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RE: The Power of a Narrative: Breaking the Juvenile Stereotype of Gaming
The only bummer with Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone, and other games like that, is that they're designed to suck up your time.
Due to the rate of how fast cards come out, you have to spend 10-20 hours per week just to maintain basic knowledge of the game. WIth chess you can walk away and come back a year later and the game is the same - Magic forces you to constantly engage.
Even though the game is great, I find it hard to fit it into my life as an adult for that reason. However, I 100% with you that the game itself is worthy of respect.
That is absolutely true, it's both a time and resource sink to get to a certain level. My first few months were absolutely consumed with anxious preparation for even basic-level play. But I have found that even though the learning curve is steep, it plateaus off quickly and all the new sets aren't nearly as daunting depending on the format.
It definitely is a sacrifice in many ways to maintain this form of gaming. Video games can easily be chucked after a few dozen hours but the competitive and social grind of MtG is definitely unforgiving. The more interesting comparison I've come to make is in relation to sports hobbies. We rarely calculate the number of hours and amount of resources over the long run when it comes to weekend tennis or fishing, yet even competitive and goal-oriented gaming is discriminated as a distraction...
I agree... this is one of the reasons I stopped playing Yu-Gi-Oh! Altogether.
I love Android Netrunner although I don't play as much as I wish I could, because the cards come out at a set pace, and no booster packs are required to get cards - so, no randomness! You just buy the expansions as they come out.
It's one of the best games I've ever seen for tying in its narrative/theming with the actual gameplay mechanics as well - heavily cyberpunk themed, and for example, when you take 'brain damage' you reduce your max hand size, but when you take enough brain damage to make you go below 0, your runner 'flatlines'.