Pseudo Newb - Response to Melissa Detora's GP Boston article

Melissa DeTora wrote about her GP experience at GP Boston

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10690

I've been thinking hard about the GP situation and the interaction between my imaginary(brainstorming) team and coach centered non-EV competitive track and the pro centered one. 

I responded to her this way: and I'm posting it here so that I keep track of what I put out in the world about my "Dream" of a competitive, culture building but less Darwinian Organized Play. 

The big problem is the size of the GPs vs, the payouts. Honestly I feel a little sick when I read someone missing a "payout" as a tragedy or a problem. I know that out of those 1900 or so people there are lots of people going because there's no place else to go for trying their luck, seeing where there skills are at that have no place else to really do it but don't expect to money or place. Too many of those people and then there are the "tragedies" of people who only like Magic when their self worth is justified by being in the money or making back their investment.  That ends up being a huge turnoff for those of us who think playing a game, like playing a sport isn't about a cashback offer or a paycheck. 

When a baseball club is making 200 million off your name and you only see 2 million of it, money is an issue that a player had a right to focus on. Being a pro player is literally his job. No one should be using "pro" magic that way.  The entire revenue of Magic the Gathering is around 200 million and that is a high performing number: It was called out in the Q4 earninngs call as a strong performer:

The team at Wizards of the Coast has done a tremendous job of taking this brand, which totaled less than $100 million in revenues in 2008, and was on the decline to where it is today, the largest brand in our Games & Puzzle category, the largest game brand in the U.S. and more than double the size it was just 3 years ago.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/344581-hasbro-s-ceo-discusses-q4-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=3

Now I'm assuming that the 100 million and the new number somewhere between 200-300 hundred million that equals "more than double" is a discussion of net revenue  which is gross revenue ( total sales/income) minus all the liabilities so the total profit they have to work with some of that has to be committed to shareholders, contingency and financial long term budget commitments based on revenue projections. 

Lets be clear on relative value here, 200 million is frequently the Yankees payroll cost. Just the payroll. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-3445_162-3021144.html

I don't really know what WotC's Magic budget is and one should take note that Hasbro is not talking about competitive  standard Magic but ALL of the brand, which includes all of the casual players, commander product, digital product, branded merchandise, licensing partnerships. 

Let's just say that I'm not sure growing the brand and the maturing the culture and competitive space will be accomplished by throwing more money directly at the players. 

As a matter of fact I think payout as the prime motivation tool to play and acheive "the Dream" has many positives for the metagame ( as expressed by the culture outside the game, not as the decks you compete against) but has many built in negatives that have to be managed and addressed. 

It's achievement, and materialism without structured competitive culture or sportsmanship and it also makes this a "money" game where barriers to entry, control over variance and conflicts of interest in controlling the culture are all incentivized by money as opposed to game play. 

It also means that unless you are making money, you do not perceive yourself as "succeeding" as a competitor.  Money becomes the marker of success because standings are only noticed with "fame". I honestly think this creates a lot of the secondary behaviors that become the negatives in the culture, like theft, disrespect and a disproportionate number of players who think that EV is the only motivator and point to the game. 

Melissa's observations and my thinking about these things in terms of getting at least SOME of Magic divorced from EV led me to respond with this.:



I think that EV and prize with value mentality is not necessary for people who want to compete but aren't looking to money. Since the only available places to compete at a regulation level are GPs it looks to me like there's a conflict as more people want to play competitive magic, understand that they are competing for experience, to get better, just because they like to play competitively and the people who are actively "following the dream" or expecting some sort of cash value that justifies their investment in playing.

GPs are the ONLY way for non-pros to play competitively. I've been playing for 8 months and FNMs are absolutely all over the place and not really connected to the kind of OP that GPs represent. What do you think of a concurrent non-pro league and team OP that runs concurrently to the season, it awards prizes

 like trophies, rankings, titles and maybe something like debate societies do with the pin system. But is is SPECIFICALLY NON-EV you can't make money, profit anything. If a card is given it's a participation card and everyone participating in the event gets one. It could feed the EV based competitive environment by acting as a "home base" for players who want to compete that way by being their team but EV based standings do not affect their standings in the Non-EV based league. I know the people at the top are convinced that it's all about "the dream" but there are many types of competitors that you guys never get to see because there's no place for them in Magic right now and the only forum to play that was is GPs, it would ease the pressure off GP attendance and since I envision the Non-EV thing as a team and coach based system it would support and feed higher level players in the current EV based system as individuals because there would be places to practice and drill and playtest and borrow cards.

I'm actually working towards something like this - there's lots of people who go to GPs and are kind of turned off by the culture there but would still like to compete, there's lots of people who don't want to go pro but still want something like an OP but also can't put in the amount of time pro-players do so they'll always be at a disadvantage in a mixed group. I know this kind of OP wouldn't interest the players on the top or the EV only crowd but I could see it where it would add value to the culture of the EV crowd. Fan support has to come from somewhere, people can root for the pros without having to play against them for instance. Pro's could support and coach non-ev teams if they wanted to and develop the future. Some of the attendence pressure might be off the GPs or the GPs could support two tracks this way. Any thoughts?

Adrienne