Trading Card Games and the Paradox of Choice

Magic brought with it an enormous boom in the then-new trading card game genre, with dozens of competitors beginning and ending in the 1990s alone. As the genre's solidified, we've seen the benefits (creative) and downsides (largely financial) of having random components and uneven player access to your game. One benefit that I haven't seen talked about, I think because it's subtle, also has something to do with how Magic has an enormous player population for a game of its complexity level – that incomplete
access to components helps dodge the Paradox of Choice.

Don't Make Me Think

Part of being a good game designer involves knowing when to do things your players don't like. Sometimes this is because your responsibility is to give players enough challenges that they have fun while suffering at the same time; sometimes this is because you genuinely know better than your players in how to give them a fun time. There are many cases where you can't give players what they say they want because it will make the game worse for them in practice: In this article, I argue that although people say they want more control and decision points in Magic, Magic's lack of them compared to other trading card games is what has made the game both highly accessible and long-lasting.