November 23, 2023· 59 min

Magic the Gathering's Creator Wants to Create an Even Better Game

Orality

Model

50%

Speaker Breakdown

HostTracy Alloway(1,839 words)

M:94%

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,798 words)

M:94%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic40%

huge, totally, very

Engagement84%

you, our, your

Memory Aids100%

listen, so, like

Repetition100%

like (150x), know (147x), game (99x)

Parallelism99%

And I'm Joe Wasenthal...., And then outside of that, it's..., So it's like, you know what?...

Sound Patterns51%

56 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"

Formulaic Phrases7%

you know what, i mean, the thing is

Literate Indicators

Hedging5%

could, probably, possibly

Passive Voice9%

was taken, was obsessed, being used

Abstract Nouns16%

investment, business, capacity

Subordination6%

although, until, because

Sentence Length41%

Avg: 15.2 words/sentence

Word Complexity44%

investment, analyze, anticipate

Academic Markers0%

Impersonal Style16%

927 personal pronouns found

Descriptive Style95%

apply, really, partly

Description

Since bursting onto the scene in the mid-1990s, Magic the Gathering has become one of the most popular games of all time, with millions of players collecting cards to battle each other in an imaginary fantasy realm. But Magic's early success came with a problem: the price of the game's most powerful and rare cards surged along with its popularity. Eventually, Magic's creators worried that the game would become too expensive and was at risk of becoming a short-lived fad. So, how do you pop a bubble in collectibles without completely alienating collectors? In this episode, we speak with Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic the Gathering, and Arka Ray, a long-time game developer at Microsoft who's now CEO of Richard's new gaming studio, Popularium. They talk about the surprising parallels between MTG and central banking, what they've learned from Magic, and how they're applying those lessons to Chaos Agents, Popularium's first new gaming launch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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