Trading Card Games’ History and Future

Trading Card Games’ History and Future

Submitted to the Hunan Agricultural University

and

George Fox University

Professor Jonathan Cooley 蒋能胜

In partial fulfillment of the requirements

George Fox Senior Thesis

Yuanping Song

April 2018

Abstract

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Chapter 1 Introduction^[a]

     I^[b] would like to write an article about the trading card game’s position in the marketplace and its development in the future. Trading card game was originated in 1993. On the July 4th weekend of 1993, Magic, the first trading card game, premiered at the Origins Game Fair in Fort Worth, Texas. People loved the cards with the fantasy history and beautiful pictures. In 1995, Japan developed the second card game by imitating of Magic whose name is YU-GI-OH. This game was popular all over Asia, and the Asians who didn't accept the American culture were enjoy collecting the YU-GI-OH cards. In 2000, the cards companies decided to host some world-class competitions and gave the winner a very rich prize. The competition attracted all of the players who thought about how to make their decks better. The crowded market attracted a lot of companies to started the new card games. Just like Pokemon and Harry Potter, all of the famous brands had tried to develop their card games. In 2006, the most famous brand in Internet games which name is World of Warcraft published the trading card game about their history. It got a great success, and finally, it became the top of trading card games. Trading card games' fans are all over the world, and there games has became officially sports in our country. 

     There are a lot of reasons why trading card games are still successful. The first one is because of their wonderful pictures and the game’s background history. teenagers are very interested in the colorful pictures, using those cards to play with other guys is a very interesting experience. The second reason is because of the healthy meta-games. The customers still enjoy the constantly evolving gameplay with new challenges. Every time when the customers get the new information about their games, they will be very excited and can’t wait to try the new experience that those cards give to them.  Just like the football and basketball, people can socialize by playing the game together. We can find there are a lot of players who are talking on the massage board or in the stores every day, and all of the players can become good friends, that is a real miracle.

     Trading card game (TCG) has also changed a lot in the market. A long time ago this game was just played on the papers, but now in the digital age, it has evolved into the online game to attract more and more people. Now the World of Warcraft TCG has become a game which is online. In the future, the card games will give the customers good feel by the digital revolution. The digital games can be more random and easily to make the customers excited. Buyers can be easy to find the cards they need and trade them too. The new distribution model offers a truly “free-to-play” experience that allows all of the players to join to the party. It is entirely feasible and possible for players to play for free, win packs in the Arena and win cards for themselves.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

What is Trading card game? Selen^[c](2011) told us in her article: Most TCGs are played by two players. Multiplayer TCGs bring different dynamics into gameplay, marrying the need for social interaction to achieve players’ goals with effective deck construction.  I think ^[d]it is the simplest way to explain what is TCG, but there are some important things the author didn’t ^[e]makeclear such as…..

The History of rading card game

Nick(2007) in his paper told me a lot of things about the begin of Magic^[f]: “ ^[g]In the mid-nineties, it was hard enough to acquire the cards required to play the games much less find opponents that played the same games. One person might have liked Shadowfist, but another person liked Battletech. You can't play a game between the two, using Shadowfist cards versus Battletech cards. The games' rules just don't mesh^[h].

One constant was Magic: The Gathering. It became easier to find Magic cards as time progressed, but in the early days, it was very hard to find cards due to limited print runs, scarcity, and demand. Stores would sell out of their entire stock of new expansion sets the same day they received them.

As a direct consequence, the secondary market for Magic cards began growing larger and larger. Prices for certain cards rose as demand rose. Problems with distribution were commonplace in the early days, and even regional preferences factored into pricing.”

I think ^[i]this part is a good demonstration of the initial confusion of TCG. It is very concrete and can be cited as the argument of my article.

But Magic wasn't the only game with variations in pricing. When some of the earlier games hit the shelves, they were directly competing with each other, and with Magic. Magic was the undisputed king of CCGs, but gamers were willing to shell out some extra cash for non-Magic games just for variety or other reasons.”

Why people love trading card games？

In Zac’s book (2010) reviewing Why Trading Card Games Are Still Successful, there are some principles to maintain the operation of the association (Zac, 2010).