I’m not surprised that collectible card games are booming, but I am baffled by them. In nearly every way, random booster packs in CCGs do not serve customers as well as the standard tabletop method of including all cards in the game.

Imagine an alternate universe in which Ark Nova–the #2 game on BoardGameGeek, featuring 255 unique cards–was a CCG. Instead of just buying the game and getting those 255 cards, the only way to get those cards is by buying random booster packs (or by turning to the secondary market). All you want is the cheetah card, but you keep opening farm animals that you already have.

If I’m pitching that game to you, it makes no sense, right? When the customer buys the game, just give them the game–how does it serve them to only have some cards and not others via random booster packs?

Yet it’s clear that people like CCGs. That includes me! I’ve played Magic off and on since 1993–I literally hosted a Reality Fracture draft a few weeks ago. I’ve also dabbled in a few other CCGs (enough to make a top 10 earlier this year; most are tabletop, and a few are digital).

So in the list below I look at the reasons why CCGs justify the use of random booster packs as a way to serve customers, accompanied by tabletop counterpoints. I talk about several of these in yesterday’s YouTube video.

• discovery: you can’t just see everything right away (counter: Ark Nova, Wingspan, Earth)
• draft: get a random hand of cards, pick one, pass the rest (counter: 7 Wonders, Sushi Go, Blood Rage)
• collectability: you can spend $5 on a pack of cards that contains a $50 card (counter: non-random games can be collectible and resellable too)
• uniqueness: my deck is different than yours (counter: Root, Scythe, Star Wars Deckbuilding)
• rarity: helps players value cards in a draft and it feels good to open something rare, like a treasure hunt (counter: games like Fliptoons note the quantity of each card on the card itself and Falling’s random shiny VP cards)
• community: encourage people to interact with each other through trading, organized play, and tournaments (counter: Catan, Dice Throne)
• self expression: highlight your creativity via deck construction (counter: any game with multiple paths to victory, plus living card games for deck construction)
• thrill of opening a pack: it’s exciting to reveal the unknown (counter: drawing a hand of cards in deckbuilding games like Clank and opening boxes in legacy games like Charterstone)
• cost: random boosters offer a cheaper buy-in when the customer doesn’t actually need everything (counter: any game with expansions, like Mindbug, Star Realms, Rolling Realms)
• retailer support: CCGs can comprise a significant portion of a local retailer’s revenue stream (counter: there are successful retailers who solely focus on non-CCG games)

In addition to these counterpoints, there are also some straight-up cons for random booster packs: duplicates and waste, scalping/tampering, and gambling issues. For so many newer, smaller CCGs I see announced, they just as easily could have been standard tabletop games with all cards included in a single box.

I also have a few edge-case examples, games that try to offer the feel of random booster packs while avoiding the cons:

• KeyForge: You don’t know what you’re getting when you open a KeyForge deck, so there is a sense of discovery. However, the cards in each deck have a unique back from all other decks, so there’s no rarity or trading of individual cards.
• Gudnak: This dueling card game offers deck construction and strong asymmetry. When you buy a Gudnak set or faction, you get everything. However, the publisher is experimenting with also offering random packs for draft, and those packs feature cards with alternate art.
• Skirm (Vantage spoiler): Each copy of my cooperative open-world game, Vantage, includes a randomized pack of a CCG played by the people of the Vantage planet.

Now, I know there’s one big obvious aspect I haven’t mentioned here: CCGs have made publishers a lot of money. But I don’t care about that. I care about serving customers and bringing joy to tabletops. That’s the only lens I care about for this discussion: Are there any ways that random booster packs serve customers better than their tabletop counterparts?

I’m genuinely asking, because random booster packs resonate with a lot of people. That much is clear. There is probably a viable way to offer them as an optional add-on for some tabletop games that (a) removes the cons of CCGs, (b) doesn’t impede the core, complete experience of the game, and (c) is truly fun for customers. What do you think? Have you seen this?

Also read:

• The Perils of Selling Scarcity: Some Recent Thoughts on Magic
• The One Ring and Extreme Rarity in Games

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