What Yu-Gi-Oh! Can Learn from The Internet's Most Hated Game

[@TheRJB0]

Shout out to the NAWCQ caster desk, by the way. The commentary and segments at this weekend's event really upped the bar for Yugioh events. In light of this event a few of my comments in the middle chunk of this video seem cynical and outdated, and I couldn't be happier to have been proven wrong.

[@novalaxia]

As someone who plays both YGO and Konami's BEMANI rhythm games, it's really interesting hearing this perspective on Konami's recent decisions on communication and event organisation. Gonna try and break this comment up into sections because I think there's a bit to talk about. On the topic of event organisation: People in the BEMANI scenes have recently theorised that Konami is trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of their recent big game events because of how bad the yen has been as of late. I can't accurately comment on this, since I'm not an economist or an employee, but Konami's other competitive tournament event, the BEMANI Pro League, caught a good amount of fire during the last/current season for their monetisation scheme. Prior to season 3/4, most of a season's matches were filmed in 2 day-long blocks over the course of a month, with matches then being uploaded to the official channel week by week about a month after the recording sessions. The only times where pay-per-view was a thing at this time was during the grand finals, which made sense considering Konami would actually rent out a space for a live audience and all. However, they changed this in season 3 onwards to include the other matches of a game season as well, which means you now split your core audience into people who paid the money to watch matches right after teams were drafted, and the free viewers who now had to avoid spoilers for about a month and a half before being able to see the results later than everyone else. There's a whole article talking about how controversial this choice was, but tl;dr Konami can't find any other way to raise money for their other big game event and the only option available makes everyone angry. Not very ideal. Linking back to YGO, it makes sense in hindsight why Konami has cut down so heavily on event spending over the last few months or so. The video has already identified that TCG events are much more niche compared to other "competitive" events, and it probably might not be a stretch to assume that the head office is trying to penny pinch a lot of non-Japan events because they don't cover expenses nearly as much as they do at home, especially when the native currency isn't doing so hot right now. People will say this is a reach because Konami makes a lot of money, but considering how YGO is much more cost-effective to push than arcade rhythm games and yet event coverage is still quite spotty, I think there's probably a middle ground somewhere in the mist. With regards to "player mythos" - yeah, YGO doesn't have much of an excuse there lol. BPL does a good job of establishing the talent involved with each season despite how niche arcade rhythm games are, and it certainly has an impact when you're seeing those same players talking about their games on morning news or RTA In Japan months after their season is up. They could have done something like this for UDS events, maybe they did and I don't know about it. Who knows. Missed opportunity for sure. On the topic of communication: Someone's already commented that Konami is historically bad at communication, and this is unfortunately a constant to this day. It feels like Konami has been relying more on "fans and figures close to their games" to fill out their public communication rather than actual representatives, and this hurts a lot when trying to talk about changes that people are eagerly awaiting word on. This is a hot take, but I don't think pro players and commentators should be the main port of call for drafting feedback and change. Even under an NDA, BPL pro players were all but upfront about the displeasure of event organisation and poor communication that fans echoed during season 3, and I think this video's end point about hosts/commentators having to drum up support for increased communication on behalf of the company kind of detracts from the core issue that Konami could rectify quite easily for very little expense. I know people will read this like I'm trying to bat for Konami (and I certainly have my own fair share of grievances with both franchises aside from these) but I think people should be more proactive in voicing their concerns in a way that isn't spamming their helpline for banlist updates and annoying the intern who's not paid enough for the job lol. The recent NAWCQ is a start, but hopefully it actually inspires something bigger to go somewhere, rather than being a footnote that'll get brought up the next time this becomes enough of a sore point. Sorry for the wall of text - this video brought up a lot of really good points in comparison and it got me thinking a bit more too! very cool stuff, excited to see more discussions like this in future

[@Yous0147]

Very insightful and super interesting. I'm someone who's, to put it mildly, very critical of Konami in many ways, but your comment didn't read as batting for them from my perspective, I appreciate the nuance

[@novalaxia]

@@Yous0147 no problem. I think there's a limit to how much we can discuss regarding Konami's communication/event organisation issues when viewed solely through the lens of YGO, and similar discussions from the perspectives of their other games (e.g. DDR and the 2023 Konami Arcade Championships) presents a similar limitation that requires a bit more nuance and context to properly address. for what it's worth, I also don't think it's particularly good or fruitful when people blame the game's problems, like card design/banlist philosophy, on a difference in culture - Sega has basically managed to fit many elements of what's being described as positive additions in this video for their rhythm game invitationals (albeit on a much smaller scale), while I think TCGs in general are just in a really tough spot as a whole right now because of either a lack of accessibility, or lack of a coherent long-term direction regarding the post-C19 recovery of the landscape. many current criticisms of YGO are valid, but there's only so much that can be brought to the table when directly discussing Konami without also addressing how they handle their non-YGO games and their tournament events, IMO

[@Ragnarok540]

The missed opportunity to make the Albaz storyline into an anime is just mind boggling. They have enough material for at least 4 seasons, and would get a lot of people interested in the story and the game again. And I say this as someone who really doesn't like Branded as a strategy.

[@FancyWafflesFTW]

I love this! Here for any number of video essays you make RJ!

[@cragland94]

i've always been curious about the world(s) and characters that yu-gi-oh cards portray in their artwork. the mystery of it all really intrigues me. great video!

[@Petsinwinter2]

I can piece together how these worlds come together through the art and effects of the Archetypes, but what remains beyond my grasp is how these worlds _collide_ in a duel I love seeing the mellfys play around, but I wanna see how they play inside the Mimighoul Dungeon as the Master gives them new friends to find in treasure chests.

[@dragon-id5uj]

​@@Petsinwinter2yeah, it does seem like... How do these separate storylines make sense to meet on the battlefield? I always assumed Konami, if they bothered, would just take the lazy "multiverse" explanation, since there is already precedent for "different dimensions". Some worlds do seem to CONTAIN others though, so a map of them would be rather complex and unwieldy.

[@FakeHeroFang]

Yugioh doesn't have the 'story' problem... In Japan. They get artbooks full of concept art and lore, more recently manga based on certain decks, and they have anime for Rush which seems to be doing alright over there. The issue is that a lot of those things never makes it overseas, so fans have taken it into their own hands to translate and propagate those materials. Since Konami opened an animation studio, they *might* have plans to alleviate this, but who knows. All they've shown us so far is a proof of concept.

[@Wuunderboy]

Konami is actually trying to completely get rid of their international market for yugioh.

[@countjondi9672]

It's crazy to me that Age Of Empires 2, a game that came out in 99 for a fair amount of time had more engaging yearly tournaments (Redbull Wololo) cup where talented casters who are invested in the game give gorgeous coveredge where some of the best players in the game play together in gorgeous castles.... While YGO, one of the most played card games currently, with far more potential money to burn for a big splashy event, and side-events, with way more eyes on the game in terms of online engagement seems to fall so short in comparison.

[@labibmuhammad4789]

hey just wanted to comment that your essay videos like the problem with yugioh pricing and this video is really good - probably the best among yugitube sphere! keep it up!

[@teomangurbuz]

as a league veteran since season 2 and yugioh player since 2016 this is going to be a fun watch :3

[@SloopYGO]

i think that last addendum matches with what MBT mentioned about the NAWCQ. that it was full of people who loved the game and were super hyped, but very few actually wanted to play the format due to how expensive it is (and other factors, but thats the most egregious one by far)

[@BeanMagoon]

loved this video! great stuff

[@Yous0147]

There's a couple of reasons why this is. Yugioh is a very old Japanese game with one of the least affable Japanese game's publishers. I love Japanese games, but communicating things, especially to the rest of the world, is only something fighting game developers and some major publishers have started doing in the last couple of years (with Nintendo and Squenix being exceptions). Konami has a lot of great multiplayer games titles (Bomberman, Bloody Roar, even indie games like Crimesight which has sadly been discontinued) who're consistently in radio silence and end up being milled out through the Konami machine instead of grasping and incorporating the feedback of people who love their IP. My points are, not only are we talking about a Japanese company which inherently has a hard time communicating to the broader world effectively, we're talking about a particularly stringent one that even for Japanese companies is difficult in this area. In reality, every problem this game has points back to one place.

[@renaldyhaen]

I hope Konami learns the most important thing, balancing. MOBA uses the balance of the game as its marketing strategy. But YGO Konami uses the imbalance of the game as a marketing strategy. The reason why YGO seems growing up may be because the players are also growing up and can get money for themselves. Or at least create an alternative format with lower power cards.

[@mageius]

Welcome back RJ, I think a lot of us have missed you.

[@dizbrony3906]

The things I know about League begin and end at Arcane. Now I know more. So there's that.

[@Camelotsmoon]

Give me lightsworn and dark world anime too. I also would take a new generic anime as well.

[@Noxara]

If they want to do a multiverse type story telling. They could easily do Metaphis as the medium because that's their whole theme. They literally watch over the other archetypes and worlds.

[@clairbeeguitar]

As a magic player that came up at the end of the GP era only to see the game I fell in love with gutted for a focus on commander - I'm not sure this level of production actually matters. Wizards, SCG, CFB and others poured tons of money, skill and heart into propping up organized play. It was basically for nothing once Wizards realized casual players are a lot easier and more lucrative to milk.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

... The reason Magic became popular in the first place was the casual side of things. That was always the focus. As Mark Rosewater has said several times... the most popular format by a massive margin is kitchen table magic. Not standard, not modern, not commander. Kitchen table magic... meaning, the players had the product, and just played with what they had, with the people they liked playing with. Without regard for official formats or ban lists or restrictions. The people who play at FNM are not the core customer base. The people who play the GP, the people who play at their LGS with randoms, those are not the core customer base. It's not that casuals are easier to milk... it's that casuals make up 99% of the customers in the first place. Tens of millions of MtG players around the world. About 6500 local game stores that sell the cards, only some of which hold small scale events in the first place, usually with attendances ranging from 8 to 40 people. Even charitably assuming 40 each would still only add up to a solid 0.5% of the customer base. It's not about greed. It's about giving the players what they want. And if every single player that played any dedicated format at all left the game overnight, WotC would still be posting record profits. Because they haven't lost a meaningful amount of players from their game. Almost nobody. This tends to be a fact that online TCG discourse ignores far too often. The competitive scene is never a relevant part of the community or the game.

[@clairbeeguitar]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 You aren't wrong, Wotc just used to think a healthy metagame and robust organized play served as a good advertisment for casual players which then benefited players like me. I'm also not sure how this has anything to do with my comment. If casuals will buy whatever shiny slop you put out, why does yugioh need detailed patch notes or high production world championships broadcasts? - This is the root of what I was getting at. I would also say casuals are easier to milk. At least anecdotally, most casual players I've met seem to love sealed product and are buying at least a boosterbox every set. Outside of prize packs, it was pretty rare to see modern or legacy players rip wrappers.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@clairbeeguitar If you genuinely think it's not relevant, you didn't understand what was said. I can clarify if you have specific questions, but simply repeating myself won't help if you didn't get it the first time.

[@runningoncylinders3829]

Look at Duel Links, not Master Duel, Duel Links. The story and anime involvement has been there, the patch notes and consistency in banlists, not to mention a future-proofed banlist template with co-limits. They adjust them after a KC Cup Tournament (These need work btw. You should not be playing 3 days straight) or if a deck is being deemed too powerful. The Skills are creative and streamlined some deck combos hampered by the 3 Zones or make strategies played that weren’t in paper good enough. The voicelines, BGM, and Animations are consistently above MD, while MD music does go hard. I’ve honestly wanted MD to learn more from DL for a while and to also let every global player engage with the Rush stuff even a lil. For some reason or another I boot up MD on occasion yet treat DL as my most important mobile game and any game rn, it genuinely makes a difference how much context it has brought since launch, keeping me invested in Yugioh.

[@pamonja4301]

DL has more autonomy, since the game was made by a third party just to be something to show for the anniversary, the game even doing good was a surprise.

[@runningoncylinders3829]

@@pamonja4301 DL has more care and curation and my preferred selling model since everything is in Boxes so you aren’t just in gacha for UR or craft everything by dismantling your old decks. It probably made a bundle to stick around seven years and beyond. The cosmetics and Skills make it feel like home, so even when stuff like the Rush launch worried me initially, it only made more content in an already satisfying game.

[@pamonja4301]

@@runningoncylinders3829 I have the opposite opinion, I played DL for a 2 years all free to play, and it was enjoyable but in thoses 2 year I managed to build 2 viable decks, not not including the the farmable ones, like Cyber angels. And I grindded like crazy and still toke months to do anything. Its cool that its guaranteed that you will pull what you want eventually, but needing to reset a box 2 to 3 times to build a deck needs a crazy ammount of time that you need to gind the gems for. Now Master Duel its just soo much easier to get cards, I played for about half the total hours of DL and I now have more than 15 decks with all the staples. But with this exception and the graphics, and the fact that the game loses connection every 15 minutes, DL its soo much better at everything else.

[@DurzoHighwind]

Have you looked into Lorcana? It's such a great game, with the most diverse playerbase and insane price support. I bet you would love it

[@TheRJB0]

@@DurzoHighwind I have, but I have no interest in a Disney game.

[@DurzoHighwind]

@@TheRJB0 I understand, great video btw!

[@TheRJB0]

@@DurzoHighwind Thanks!

[@swayarrow]

I play both so your on to something

[@Relptica__]

i should be able to ash the enemy jungler

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Clicked the video to figure out whether you're talking about Fortnite or League of Legends. Has to be one of the two.

[@millardbaldwin7650]

None of the ideas you made are even feasible in a physical game. No you can’t make a beta for a physical game, they have these things called play testers. They have to pay those people, they can’t get free labor one riot does. No you can’t make a story for each archetype there are over 100 archetypes vs the small pool of characters in league. No you can’t make crazy news coverage out of a YCS. The appeal of yugioh is that an average person has the potential to win one of these. Having a news crew following someone like Jesse Cotten is just a dick move, and will more than likely kill player engagement. And no you can not except a group of people to be able to convince a company to sponsor your team of competitive players when e sports is already running at a loss. All this video does is make awesome “imagine how cool” points without having any real tangible solutions or any base in reality. All this video does is make more people who don’t understand how businesses work make yugioh look like a worse hobby then it already it. I truly hope you are not a fan of yugioh because all this video can do is hurt and disenfranchised actual fans of yugioh

[@SeaHorseOfYoutube]

Wow you're right both YGO and League started off as wacky clones of other games they ended up overtaking in popularity to the point that their fans might not even know of the prior influence.

[@Ragnarok540]

MTG less popular than Yu-Gi-Oh?

[@SeaHorseOfYoutube]

@@Ragnarok540 Do you live under a rock? the anime made it a global phenomenon, my parents don't know what D&D or Magic is but they know about Pokemon and Yugioh. Just like how LoL got popular with a generation that didn't even know the game was aping another successful albeit more niche game.

[@CaptainMarvel4Ever]

IDK, this video feels pretty out of touch. First off you left out the Yu-Gi-Oh anime which feels most aligned to what the game actually is, and that's ZeXal. An anime who's core focus was a sense of fantasy that reflects the characters in the series. Yu-Gi-Oh spawned from Shonen Jump, the very embodiment of a young boy's sense of fantasy. In that sense playing a game of Yu-Gi-Oh is like bringing a comic to life. Not just manga either, this is a game with way to many American style super heroes. This game is Kazuki Takahashi himself, as well as Studio Dice. Is it any coincidence that Akira Ito, studio Dice member and Yu-Gi-Oh R creator was approached by Bushiroad to create Cardfight Vanguard? That game seeks the same thing, to create that same sense of fantasy. Yu-Gi-Oh is like Jump, the fruit of escapism form the diligent handwork that we all conform to for ourselves and the greater good. It's a busy office man on the train going to work, or the young boy on the school playground daydreaming of greater more epic things. Overall it seems like the video isn't about Yu-Gi-Oh's shortcomings, but more so what America does with it, and maybe your own disconnect with it's origins. Like, is most of this Yu-Gi-Oh, or are you just not as in touch with it's Japanese roots, because ultimately that's what the game is, a product of Shonen Jump and that conscious identity. For one thing look at all the events Yu-Gi-Oh Japan does, or the promotions Konami does with giga famous influencers like Subaru and Pekora. That's money in the bank. Do I even need to mention VJump? possibly Shonen Jump's most hype spinoff magazine? Yu-Gi-Oh had Sky Striker and now the Endymion storyline being told right alongside Dragon Ball, Boruto, and Dragon Quest. Do you know how many properties let along card games would kill for that? As for the competitive stuff, I certainly believe you when you say you're disconnected from it. Not even gonna mention Patrick Hoban who wrote the book on Yu-Gi-Oh? (like literally, he wrote a book on it). Or like Jessica Robinson having a historic run? the win that came about because of that Duster blowout? like if we're talking about amazing runs and bringing plants to a new level, Julius Schwarzkopf not only won his first ever YCS in Dortmund, but he just also just won the nationals in his home country with that same deck. Speaking of Dortmund, seems kinda dismissive to not mention what a great job the European YCS team does with making hype events. Again, are you talking about a problem with Konami, or a problem with North America (and even then it feels like the NA team gets better every time). Heck even the addendum was a bit off because they've done videos like that even before INFO and gave a very cool introduction to the Ashened archetype when that was revealed. Same with the voice actor duels (they do those all the time). Ultimately if this video had better talking points I'd drop a sub (which would have been nice since it looks like this channel has some vids on Cubing which I feel needs more representation), but it feels so uninformed. This could have been a great video talking about some of the intricacies of where we're at now, but it feels more like just some white guy throwing stuff at the wall in front of a camera. Like, I'd actually prefer if it was just an unscripted rant, because then it's just venting feelings. This vid feels more like a report you had to do for a class on an academic topic but ya didn't actually read about it before hand so ya try and bloat the paper up by including as much flare as possible to make it seem like you got a great understanding of it. That's nice for looking good and sounding smart, but at the end of the day you still can't actually explain how the Krebs Cycle or the Coriolis Effect work, and in this case ya miss the mark on everything that's not in your immediate field of vision. If you're going to point a finger at how Konami can do better, then you should also ask how you can be more informed. Worse part is, there is a kernel of truth in here which goes great with the added news inserted in, but I'm just not feeling moved.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

I felt as though GX was pretty aligned with what the game is. Just a bunch of excited kids who want to play a game with each other. No real stakes, just card games and fun.

[@CaptainMarvel4Ever]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 I would agree with you, but one weak point of GX was picking a tone or a motive. First half of season one was on point with what you're saying, then immediately we get into knock off millennium items and god cards. Season 3's massive tone shift doesn't help either. I guess maybe you can say GX is about responsibility since GX ends up being about how Judai/Jaden must pay for being irresponsible... but I think it was just more writers and the network being unsure where to go with things (Misawa's entire identity being a prime example). I will say though, if we go off initial pitch then I absolutely agree with you. GX first grabbed me and many other kids I knew by feeling so much more like it was just fellow young people enjoying the cardgame (shame that didn't last longer). Heck think that very reason you listed is why the first Cardfight Vanguard anime and manga became as popular as they did. Those were just about kids, cardgames, and everything related to the hobby, no monsters, no magic, no BS, just kids enjoying cards (which was also what my favorite chapter of Yu-Gi-Oh R that Ito wrote was about).