Magic The Gathering Depicts A Female Magic Player; Alt Right Loses Its Mind

Wizards previewed a new card in their upcoming Unstable set.

"Spike" is a term used to describe players who like proving themselves. They are competitive. (This contrasts with Johnny's: who want to express their creativity, and Timmy's: who enjoy the overall experience.)

Mark Rosewater is the head designer for MTG:

On Mark Rosewater's Q&A blog: he got this question: "Greetings Mr. Rosewater, may I ask why Spike is portrayed as a female, when only about 1% of professional players are girls, it's not honest to make people feel included in a representation of a player base they don't belong."

Here is Mark's full response:

"Spike is a psychographic of players who use the game as a means to prove something, often to themselves, sometimes to others. My best guess is that about 25% of the players are Spikes. Spikes are way more than just high end professional players.

Magic currently has somewhere around 12 million active players and the female percentage is somewhere between 25% and 35% (in total play including digital - they are a smaller percentage of people playing in organized play - not because they are uncompetitive but because the environment is often not welcoming).

Let’s assume the low end with 25%. That means there are somewhere around 750,000 female Spikes.

In Unglued, we made Timmy a male. In Unhinged, Johnny was a male. We were finishing out a cycle of which none of which so far had been female, so we decided, hey let’s have some female representation in the cycle rather than none.

Diversity and representation is something we take very seriously. Interestingly, I’ve gotten a lot more notes from people happy to see Spike portrayed as the card as a woman than upset by it.

So, all in all, I’m glad we did it and would do it again in a heartbeat if I had to make the decision again."

So those that resent attempts at diversity have latched on to this statement, specifically "12 million active players". They've gone back to past estimates that MtG has sold to 20 million people in a single year, and using this statement as proof that 8 million people have left the game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/7df43d/did_magic_lose_up_to_8_million_players_40_in_the/

They are blaming this loss in players on appealing to a diverse audience.

Obviously this is bs. Hasbro's public earnings statement shows that revenue from MtG is up.

If you can stomach it, take a look at the comments in this video:

The amount of hate towards women playing the game is staggering.

________UPDATE________

Poor Mark Rosewater has responded a few time to the hysteria on his Q&A blog.

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/167628717693/could-the-8-million-decrease-be-magic-returning-to

"Once again, there has been no drastic change in player numbers. There are just different ways to count “Magic players”. I took the more conservative “active players” number."

Whether Wizards has lost players or not, they're doing the right thing. I haven't followed the game in about 10 years, but it's reassuring to see Mark responding like this.

"not because they are uncompetitive but because the environment is often not welcoming"

This hits the nail on the head so much that it's impossible to ignore. Even if your one of these people that think calling out "faux inclusionism" is a moral high ground that quote is undeniable.

People are out of their goddamned minds.

Wizards has been killing it with introducing diversity to Magic recently. They made a point of including a WOC planeswalker in a supplemental set last year and had outside consultants work on her look and her character. They take it seriously, and it's been nothing but a positive thing.

To be super clear, the other psychographics were gendered ages ago as Timmy and Johnny, and were later given female alternatives - Tammy and Jenny - but Spike has always been a gender-neutral name, so having Spike be depicted as female is perfectly in keeping with the idea. The person asking the question fundamentally misunderstood what Spike means (i.e. it doesn't correlate to success at the Pro Tour level, it just refers to how people enjoy playing the game). And the people making a fuss are exactly the kind of people that either need to learn that their hobby would be much better if it was open and friendly to more people, and that this is totally a good thing, or they need to be purged from the fan base because no one will miss them.

The shrinking of the player base is something that I can speak to very personally, since I stopped actively playing Magic last year - I was a FNM regular, with two Game Day Standard tournament wins (Abzan is best plan), and an MTGO drafter. I am still actively interested in the game, though - I watch pro players streaming or on YT, read up on spoilers, ChannelFireBall and StarCityGames are both still on my bookmarks bar.

There are a ton of reasons to explain the drop in the player base over the past three years, but it's really starting to sound like the difference in numbers is down to interpretation of data more than an actual shrinking of the fan base. Rudy at Alpha Investments is a good egg and a smart guy, but I think this video might have been a bit over dramatic and a bit premature.

The point is, the coinciding of these two threads created a false correlation that confirmed the biases of people who hate diversification in media, and those people are now filling up message boards and YT comments sections and quoting the numbers and saying "SJWs are killing Magic". This has been happening a lot in the past 24 months, and it's going to keep happening. But the point is even if we can confirm that dramatic of a drop in the player base, correlating the drop to inclusivity is totally wrong.

People are trying to pedal a narrative, and these people are sick, and they're afraid, and they've been lied to. Thus is the state of the world in darkest-timeline 2017.

@theoriginalatlas:

There are definitely some serious issues with MTG these days, most specifically a fairly large decline in the print qualities of the cards. But of course some dipshits with tiny penises are going to try and blame it on women.

Wow, I'm at a loss for words, I thought I have seen the most stupid reasons for people to get mad at already, I guess I was wrong.

All I can do is roll my eyes and ignore this.

Shitty people being shitty then wondering why nobody wants to play with them...

Is that community usually like this or is it new?

Where in this post does it state that this person is "alt right"?

What happen to the good old days when people like this were just called "jerks" or "assholes"? Politicizing a person's viewpoints is part of the problem, not a solution.

I think it's worth mentioning (for those not in the know) that this is also what should be considered a joke expansion filled with fun and crazy cards that are not allowed to be played in competitive settings. So they're basically taking something that's supposed to be some light-hearted fun and taking it WAAAY too seriously.

Amen

Agreed

I believe those "jerks" or "assholes" became the alt right.

But to be fair, I'm not seeing the connection to some sort of alt right backlash, though they may as well be two peas in a pod.

@onarum said:

The person asking the question isn't necessarily alt right, but you'll find a good smattering of misogynists in the comments of that youtube video. The alt right has become a haven for trolls, assholes, jerks, and misanthropes of all flavors. Not that it wasn't a horrible place to begin with. That's just the world we live in, in 2017.

Edit: Cleaned up post.

Moved this to Off Topic as it has nothing to do with video games or Giant Bomb.

Keeping this one on a tight leash, the instant it goes off the rails it is getting locked.

@qrowdyy: Dude, there's a "good smattering of misogynists" in the comments of any given youtube video with lots of views, the rarity is finding some without em.

It's the internet that has become a haven for trolls, assholes, jerks, and misanthropes, it has nothing to do with politics; Extremism is never good, doesn't matter if it's left, right, alt right, middle, middle left, mild right or whatever is the names people like to give em, everyone ends up acting like complete jerks at some point because people have the tendency of perceiving everything as dichotomies, and the disturbing lack of ability to see anything but their own point of view.

That's the world we live in.

It's much more politically motivated than just "jerks" and "assholes". There are endless comments blaming women for ruining the game.

It's a sentiment the resents Wizards attempts at diversity. How is that not an inherently political viewpoint?

As a lapsed player I'll just say Wizard's attempts to be more inclusive have been very appreciated, I'm glad they're trying to reach a wider audience. I haven't gone to a draft in over a year but the last few I went to had at least a few female players, I'm sure they appreciate getting a card like this. Even my sister is a player with the "Spike" mentality of playing...they exist. As to the response, there's always been that darker side of the community but from what I've seen they try to do a good job at policing themselves at least at the bigger events. There's jerks in every type of gaming circle unfortunately.

Welp, this is disgusting.

tbh though, I'm kinda not surprised. FNM's and other organized play events are intensely male-dominated to a point of degeneracy, and they're an environment where (often initially awkward or maldeveloped) players learn a very strange mixture of social skills, tournament etiquette and Spike mentality that, on one hand, broke me in on thinking about competitive play (for which I'm thankful), but on the other hand felt like a breeding ground for some shitty patterns of thought. So of course this kind of bullshit was going to surface at some point.

I've been pretty critical of Magic since selling up and bailing on it a few years ago (I think the business model is insidious and I don't like the direction they've taken competitive balance in), but one thing I think Wizards has been doing a very good job of in recent years is the creative side, and in particular the way they've worked diversity into their stories and world-building. Their creative team has been killing it, and I doubt this is going to change anything.

---

As for player drop-off, if the 20mill vs 12mill argument is the best they've got, then it's laughably absurd. But if there is any kind of dropoff, I can only speak anecdotally of my own reasons for leaving: I got sick of the way finances constrained my options and creativity in the game, being manipulated by their lootbox-driven business model, the artificial rarity-driven secondary market which they tacitly (but almost never explicitly) endorsed, the all-but-preordained meta, and the shift towards favouring low-complexity goodstuff.dec archetypes centred around obvious value cards that align with naive intuition rather than complex archetypes centred around intuition-challenging cards and effects. (For an example that exemplifies my issue with development, see their decision in modern to fix the mistake of printing Siege Rhino by banning Birthing Pod.)

None of those problems are related to diversity or a belief that SJWs are ruining the game or the community, and I'd have to be convinced that these factors (and just the expected ebb and flow of people coming in and others losing interest or whatever) aren't playing a part before taking any kind of "SJWs are ruining Magic" narrative seriously. Actually, the fact that the hobby was degenerately male-dominated on the competitive end made it even easier for me to bail, since I'm sick of so many of my hobbies and interests being male-dominated. Hasbro could probably even make me suffer through their filthy business model and the goodstuff balancing if they somehow got even 30% female representation at competitive events and made the general competitive atmosphere less shitty.

This seems like a stupid thing to get mad at. It's a bit troubling that the guy asking the question wrote "it's not honest to make people feel included in a representation of a player base they don't belong"Just because a group is in the minority doesn't mean they don't belong, or shouldn't be depicted. I don't think diversity is a bad thing, but I don't think it's all that important either.

I don't think that anyone should feel like they need to have a checklist of different groups in their game/movie/book etc. If they want to make a character female, or black or trans or whatever because it makes for an interesting narrative or just because they want to they should be allowed to do it without the childish backlash. However, it feels kind of pandering when it's done just to get approval from the communities that find this stuff to be of the utmost importance.

Personally I don't really care. I enjoy playing Bayonetta, or Tomb Raider where strong female characters are in the forefront. I really like watching Supergirl not because the main characters are female and one of them is gay, but because they are bad ass characters and have interesting problems to tackle when they aren't fighting crime like "what if your girlfriend doesn't want a kid but you do?" I haven't seen that question asked in a tv show and certainly not from the perspective of a gay couple.

I think labelling this as an "Alt-Right" problem is a little hyperbolic. People are just a little too sensitive to change because in some cases there have been huge changes in franchises just for the sake of being more feminist or appealing to the "SJW" crowd. Marvel in particular I've seen being levelled with a lot of criticism for that. So when people see even the slightest change they blow it way out of proportion.

Like when people threw a fit over the diversity of the cast in Spider-man Homecoming. It, of course, makes sense to have people of many different races in that because it takes place in one of the most diverse places in America, New York City. I think the whiners would have more of a point if it took place in some small town high school in middle America.

tl;dr: This whole backlash is stupid. Diversity is cool when it makes narrative sense. Diversity is not cool when you are just following a checklist adding characters from different groups for the sole reason that it will attract said group to your product. That isn't social progress that's just cold calculated marketing and I would be insulted to be pandered to in such a way.

I completely agree.

I think if you want to see the better parts of the community, you need to play Limited or Commander. These are also cheaper alternatives to the $200+ you need to spend for competitive constructed.

Excellent post. A few good posts in here honestly talking about how extremism/assholes is the actual issue, it's nice to start seeing more and more of this brought up. Who cares what someone thinks if they aren't harassing, aggressive, or trying to force their viewpoints on others. But the moment they do, the issue isn't their viewpoint, it's that they think they have a right to hurt attack and offend people with it. The problem is as you lay out, your starting to see that on every single side and all of it's permutations because people can't just ignore the trolls/assholes in the first place. They want to get a reaction out of people and people can't show any restraint. And then extremism from any side just leads to more extremism, and it fuels itself. It's why Youtube comments are a place I'm shocked people still read and take seriously. They are for children, there is no dialogue gained from them, and it's a place for emotional people to vent and do generally awful shit.

But as proven by this otherwise fantastic article, there is good news. Companies like Wizards of the Coast, a game maker who predominantly has a higher male audience still cares about the importance of catering their product to the diversity of their actual fanbase. Not only is it smart from a business perspective, it's also good from an ethics perspective, so it's a win win for all parties. The way they handled it, but also politely and maturely responded to the criticism should honestly be championed a bit more. The "mob mentality" theatrics only have power because we let them. Respond to the constructive part of the criticism, explain your decision making process, and move on. Exactly what WOTC seemed to do here.

I really don't think they were making a checkbox of different groups for the sole reason that it'll attract that group to the product. But at the same time, it's still a business. Would you fault a Grocery Store chain for changing or adding a product because a section of it's consumers wanted it? Of course not. I'd imagine WoTC themselves did enough research and met with enough of their own fan base to see that not only are women more prominent than the actual perception, but they aren't playing competitively due to the harsh reception they are getting in the community. They aren't being shady about their business practices in any way here, they are openly saying that there is an under served market within their community that gets very little acknowledgement. Which honestly does help. Because it immediately brings to light better numbers, not just the 1% of Pro MTG players but the overall community which was the 25% quoted. I think it also sheds the light on the negative aspects of their community, and separates the two parties in a way. MTG and WOTC may not be responsible for the toxic aspects of their community entirely, but acknowledging that the community is more diverse begins to the set the stage for other aspects of that community to become more vocal.

The posters username is "shekelsteinberg" which is probably where you can make the alt-right connection. Look at any alt-right threads on twitter and that name or variants of it will pop up multiple times, along with anti semitic profile pics.

Forcing the dreck that have this hateful attitude away from the game's playerbase is just a side benefit! But it's cooler and more important that they're taking steps to be inclusive and friendlier to a wider swath of people.

You're telling me Reddit jumps to conclusions and uses figures to make inaccurate assumptions as a basis for attacks?

I never knew this as I only hang out on the Destiny 2 subreddit.

Yes, this is the most extreme sarcasm ever.

Feel free to go back to the 80s where crime was much worse, as was discrimination of all kinds.

But yeah it's 2017 right! Ha-ha...

So tired of hearing those kind of comments, especially from Ben who seems to bring them to every podcast.

2017 is fine. The good old days don't exist, unless it's World of Warcraft!

If folk want to stop playing a game because a card has a woman on it, let them. Probably better off without them. Don't see what it's got to do with political inclinations though... Just another over-sensitive, misguided soul moaning about nothing.

.. This seems like a headline from 30 years ago. There's (probably) hundreds of Magic cards with women on them, but one that happens to be a player? God forbid.

You totally misread my post and maybe I wasn't clear enough about what I meant. This isn't a golden age bias situation and I never said anything about the good old days. As a couple of other people have pointed out when responding to me, its extremism that's the issue. Extremism is worse than anytime in recent memory. That is not under dispute and its what I meant by the 2017 comment. Whether that's the cause or effect of the current political situation is another question.

Now, before you respond with another "whataboutism", as John Oliver would put it, understand that what happened in the past doesn't excuse what's happening in the present.

Man, weird that the designers thought that it would be appropriate to depict the player with "something to prove" (possibly in a toxic, shunning environment) as a woman. Huh. That's SO WEIRD. Don't know where that would come from. Must be pointless pandering; yup that's it.

On a more serious note, good respnse from Mark. Even if that guy was right about there being next no female representation AND what is there is responsible for a dwindling fanbase, that would only make the argument for better rep stronger. The players who are "already in" as fans don't need their egos stroked. Support the inclusion of those that are timid or unsure about getting into it, rather than pretend they don't exist - and to speak more to the business side: pretend their money isn't just as good as anyone else's. Literally no reason to not make the decision Mark did.

This.

Based on the links and information given, I haven't seen any proof of "alt-right" losing their mind over a card with a female player. I see a bunch of people discussing if the number of players actually lowered and what could be the reasons for it and a only a few jerk comments, because this is the internet. I don't even see that much people mentioning the card in question anyway.

It's getting annoying how nowadays if someone says something you disagree is because that person is definitely alt-right. Not everything in the world is related to American politics and not every opinion has a direct relation to a political stance. There's assholes everywhere and all of us can be assholes sometimes, but that doesn't mean everyone is alt-right all of a sudden.

And also this.

It's really cool that nowadays we're finally moving forward with diversity and acceptance and I'm all in for it, but certain moves some companies do in this area just scream as a marketing play without any actual care for representation.

Not saying it's the case with this one, since I'm not to deep into what's going on, but it's something extremely obvious that's been happening.

Ah yes, 2017... where anyone with an opinion different than yours is either alt-right, racist, or a nazi.

You would be right except the specifics of this case show clear political motivation. These are people who consistently complain about SJWs and feminism in their game. When there was a response from the head designer saying one third to one fourth of players of are women (a point they have completely ignored), they took another data point he offered, removed its context, and tried to rile everyone up saying the game is going under. They are saying half the players have abandoned the game, implying or explicitly stating that SWJs and Feminism are the reason.

I called it "Alt-Right" because I don't know what else to call the unified political ideology that gets angry whenever a black woman is portrayed as a plainswalker, and say SWJs and feminists have taken over WOTC and ruined the game.

People never were "just jerks", though. The impulse to be purposefully cruel or divisive has always had some sort of ideological background, whether it be racism, misogyny, classism, whatever.

Pulling different player count numbers out of context to fabricate hysteria isn't expressing an opinion. It's just dishonesty.

@johnny_sailor: Oh, so misogyny is merely a “difference of opinion” now?

ETA: To clarify my point, people trying to argue that these people are not alt-right or are just “jerks” or whatever are engaging in a bad and meaningless semantics argument that only serves the purpose of trying to absolve these people of their abhorrent beliefs by trying to imply that they’re “not as bad” as those “real” nazis and alt-righters. All that does is normalize the idea that you can not like women, people of color and other marginalized groups without being seen as a “bad person” like we identify alt-righters as, when the truth is much more simple - if you don’t like women, people of color, queer people, immigrants and refugees or any other marginalized group, you are a scumbag that has no place in modern society.

If people can't look past the title of this thread and actually discuss the issues being posed by the OP, then the title should be changed or a mod should lock this thread. I'm very clearly on one side of the argument, but I didn't come here to have a shouting match with people on the other side - nothing constructive will come of that.

But I will say that there are people commenting in this thread and suggesting that the people complaining about Spike being female are "jerks" or "internet assholes" rather than the alt-right. It blows my mind that people are being so blind to the fact that they are the exact same people and they've been there the whole time! I'm not saying that every asshole on the internet is a Nazi, but the part of the internet that we used to dismiss as just people being dicks is now the basis of the alt-right, and they're one and the same. I mean for chrissake, 4chan has practically become a political movement!

Honest question @theoriginalatlas: What word should I have used other than "alt-right". I tried to think of alternatives to describe this anti-sjw and feminism sentiment. "gamer-gaters" came to mind but I think that is way more inflammatory. I can see the case that "alt-right" is too much of a blanket term, but I honestly don't know what a better term would be to describe this.

@iamjohn: I just meant in general. The funny thing is that the neckbeard incels that complain about how “terrible women are” and how they’re “ruining geek culture” are the same ones that will go on and on about how amazing socialism is, and that communism has always failed because it’s not “true communism”. There’s nothing right leaning politically about them.

The terms nazi, racist, and alt right mean almost nothing anymore. People have destroyed any kind of meaning behind them because they are used now to describe anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

@drbroel said:

Misogynists? Jerks? Reddit? Honestly, Gamer-gaters is probably less inflammatory as it's not directly tied to a political movement.

I dunno, I'm not the one who's bothered by you using alt-right in the title. I think your use was perfectly appropriate, but some people won't like me saying that.

@drbroel: They have mastered the art of deflection by turning themselves into the 'victim', especially when they know it will get a topic off track or closed for discussion.

You could just use the word bigot to encompass alt-right and all groups like them, just encase they only hate women i guess?

There might be a lot of people here that are just unfamilar with the specifics of MTG and the political motivations of different parts of the player base.

Pirates are a big part of the most recent set, and you actually have people complaining that female pirates are wearing too much clothing because they are in a tropical climate and their clothing is unrealistic for the weather.

This is actually just dog whistling. What they are really saying is SJWs in WOTC won't let female characters show as much skin anymore and SJWs and feminists are ruining the game. (This is false, in reality, layered pirate costumes just look really cool, and plenty of other female characters don't dress this way).

If you are outside the community, you won't hear this dog whistling. Then you can just say there isn't any political intent behind this criticism. But if you are in the community, you are used to people complaining about SJWs and women (much of the MTG writing staff are women).

OK, let's try and steer this back on topic by talking about women in Magic.

It is true that women are sadly underrepresented at the top of competitive Magic. Probably the greatest achievement a Magic player can earn is reaching the top eight of a Pro Tour, because that means you excelled across 16 rounds of constructed and limited Magic in a room of 500 people who are all top pros, including World champs and Hall of Famers. The only woman with a Pro Tour top eight in MTG Pro Tour history is Melissa DeTora, who came 6th at Pro Tour Gatecrash in 2013. DeTora sadly doesn't play on the PT any more, but she is one of many former pros currently working at Wizards as part of their new play design team. Her journey is discussed in the excellent YT documentary Enter the Battlefield, narrated by Wil Wheaton.

Other women have come close to matching this feat - Autumn Burchett is an awesome trans lady from England who is the reigning England Nationals champ and finished 9th at Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar in '15, just missing out on top eight. People far more qualified than myself (being a man, and, y'know, not a professional Magic player) have written about the issues facing women trying to break into Magic, and if you're interested in the topic I suggest you look into them.

Here's my list of my favourite female MTG personalities, in no particular order, many of whom are highly visible members of the community, and some of whom are trans:

• Erin Campbell, part of the Magic Mics podcast on YouTube and a pro Magic player, currently appearing in the Vintage Super League on YT and Twitch. She loves Vintage Dredge, and is therefore history's greatest monster.
• Emma Handy, writer for StarCityGames and SCG Tour player, Twitch streamer, professional Magic coach, and all-around awesome lady.
• Gaby Spartz, not a pro player, but part of the WOTC coverage team for GPs and the Pro Tour and a Twitch streamer and regular partner-in-crime of Luis Scott-Vargas, aka LSV.
• Maria Bartholdi and Meghan Wolff, hosts of the Magic: The Amateuring podcast. Maria also does PT coverage. Both of them are absolutely adorkable.
• Christine Sprankle, the undisputed queen of MTG cosplay.
• LoadingReadyRun's Friday Nights is a very popular MTG show on YT and they regularly stream MTG on their Twitch channel. Kathleen De Vere and Missie Peters both appear in Friday Nights and Kathleen is often involved with their Magic streams.

Other MTG fans please feel free to share your own favourites, as I know there are tons of other great women doing good work out there.

Also I mention trans women just because I feel strongly about the issue because part of my old FNM playgroup included an awesome trans lady named Amberleigh, who is one of the nicest and coolest people I've ever killed with a Siege Rhino.

@darlingdixie:

1. Man what Ben was referencing on the bombcast was clearly personal and not related to the current political shitshow
2. If you think everything is fine right now I would maybe take a harder look around you. Nobody is saying we should go back to the 80s but maybe going back like a year or 2 would be great. You know, before President rapist was carried to power by a wave of nationalism, xenophobia, racism and a herd of Pepe frogs.

1. Maybe, it is hard to tell with all the other people bringing up the <current year> meme.

2. Sorry I am failing to see much difference in America under Trump that would warrant calling 2017 such a bad year. That isn't to say things couldn't get bad if a lot of his policies come to fruition but right now? Trump's not really done anything that warranted all the meltdowns on results day.

@darlingdixie: Pleeaaaase. What you essentially said is "you think 2017 is bad, what about the 1980s." What happened in the 80s has no bearing on what is happening today. Stop muddying the waters and distracting from the issue.

Also, much like the N-word is language of racism, 'SJW' has become part of the language of misogyny. Maybe people have legitimate problems with modern feminism. Hot takes and epithets is not the way to get people to take you seriously.

Mod, please close this thread. There's no saving this.