I want to understand!
Late ’90 we had all sort of different CCG games. From 7th Sea CCG to Babylon5 CCG, from Buffy CCG to Dragonball CCG, from X-Files CCG to Doomtown… There was a huge wave of games, LotR CCG, SW CCG, Eve, Warlord, L5R… It was crazy.
And then in 2008 FFG published Game of Thrones LCG and a year after Warhammer Invasion and told us that CCG is over.
They presented new format where you buy fixed card sets, and you build your deck. It is no longer about luck of a draw or money you spent on boosters. It is all about your cunning skill and deck building ability. Players loved it. No more buying boxes of boosters. No more praying for super rare cards. No more trading cards or buying singles.
FFG quickly changed CoC CCG into CoC LCG, and with Got LCG and Warhammer Invasion began revolution in the market.
Years passed.
We have LotR LCG, we have SW LCG, we have Pathfinder which is LCG, but can’t use the name, we have Doomtown announced… Format works. CCG is dead.
That’s the world we live in.
That’s the world we like.
That’s the world where… Where Wizkids publishes Marvel Dice Masters CDG and all we know is just blown apart.
Players again buy boosters.
Players again pray for super rare cards.
Players again spend huge money to buy boxes of booster to have as many cards and dice as possible.
As you know I am publisher. I have to be on time with all that’s new and important. I have to catch up with players demands. I need to know where the market is heading to.
So my question today is dedicated to this resurrection of CCG. My question is: WTF is going on?
P.S. I just read Wizkids is doing DnD Dice Master. I had good timing with this post 😀
I strongly believe that good board game is the one that tells a good story. You play it and suddenly you are sucked into it, you feel chills on the skin. Emotions grow. In a moment you defend castle. You hear roar of warriors. You smell boiling oil. You are into it.
That's how I design my games. I always want to tell a good story. I want players to be into it. As deep as possible.
From what I can tell from the hype. Cost seems to be the big thing. I never really CCGed much, so I’m not actually sure about pricing, but all the people who are raving about it keep saying (essentially) 'yeah, it’s all the exploitation of CCG, but boosters are only a quid! And you get DICE!’.
I am not convinced by this, but then, now that I have a base set of netrunner, and keep wondering whether it’s going to induce me to spend a few hundred quid on cards or not. Does certainty get rid of the addictiveness of random boosters? Theoretically yes, the skinner box is more powerful when it’s randomised, but I don’t know if that stops it feeling a bit outside of what I’m looking for. Does something being cheap stop it feeling exploitative? Maybe, but it doesn’t excite me much.
I’m steering clear, but I don’t know if this is just cynicism or not. A game of netrunner was enough to win me round. Will my first dicemasters game do the same?
Judging from what I’ve seen, I doubt it. But who knows.
I have a dream of doing for boardgames what was done for CCGs . Imagine a modular board where there are „booster expansions” which you can buy to add a new random feature/rule set to your existing game. Maybe it adds a new location. Or maybe it alters some of the win conditions. Or maybe its meta and affects the PLAYER instead of the board game.
I wonder if this will ever get catchy.
Looking forward to the RC CCG. Make the hatchet super rare and watch the money roll in!
The Card Games I like most are CCG´s (MEtW, SWCCG).
It´s not because they are CCG´s, I don´t like that at all. I want to play a game, not buying it several times to complete it and then wasting my time trading my unused cards away …
So, I´m glad 51st state is no CCG …