Collectible card game

A collectible card game (CCG) is generally defined as a game where players acquire cards into a personal collection from which they create customized decks of cards and challenge other players in matches. Players usually start by purchasing a starter deck that is ready to play, but additional cards are obtained from randomized booster packs or by trading with other players. The goal of most CCGs is to beat one's opponent by crafting customized decks that play to synergies of card combinations. Refined decks will try to account for randomness created by the initial shuffling of the deck, as well as the opponent's actions, by using complementary and preferably efficient cards. The exact definition of what makes a CCG is varied, as many games are marketed under the "collectible card game" moniker. The basic definition requires the game to resemble trading cards in shape and function, be mass-produced for trading and/or collectibility, and have rules for strategic gameplay. The definition of CCGs is further refined as being a card game in which the player uses their own deck with cards primarily sold in random assortments. If every card in the game can be obtained by making a small number of purchases, or if the manufacturer does not market it as a CCG, then it is not a CCG. CCGs can further be designated as living or dead games. Dead games are those CCGs that are no longer supported by their manufacturers and have ceased releasing expansions. Living games are those CCGs that continue to be published by their manufacturers. Usually, this means that new expansions are being created for the game and official game tournaments are occurring in some fashion. A powerful card whose effects were underestimated by the game's designers may increase in rarity in later reprints. Such a card might even be removed entirely from the next edition, to further limit its availability and its effect on gameplay. Most collectible card games are distributed as sealed packs containing a subset of the available cards, much like trading cards. The most common distribution methods are: • Booster packs — The most common distribution method. Booster packs for CCGs usually contain 8 to 15 randomly packaged cards, usually with an assured number of cards of specific rarities. Dominion, the first such deck-building game, was directly inspired by Magic: The Gathering and thus has similar concepts. • Non-Collectible Customizable Card Games, also known as Expandable Card Game (ECG) or Living Card Games (LCGs) - Games such as Android: Netrunner or The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game for which each player selects one of the multiple pre-made decks packaged with the game, eliminating randomness while acquiring the cards. However, after more non-random expansion packs are purchased, players can customize their decks according to certain deckbuilding rules, allowing for much exploration of the game's themes and mechanics. Some games of this type allow the game to be expanded with additional pre-made decks. "Living Card Game" is a registered trademark of Fantasy Flight Games who are generally associated as the main publisher of these types of games. LCGs do not use the randomized booster packs like CCGs and instead are bought in a single purchase or fixed-set expansions, and are generally marketed for costing much less than collectibles. Many CCGs have also been remade into digital collectible card games (DCCGs), taking advantage of the ubiquity of the Internet for online play as well as for the potential of computerized opponents. DCCGs can exist as online counterparts of existing CCGs, such as Magic: The Gathering Online for Magic: the Gathering, as wholly original card games that take advantage of the digital space, such as Hearthstone, or in many other forms. ==History==

Early history (Pre-1990s) Regular card games have been around since at least the 1300s. The Base Ball Card Game, a prototype from 1904, is a notable precursor to CCGs because it had a few similar qualities but it never saw production to qualify it as a collectible card game. It is not known if the game was intended to be a standalone product or something altogether different like Top Trumps. The game consisted of a limited 112 cards and never saw manufacture past the marketing stage. The first pre-CCG to make it to market was the Baseball Card Game, released by Topps in 1951 as an apparent followup to a game from 1947 called Batter Up Baseball by Ed-u-Cards Corp. Players created teams of hitters, represented by cards, and moved them around a baseball diamond according to cards representing baseball plays drawn from a randomized deck. Like modern CCGs, Topps' Baseball Card Game was sold in randomized packs and were collectible; however, it lacked the necessary strategic play that defines a CCG. Other notable entries that resemble and predate the CCG are Strat-O-Matic, Nuclear War, BattleCards, and Illuminati. Magic: The Gathering and CCG craze (1990–1995) (pictured in 2014) designed Magic: The Gathering taking elements from the board game Cosmic Encounter. The game was released in 1993. Prior to the advent of the CCG, the market for alternative games was dominated by role-playing games (RPG), in particular Dungeons & Dragons by TSR. Wizards of the Coast (Wizards), a new company formed in Peter Adkison's basement in 1990, was looking to enter the RPG market with its series called The Primal Order which converted characters to other RPG series. After a lawsuit from Palladium Books which could have financially ruined the company, Wizards acquired another RPG called Talislanta. This was after Lisa Stevens joined the company in 1991 as vice president after having left White Wolf. Through their mutual friend Mike Davis, Adkison met Richard Garfield who at the time was a doctoral student. Garfield and Davis had an idea for a game called RoboRally and pitched the idea to Wizards of the Coast in 1991, but Wizards did not have the resources to manufacture it and instead challenged Garfield to make a game that would pay for the creation of RoboRally. This game would require minimal resources to make and only about 15–20 minutes to play. In 1993 a "new kind of card game" appeared. It was different because the player could not buy all the cards at once. Players would first buy starter decks and then later be encouraged to buy booster packs to expand their selection of cards. What emerged was a card game that players collected and treasured but also played with. The game has remained popular, with Wizards of the Coast claiming it to be the most widely played CCG as of 2009. It was based on Garfield's game Five Magics from 1982. Originally, Mana Clash was designed with Wizards in mind, but the suit between Palladium Books and Wizards was still not settled. Investment money was eventually secured from Wizards and the name Mana Clash was changed to Magic: The Gathering. The ads for it first appeared in Cryptych, a magazine that focused on RPGs. On 4 July weekend of 1993, the game premiered at the Origins Game Fair in Fort Worth, Texas. In the following month of August, the game's Limited core set was released (also known as Alpha) and sold out its initial print run of 2.6 million cards immediately creating more demand. Wizards quickly released a second print run called Beta (7.3 million card print run) and then a second core set called Unlimited (35 million card print run) in an attempt to satisfy orders as well as to fix small errors in the game. December also saw the release of the first expansion called Arabian Nights. With Magic: The Gathering still the only CCG on the market, it released another expansion called Antiquities which experienced collation problems. Another core set iteration named Revised was released shortly after that. Demand was still not satiated as the game grew by leaps and bounds. Legends was released in mid-1994 and no end was in sight for the excitement over the new CCG. What followed was the CCG craze. Magic was so popular that game stores could not satisfy the market demand. More and more orders came for the product, and as other game makers looked on they realized that they had to capitalize on this new fad. The first to do so was TSR who rushed their own game Spellfire into production, releasing it in June 1994. Through this period of time, Magic was hard to obtain because production never kept pace with demand. Store owners placed large inflated orders in an attempt to circumvent allocations placed by distributors. This practice would eventually catch up to them when printing capacity met demand coinciding with the expansion of Fallen Empires released in November 1994. Combined with the releases of 9 other CCGs, among them Galactic Empires, Decipher's Star Trek, On the Edge, and Super Deck!. Steve Jackson Games, which was heavily involved in the alternative game market, looked to tap into the new CCG market and figured the best way was to adapt their existing Illuminati game. The result was Illuminati: New World Order which followed with two expansions in 1995 and 1998. Another entry by Wizards of the Coast was Jyhad. The game sold well, but not nearly as well as Magic; however, it was considered a great competitive move by Wizard as Jyhad was based on one of the most popular intellectual properties in the alternative game market which kept White Wolf from aggressively competing with Magic. By this time, however, it may have been a moot point as the CCG Market had hit its first obstacle: too much product. The overprinted expansion of ''Magic's Fallen Empires'' threatened to upset the relationship that Wizards had with its distributors as many complained of getting too much product, despite their original over-ordering practices. In early 1995, the GAMA Trade Show previewed upcoming games for the year. One out of every three games announced at the show was a CCG. Publishers other than game makers were now entering the CCG market such as Donruss, Upper Deck, Fleer, Topps, Comic Images, and others. The CCG bubble appeared to be on everyone's mind. Too many CCGs were being released and not enough players existed to meet the demand. In 1995 alone, 38 CCGs entered the market, the most notable among them being Doomtrooper, Middle-earth, OverPower, Rage, Shadowfist, Legend of the Five Rings, and SimCity. Jyhad saw a makeover and was renamed as Vampire: The Eternal Struggle to distance itself from the Islamic term jihad as well as to get closer to the source material. Wizards of the Coast era (1996–1999) Garfield applied for a patent for "a novel method of gameplay and game components that in one embodiment are in the form of trading cards" that includes claims covering games whose rules include many of Magics elements in combination, including concepts such as changing the orientation of a game component to indicate use (referred to in the Magic and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rules as "tapping") and constructing a deck by selecting cards from a larger pool. Garfield was granted the patent in 1997, which he then transferred the patent to Wizards of the Coast. The patent has aroused criticism from some observers, who believe it may have stifled growth of other CCGs, and looked to have some of its claims to be invalid. Peter Adkison, CEO of Wizards at the time, remarked that his company was interested in striking a balance between the "free flow of ideas and the continued growth of the game business" with "the ability to be compensated by others who incorporate our patented method of play into their games". Adkison continued to say they "had no intention of stifling" the industry that originated from the "success of Magic". Wizards now had its long-sought role-playing game, and it quickly discontinued all plans to continue producing Dragon Dice or resuming production of the Spellfire CCG. Decipher was now sanctioning tournaments for their Star Trek and Star Wars games, with the latter also enjoying strong success from the re-released Star Wars Special Edition films. The Star Wars CCG would remain the second best-selling CCG until the introduction of Pokémon to the United States in 1999. Wizards also acquired Andon Unlimited which by association gave them control over the Origins Convention. By September, Wizards was awarded a patent for its "Trading Card Game". Later in October, Wizards announced that it would seek royalty payments from other CCG companies. Allegedly, only Harper Prism announced its intention to pay these royalties for its game Imajica. Other CCGs acknowledged the patent on their packaging. Plenty of other CCGs were attempted by various publishers, many that were based on Japanese manga such as Beyblade, Gundam War, One Piece, Inuyasha, Zatch Bell!, Case Closed, and YuYu Hakusho. Existing CCGs were reformatted or rebooted including Dragon Ball Z as Dragon Ball GT and Digimon D-Tector as the Digimon Collectible Card Game. An interesting CCG released by Upper Deck was called the Vs. System. It incorporated the Marvel and DC Comics universes and pitted the heroes and villains from those universes against one another. Similarly, the game UFS: The Universal Fighting System used characters from Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Tekken, Mega Man, Darkstalkers, etc. This CCG was obtained by Jasco Games in 2010 and is currently still being made. Another CCG titled Call of Cthulhu was the spiritual successor to Mythos by the publisher Chaosium. Chaosium licensed the game to Fantasy Flight Games who produced the CCG. In Russia, 2003 marked the release of Berserk, the first Russian CCG. Its grid-based battlefield and emphasis on card placement drew some comparisons with board wargames. The game would run for 12 years, before being discontinued in 2015. It was later relaunched in 2023. Probably one of the biggest developments in the CCG market was the release of Magic's 8th Edition core set. It introduced a redesigned card border and it would later mark the beginning of a new play format titled Modern that utilized cards from this set onward. Another development was Pokémon, originally published in English by Wizards, having its publishing rights transferred to Pokémon USA, Inc. in June 2003. The CCG renaissance continues (2006–present) The previous year's influx of new CCGs continued into 2006. Riding on the success of the popular PC Game World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment licensed Upper Deck to publish a TCG based on the game. The World of Warcraft TCG was born and was carried by major retailers but saw limited success until it was discontinued in 2013 prior to the release of Blizzard's digital card game Hearthstone. Following previous trends, Japanese-influenced CCGs continued to enter the market. These games were either based on cartoons, anime, or manga and included: Naruto, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Bleach, Rangers Strike and the classic series Robotech. Dragon Ball GT was rebooted once again in 2008 and renamed as Dragon Ball. Many other franchises were made into CCGs with a few reboots. Notable ones included Cardfight!! Vanguard, Conan, Battlestar Galactica, Power Rangers, 24 TCG, Redakai, Monsuno, and others, as well as another attempt at Doctor Who in the United Kingdom and Australia. Publisher Alderac released the City of Heroes CCG based on the City of Heroes PC game. Another video game, Kingdom Hearts for the PS2, was turned into the Kingdom Hearts TCG by Tomy. A few other CCGs were released only in other countries and never made it overseas to English speaking countries, including Monster Hunter of Japan, and '' of Indonesia. By the end of 2008, trouble was brewing between Konami, who owned the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh! and its licensee Upper Deck. Meanwhile, strong sales continued with the three top CCGs of Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Magic: the Gathering. The Warhammer series Dark Millennium'' ended its run in 2007. Magic: the Gathering saw a large player boom in 2009, with the release of the Zendikar expansion. The spike in the number of Magic players continued for a few years and leveled off by 2015. Interest also developed with their multiplayer format called Commander. This increase in the player base created a Magic subculture based on finance speculation. New players entering the market from 2009 to 2015 desired cards that were printed before 2009 and with smaller print runs. Demand outstripped quantity and prices of certain cards increased and speculators started to directly manipulate the Magic card market to their advantage. This eventually attracted the interest of the controversial figure Martin Shkreli, former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, for a brief period of time. Prices of cards from previous sets increased dramatically and the American market saw an influx of Chinese counterfeits capitalizing on the demand. This created a unique situation where the most desirable and expensive cards could be printed by counterfeiters, but not by the brand owner, due to a promise made with collectors in 1996 and refined in 2011. In 2015, Wizards of the Coast implemented more anti-counterfeit measures by introducing a holographic foil onto cards with specific rarities, in addition to creating a proprietary font. Between the time period of 2008 to 2016, Magic: the Gathering sold over 20 billion cards. The collectible cards, according to president Dean Irwin, proved to be moderately successful, so Enterplay reprinted the premiere release set mid-February 2014. In March 2018, it was announced that PlayFusion and Games Workshop would team up to create a new Warhammer trading card game. Forbes reported that the global Trading Card Game market size in 2022 was valued at $2.99 billion and it is expected to reach $4.2 billion by 2028. ==Reception==

In 1996, Luke Peterschmidt, designer of Guardians, remarked that unlike board game and RPG players, CCG players seem to assume they can only play one CCG at a time. Often, the less popular CCGs will have localized sales success; in some cities a CCG will be a hit, but in many others it will be a flop. Concerns about gambling Like lootboxes in video games, there are concerns about the random and sealed booster packs. However, challenges to whether booster packs are equivalent to gambling have failed to hold up in court, as CCGs typically follow similar rules established for baseball card distribution. These include that the publisher states what the rarity expectations are for a booster pack, and that all cards they sell have equal value; it is only the secondary market that assigns speculative value to rarer cards that elevates their price. Since the publisher has no interaction with the secondary market, this helps to insulate their from gambling concerns. A survey among users of Reddit's online message boards found little evidence of the need to regulate collectible card games. This concern for gambling plays a big part of the brand messaging for Living Card Games with fixed non-randomized distribution of cards. ==See also==