this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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I'm someone who has tried to get into the game, multiple times over (and still want to!) but never managed to do it where I feel comfortable playing. This is more of a personal problem, but I remember being able to teach myself the game a lot easier before than now. I used to play DL extensively but gave up after 3 years.
There is a very good reason why Rush Duels exist - TCG and OCG became too saturated and power crept. Konami knows this very well.
Despite best efforts from anyone involved, the game is very closeted and hard to get into because of the complexity and partially because of the community surrounding the game.
That, combined with Konami's way of marketing TCG (they depend heavily on content creators) means they'll always be niche by comparison.
Master Duel isn't helping anyone. It's its own thing and it is treated as such. Because of that, there isn't much of an overlap between IRL and digital Yu-Gi-Oh players.
This matters because there's a lot of IRL players who don't care about MD whatsoever (and vice versa). This is a pretty big missed marketing opportunity.
Sure, Konami has their reasons for keeping it this way but it's slowly but surely backfiring as we can see.
Their lazy approach to solving the game's fundamental problems are starting to show. They wanted to keep good graces of whales (both IRL and MD) because they would be pissed if TCG and OCG were to merge. And that merge would at least allow MD to go inline with IRL game and be a unified experience.
They're more afraid of losing those potential IRL players, but realistically I think they'd profit more from MD if it followed OCG rules because I don't believe there are that many new TCG/OCG players coming in, whereas they do have a better potential via a digital game.
I want this game to be better because I love it. It can be better and it's frustrating when you know that it's could be better, but it isn't.
Konami will never prioritize MD over physical play.
Firstly, physical play is just more fun. The social interaction is a big deal for TCGs.
And secondly, physical play is way more profitable. Master duel probably barely makes money if you consider the upkeep while the TCG rakes in money. The average TCG players spends way more than the average MD player. I’m gonna take myself for example, I have spent about 30$ on master duel when it released but I go to 3 locals per week for a total of 15$. Now the 30$ i spent on master duel is mostly profit because there’s no physical product to manufacture, ship, etc. With the game being about a year and a half old, that comes to about 20$ per year. However, even if konami only gets about let’s say 1$ per tournament i go to (which seems likely) they still make 3$ a week which is 156$ per year. so a single tcg player is worth at least 8 master duel player. And i don’t think that master duel can ever be 10 times as popular as the TCG.
So that’s probably why konami has been pushing to get people into the TCG with duel links, speed duel, rush duel, and master duel.
But here's the thing - it's not pushing anyone. It's failing miserably because of those differences in game styles.
The player bases are almost always mutually exclusive. That's why I said there's very little overlap between IRL and digital players.
It's because of the MD's status quo in the TCG player base they're not even thinking about playing MD in the first place. Most players see it as a fun little one off thing they could play and that's it. New players, those that do come in, just use DB most of the time to learn TCG/OCG.
MD quickly becomes irrelevant as soon as you actually start playing physically because most of the times those players don't get to play the same decks and games IRL anyway.
If anything, since TCG and OCG bring in more money, wouldn't it be smarter to lure some of those players back into MD as well? Y'know, advertise and market the games better to each other's player bases?
It feels like a no brainer to me to market Speed Duels and Rush Duels to Duel Links players, and vice versa, despite the differences in this case.
Same with MD and TCG/OCG, although the differences in rules here apply more due to the complexity, but even then, I think it's established itself well enough to do some sort of cross promo or something.
I just think the lack of trying from Konami's part is what is the worst about this. They could've pushed it a bit harder than just "here's the game, it exists" and that's it.
It's their strategy of counting on players who get into DL will get into MD and physical games. But that happens much less than they anticipated. That could also very well be one of the reasons why there's less and less players.
MD is in limbo in any case. It's merely a marketing tool for Konami, while it could've been much more in coexistence with the physical game.
I’m gonna go point by point for the sake of clarity but I just want to make it clear that I’m not trying to say you’re wrong. I generally agree that MD did not live up to it’s potential to grow the game.
First point, I agree the different formats are a problem. But MD still helps teach new players the base mechanic of the game, and offers a very convoluted ruling database.
Second point, nobody has data on that except maybe Konami, but I think the overlap must be quite significant.
Third point, I actually think MD is the best place for new players. Being automatic is probably easier for new players, and the alternative aren’t great. Omega is pretty janky from my experience, edopro is probably the best one but it looks like an open-source project because it is, and dueling nexus is dueling nexus.
Fourth point, I don’t think having different decks is necessarily a bad thing. For more casual play it’s more diversity. Though I will say when I have to prepare for an event I will just play test on DB
Fifth, from Konami’s perspective it makes more sense to bring the players from the less expensive game to the more expensive one than vice-versa.
Sixth point, I’m gonna pretend that rush duel doesn’t exist because it doesn’t here but the ultimate goal from Konami’s perspective is to get more TCG players.
Seventh point, cross-promo is kinda pointless here. The players from both game already know that the other exists.
Eight point, you’re right that they could have done way better than they did, let’s not pretend they don’t support the game. They have lots of events, they have worlds, they release banlist way more regularly than the TCG. They did use to abandon their game but that’s not really applicable to MD if you compare to like legacy of the duelist.
Ninth point, honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if DL made more money than MD. So I don’t think they really mind if DL players stay on DL. Also the game is growing. Not fast but it is growing.
Tenth point, yeah i agree that it isn’t in the best place possible but I don’t really see how it could’ve been more in coexistence with the TCG without just being official YgoPro.