the Quantity Quandary

I have a thought:

Designing each card is about the same amount of work. But not all cards are used in the same quantity. This is VERY relevant to a print-on-demand system.

The number of cards sold are an important factor when designing cards. A print-on-demand system encourages the design of cards that will sell more copies.

What it boils down to is "How many copies of this card will a player buy?"

The following is based on the assumption that "the norm" is a player who has several decks of cards at any given time.

A card specific to a clan, sect, or discipline which you might put one or two copies in a single deck. (Hunting grounds, most Events, etc.)

A staple card that you will see several copies in a single deck. (Parity Shift, Change of Target, War Ghoul, etc.)

Must-have card that you might find one or two copies in more than one deck or deck archetype. (Pentex Subversion, Reins of Power, Delaying Tactics, etc.)

A staple card for a deck archetype, that you will find several copies of in multiple decks. (Conditioning, Kine Resources Contested, Majesty, etc.)

A staple card that you will find in more than one deck archetype and in multiple decks. (Villein/Minion Tap, Vessel/Blood Doll, Wake with Evening's Freshness etc.)

I would like to discuss the ramifications of card quantities and print-on-demand further, but I would like to refine the definitions above.

Trick decks skew the "norms" and player preference has an impact. Print-on-demand changes how players acquire cards, and will change their attitude toward collecting and deckbuilding.

With print-on-demand, we can avoid having too many "Eccentric Billionaire" printed. I would rate "Eccentric Billionaire" as a , but the quantity published was as if it were a .

And understanding how many copies of a card a player desires will help inform not only the design aspect of the the game, but also the publishing aspect.

direwolf wrote:

The number of cards sold are an important factor when designing cards. A print-on-demand system encourages the design of cards that will sell more copies.

What it boils down to is "How many copies of this card will a player buy?"

I wouldn't assume so without seeing the final business model. If the idea is to sell decks ready to play, the problem is not so much how many copies of a card you need as how many new decks it can create.

direwolf wrote:

What it boils down to is "How many copies of this card will a player buy?"

More like "How many cards will a player buy if this card exists?" Suppose they published something like this:

Midas Touch
Master: trifle.
Unique. Put this card in play. Bad cards are now good.

You'd only need a few copies but Eyes of the Dead etc. would see a big rise in popularity.

Many true points and many assumptions have been posted.

Theres also the fact that pod is in theory going to sell what people want, regardless of these factors, since that very concept defines its nature.

These points are only relivant to the buisness model when considering new sets and precons.

8X freak drive 8x govern, 8x deep song, etc is a reqlity of srveral archetypes, good and casual alike. There will be lots of those printed, even tho govern is pretty easy to a acquire, while the other two range from $4.50-$12 typically right now.

So, they are good cards for precons.

We dont need more of those, obviously, but at least one card that is good in many archetypes and will sell alot of copies will likely be in each set designed if the buisness model demands it.

But all is just specualtion until its up n running.

direwolf wrote:

Designing each card is about the same amount of work.

This is not remotely true. If you want plenty of commentary on designing cards, read Mark Rosewater's (Magic lead designer) Monday articles. Also, the Friday development column on www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Default.aspx will get into individual cards when new sets come out.

What does take similar amounts of work is the end to end process of acquiring art, laying out cards, printing cards, etc. Though, I've done art requests for a CCG based on a book series - some were much harder than others.

The number of cards sold are an important factor when designing cards.

I have never found this to be the case.

People seem to have a misunderstanding of how CCGs based on IPs are made. The primary source of card ideas are from the books, TV shows, movies, RPGs, or whatever the game is based on. Sure, Magic doesn't work that way, though it has increasingly gone bidirectional with its crossbranding.

But, the reason you see particular cards in V:TES that make less game sense than other cards is because the source material gives a name for the card. Then, you get a lot of top-down design, rather than needs based design, which tends to be bottom-up.

Top-down design doesn't excuse bad design, but it does create restrictions that, in the absence of abundant resources (time, design input, etc.), causes a lot of bad design.

A print-on-demand system encourages the design of cards that will sell more copies.

Not if you remove your premise that all cards take the same amount of work. If it takes 10 seconds to design a new hunting ground for some new clan and weeks of playtesting different versions of another card, there is a clear cost imbalance.

Now, POD may very well be different than random packs of cards, where there is a much greater financial incentive to see popular cards made, so I'm not disputing the gist of your post. But, maybe some awesome piece of art for some crappy card makes it incredibly popular. Maybe there are enough V:TM fans left to make some crappy vampire incredibly popular because of how awesome it is in the RPG.

With print-on-demand, we can avoid having too many "Eccentric Billionaire" printed. I would rate "Eccentric Billionaire" as a , but the quantity published was as if it were a .

In theory, under the old system, where cards of less general use were of higher rarities, there were still horrendous mistakes in assigning rarity. Reins of Power is an obvious case of atrocious rarity assignment.

Mistakes will continue happen, but also, another thing. Designers (and developers) do not know what the environment will actually end up being. If they did, the playerbase would solve the format within a month. The game might one day be all about dropping tons of The Embrace into play, then the next day, everyone runs Scourge of the Enochians and people's Kennies sit in boxes.

There is a business model under POD that differs from the past or from any rarity based model, but at the same time, we want a variety of cards to get made to give us numerous options, which would mean a lot of cards that aren't going to be all that popular. The "good cards squeeze out bad" phenomenon seen with CCGs could have too much impact under the POD model for stifling variety.

Thank you ICL for some insights.

(despite my username and signature, I do not really play magic, and I don't really like it!)

You make a good point about the time it takes to design a new hunting ground, and an even better point about the time it takes to acquire artwork and do layouts etc.

You end your post with the statement:

The "good cards squeeze out bad" phenomenon seen with CCGs could have too much impact under the POD model for stifling variety.

That is what I want to try and get at. As a business model, it makes sense to invest more time into cards that will sell more. Does this mean we will see less niche cards? When every deck can be a "trick" deck, is that really relevant?

More importantly, will the same mistakes be made if we don't discuss it now? Or will there be other mistakes that can be avoided with discussion?