BattleCards!
Dec. 5th, 2003 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiDoes anyone else remember the section of Good Omens in which we find out about Newton's luck with owning computers? How he'd buy machines that seemed great, but would be discontinued within a week?
That was me for a while. I was a major booster of Atari's computers (had an 800 and a 1040ST), I had a Turbografx-16 as my primary videogame system, a Gamegear as my portable, etc. I don't regret any of those decisions, but let's just say I've been wrong about The NExt Big Thing a few times.
Which brings me to 1993.
I'd heard a lot of advance hype about collectable trading card games. And one day, I walked into Titan, and there it was: A new collectable trading card game called Battlecards, from Steve Jackson Games.
The cards were pretty nifty, and the idea behind them was that you would scratch off parts of the cards to reveal stat points when playing against other folks. If you won (each scratch-off spot would be either a hit or a miss, and whoever lost their hitpoints lost their card), you would scratch off the treasure chest, and you could send in treasure for prize cards.
It was a pretty nifty concept, and I enjoyed it for a little bit. I thought it was much niftier than the other CCG that came out a few months later, and which I bought one pack of, shrugged., and then ignored for over a year.
Ten years later, Magic: The Gathering is the biggest money-making machine this side of the US Mint. And Steve Jackson's website doesn't have a single mention of Battlecards.
Yeah, I can sure pick 'em.
That was me for a while. I was a major booster of Atari's computers (had an 800 and a 1040ST), I had a Turbografx-16 as my primary videogame system, a Gamegear as my portable, etc. I don't regret any of those decisions, but let's just say I've been wrong about The NExt Big Thing a few times.
Which brings me to 1993.
I'd heard a lot of advance hype about collectable trading card games. And one day, I walked into Titan, and there it was: A new collectable trading card game called Battlecards, from Steve Jackson Games.
The cards were pretty nifty, and the idea behind them was that you would scratch off parts of the cards to reveal stat points when playing against other folks. If you won (each scratch-off spot would be either a hit or a miss, and whoever lost their hitpoints lost their card), you would scratch off the treasure chest, and you could send in treasure for prize cards.
It was a pretty nifty concept, and I enjoyed it for a little bit. I thought it was much niftier than the other CCG that came out a few months later, and which I bought one pack of, shrugged., and then ignored for over a year.
Ten years later, Magic: The Gathering is the biggest money-making machine this side of the US Mint. And Steve Jackson's website doesn't have a single mention of Battlecards.
Yeah, I can sure pick 'em.