build good decks and will be pretty harsh when you miss trigger or play a sorcery at an instant speed and it doesn't matter if you will be at last table or playing at the first one. It is true that since there is a lot of casual players judges have to answer some strange questions. For example no one from the players normally coming to the store would ask a question about Crew or how the 3/4 Elephant for 1 mana works. But the casual players ask the most strange questions about it. So reading the judge notes is not a bad thing because even if you think it is a stupid question, the players actually ask those.
I don't like the special foils/additional rare because it makes the experience way worse, but still it is better than playing with a predetermined rare (that was awful!).
As for prereleases on MODO. I'm glad they are gone. Because they cost a lot of tix and the prizes were laughable. And who the hell would be paying additional 5 tix to get a promo pack? I know this has been changed etc. changes were made so it got better...but uh. Playing those prereleases was not really positive EV. Releases were way better because those already rewarded good prize support. For me there was nothing that made those prereleases special and I always wanted the prerelease to be over as soon as possible.
Tell me, who played in prerelease events? Why did you play in them? Because apart from playing with cards that are not yet legal anywhere I never saw a reason to participate in them (different avatar? a foil card? uh?)
Actually reasons come to my mind - getting QPs. Because at prereleases it was very easy to grind those. And the second reason is ... if a Limited GP was held and this was the only possibility to play the format prior the GP.
Honestly I'm glad there are no more prereleases. The releases were good as they brought many tix always. But regular events right from the beginning seems good for everyone.
Prizes are a factor, but the more important factor is prestige.
All shops I know have this situation at prereleases, that matches are tense and thrilling, and that judge calls tend to be problematic (at least more than usual), and I know many shops.
A place cant really be "casual" or "spike" oriented, unless you weigh the prize factor at high. It is more what the players put in it than what any TO/judge urges/wants them to be.
I know of people that do all the things you say no one likes. Similarly, I know of several shops here that are more casual--flatter payouts that give prizes all the way to last, for instance. There is a wide range of experiences, but anecdotally, I have played at far more places that are casual oriented than those oriented at spikes.
I do not know of someone who tries to collect prerelease foils, also the helvault and build-thopters are not interesting to anyone - these things do not make the prerelease special.
The paper prerelease is less casual, players are generally more excited to do their best at the prerelease events compared to the ordinary fnm events. Prizes are bigger because of larger turnout. Being a judge at a prerelease is not easy.
MtgO has never really had a prerelease, for the reason that it has been at least 2-3 weeks delayed.
That has not been true for me. The unresponsiveness is certainly a thing but I get "Oh I am sorry, I missed this!" a lot more than I used to. And very few people are actually worth blocking/reporting.
Well, well, so there is. Thanks, AJ.
There's a link to all the details on the tribal apocalypse main page.
Round 1 is underdog.
Round 2 is best deck that went undefeated at an event.
Round 3 is new deck that didn't go undefeated at an event.
Round 4 is build from scratch under special rules, AKA my round.
So what exactly is the format for the invitational? I assume it's different decks for every round like last year but what are the requirements for each round?
I hope you're feeling better, Kuma.
My argument is there is nothing but heartache for those that use chat. They either troll and harass their opponent, or they do not get responded to.
Unmask Wasteland and Meren were up but not mentioned. Leovold experienced a rounding error
So please correct me if I'm reading you wrong here.
Is your argument that MTG players are just so toxic that they shouldn't be allowed the ability to talk to each other in game?
Yeah I didn't mean to leave THAT reason out per se, just figured by now it goes without saying.
You are close, but off by a bit.
The reason they didn't do it online is because they couldn't program all those draft changing cards for MTGO at all, the fact that the cards aren't useful after a game probably never even came up.
That was the big hook of the set, but there is no hope of them ever redoing the whole MTGO draft engine for the few odd cards that want to make it do new things.
Well that and no one in their right mind was going to pay MSRP for reprints when they are widely available online already.
money and exposure?
Maybe they see Riot on TBS or Blizzard on ESPN and want to be a part of that.
Probably a copy-paste error.
Should be first, obv. ;)
I've played Hearthstone, and I don't mean to knock anyone who likes it, but all the flashy animations and sound effects seem to me to exist solely to cover up how basic and uninteresting the game actually is.
Magic to me is cool because it has instants and interesting interactions. To my understanding Hearthstone has none of that (I admit I didn't get much farther than defeating the first few tutorial opponents, but it made me so bored to do even that much).
I don't care what they try to do with Magic Digital Next as long as it doesn't involve changing or merging with MTGO at all. If they made some changes to Magic Online they could easily increase their Twitch viewership.
Here's one more thing... I play Magic Online because the paper game exists. I have no desire to play a CCG with no real paper counterpart. Magic Online is just my way of fitting Magic the Gathering into the life of a responsible and busy adult with a family. Every time I'm playing online I wish I was playing paper... Just sayin'...
Nice work on the article Joshua. This is an important topic.
I had forgotten about that. That might actually be one of the few times Wizards acknowledged the secondary market--they knew LGSs were going to charge above MSRP, so it didn't matter. That's the best I got.
You mean how they charged different prices for the masters series packs?