Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectible card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game and had approximately fifty million players as of February 2023. Over twenty billion Magic cards were produced in the period from 2008 to 2016, during which time it grew in popularity. As of the 2022 fiscal year, Magic generates over $1 billion in revenue annually.
Richard Channing Garfield is an American mathematician, inventor and game designer. Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, which is considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). Magic debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations.
Hasbro, Inc. is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herman Hassenfeld and is incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of Kenner, Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, and Wizards of the Coast, among others. As of August 2020, over 81.5% of its shares were held by large financial institutions.
Wizards of the Coast LLC is an American game publisher, most of which are based on fantasy and science-fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail game stores. In 1999, toy manufacturer Hasbro acquired the company and currently operates it as a subsidiary. During a February 2021 reorganization of Hasbro, WotC became the lead part of a new division called "Wizards & Digital".
The United States Playing Card Company is a large American producer and distributor of playing cards. It was established in 1867 as Russell, Morgan & Co. and founded in Cincinnati, Ohio in its current incarnation in 1885. Its many brands include Bicycle, Bee, Tally-Ho, Champion, Congress, Aviator, Aristocrat, Mohawk, Maverick, KEM, Hoyle and Fournier. It also produces novelty and custom playing cards, and other playing card accessories such as poker chips. For decades the company was based in Norwood, Ohio, but as of 2009, the USPC is currently headquartered in the Cincinnati suburb of Erlanger, Kentucky.
The Duel Masters Trading Card Game is a two-player or two vs. two team collectible card game (CCG) jointly developed by Wizards of the Coast and Takara Tomy. The card game is part of the Duel Masters franchise.
Spanish-suited playing cards or Spanish-suited cards have four suits, and a deck is usually made up of 40 or 48 cards. It is categorized as a Latin-suited deck and has strong similarities with the Portuguese-suited deck, Italian-suited deck and some to the French deck. Spanish-suited cards are used in Spain, Southern Italy, parts of France, Hispanic America, North Africa, and the Philippines.
Peter D. Adkison is an American game designer and businessman who is the founder of Wizards of the Coast, where he held the role of CEO from 1993 to 2001.
SCRYE was a gaming magazine published from 1994 to April 2009 by Scrye, Inc. It was the longest-running periodical to have reported on the collectible card game hobby. It was also the leading print resource for secondary-market prices on Magic: The Gathering. The name, a registered trademark, is adapted from the Middle English word scry meaning "to foretell the future through a suitable medium".
Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) is a game developer based in Roseville, Minnesota, United States, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, card, and dice games. As of 2014, it is a division of Asmodee North America.
Naipes Heraclio Fournier S.A. is a playing card manufacturer based in Vitoria, Spain with a factory in Legutio. It has been owned by the United States Playing Card Company since 1986, which was acquired by Belgium–based Cartamundi in 2020.
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. It was introduced with Magic: The Gathering in 1993.
Magic: The Gathering Arena or MTG Arena is a free-to-play digital collectible card game developed and published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC). The game is a digital adaption based on the Magic: The Gathering (MTG) card game, allowing players to gain cards through booster packs, in-game achievements or microtransaction purchases, and build their own decks to challenge other players. The game was released in a beta state in November 2017, and was fully released for Microsoft Windows users in September 2019, and a macOS version on June 25, 2020. Mobile device versions were released in March 2021.
A digital collectible card game (DCCG) or online collectible card game (OCCG) is a computer or video game that emulates collectible card games (CCG) and is typically played online or occasionally as a standalone video game. Many DCCGs are types of digital tabletop games and follow traditional card game-style rules, while some DCCGs use alternatives for cards and gameboards, such as icons, dice and avatars. Originally, DCCGs started out as replications of a CCG's physical counterpart, but many DCCGs have foregone a physical version and exclusively release as a video game, such as with Hearthstone.
ASS Altenburger is since 2003 the trademark of the German playing card manufacturer Spielkartenfabrik Altenburg, based in the town of Altenburg. The firm is owned by Cartamundi, of Turnhout, Belgium. ASS claims to be the market leader in Germany for playing cards. Every year almost 40 million packs of cards of many different types are manufactured in Altenburg.
Magic: The Gathering finance or MtG finance is the financial management and investment as it pertains to the collectibility and playability of the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. Investments are typically made in single cards whose value are expected to rise over time such as from a shifting metagame or low quantities of cards that may or may not increase in value due to a growing playerbase and their demand. Like the stock market, cards are generally bought at a low price and/or are sold at a higher price during peak demand at a later date. Speculation is common as investors seek to predict which of 20,000+ unique cards will avoid a reprint thereby creating more demand. Speculation also occurs in the selling of card assets when a reprint is expected in an effort to maximize financial gain and minimize loss. Most financing is done through the buying and selling of cards, though some investors have traded their way to cards of higher value, or expected to gain value in the future. Additionally, some speculators have gone as far as manipulating the market by buying up large quantities of a single card in order to artificially inflate a card's price.
The tabletop game industry is the economic sector involved in the development, marketing, and monetization of games that fall within the scope of tabletop games, which includes dice and card games. According to Statista, the tabletop game industry had an estimated market of approximately 7.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 and is expected to increase by 4.8 billion U.S. dollars within the next 6 years.
Grimaud is a brand of playing cards published by France Cartes Cartamundi, a manufacturer of playing cards and board games based in Lorraine.
France Cartes Cartamundi is a manufacturer of playing cards and games that is based in France at Saint-Max. The company introduced the Ducale brand of playing cards in 1946 and became the largest playing card manufacturer in France in 1962 after acquiring their competitor, Grimaud. Other brands marketed by France Cartes include Shuffle, Carta Magic, Grimaud Cartomancie, and Éditions Dusserre. France Cartes was acquired by Cartamundi in 2014.
