Saturday, May 1, 2010

Why are some people so critical of WOTC?


Scroll down to the bottom of this article and read where it says in other news. The end of this article is one of the most intelligent and sensible pieces of writing on magic I have seen recently. Wizards has been pushing lot of tournament staples at common and uncommon recently and since the creation of mythic rares, if they were as money-grubbing as people assume they are, they would have put all the tournament staples at mythic and rubbed their hands together Mr. Burns style.

Yet, this brings up a bigger question about a porition of the magic playing population. Of course, with every set and every change in magic there are those on message boards and forums that assume this is terrible for magic and will ruin the game forever. I'm not entirely talking about them, because there are many more sensible and rational voices in the magic community, including prominent pro players, that seem to be critical of WOTC more often than giving them credit for what they do right. In general, many people in the magic community seem to be critical of WOTC far more often than they are appreciative of what they do. I understand that magic is a game that to be skilled at requires attention to detail and a critical eye, and I'm not saying that WOTC is above criticism, since only Justin Beiber is.

What I am saying is that I want to appreciate the wonderful decisions and the amazing card game that has brought me hours of comradeship and enjoyment. WOTC overwhemly communicates with their audience and listens to them and are tirelylessly working to improve their game for all of their different audiences; how many other big corporations or games go as far as magic does to do these things? I don't agree with everything WOTC has done, but when you look at the big picture of the number of awesome sets they have made and the number of good decisions they have made, it seems overwhelmingly in their favor.

Finally, there is definitely a place for criticizing and analyzing other people in life, but I don't really want that to be a part of a card game that I play for fun. It requires a lot of energy to criticize and when I play magic I want to appreciate it and have fun. Life is better when we appreciate the good moments and brush off the details.

3 comments:

  1. I think WOTC's ultimate goal is to rule the world and make chaos rain from the sky. The only way that they can do that is by selling more cards. The creation of mythic rares obviously proves this point. WOTC is ruining Magic! So sayeth the wise Justin Beiber.

    Anyway. I think people complaining about Magic deserves the classic "Lil' Wayne Discussion Board Hater Response." If you don't like little Wayne then stop getting on the boards and complaining about him. Lil Wayne has spoiled people with all his great new music and if you think he's selling out with "Lollipop" then stop listening to it.

    The same can be said for Magic. People like this secretly know they like it if they're spending so much energy getting upset about it. Magic is like monkeys and languages. It evolves. Go play Yugioh if magic sucks so much now that Mirage rotated out. Just sayin'.

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  2. If ya'll like WOTC so much, why don't you marry it! Ooooo! Faced!

    WOTC does deserve more credit than they are often given. And compared to most companies, they are about as good as anyone could hope for. Honestly, magic players are pretty lucky that WOTC is so open and enthusiastic about making the game better.

    That said, to play devil's advocate: people only complain/criticize because they are so deeply invested in the game. It's only because WOTC is doing such a good job and they're so successful that they are getting so much criticism. On the other hand, maybe people need some perspective to realize just how good they've got it.

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  3. That is a good point. If people didn't like magic so much they would not write such passionate criticisms of it, instead they would just stop playing. And we all know that even those people who are always complaining about magic are often playing every day and spending tons of money.

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