The changes and improvements to Magic warrant design notes
of their own.
First and Foremost??”A Game
One thing that might look arcane in my notes to people who know something about the game market is
my reference to the form of game that Magic launched as a ???trading card game,??? rather than a ???collectable
card game.??? I still use TCG rather than CCG, which became the industry standard despite my e?¬? orts from
its earliest days. I prefer ???trading??? rather than ???collectable??? because I feel it emphasizes the playing aspect
rather than the speculation aspect of the game. The mindset of making collectables runs against that of
The Design Evolution of Magic: The Gathering 199
200 Chapter 7: Prototyping
making games??”if you succeed in the collectable department then there is a tendency to keep new players
out and to drive old ones away because of escalating prices. One of the major ba les that Magic fought
was to make it perceived principally as a game and secondarily as a collectable. Good games last forever??”
collectables come and go.
This was not merely theoretical speculation??”Magic??™s immense success as a collectable was severely
threatening the entire game.
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