Game designer for Magic: The Gathering explains how a simple card game makes over $1 billion

It’s considered one of the biggest card games of all time and rakes in close to $2 billion every year - but chances are you’ve never heard of it.

With over 40 million players and $1.1 billion (A$1.7 billion) in annual revenue, Magic: The Gathering has cemented its reputation as one of the biggest card games of all time.

And with its push towards casual play, franchise crossovers and collector markets, it’s only set to get bigger.

“Imagine chess, (but) you get to bring all of your own pieces,” explained Gavin Verhey, a principal designer for the trading card game. “It’s this incredible game with a lot of variety.”

Mr Verhey has been working on the game since 2011, and spoke to news.com.au about the reason for its continued success since its creation over three decades ago.

One factor he said contributed to the game’s new popularity was an extreme surge in profits after the Covid pandemic, with people emerging from their homes looking for ways to interact with people again.

“I think in today’s age, a game that gets people around the table playing with each other in person is just this incredible connective tissue, right?” Mr Verhey said.

“Like we’ve all just come off of a couple years of lockdown, and we’re able to go out and be with people … our game literally has ‘The Gathering’ in the name!”

A game of Magic: The Gathering at a home table. Picture: Wizards of the Coast

A large element of the game’s recent financial success is the introduction of crossovers within Magic.

The new ‘Universes Beyond’ label has meant that they’ve been able to introduce more players to the game by adapting their favourite franchises, such as The Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who and Jurassic Park. Recently, they announced that they’d be adapting the Marvel superhero franchise into a series of cards.

“The Lord of the Rings. It was a huge thing for us. When I was a kid, I grew up reading Lord of the Rings ... And so to get to turn that into a card set that people that resonated so strongly with was really special.”

Verhey confirmed that their Lord of the Rings cards “did incredibly well”, and that it would be a “huge” piece of their financial year. News.com.au later confirmed that it is expected to become their best-selling set of all time.

Magic: The Gathering and comic publisher Marvel recently announced a collaboration in the game. Picture: Wizards of the Coast

Another aspect of the brand’s success was moving away from a solely competitive format, with the introduction of the wildly successful ‘commander’ format allowing for more casual play among new players.

In the ‘commander’ format, four players buy or make a deck that’s themed around a single card that they like, and take turns going around the table experimenting with different combinations of cards to help them win. Since its introduction, ‘commander’ quickly became the most popular way to play the game.

“For the first 20 or so years of Magic life, it really was just a competitive game,” he said. “Most of the magic was one-on-one. And now with the advent of ‘commander’, we’re keeping all the competitive players we already had – and making even more of them – while also bringing a whole new crew in.”

Mr Verhey compared the success of this format to the success of the board game market. Board games are currently valued globally at over $11 billion, with an expected growth of up to 11 per cent within the next five years.

Gavin Verhey, Principal Designer for Magic: The Gathering. Picture: Supplied

Collectibility is also a factor. Magic: The Gathering sells a series of packs called ‘collector boosters’, filled with rarer cards with special and exclusive art for players with more money to spend.

Recently, WOTC introduced ‘serialised’ cards: limited versions of cards with numbered stamps on them, only available to the lucky few who can pull them in a collector booster.

When their crossover with The Lord of the Rings was released, WOTC also released a ‘1-of-1’ card of ‘The One Ring’, with exclusive art that only one person would ever find.

When it was found by a retail worker in Toronto, it was sold to celebrity musician Post Malone for $2 million – over $3 million in AUD.

“The people who love collecting have really enjoyed digging and finding things,” Mr Verhey said. “Not every single collectable treatment gets everybody excited, but every collectable treatment has some people who are super excited for it.”

But at its core, Mr Verhey believes the popularity of Magic is its ability to form friendships between strangers.

“I’ve travelled all around the world,” Mr Verhey – who once wrote about falling down into a volcano in the Caribbean – said. “You can find Magic in so many corners.

“I was in South Africa. I walked into a game store and did not know a person, and immediately I had a group of friends who all wanted to hang out, play a game together and talk. Even here in Australia … It’s this instant connection. And to me that is, well, magic.”