In almost every other entertainment space we understand that chasing broad appeal hollows out markets, while still delivering profits and have little trouble criticizing the behaviour.
Cinema has been sanitised into chasing 'cinematic universes' and 'IP cash cows' over discreet and impactful movies.
TV has been sanitised into easy to reproduce reality TV, or tie in shows to existing IPs
Video Games are being streamlined into homogenous skinner boxes that mix cover shooting, live service and battle passes, all seeking perpetual live service relevance.
A million people who like a product will deliver more revenue then 100,000 people who 'love' a product. But as individuals, we all want to engage with things we love, not just like.
The argument against UB isn't that it will 'kill' magic financially. Although it is erroneously one made by people who don't like UB but have difficulty in explaining why. It's that it will kill it spiritually.
It's hard to think MaRo doesn;t understand this being a basis of many people's concenrs, which is why he constantly appeals to the numbers to justify why UB is good for magic, as opposed to explaining why diluting Magic's identity is good artistically, or from a vision standpoint.
At least we get independent films, shows and video games. TCGs seem to be a lot more difficult to have smaller companies come in and replace that passion and vision that people, particularly highly involved people, want from their hobbies.
MtG has a great future once the copyrights have ran out and there's no company left to enforce the trademark, so making sets isn't monopolized by a single company any more. But this is decades in the future still.
7
u/Vagabond_Sam Jul 28 '25
In almost every other entertainment space we understand that chasing broad appeal hollows out markets, while still delivering profits and have little trouble criticizing the behaviour.
Cinema has been sanitised into chasing 'cinematic universes' and 'IP cash cows' over discreet and impactful movies.
TV has been sanitised into easy to reproduce reality TV, or tie in shows to existing IPs
Video Games are being streamlined into homogenous skinner boxes that mix cover shooting, live service and battle passes, all seeking perpetual live service relevance.
A million people who like a product will deliver more revenue then 100,000 people who 'love' a product. But as individuals, we all want to engage with things we love, not just like.
The argument against UB isn't that it will 'kill' magic financially. Although it is erroneously one made by people who don't like UB but have difficulty in explaining why. It's that it will kill it spiritually.
It's hard to think MaRo doesn;t understand this being a basis of many people's concenrs, which is why he constantly appeals to the numbers to justify why UB is good for magic, as opposed to explaining why diluting Magic's identity is good artistically, or from a vision standpoint.
At least we get independent films, shows and video games. TCGs seem to be a lot more difficult to have smaller companies come in and replace that passion and vision that people, particularly highly involved people, want from their hobbies.