Why Card Copying May Not Ruin Eye of Judgment

Last week it was revealed that the cards used in Sony's interesting new CCG/Videogame hybrid Eye of Judgement can easily be copied and reused. The large symbols on the cards that register with the game also make them prime candidates for counterfeiting. It may sound dire, but weizur writes with a link to a post on the Zen and Games site that theorizes this may not be the end of the world for the game. "Ultimately the rules of the game change. No longer is it a game about collecting and skill begins to play a much larger role in the game in the long run since personal wealth and ability to acquire cards becomes a non-factor. What Magic has taught us though is that this isn't really a bad thing and much fun can still be had when the game becomes a game of skill and less a game of chance, this is of course in theory as Eye of Judgment probably doesn't have the depth and finesse that Magic has and ultimately the game design of Eye of Judgment and it's ability to be a fun game will be the ultimate test."

Comments

I would play it myself...

[physicsboy500]

but quite frankly, the eye scares the crap out of me.

Re:I would play it myself...

[FinchWorld]

Sure does.

Did I miss something?

[geminidomino]

When did Magic become a game of skill instead of personal wealth?

Re:Did I miss something?

[toleraen]

Probably around 1998, for me at least. The group of friends I played with tended to use proxies for the more expensive cards. It was a lot cheaper, and more fun, to try out new deck ideas that way. No point in spending lots of cash on the real cards just to test out a deck theme, only to find that the idea didn't work as well as you wanted.

Uh...that's what a CCG is.

[apparently]

I can't possibly see people wanting to buy a game then hundreds of cards just for the fun of it. Surely once you buy the game that's all you should need, instead this way you have to keep buying every few months or your cards are too weak and useless in such a cutthroat place like online gaming.

That's the CCG model, just updated for online-play. Having to buy the latest cards hasn't made M:TG die.

Having cards actually be rare is a good thing, if they could pull it off. Games get boring when everyone has access to the same spells and same powerdecks. Sure, the even-playing field means that there's now a skill-requirement (a good thing, as well), but only at the expense of variety. Too bad R&D didn't give the idea more than 2 seconds of thought.

Re:Uh...that's what a CCG is.

[mabhatter654]

even Magic "rare" cards aren't really that rare when the print run is millions. Magic R&D stopped designing sets for "rare" collectors a while ago. Now they design sets and rarity per "box" so that sealed pack play is balanced... the competition circuit will get whatever they want because they're willing to pay 100x cost to get it.

The better plan for an online game might be to use skill or exclusivity as short term ways of varying the game. Doll out exclusive cards by mail and balance them by zip code, it would take a few weeks before they spread to common play. If you used them for tournaments or such the time (to being copied) would be long enough to work. Or go to a WoW type thing where you have to play a "character" and build skill points online before you can use certain cards.... and like WoW as you gain specialization, you limit options to be "all powerful". Find ways to make play fun right NOW, and then release to collectors later after letting the cool factor of the players run it's course.

UID

[Gunslinger47]

Would it have been too expensive to print unique IDs on every card? Card copying is only an issue for online play, after all. Make the UID a hash that gets sent back to the servers, then you could have stopped all casual piracy.

To further reduce the problem, simply track hash failures and duplicate UIDs, then wait a bit for the cheaters to get confident before banning all rampant cheaters for a month, sending angry messages to all moderate cheaters and deleting all offending cards from the database.

Combined technical hurdles and fear tactics would wipe out practically all significant cheating, leaving only the soldering gun / hex editor crowd who you're not going to stop anyway. For them, as TFA says, there's only so far a hacked deck can take you.

Another reason

[Bieeanda]

The guys at Penny-Arcade noted that there's a limited number of each card you can stack in your deck, anyway-- three for most, and some others are even more limited, so it's not like you're going to run up against a guy with a deck that's full of Fruitfucker Behemoths.

Given that Sony seems to be selling the camera separately (or at least making plans to do so), and retailers don't know what to make of it in the first place, the game is probably already doomed to being an odd little gimmick. If they really wanted to go with a collectible game, they would have been better served by something that was wholly online and digital-- the chance of counterfeits goes down substantially there, and the players are only a step away from the card store whenever they turn the console on.

Re:Poker? IROC?

[fistfullast33l]

You mean like Poker, a card game where the players get cards from the same deck?

While I'm not an expert in CCG, I think I would argue that randomness plays a larger part in Poker then in a game like Magic. How random is this game when you can choose the cards you wish to put in your deck before the game begins? That's like stacking a deck in Poker so you always get a flush...