MTG Arena Economy Update Raises Eyebrows
Magic: the Gathering Arena released an update on the economy of the digital game. Players did the math. Take a look.
MTG Arena made a big economy update today, designed to address the “robust conversation” about MTG Arena’s pricing. In the announcement and accompanying video they outline their plans for Arena going forward.
Meanwhile, our silence has probably made things more difficult. This is a tough topic, and one we wanted to address holistically instead of piecemeal. We do hear you, and we’re ready to start having this conversation.
This is the start of that conversation. This is not a day where we’re going to solve every problem the community has raised. We’re going to discuss the core vision for MTG Arena and how that translates to the economy we have today. We’ll discuss some of the issues we’ve seen, both in our data and from the community. Finally, we’ll discuss a few more short-term things we are doing to address some of the feedback.
MTG Arena Details
You can find a full list of the details by following the link at the end of the article. But what makes it all stand out is the new
First and foremost, we’re looking to balance the needs of our various players, whether they are trying out Magic for the very first time or have been playing for decades. Most tend to fall somewhere in the days, months, and years between the two.
Next, we also try to encourage what we consider to be healthy play behaviors; we don’t want players to feel like they must play ten hours each day and complete all their daily wins to remain competitive. Our quests are based on playing, not winning, games of Magic, with a once-a-day reroll option that lets players tailor their experience if one of the quests doesn’t quite fit their preferred playstyle. Daily win rewards are front loaded—most of the rewards available on a day-to-day basis are earned in the first couple of wins—to reinforce this commitment.
The upshot of all of this is that with the release of Streets of New Capenna, they will release a Wildcard Bundle for $49.99 containing twelve rare and four mythic rare wildcards. But as others have pointed out the $49.99 price to gems ratio could be about 46 booster packs, which comes with as many rares/mythic rares.
It’s a shifting point that will determine the future of Arena. But WotC has opened the conversation.
What do you think?
