Trading Card Games - A Rant!

 Earlier this year I decided that I'm done with trading card games (otherwise known as TCGs). Strangely it was a piece of good fortune which caused this. I'd opened a booster pack of Star Wars Unlimited at a pre-release event to reveal a Darth Vader card. It was a good card and simply slapping it down on the table won me at least two games at the pre-release and again at a constructed event the next week.

TCGs come in many varieties, but are typically games based around a deck of cards assembled based on a set of rules which may stipulate how many cards there are in total in a deck, how many copies of each card you may have, what sets you may use cards from and so on. Players then seek to build the most powerful deck within these guidelines. 

They can obtain cards to build their deck in a number of ways.  They may buy a sealed pack of cards, known as a 'booster' pack, trade for them with other players, or buy them from vendors on what is termed the 'secondary market'. 

For most TCGs the contents of booster packs are divided up into categories based upon how rare a card may be. This means that cards with a lower rarity value will be much more plentiful than cards with the highest rarity value. this is the point at which game design intersects with rarity. whilst not always being the best cards, often higher rarity cards will be more powerful and the most powerful amongst these will be the most sought after and therefore possess the highest value. 

Now, you may be incredibly lucky and open a rare and sought after card from a booster, as I did with my Vader, but if not your options are to trade, or buy. If you need multiple copies for a competitive deck then you need to either open a lot of boosters, do a lot of trades, or be prepared to spend a lot of money.

When I say a lot of money, to illustrate I sold my Vader card for £80. A competitive deck needs three of these. Herein lies the crux of my beef with the TCG model. It is in the majority of cases just so incredibly expensive. 

TCG players will often provide a range of responses to anyone pointing out their hobby is expensive. Some may shrug their shoulders and say it is a 'luxury hobby' for those, like them, who can afford it, whilst others may point out that cheaper 'budget' decks can still be relatively competitive. 

It is true that to enjoy a TCG you don't necessarily have to spend a fortune. I've had huge amounts of fun playing cheap starter decks with friends. This is the exception however, most TCGs are played in game stores at events which may have an entry fee and prizes based on ranking. 

This is no accident. The makers of TCGs need to sell cards to make their money. The best way to do this is to have a playerbase which is incentivised to chase the most powerful new cards which are fresh off the printing press. TCG makers employ a carrot and stick approach. The carrot of increased power-levels and the stick of developing game formats where old cards are not allowed and therefore obsolete.

So here I was with my Vader card. I sold it because it was £80. Not just because I wanted that £80, but due to the realisation that if I wanted to stand a chance of competing at the game I would need another £160 at least and for me that amount of money was out of proportion to the enjoyment I'd get from the game. It was also the moment at which I fully realised that the TCG model just wasn't for me.