There are 3 primary reasons for this.

1. Advertising
2. Economy
3. Past History

Advertising

Aside from giving some free packs to Hearthstone streamers (and related paid promotions), I've not heard anything about this game outside of its own subforums and subreddits. That's....... very typical and very disturbing at the same time. The only people who are going to hear about this game so far have to basically be heavily invested in Hearthstone or MTG already so far as I can tell. That just seems... not good enough.

Compare to the biggest competitor, Hearthstone. It's a game I no longer play and haven't for almost a year now. But I still know about every expansion release b/c Blizzard advertises the **** out of the game on Twitch and Youtube and just on the internet in general. I can't say the same thing at all about MTG: Arena, Magic Duels, or any of the Duels games in general.

Economy

This one's going to be short and sweet. People have done the math on MTG: Arena's current economy. In it's current state, it compares very dis-favorably to both Hearthstone and MODO (MTG: Online). They've promised to fix this with events but that only really helps the non-casual crowd good enough to profit off of events (similar to how only a small number of people are going to go reasonably infinite in Hearthstone Arena).

If you take any other digital ccg or tcg I have played, MTG: Arena looks bad by comparison if you only look at the economy. And for most of them it looks extremely bad. Even when comparing to Hearthstone. Or their own pre-existing digital platform. That's horrendous.

This is all before we consider that they are going to have *six or seven* standard sets on release theoretically, with some possibly about to rotate out of standard a month or three later. That's too many cards for a casual audience to handle with this kind of economy. ..... That's it. This game feels like it's going to be set up to be another MTGO or another Magic Duels. Either you are going to play from Day One, you are going to invest a bunch of money, or you are going to have a bad time.

Past History

This is the one where I use the qualifier "Yes. It is only in closed beta right now, and they still have plenty of times to fix things." People said the same damn thing about Magic Duels, and I predicted that one going under well before it did too. From MTGO to DOTP to M-Duels, history shows that time and time again they **** up the digital space really badly, don't learn any lessons, and then every few years they ditch what they are currently doing to start over. And if you solely blame Stainless for that then I am jealous of your optimism. The fact that Magic Duels, the *first attempt at a F2P Magic the Gathering game*, went under is especially concerning; but at the end of the day a couple rules seem to hold true. Digital MTG doesn't get advertised, it doesn't stick around for very long without getting extremely expensive and new player unfriendly, and there is zero reason to have consumer confidence that this game will still exist 5 years from now. I can only hear "We're going to do it right this time" so many times before I don't buy it, and this is like the 4th or 5th time we are getting fed the same manure.

Disclaimer: I didn't write this just b/c they won't let me into their travesty of a closed beta.

2nd Disclaimer: I wrote this b/c I wanted to get this off my chest and apparently I'm not allowed to do that in the Off Topic Thread. I've been following this game as closely as I can since NDA dropped (and even before that) and I'm extremely worried that they have not currently shown any signs of budding competence.

Without trying to turn this into some Arena hate thread, I think I completely agree with you. Honestly, I just like fooling around with deck building, and trying ideas out in a competitive environment. I'd be willing to pay a pretty high price to do so too, but not an outrageously high price. I have 0 interest in grinding, for any game, ever.

i think they have to set up the grind to be brutal at the beginning cuz they can't even make it rougher later (since that turns people off). This way they can loosen it if need be and that'll make people happier

I think I've spent a combined $2000 on F2P CCG/TCG games over the last 7 years? I've also gotten well over 2000 hours of entertainment out of it, which meets my bar for money well spent ($1 per hour), but at the end of the day that was money well spent *because* they were what I would consider enjoyable game-play experiences where paying to have some options made it so that I could basically do whatever I wanted.

Magic Duels was a game I never got into b/c the game had a very bad start and by the time it was worth playing it was too **** expensive of a buy-in to have fun with it cheaply AND the writing was already on the wall that it was going away b/c everyone who played it non-casually had essentially infinite gold. So I wasn't willing to pay a steep buy-in for a dying game. I probably would have paid into Magic Duels if I thought it was going to get supported long-term, but that didn't really happen and I could tell that wasn't going to happen. Long time players never had to pay for anything and for new players it was essentially impossible to play.

I tried MTG Online, but that's basically a game where you have to really like Draft (and be good at it* or you can't get into it. Same with Eternal.

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So now a year later I'm stuck looking at a game where I don't have confidence it's going to be good on release (I will play the **** **** **** out of the open beta as soon as that comes out though), I don't really want to free to play a game where essentially only your first 4 wins matter, and I don't want to buy into the game until I know it's going to be around for a while b/c of the poor track record.

And I still semi-think they are just going to screw the whole thing over and dump it in a few years to avoid competing with paper too. So......

I'm just genuinely and generally worried about MTG: Arena and where it's going, based on where we've been and based on where it's currently at. I have heard nothing but BAD things about it since the NDA lifted, and all of those things are related to the economy and the fact that frankly the vault is one of the greediest implementations of the F2P model I've heard of, in a market where the direct competitors (Hearthstone and MTG Online) are already established and compare very favorably to what MTG:A has on offer at the moment.

Actually, both Hearthstone and Shadowverse have successfully made the grind "rougher" by changing rarity distributions in their sets, and gotten away with it. I agree though that MTG:A probably can't do that though since it has to be based on paper.

Although it's obvious they DID do that b/c they made drop rates worse during the closed beta already so...... maybe WOTC just not that good at this.

That being said



this is just a good way to get nobody playing at the beginning and screw over a game. In a market where you HAVE TO COMPETE, both with the current king (Hearthstone) and your own established user base elsewhere (MTG Online), and you are not doing so, this kind of economy is just a good way to smother the game in its infancy. I'm already tired of hearing people bitch about it (when I can't even get it), and everything that's going on feels like a very bad sign to me.


We essentially currently have a game where the grind is so brutal that even the most dedicated fans like me (when they finally get in) may just wait to play until the next wipe b/c it might already be too late to catch up being completely honest. This just looks and feels like an absolute mess. We have what is essnetially a great game here (MAGIC THE **** GATHERING) and no one on the subreddit wants to do mucb other than bitch about how the economy is so harsh you only get to play one good deck and the game is no fun at all. If this was Dead By Daylight, I'd be bringing out the "pretty good job so far" memes right now.

Edit:

And what the **** hell is the deck construction subforum going to look like in a game where you can't even reliably craft the singles you want. "Hey guys, here's person #200 with thread #200 of the same variety. Here's all the cards I've managed to scrape by. What do you think is the best I can do with what I've got and why the **** should i play the deck you are suggesting for the next 3 months." ???

Glad to see WOTC hasn't changed. The guys who can barely run a website, destroyed their own forums multiple times and can't seem to put up a promo site, facebook app or online survey that functions properly have dropped the ball once again. There's something seriously wrong with WotC management and it's always shown through most strongly on the digital front.

The one good thing they've done (this time) is they are really pushing for Hearthstone Streamers to try the game with lots of free packs and sponsored streams.

This means

1) They realize whose audience they are trying to cannibalize.

2) Hopefully an open beta is coming soon? (Plz? I want in.) Otherwise why all the publicity all of a sudden for a game no one can get into?

The game plays well, especially for a beta, you can play magic very similarly to paper the deckbuilder is smooth as is matchmaking and the devs talk to us more then 4 times a year!

But this is all meaningless cause the economy is so crap.

Not sure if it's the Devs or someone higher up who is trying to **** over the consumers, but it's so bad they could literally double or even triple the drop rate and It'd STILL be rough.

I'll give you one example to show how stingy and mean they are with the economy, here's the "vault progress" you get with duplicate cards:

common - 0.1%
uncommon - 0.3%
rare - 0.5%
Mythic - 1%

That's right, you pull a common you already own 4 copies of? Enjoy your 1/1000 progress to the next vault! A mythic? A whopping 1% progress increase - so generous right?

The real worrying thing is the Devs responces have been less then encouraging, it seems they think the current rate is bad, but are unwilling to increase it without decreasing in other areas, and have stated that the aim is 25-30 packs a month which sounds good, but is actually quite similar to what we've got now - have i already said how god******* awful that is?

Basically, the game has potential, but unless they seriously get their finger out of their arse in regards to the economy soon it's dead on arrival, and they seem unwilling to do so.

The game has serious potential if they can do it right this time.
The gameplay is nice and smooth mostly, you have full control, most cards work... very few bugs as opposed to a Stainless game. It has a lot of potential.

Mjack that ARTICLE you posted on the off topic thread is by far the most serious analysis on ARENA´s Economy I have read by now... Thanks!
It made so clear to me, how bad the economy is that I´m actually glad I´m not wasting my time on the closed beta waiting for the next wipe... yay!!!

Is there any free to play card game where you can put cards on a wishlist to up their chances of appearing in packs?
It seems like the digital designers are still very much in the paper mindset. Do cards even need to be given out in packs? I like the MTGA wildcard concept.

I like it too, the vault with wild cards also seems great... as concepts they are great...but its WOTC!

I don’t see what y’all are panicked about. The foundation of the economy is solid. The tunables in their current state suck balls, but they can be easily tweaked. I’m sure Wizards will get them right eventually.

I´m not so sure about that... dont get me wrong when they first announced the Economy I thought it has quite good... but looking at the numbers...I´m thinking something else, but I´m still out.
You are in so how is it working for you?

Looking at the article on which game is Free-est 2 play, I have to say that all these online card games are free-er to play than I thought they would be.

Btw, do we know anything yet about the paid side of the economy?

Poorly. I have one serviceable deck, and no chance to have more in the nearest weeks. The rate of getting wildcards is way lower than it used to be before the wipe. Somehow, Wizards have lost their way... Somebody there clearly thought that abundance of random crap could replace focused deckbuilding. But I believe in them, things look easy to fix and Chris Clay seems to be a sane guy. Once he recovers from his maladies, I'm sure we will see improvement.

I believe in them too. I'm fully confident that Wizards of the Coast won't realize there is a problem with their game until it's too late to do much about it.

I'm sorry, but WOTC is not your friend, and according to most reliable review job review sites, outside of Magic R&D, it's a company that is run like absolute guano. I'll believe MTG: Arena is going to become more friendly to the user when it happens, and not before.

As is, this looks like it's set up to be the new Magic the Gathering: Online. Except with no secondary market. They are going to give you a cheap (free) taste and then expect you to pay out to play the game just like you would MODO.