Kotaku: "Valve's Card Game Artifact Is Running Out Of Players"

[SubvertedTrope]

I'll be honest: I've never heard of Shadowverse before. Is it really that big?

Click to shrink...

It was/is huge in Japan, I dont keep up with it anymore but it was definitely a cash cow when I was playing it.

Cygames had a truly horrid design philosophy with it (all matches must end in 5 min or less cause mobile) which they publicly announced would change after everyone hated a particularly over the top OP expansion, but I left in disgust and never looked back so I don't know if it got better.

Last I heard it was very expensive to keep up with the standard format so who knows how it's doing now.

 

[bixio]

Yeah, no one likes card games. It's not 1998.

 

[faced]

Valve learning that their greed and exploitative economic models have an actual limit. I don't understand how they get a free pass for what they've done to game economies

 

[Deleted member 41271]

I still think this is wrong. Like the devs have said they are working on it. Seems weird to straight up lie about that. But I don't know if it will still have support say a year from now.

Click to shrink...

Devs can say one thing, but this does not turn that statement into word of god true for all eternity. Two weeks later, higher-ups may stil decide to axe it all. Dev statements, in this regard, are not final and binding and never have been. Taking them as such is not a good idea. The devs may intend to, but the company has to let them.

That's... a standard belief in game design...

Click to shrink...

It's also a correct belief. RNG isn't a bad thing at all, though the implementation of it in Artifact was always an odd one (way too swingy in early game cards, like that +4 Attack one - that doesn't help new players, that just frustrates them).
The "market" approach likely hurt the game far more than RNG ever could. People don't play magic because you can sell cards.

 

[Lyng]

I think Auto Chess pretty much has proved that not catering to non card/board game players is not what killed Artifact.
If Artifact has gone with a Dota esque business model and let people earn cosmetics it would have been in a better spot.
Auto Chess proves that people where indeed ready for something different.
And Keyforge proves that the issue isn't Garfield as a designer. Valve is to blame fully.

 

[Toxi]

The "market" approach likely hurt the game far more than RNG ever could. People don't play magic because you can sell cards.

Click to shrink...

The market hype if nothing else looks really bad when the game's market collapsed so hard and so quickly.

People got burned hard.

 

[SubvertedTrope]

Yeah, no one likes card games. It's not 1998.

Click to shrink...

It's literally a billion dollar market, all thanks to Hearthstone but thanks for your insightful hot take.

And by the way, about that HS yoy down, it had been growing a tremendous amount year over year since release until last year, it was clearly not going to last forever, not exactly an ominous sign of the end times for card games. (LOL)

 

[bixio]

It's literally a billion dollar market, all thanks to Hearthstone but thanks for your insightful hot take.

And by the way, about that HS yoy down, it had been growing a tremendous amount year over year since release until last year, it was clearly not going to last forever, not exactly an ominous sign of the end times for card games. (LOL)

Click to shrink...

Valve should make real games. Not this shit no one asked for. :)

 

[Toxi]

And Keyforge proves that the issue isn't Garfield as a designer. Valve is to blame fully.

Click to shrink...

Speaking of which, Keyforge also came out in November last year and announced a new expansion in February.

...Seriously, what the actual fuck was Valve thinking with this radio silence bullshit?

 

[Pixieking]

I think Auto Chess pretty much has proved that not catering to non card/board game players is not what killed Artifact.
If Artifact has gone with a Dota esque business model and let people earn cosmetics it would have been in a better spot.
Auto Chess proves that people where indeed ready for something different.
And Keyforge proves that the issue isn't Garfield as a designer. Valve is to blame fully.

Click to shrink...

No? I think we all know that Garfield is to blame for the preponderance of RNG, and the RNG in Artifact can literally win or lose games. There's a decent skill ceiling in it, but I won a game a couple of nights ago from a random creep placement going my way, and felt pretty shit for it. I've lost games because the item shop is badly designed and RNG crazy.

Valve has to take some of the blame - radio silence, not standing-up to Garfield, and the lack of cosmetics - but no way they're to blame for it all.

 

[Tim]

I think Auto Chess pretty much has proved that not catering to non card/board game players is not what killed Artifact.
If Artifact has gone with a Dota esque business model and let people earn cosmetics it would have been in a better spot.
Auto Chess proves that people where indeed ready for something different.
And Keyforge proves that the issue isn't Garfield as a designer. Valve is to blame fully.

Click to shrink...

Autochess is a great example of a game that casuals can enjoy at low level play but still has a high skill ceiling. Artifact is too punishing at low levels.

And Keyforge taking off is great. It's a ton of fun. But also pretty casual. And Garfield still has many many more flops than successes. Valve should take most of the blame, but he isn't without blame.

Devs can say one thing, but this does not turn that statement into word of god true for all eternity. Two weeks later, higher-ups may stil decide to axe it all. Dev statements, in this regard, are not final and binding and never have been. Taking them as such is not a good idea. The devs may intend to, but the company has to let them.

Click to shrink...

If this wasn't Valve, I'd agree. People can work on what they want. If a top level decision was going to happen, I feel like it would have happened already.

 

[Toxi]

and the RNG in Artifact can literally win or lose games.

Click to shrink...

This is part of the card game as a concept. Even in games mostly decided by skill, there is always some element of win or lose on the draw.

The problem is the RNG provided by arrows and creep placements is a lot less interesting and exciting than the RNG provided by drawing one of a variety of cards in a deck.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

Never. That's not how Valve operates for ANY of their game. Yes it's stupid and infuriating, but this is how they work. And reading too much into silence is not really going to get anywhere.

Click to shrink...

i don't think the normal valve way works with this genre nor do consumers have to accept it

 

[Tim]

i don't think the normal valve way works with this genre nor do consumers have to accept it

Click to shrink...

I agree but that's a different conversation than "they are quiet therefore they abandoned the game"

 

[Toxi]

Every popular card game has either been designed specifically with casuals in mind or designed in a way so that casuals can still enjoy it at lower skill levels. Artifact's core design will never appeal to a casual audience. At least not with massive changes. It requires complete attention. Matches take too long. There's a lot passivity in the design (not choosing attackers.) Mistakes are too punishing.

From a top level player perspective it's great because it requires skillful piloting to play well. But to casuals it just asks too much. And it's difficult to to have a top level community without the casual market supporting.

Click to shrink...

Top level players of any game tend to be people who like that game. If they didn't like it, they wouldn't be putting in the time and effort to become top players.

 

[Tim]

Top level players of any game tend to be people who like that game.

Click to shrink...

I was saying that Artifact has a higher skill ceiling than most card games. It's more rewarding for top level players. Something a lot of pro-card players who tried to switch to Artifact echoed.

 

[Pixieking]

This is part of the card game as a concept. Even in games mostly decided by skill, there is always some element of win or lose on the draw.

The problem is the RNG provided by arrows and creep placements is a lot less interesting and exciting than the RNG provided by drawing one of a variety of cards in a deck.

Click to shrink...

This is fair. I honestly think the RNG is just too much and needs to be toned down/removed from some aspects (like the shop), but I can also see that it is intrinsically part of the game.

 

[Lyng]

Autochess is a great example of a game that casuals can enjoy at low level play but still has a high skill ceiling. Artifact is too punishing at low levels.

And Keyforge taking off is great. It's a ton of fun. But also pretty casual. And Garfield still has many many more flops than successes. Valve should take most of the blame, but he isn't without blame.



If this wasn't Valve, I'd agree. People can work on what they want. If a top level decision was going to happen, I feel like it would have happened already.

Click to shrink...

Auto Chess is so far from beginner friendly as you can get. New players don't even know how to move a piece without reading internet guides.

 

[faced]

Valve should make real games. Not this shit no one asked for. :)

Click to shrink...

Valve doesn't make "real games", they take existing developers who have a good idea and give them a bigger budget and support. That's what TF2, CSGO, Portal, DOTA2 all were and all of them were wildly successful.

I think they thought "Give Richard Garfield a bigger budget" was sort of the same thing

 

[Lyng]

No? I think we all know that Garfield is to blame for the preponderance of RNG, and the RNG in Artifact can literally win or lose games. There's a decent skill ceiling in it, but I won a game a couple of nights ago from a random creep placement going my way, and felt pretty shit for it. I've lost games because the item shop is badly designed and RNG crazy.

Valve has to take some of the blame - radio silence, not standing-up to Garfield, and the lack of cosmetics - but no way they're to blame for it all.

Click to shrink...

You don't loose a match because of one bad creep placement. If bad creep placement is enough you where already in a vulnerable position. Hearthstone has a ton of rng and is still a huge success.
Every card game of this type has some form of rng.

 

[Lyng]

Speaking of which, Keyforge also came out in November last year and announced a new expansion in February.

...Seriously, what the actual fuck was Valve thinking with this radio silence bullshit?

Click to shrink...

Yep. With how Artifact ended up radio silence was the worst way for Valve to react.

 

[Pixieking]

You don't loose a match because of one bad creep placement. If bad creep placement is enough you where already in a vulnerable position.

Click to shrink...

I mean, true, yeah, but...

Myself and my opponent had each destroyed one Tower. To win, he was aiming for destroying my Ancient in Lane 2, and I was aiming to destroy his Lane 1 Tower.

Round blah-blah (can't remember which): Lane 1, I go all-in trying to destroy the Tower in this round, and lose 4 of my 5 Heroes through Annihilation. 4 damage needed to win, and I blew it. :o Gets to Third Lane where my last Hero - Sorla - is, and I realise the opponent will destroy my Ancient on the next round. Fucked am I. But so close to end of round, I chuck an Assault Ladders into Lane 1, and see if I get lucky with the Creep RNG next round.

I do.

I get one creep in Lane 1, they get none. 2 Damage plus the extra 2 from Assault Ladders wins me the game. And it's something that couldn't have been planned for, I couldn't have expected, and that stole the match from my opponent who had properly out-played me.

I love the game because the skill-ceiling is so high, but my win was absolute bullshit based on RNG. I don't know if that's good design, because it means you've always got to keep your guard up and never assume things will go your way, or bad design because how can you account for that RNG Creep drop?

 

[Deleted member 16849]

Yeah, no one likes card games. It's not 1998.

Click to shrink...

This would of been a great hot take to have if it was 2012.

 

[Deleted member 41271]

No? I think we all know that Garfield is to blame for the preponderance of RNG, and the RNG in Artifact can literally win or lose games.

Click to shrink...

This is literally the case for every game that includes RNG; including supposedly skill intense ones like Poker, or, say, Magic the Gathering.

The skill is in mitigating RNG.

The problem in artifacts case isn't RNG itself, just that RNG happens too early - some RNG-hard effects are all very early game and very powerful, making them very, very swingy. That's the problem, not that RNG can lose games but how, in these specific cases, it does so. This is something that would be very easy to fix, and is something that can slip through development easily (and is not something to blame on one individual designer, this wasn't a tiny indie game with one dev), the problem is that it isn't being addressed, and the company is radio silent. I mean, Valve doesn't even have to address it, the situation can be improved in many ways, it'd just probably help them if they said how.

This may be a valve tactic, but it's just not a good one here, in this situation.

I view Artifact as an interesting case when it comes to card game design, really. Probably the most interesting aspect of it, in my book.

If this wasn't Valve, I'd agree. People can work on what they want. If a top level decision was going to happen, I feel like it would have happened already.

Click to shrink...

Fair point, I don't actually know much about Valve's development, and you likely do know that topic way better than me.

 

[ZeroX]

I've played hundreds of matches and maybe 1 or 2 have been decided by RNG

Compare that to Magic and Hearthstone where I guarantee it's 5x worse than that

RNG isn't the problem. If anything the game is too brutal toward new players.

 

[Pixieking]

This is literally the case for every game that includes RNG; including supposedly skill intense ones like Poker, or, say, Magic the Gathering.

The skill is in mitigating RNG.

The problem in artifacts case isn't RNG itself, just that RNG happens too early - some RNG-hard effects are all very early game and very powerful, making them very, very swingy. That's the problem, not that RNG can lose games but how, in these specific cases, it does so. This is something that would be very easy to fix, and is something that can slip through development easily (and is not something to blame on one individual designer, this wasn't a tiny indie game with one dev), the problem is that it isn't being addressed, and the company is radio silent. I mean, Valve doesn't even have to address it, the situation can be improved in many ways, it'd just probably help them if they said how.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, okay, that's a good way of phrasing it, and I was actually thinking something similar whilst preparing lunch earlier on. The frustration with the shop RNG is that you can't use health items to mitigate the creep and arrow RNG in the early game, as not only are things costing a minimum 3 (and sometimes you're just hit hard in the first round and have no cash), but the randomness of what items you're given means even if you had the cash, they're occasionally not there. So, the ability to mitigate the RNG through items is non-existent in early game, which makes the RNG feel too random/unfair/one-sided. Generally this frustration has worn off by round 3 or 4, but it's still frustration that demoralises newer players to the game.

 

[Lyng]

I mean, true, yeah, but...

Myself and my opponent had each destroyed one Tower. To win, he was aiming for destroying my Ancient in Lane 2, and I was aiming to destroy his Lane 1 Tower.

Round blah-blah (can't remember which): Lane 1, I go all-in trying to destroy the Tower in this round, and lose 4 of my 5 Heroes through Annihilation. 4 damage needed to win, and I blew it. :o Gets to Third Lane where my last Hero - Sorla - is, and I realise the opponent will destroy my Ancient on the next round. Fucked am I. But so close to end of round, I chuck an Assault Ladders into Lane 1, and see if I get lucky with the Creep RNG next round.

I do.

I get one creep in Lane 1, they get none. 2 Damage plus the extra 2 from Assault Ladders wins me the game. And it's something that couldn't have been planned for, I couldn't have expected, and that stole the match from my opponent who had properly out-played me.

I love the game because the skill-ceiling is so high, but my win was absolute bullshit based on RNG. I don't know if that's good design, because it means you've always got to keep your guard up and never assume things will go your way, or bad design because how can you account for that RNG Creep drop?

Click to shrink...

You can not account for rng, but you try to play around it. Take a player like Life Coach, the reason he is so good is because he plays every given scenario through his head and tries to determine the most optimal play, based on different outcomes. RNG in games like Artifact is something you try to play around, it is in fact an integral part of each turns tactical puzzle that you as a player have to try to solve. Sometimes you end up with no options, but like you said yourselve both of you where in vulnerable positions. If he had truly outplayed you he wouldnt loose that match.

If you like card games but dont enjoy this amount of rng i highly suggest you try Twilight Struggle. It is insanely deep and complex and matches are quite long, but is one of the best game designs out there, and especially if you want to play a hand management style game but want as little rng as possible.

 

[Lunaray]

This is literally the case for every game that includes RNG; including supposedly skill intense ones like Poker, or, say, Magic the Gathering.

The skill is in mitigating RNG.

The problem in artifacts case isn't RNG itself, just that RNG happens too early - some RNG-hard effects are all very early game and very powerful, making them very, very swingy. That's the problem, not that RNG can lose games but how, in these specific cases, it does so. This is something that would be very easy to fix, and is something that can slip through development easily (and is not something to blame on one individual designer, this wasn't a tiny indie game with one dev), the problem is that it isn't being addressed, and the company is radio silent. I mean, Valve doesn't even have to address it, the situation can be improved in many ways, it'd just probably help them if they said how.

This may be a valve tactic, but it's just not a good one here, in this situation.

I view Artifact as an interesting case when it comes to card game design, really. Probably the most interesting aspect of it, in my book.

Click to shrink...

I think this hits the nail on the head. I think Artifact has slightly too much RNG of the bad kind you mentioned, but I also feel like Artifact gives the player far more agency and tactical options than games like HS, where there is usually a straightforward "optimal" play most of the time, so what swings many game outcomes is card draw. I find that a lot less interactive than Artifact.

 

[ZeroX]

The problem is that Artifact's RNG has a bigger perceived impact than it actually does. Obviously draft is a little different, but in constructed you shouldn't really be having issues where a creep placement or shop item is game changing. If you've let a tower get to within a few points where a creep spawn can kill it off, that's on you.

It's like Cheating Death (or Quest Rogue in HS). Those cards weren't broken, but they made you feel awful when you were losing with them because it felt out of your control. They should probably change the shop I feel. Arrows and creep spawn are fine.

 

[Maledict]

Crtiscing Garfield for having more flops than Hots is ridiculous and completely misunderstanding how design works on a fundamental level. Every designer has more flops than hits - you can never make every design work. You get to see more of Garfield's flops because anything he does will be published, unlike most designers. However let's rememebr he:

1) created the entire ccg industry with his first design
2) created possibly the best two player ccg in Netrunner
3) was behind the latest massive new thing, Keyforge

And has a host of smaller but still successful games behind him. Anyone of the above three would mark him one of the best designers of card games ever. Having all three pits him on a unique pedestal. And I don't even like a lot of his design!

 

[TheYanger]

Crtiscing Garfield for having more flops than Hots is ridiculous and completely misunderstanding how design works on a fundamental level. Every designer has more flops than hits - you can never make every design work. You get to see more of Garfield's flops because anything he does will be published, unlike most designers. However let's rememebr he:

1) created the entire ccg industry with his first design
2) created possibly the best two player ccg in Netrunner
3) was behind the latest massive new thing, Keyforge

And has a host of smaller but still successful games behind him. Anyone of the above three would mark him one of the best designers of card games ever. Having all three pits him on a unique pedestal. And I don't even like a lot of his design!

Click to shrink...

Pretty much all of this. The only designers I can think of that don't have any 'flops' (and that's a generous use of that word let me tell you) are designers that have LITERALLY two or three published games.

Garfield gets every single game he wants published to be published

If you look at his Wiki literally everything he made for those first few years is legitimately a great game, and if a game doesn't sell gangbusters but is still a good game, is that really a flop in any meaningful way? I haven't played every game he's designed, but every single one on that list that I have played, is AT LEAST a good, well-thought out game, and not just card games, stuff like King of Tokyo is fantastic fun.

 

[Deleted member 41271]

I find that a lot less interactive than Artifact.

Click to shrink...

Definitely true in my opinion as well.

RNG gets a lot of bad press in gamer circles, but as a board game lover, I just don't get why. If I'm playing the wonderful ROOT, and due to bad die rolls I fail combat a few times, that happens. My cute fluffy kitten soldiers just aren't always great!

Crtiscing Garfield for having more flops than Hots is ridiculous and completely misunderstanding how design works on a fundamental level. Every designer has more flops than hits - you can never make every design work. Y

Click to shrink...

Agreed. The better a designer is, the more bad games he or she made. Expecting a 100% perfect record is lunacy. Not to mention: A "flop" doesn't even mean a game is bad! Good games and even great games can fail for so many reasons. Like, with artifact, I genuinely think the reasons it didn't do well are mostly out-game reasons, not in-game reasons.

 

[Necronomicon]

Game tanked so bad that I don't think it could be saved.
Going free to play will not help. Players that wanted to play it, already left. Would they return? I think they moved on other card games and will not return back. Casual never bought, or played for long, the game.

 

[SubvertedTrope]

I genuinely think the reasons it didn't do well are mostly out-game reasons, not in-game reasons.

Click to shrink...

Well your thinking is wrong then but it's interesting to see people over and over again attempt to blame non gameplay factors (the economy) for the game's underperformance.

Plenty of people bought in to the economy and still left, so... somehow the gameplay is amazing but even paying customers walked away.

I thought it's flaw was being a bit boring, which might have been fixed by more interestingly designed future sets.

 

[TheYanger]

Well your thinking is wrong then but it's interesting to see people over and over again attempt to blame non gameplay factors (the economy) for the game's underperformance.

Plenty of people bought in to the economy and still left, so... somehow the gameplay is amazing but even paying customers walked away.

I thought it's flaw was being a bit boring, which might have been fixed by more interestingly designed future sets.

Click to shrink...

buying into the economy is not the same thing as actually remaining within it. The game is fun, it definitely could be improved in small ways but the reason I don't play it isn't because of the gameplay itself.

 

[SubvertedTrope]

buying into the economy is not the same thing as actually remaining within it. The game is fun, it definitely could be improved in small ways but the reason I don't play it isn't because of the gameplay itself.

Click to shrink...

Buying into it shows an interest the actual game failed to maintain. I'm not saying it wasn't a problem, just that people will put up with all sorts of money nonsense if they are having fun/being entertained. Who wants to spend money on a game and not enjoy it?

 

[hydrophilic attack]

fun fact: the unofficial online implementation for keyforge has as many concurrent users as artifact (around 200)

 

[Pixieking]

Definitely true in my opinion as well.

RNG gets a lot of bad press in gamer circles, but as a board game lover, I just don't get why. If I'm playing the wonderful ROOT, and due to bad die rolls I fail combat a few times, that happens. My cute fluffy kitten soldiers just aren't always great!

Click to shrink...

I don't have anything against RNG as such - Garfield's Robo Rally is just pure RNG in a way, and it's a hell of a lot of fun with friends and a couple of bottles of wine or beer - I just feel that it's a bit contradictory in Artifact? With how the game works, if you lose your Heroes in a Lane, you can't play any non-item cards, which removes player agency. To then be stuck with the RNG of Creep placement, or Arrows, or Item Shop just emphasises the lack of agency. Yes, it's meant to punish the player for bad plays, but when you can have an entire round of just clicking end turn because you didn't have the luck of the draw to get a health item... It's kind-of the opposite of good board game design? Like, few board games give players nothing to do on a turn - even a brigged Cylon in the BSG game can plead their case to fellow players about how they're not the traitor. In your example, it's not that you don't have anything to do, it's that kitten soldiers suck sometimes, and that's fine. Them's the breaks. But Artifact both offers a wealth of agency for the player at some points, and no agency at all at others, which is a bit... odd.

All that said, though, I still like it. I said in the OT a few weeks ago I wouldn't play it til they minimised some of the RNG, but I'm back at it, playing a game every day or two, and I hit rank 67 in Constructed yesterday. I will never not like Artifact, or appreciate how it does stuff its own way. It's just acknowledging how odd it is in some ways, and how much of a flawed jewel it really is.

 

[Code Artisan]

Valve learning that their greed and exploitative economic models have an actual limit. I don't understand how they get a free pass for what they've done to game economies

Click to shrink...

exploitative economic models? neither tf2 nor dota2 are pay to win. this is free-to-play done right, actually.

 

[ZeroX]

Plenty of people bought in to the economy and still left, so... somehow the gameplay is amazing but even paying customers walked away.

Click to shrink...

A lot of that to is to do with the extreme doom and gloom that was plastered onto the game from day one. It was literally impossible to have a discussion about the game without it being hugely negative. Hard to engage with a game when literally everyone from the outside (and some on the inside) are actively rooting for it to fail. The misinformed business model rage, review bombing, etc. You couldn't engage with the game anywhere on Reddit or Twitch without immense negativity. Throw in Valve's awful communication that they'll apparently never change and yeah it was pretty easy for the rot to spread completely aside from the gameplay. I love the game but it's tough to play without any clue of where the future is headed.

Plenty of pros have said they'll come back if the game is revived. But nobody knows when that will be (if ever) because Valve is silent.

 

[faced]

exploitative economic models? neither tf2 nor dota2 are pay to win. this is free-to-play done right, actually.

Click to shrink...

Ah yes nothing exploitative about them, the prizepool has hit a collective $200 million for The International but that's fine, as long as it isn't pay to win

???

 

[RemedyCRD]

What are you trying to say here faced? Help us out. I think you need to spend a little time on the Google Play store and brush up on your definition of exploitative.

I buy a Dota compendium every year because it pays for an epic, ad free, two week long celebration of the game.

There's absolutely no gameplay advantage by purchasing one. It gives you achievements, voice lines, a fantasy league and hats.

 

[Metallix87]

I've played hundreds of matches and maybe 1 or 2 have been decided by RNG

Compare that to Magic and Hearthstone where I guarantee it's 5x worse than that

RNG isn't the problem. If anything the game is too brutal toward new players.

Click to shrink...

I still think you're REALLY over-selling the RNG in Magic.

 

[HylianSeven]

Ah yes nothing exploitative about them, the prizepool has hit a collective $200 million for The International but that's fine, as long as it isn't pay to win

???

Click to shrink...

What do you mean by this?

 

[cakely]

Yeah, no one likes card games. It's not 1998.

Click to shrink...

I know you were trolling, but Slay the Spire is my 2019 GOTY so far.

 

[OhSatan]

RNG gets a lot of bad press in gamer circles, but as a board game lover, I just don't get why.

Click to shrink...

Ding, Ding, Ding.

Valve wanted a board game but gamers didn't know what to do with it.

 

[Toxi]

Ding, Ding, Ding.

Valve wanted a board game but gamers didn't know what to do with it.

Click to shrink...

They wanted a collectible card game, not a board game.

But RNG is important in that genre too.

 

[DSP]

With a board game, you roll the dice and feel in control (LOL).

On a video game, obviously the rigged random number generator is designed to make you lose and spend more money on the game! /s

Computer generated random is actually really random so it feels bad.

 

[Ferrio]

They wanted a collectible card game, not a board game.

But RNG is important in that genre too.

Click to shrink...

A CCG can be a board game. The fact you could play with every card in the game regardless of owning that card shows it was more boardgame than CCG.

 

[Toxi]

With a board game, you roll the dice and feel in control (LOL).

On a video game, obviously the rigged random number generator is designed to make you lose and spend more money on the game! /s

Computer generated random is actually really random so it feels bad.

Click to shrink...

There actually are certain forms of randomness that feel better and worse than others. It's why people are fine with drawing from shuffled decks in card games yet bemoan other explicit forms of randomness like coin flipping.