A collectible card game (CCG) or alternately a trading card game (TCG) is a card game in which players assemble their own decks, usually by purchasing randomized packs or decks of cards, instead of using a fixed deck of cards as in traditional card games. Several CCGs can also be purchased as preconstructed decks, which are playable upon purchase. Trading card games are played publically in tournaments.
History[]
The first real CCG was Magic: The Gathering, which was developed by Richard Garfield for Wizards of the Coast and first published in 1993. Magic's runaway success (not to mention its near-total dominance in retail games, card and hobby stores) prompted numerous developers of tabletop roleplaying games, including White Wolf, to publish their own tie-in CCGs, although nearly all of these other CCGs were long since cancelled by the decade's end. During the ascendancy of the CCG in the traditional games market, White Wolf Magazine expanded its coverage to include CCGs, and was retitled to White Wolf Inphobia as part of this refocusing effort, although the magazine was cancelled after just eight issues under that name.
Three collectible card games have been published based on White Wolf properties:
- Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (originally titled Jyhad), based on Vampire: The Masquerade
- Rage, based on Werewolf: The Apocalypse
- Arcadia, based on Changeling: The Dreaming
All three were originally published by Wizards of the Coast, and Jyhad was developed by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield. Wizards dropped support for the three games in 1996; publication of V:TES resumed shortly at White Wolf, while Rage was later supported under two different rulesets by successive third-party publishers.
In 2006, White Wolf published the original game Racer Knights of Falconus, in which players used both collectible cards and plastic components to build and compete with fantasy racecars. After White Wolf was acquired by CCP hf, WW also published the CCG EVE: The Second Genesis, based on CCP's flagship MMO, EVE Online. Publication of both the EVE CCG and V:TES ended in 2010.