Talk:Collectible card game

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This article is part of WikiProject Board and table games, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to board games and tabletop games. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Contents

[edit] History Section

This page could really use a == History == section... any takers? -- Netoholic 05:15, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, it looks like we've got one, now, but I think someone has taken the term "collectible card game" to mean "any card game that is of interest to collectors" rather than the "wide pool of cards from which players build decks" concept. Should this be split off to a separate article? --McGeddon 09:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This is the History of Card Games that are played using specially designed sets of cards, rather than card games that are played with a normal deck of playing cards. This is the background of where ccg cards came from, they did not just appear. Many of the modern strategic rules developed out of these earlier games, as well as the concepts of illustrations. Since they are Collectible Card Games, if it was split off to a separate article what would it be called? Is this Modern Trading Cards/CCG information under the wrong heading? --Mothergoosesattic 12:40, 16 August 2007

You're right that these games are ancestors of modern collectible card games, but they're not closely enough connected to the subject of the article to merit this much space. Dedicated deck card game might be a good article for the same information, following Category:Dedicated deck card games - if not, perhaps a section on the card game page. --McGeddon 09:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I would be inclined to agree with the proposal to have much of this content migrated to Dedicated deck card game. As it stands now, the information presented just doesn't fit into the current article with its concept of collectible card games. -- Slordak 13:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Magic as the First

It should be noted that Richard Garfield invented this style of games with Magic: The Gathering. Not that it was just "the first widely known."

Magic: the Gathering was not the first CCG. TSR published a game called Spellfire, based on Dungeons & Dragons, before MTG. Some believe that TSR was bought by Wizards so that Wizards could have a valid patent claim. --12.106.111.10 13:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

A quick Google search turns up many sites with the same story that Spellfire came out later, with no mention of an earlier invention. Do you have evidence of some kind to back this up?

Spellfire did come out later and was in direct response to Magic. - 24.10.95.220 04:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
As someone who was in the hobby during the birth of the CCG, I can say that Spellfire didn't come first. --Century 01:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Verification of TCG Origins; Reasons for WotC Acquisiton of TSR

Comments on three distinct but related points: First, accurately stated Dr. Garfield "re-invented" trading card games after approximately a 90 year hiatus from the Allegheny Card Game (a baseball TCG of 1904) since neither he, nor anyone else at the time knew of the earlier trading card game.

Second, Spellfire was release in third quarter 1994, almost exactly one year after commercial release of Magic: The Gathering at GenCon 1993. Source material includes GenCon catalogues (which were of course printed by TSR) for both 1993 and 1994.

Third, Spellfire was already well dead as a commercially viable product in 1997 when TSR was bought by WotC. It is believed that WotC's valuation was twofold: the latent value of the Dungeons & Dragons brand, and ruminations that leverage obligations to State Street Bank and a poorly negotiated deal with Random House Publishing were on the verge of sending the D&D brand into bankruptcy hell from which the it may never have emerged as a socially relevant product. One of the great upshots of the WotC buyout is that it enabled David Arneson, who had long been estranged from the D&D game that he created by persons of influence within TSR, was able to re-establish a positive relationship with D&D fans and the game he helped invent.

[edit] Says who?

"According to top ten lists, Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! are the two most popular CCGs around." I've removed the above comment, from the introduction of the article, on several grounds. Firstly it's unsourced; what 'Top Ten Lists'? Secondly, popular in what sense; favourite game or best selling? Thirdly, if going on 'favourite' for question two, who was polled; if it was just a number of 'industry experts' or even Scrye readers then that can hardly be said to be representative of all CCG players. Fourthly, timing issues; even if this comment was true in every way when first added in how do we know it still is in a field as fluid as CCGs? etc. --Stenun 06:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject

A Collectible Card Game Wikiproject needs to be created. There are many, many articles about CCGs, and most of them do not meet standards and are not good articles. If no one else would like to start it, I will, but I will not be able to contribute a huge amount of content to the subject, because I am not particularly knowledgeable about CCGs other than Magic: The Gathering, which I used to play avidly. Anyways, I am willing to start the wikiproject if there is some support among the wiki community; if others are willing to help with such a project, I do not mind leading it. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

What, you don't like my writing?! :) Seriously, though, many of the existing pages are relatively good in terms of summarizing key game details. I agree there are a few pages (primarily for the games popular with younger audiences) where the page is nothing more than a card list, but for the most part, we have decent first stabs at things. There's always more detail which can be added by experts about a given game, true, but we don't want to simply duplicate the rulebook to "add more information". What sort of information do you feel is missing from the existing pages? - Slordak 20:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm not saying the pages don't have enough information. Many of them have to much information. For example, I recently ran across the Pokemon CCG article. It had a list of major tournaments, who won those tournaments, where they were located, etc. That kind of info doesn't need to be on the main page of the CCG.
Also, a lot of the information that is there is not very well organized. Many games post wholesale descriptions of the rules, instead of giving a description that doesn't go into too many details, but helps users who do not know anything about CCGs and do not care to spend an hour to find out. Maybe a general description of basic concepts of the game; not a rules list.
Formatting issues factor in, also. The same tournament information I was just talking about should have been in a table form, or at least bulleted, but it was not. I changed that, but standards need to be set so that the articles at least have some semblance of cohesiveness and integrity; so it doesn't look like wikipedia hosts several CCG fansites. A main article should not go into every detail of the subject, but give an overview of important information and themes that the subject relates to. Many CCG articles currently are just jumbles of facts and information, as opposed to articles, and I think starting a Wikiproject would help reverse that tendency.
Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs
The problem is that everyone has their own idea about what is an appropriate level of detail. An explanation of the game system and what players do during their turns helps to explain what type of game it is, and how it differs from its peers. Do you have an example of a page which you think is well written or does contain information at the appropriate level of detail? For example, how about the page Dark Millennium? It contains a variety of information, and does have some data appropriately formatted in tables. -- Slordak 14:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I still have some minor problems with that article (for example, there is nothing saying why that card game is important, or what makes it stand out from any other sci-fi/space CCG), but overall, it is a well-written article. The gameplay is clearly and relatively concisely laid out, and there is not too much random information about leagues and tournaments lying around (maybe there are no leagues or tournaments; that's what I'd guess based on the article, I don't really know). The main gripe that I have is that it's all about how to play the game. There is nothing in the article that explains why the game exists, why it's popular, or even how popular it is. That kind of statistics may not be available, but there should at least be a figure somewhere stating how many units this particular game has sold.
Actually, though, I think that it would take a wikiproject to get all CCG articles at least up to the level of that Dark Millennium. Even sticking with CCGs popular enough to have their own categories, there is a lot of room for improvement. I am sure those that do not have enough related articles to deserve categories have even more problems than ones with categories.
Looking only at games that have enough attention to have their own subcategories within Category: Collectible card games, I found disturbing patterns. None of them managed to keep the description of gameplay concise enough to fit in my browser window, only Magic: The Gathering had anything that mentioned controversy outside of the gameplaying community, and only Magic: The Gathering described why the game was important, or what significance it had, or the game's relation to anything other than the game.
I think that a wikiproject could solve all of these issues, and also allow us to create standards by which articles that recieve even less attention could be rewritten to create a category that would be easy to understand, and to bring across to people why CCGs are so popular.
Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs P.S. It seems like I'm speaking a lot in favor of the Magic article, but I have problems with it, too; just some different problems that some of the other articles.

Well, until a Collectible Card Game WikiProject is created, be aware that Wikipedia:WikiProject Board and table games has been, with the intention of including in its scope all card games other than Poker and Bridge (and, I suspect we'll quickly decide, Magic: The Gathering specifically). No intention to step on any toes, mind you, but feel free to participate. Stellmach 18:08, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Magic, Baseball, or what?

I see this was discussed above, but it seems perhaps no consensus has been reached on the evidence. In its current state the page makes contradictory claims as to whether Magic: The Gathering or The Base Ball Card Game was the first CCG. Stellmach 11:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1889 Card games

Im pretty sure that the 1st CCG ever was made by nintendo in 1889 in Japan.

Well, I typed in Nintendo 1889, and got the wikipedia page for Nintendo. Here is a copy/paste of the 1889 paragraph:

"Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi near the end of 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The handmade cards soon began to gain popularity, and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass produce cards to keep up with the demand."

I'm not sure if that counts as a CCG or TCG, but I thought I should let you know

Hanafuda are classified as such:

"Though refined card games were played in Japan by the nobility since its early eras, they were not commonly used for gambling, nor played by the lower classes. This changed, however, in the 18th year of Tenmon (A.D. 1549) when Saint Francisco Xavier landed in Japan. The crew of his ship had carried a set of Hombre (48-card Portuguese) playing cards from Europe, and card games, or more specifically, gambling card games, became extremely popular with the Japanese. When Japan subsequently closed off all contact with the Western world in 1633, foreign playing cards were banned.Despite the ban, gambling with cards remained highly popular. Private gambling during the Tokugawa Shogunate was illegal. Because playing card games per se were not banned, new cards were created with different designs to avoid the restriction. For example, an anonymous game player designed a card game known as "Unsun Karuta". These cards were decorated with Chinese art, each depicting Chinese warriors, weaponry, armor, and dragons. This deck consisted of 75 cards, and was not as popular as the Western card games had been simply because of the difficulty of becoming familiar with the system. When gambling with a particular card deck design became too popular, the government banned those cards to restrict gambling activity, which then prompted the creation of new cards. This cat and mouse game between the government and rebellious gamblers resulted in the creation of many differing designs.

Over the next few decades, several new card games were developed and subsequently banned due to the fact that they were used almost exclusively for gambling purposes. However, the government began to realize that some form of card games would always be played by the populace, and began to relax their laws against gambling. The eventual result of all this was a game called Hanafuda, which combined traditional Japanese games with Western-style playing cards. Because hanafuda cards do not have numbers (the main purpose is to associate images) and the long length to complete a game, it has a partially limited use for gambling. However, it is still possible to gamble by assigning points for completed image combinations.

By this point, however, card games were not nearly as popular as they had been due to past governmental repression.

In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai for the purposes of producing and selling hand-crafted Hanafuda cards painted on mulberry tree bark. Though it took awhile to catch on, soon the Yakuza began using Hanafuda cards in their gambling parlors, and card games became popular in Japan again. Today, Hanafuda is commonly played in Hawaii and Korea, though under different names. In Hawaii, it is called Sakura, Higobana and sometimes Hanafura; in Korea it is 화투 (Hwatu).[1] It is also played in the former Japanese colony of Micronesia, where it is known as Hanafuda. It is a four-person game, and is often paired cross-table, though the Korean and Japanese versions are usually played with three players, with two-person variants. Despite its focus on video games, Nintendo still produces the cards, although this business is diminishing.

Thats the wiki article. Its a bit lengthy, but I'm still not sure if they count as CCG. LordSkane 18:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bottom of page junk

What is all this junk on the bottom of the page. I have deleted it, but if someone had a valid reason for having it there, explain before putting it back. Here's a copy of it: thats all the game works in the card game 4 people are play on chose the collor and other paly javaid malik Mathman1550 (talk) 23:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New internet play paragraph

The new paragraph in Internet play:

New to the scene of internet play is Chaotic witch it the first online trading card game (OTCG). Unlike CCG games, chaotic allows players to download the data from real life cards onto a free online account. This is used by entering a unique alpha-numeric code found on each card. Along with playing online, players can also trade their E cards with other players on the server, making an online card collection completely different then the real life collection.

This paragraph seems to have conflicting facts with the older portion of the section. In addition, it seems to be added just to advertise the Chaotic TCG. Also its positioning in the section seems to be contrary to the flow of the article. Any input on how we can better integrate any of this into the article and dump anything that can not be integrated? If no one responds or tries to improve it in a week or so I will just remove the paragraph. Mathman1550 (talk) 14:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

It's blatant pushing of the game in question, in my opinion. One can try and move this up a couple paragraphs where there are some other notes about different implementations for online games, but overall, it doesn't add much value. This is not the first time someone has tried to push this "Chaotic" game on Wikipedia. --Slordak (talk) 17:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm gonna move it and cut it down. If anyone doesn't like how its done, you are welcome to do it your own way, just don't put it back to the way it was before I edited. Mathman1550 (talk) 20:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)