On Wednesday Wizards of the Coast released the second downloadable expansion to Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers for Xbox Live Arcade. With it comes the opportunity for Xbox gamers to pay a buck to unlock cards they previously had to earn with victories.
The big difference between Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers and the other online implementation of Wizards of the Coasts' collectible card game was that on Xbox Live players couldn't buy their way into a good deck. Not anymore.
The $5 expansion pack includes three new decks, a new campaign, new challenges and three Achievements. The 11 deck upgrades, sold separately, cost one dollar each and grant the user access to the 20 or so cards per deck that can also be unlocked by beating the computer or other players.
Wizards of the Coast's PC implementation of the collectible card game sticks closer to the business model of the real thing: Players build virtual decks from starter sets and random booster packs that they pay real money for. It can be an expensive hobby, one in which new players can easily find themselves outclassed.
As a casual fan of collectible card games, I'm okay with Wizards of the Coast charging $1 per deck on Xbox Live. I'll never pay the dollar, because I enjoy the process of earning the cards, but I won't fault someone for wanting to skip the grind and play with the game's decks at full power.
And the cards that people pay for are the same cards I'll get for beating the game the old-fashioned way, so in the end they won't have an unfair advantage. The one dollar micro-transaction only saves those players a little time– time I've spent learning the decks and practicing my attacks.
Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast
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