It seemed like a reasonable supposition. And to some level, no doubt it’s true.

Then a friend linked this today: XBox Live’s topselling titles. Duels of the Planeswalkers, #1. Now, I have no idea what time period that sample measures: the week? the month? But regardless, it’s half a year after release, and this game has serious legs. A lot of people have been playing this game who were just curious about it, or got roped into buying it to play with friends. Duels turned out to be more than just an ad, and I imagine it’s contributing nicely to Hasbro’s bottom line, more than even they expected.

In any event, the success speaks not only to the power of the brand, but also some good game design choices: supporting the trifecta of co-op, single player, and competitive play supports different kinds of players, and encourages the network effect growth that multiplayer games (online or not) can do best.

(No, I don’t have any Hasbro stock anymore.)

This has to be a devious plot, right?

Since Duels of the Planeswalkers launched a week ago, I’ve donated a few bucks and more than a few hours to Wizards of the Coast and Microsoft. Good friends and I joined in to play this latest digital incarnation of Magic: the Gathering. It’s not often that I take the chance to play CCGs anymore, despite the occasional work league or draft night. And just like I don’t have the focus to play an MMO like I once did, I lack the commitment to play enough card games or research the current metagame. Both steps would be required to become even an average player on Magic Online. (Interesting idea there: how much do Magic and MMOs, along with their communities, have in common? We’ve already seen the cross-overs.)

Anyway this “Magic-lite” is up my alley. It’s easy fun. But enough blatant advertising for my friend Worth Wollpert. I have a theory about Duels. First, let’s consider what this product isn’t:

• Despite the quotes in that article, I don’t believe that this product is targeted at new players. For one, m:tg is too damn complex and confusing for most of us to learn without someone to teach it. The tutorial for Duels is mediocre at best. The mentor feature seems a good idea that’s unlikely to see any use. And the complicated game board has to be off-putting to any Joe or Jane shopping for something just a little different on XBL. A few people will pick up Duels and learn the game straight up, but my bet is that we’re talking about a small audience.
• I also don’t believe the game is aimed at current players. Why would Wizards create competition for its profitable lineup? Duels will never have all the cards or complexity of the complete game. Consider the counterpoint of Magic Online, a game which by necessity mimics the incremental purchase business model of the card game. Duels may milk a little extra money, but it can’t rival what current players spend on either the physical card game or its digital re-creation.
• Duels isn’t a big cash-grab. At least, not in itself. Even if Duels does well, say two hundred thousand downloads, WotC’s cut of that would be pretty small once you factor in the cut for Microsoft and the software developer. Probably less than a million dollars dropping to the bottom line, all told.

So Duels isn’t a big moneymaker, and it isn’t targeted at new players or current players. What conclusion have I led you to? My take is that Wizards intended Duels to be a playable advertisement — a demo, if you will — aimed at lapsed players. Give these lost souls a taste of this Magic-lite game, and remind them of the fun they have playing the game. Some of them will want something more. Something deeper. More deck construction, more customization. And Wizards will welcome these people back with open arms.

Feel free to attribute this to my paranoid subjective bias.

Thou Shalt Maximize Revenue

This has trial balloon written all over it.

Advertisers and creative designers will soon have more artistic freedom to turn campaigns on Xbox Live into interactive and interconnected experiences reaching far beyond technology for television, Sean Alexander, director at Microsoft’s Advertising Business Group, said Monday.

Personally, I don’t much care. Navigating the XBox Live experience won’t be much changed when I get ads splashed about on the top or bottom or hiding in the corners. And while I am well tired of paying a subscription fee for content and then still putting up with ads (hello, Sirius XM), Microsoft won’t be the last to go down this road.

Of course, your opinion may vary. DrezKill has a different opinion:

But seriously, whether you have a GOLD account or not, f*ck dis shiznit!!! Gawd damn you Microsoft!!! Damn you to hell!!!

Looking over at my Xbox screen, this doesn’t really seem like anything new. Everything on the “front page” is really just an advertisement for a game, add-on, or piece of content.

Update 7/2/09: That’s no balloon! Larry Hrib, Xbox Live Director of Programming, confirms that ads are coming to XBox Live. Don’t worry, though, they’ll be tasteful.

But Natal will not be the nirvana of gaming . There are at least two big, obvious problems with it.

1. No one is going to play a game for long while performing full arm or full body motions. This is not a joke about gamer physique.

The great thing about the little controller in my hands is this: All I need to do is make a little motion with my thumb, press a button, or pull a trigger. Then I watch as my (virtual) self does heroic, amazing, physically challenging stuff. Minimal physical effort on my part, a little skill in terms of timing and coordination, and then I get the maximum visual and experiential reward.

2. I don’t know about you, but in my little San Francisco apartment, I don’t have a 10′ x 10′ open area in front of the television. I certainly don’t have a safe border even beyond that without furniture to run into.

There was a talk at GDC this year about our assumptions of how and where we play video games (the physical space), but this takes the cake. Of course, I do think it will be amusing for the QA department to be set up in a gymnasium.

So, Natal will be a great party and family game tool. And as the Wii has proven, that could be huge seller. But in core gaming market, it’s not a game changer, as the Wii may also have proven. Multichannel voice recognition may be great. It leads us to better interaction with our artificial creations, or at least a deeper version of Endwar’s voice command system. And I have hopes for some interesting uses for Natal: minigames and non-core gameplay. After that, I’m not sure.