The Medici Effect, With a New Preface and Discussion Guide

CHAPTER five

Randomly Combine Concepts

CARD GAMES AND SKY RISES

IN THE SPRING OF 1991, a young Ph.D. math student named Richard Garfield met with Peter Adkison, the president of a small game company called Wizards of the Coast. Garfield had designed a board game called RoboRally and he was pitching the idea to Adkison. But Adkison did not bite. “Come back with something less complicated,” he told the mathematician. He suggested that Garfield design a game that was quick to play, portable, and inexpensive to produce.¹

What Garfield came up with revolutionized the world of games. He created Magic: The Gathering, a card game unlike any other. During the second half of 1993, following the release of Magic, Wizards of the Coast made about $200,000, ...