Magic TV: Extra - Dr. Richard Garfield on "Luck Versus Skill" (Magic Cruise 2012)

96K views · 14 years ago · talk · intermediate · evergreen

Richard Garfield, the designer of Magic: The Gathering, talks about luck versus skill in games at Magic Cruise 2012. He draws on his own design experience, and argues that the two are not simply opposite ends of one scale.

HN game designers recommend it as the standard talk on balancing luck and skill, and cite the point that they are not opposites.

“His arguments that skill and luck are not opposite sides of the same spectrum is quite good.”

5 comments from Hacker News

n
@noch2022 · in “Luck versus Skill in Games (2012)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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@da_chicken2021 · in “Senet”
You can see his lecture on YouTube: ▶ this video You can tell he's going a little from memory, but the points are all still there. His arguments that skill and luck are not opposite sides of the same spectrum is quite good.
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@cableshaft2017 · in “Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality”
I'm an avid board gamer as well. I've averaged over a hundred new board games tried every year the past 3 years. I'm pretty aware of the state of the hobby board game industry, and that's mostly what I'm targeting (albeit the simpler card game end, not the eurogame end, at least not yet. Think something like Arboretum, Parade, or Sushi Go). Tonight I'm excited I'm going to finally get to try Imperial out, and I'm going to try to get an older game I had to order from Canada, Pack & Stack, to the table. That being said, there are benefits to having randomness. It helps to broaden its appeal. If you've got the time, I recommend checking out one of Richard Garfield's many talks on Luck vs Skill. He talks about his experiences with Magic the Gathering, as well as how Valve designed Team Fortress 2 based on his articles and juggling luck vs skill. Link: ▶ this video I know how worrying it can be when a video game designer switches to board game design though. You get some that will just slap something together without considering the industry, and then you get something more akin to Exploding Kittens or some sprawling miniatures game that looks beautiful but plays like garbage.
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@spacetraveler112022 · in “How to make decisions like a poker player”
Thank you for this comment. See [1] for a video of Richard Garfield talking about this topic. [1] ▶ this video
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@morley2017 · in “How Designers Engineer Luck into Video Games”
Here's Richard Garfield giving a talk about Luck vs Skill in game design: ▶ this video