The Trouble with Kids Card Games
Written by Author on May 16th, 2009I understand the business motive for setting your card games up like this. You can generate a steady interest among children by creating card games that fosters a sort of “planned scarcity” of resources. It’s not like the card game company couldn’t give everyone what they want, by supplying more of the popular and most useful cards, they simply choose not to.
Booster packs have always been what I don’t appreciate about the current trading card game industry. Most of the trading card games in stores today require kids to buy piles of useless cards in order to get one or two good ones. My local game stores behind the counter space is piled high with discarded cards that nobody wants, because their trading card game insists that chance discovery is preferable to everyone getting the cards they want.
It doesn’t have to be like this. A collectible card game can be just as fun when everyone has access to all the cards. What’s more, the waste of paper and money is sharply reduced if a collectible card game is designed for full access to cards.
Where the play and collectability of a collectible card game centers on the characters and a full deck, game balance is also upheld. If everyone has access to the same tools they can test their ability rather than their bankroll.
It’s like a lottery for kids, as they buy up booster packs to hopefully pick the winning card. The other downside of a trading card game designed this way is that kids can spend themselves into an unfair advantage – affecting game balance and putting new players at a disadvantage.
