Richard Garfield
Richard Garfield | |
---|---|
PhD) | |
Occupation(s) | Mathematician, inventor, game designer |
Known for | Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner |
Relatives | James A. Garfield (Great-Great-Grandfather) |
Scientific career | |
Thesis | On the residue classes of combinatorial families of numbers (1993) |
Doctoral advisor | Herbert Wilf |
Website | www |
Richard Channing Garfield (born June 26, 1963) is an American mathematician, inventor and game designer. Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, which is considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). Magic debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations.[1]
Garfield oversaw the successful growth of Magic and followed it with other game designs.
Early life, family and education
Garfield was born in
While Garfield always had an interest in puzzles and games, his passion was kick-started when he was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons.[4] Garfield designed his first game when he was 13.[9]
In 1985,
Game design career
Precursors and development of Magic: the Gathering
While searching for a publisher for RoboRally, which he designed in 1985,[4] Wizards of the Coast began talking to Garfield through Mike Davis, but Wizards was still a new company and felt the game would be too expensive to produce.[14]: 278 Peter Adkison of Wizards of the Coast expressed interest in a fast-playing game with minimal equipment, something that would be popular at a game convention.[5] Adkison asked if Garfield could develop a game with lower production costs than RoboRally, with the idea of making such a game more portable and easy to bring to conventions; Garfield thought of an idea that came from combining a card game with collecting baseball cards and spent a week creating a full game from that rough idea.[14]: 278
Garfield had been creating card games since at least 1982, starting with a card game called "Five Magics" that was inspired by
Wizards of the Coast
Magic: The Gathering launched in 1993. Playtesters began independently developing expansion packs, which were then passed to Garfield for his final edit.[15] In June 1994, Garfield left academia to join Wizards of the Coast as a full-time game designer.[4] Garfield managed the hit game wisely, balancing player experience with business needs and allowing other designers to contribute creatively to the game.[2] With his direction, Wizards established a robust tournament system for Magic, something that was new to hobby gaming.[2]
Wizards finally released Garfield's RoboRally in 1994.
In 1999, Garfield was inducted into the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame alongside Magic.[6] He was a primary play tester for the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition bookset, released by Wizards in 2000. He eventually left Wizards to become an independent game designer.[4]
As an independent designer
He still sporadically contributes to Magic: The Gathering.[16][17] More recently, he has created the board games Pecking Order (2006)[18] and Rocketville (2006). The latter was published by Avalon Hill, a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast.[19] He has shifted more of his attention to video games, having worked on the design and development of Schizoid and Spectromancer as part of Three Donkeys LLC.[4] He has been a game designer and consultant for companies including Electronic Arts and Microsoft.[13]
Garfield taught a class titled "The Characteristics of Games" at the University of Washington.[13] It is now taught as part of the University of Washington's Certificate in Game Design.[20]
Games designed
A partial list of games designed by Garfield:
- Magic: The Gathering (1993), collectible card game
- RoboRally (1994), board game
- Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (1994), collectible card game
- The Great Dalmuti (1995), card game
- Netrunner (1996), collectible card game
- BattleTech(1996), collectible card game
- Dilbert: Corporate Shuffle (1997), card game
- Filthy Rich(1998), board game
- Twitch (1998), card game
- Star Wars Trading Card Game (2002), collectible card game
- Pecking Order (2006), board game
- Rocketville (2006), board game
- Stonehenge (2007), board game anthology
- Spectromancer (2008), online card game
- Schizoid (2008), console action game
- Kard Combat (2011), iOS Game
- King of Tokyo (2011), board game
- SolForge (2012), online digital card game
- Ghooost! (2013), card game
- King of New York (2014), board game
- Treasure Hunter (2015), board game
- SpyNet (2016), card game
- Bunny Kingdom (2017), board game
- Artifact (2018), digital trading card game
- KeyForge (2018), unique deck game
- Half Truth (2019), co-created with Ken Jennings, a party trivia game
- Carnival Of Monsters (2019) Kickstarted (failed) and eventually released through AMIGO Games
- The Hunger (2021), board game
- Mindbug (2021), card game
- Roguebook (2021), roguelike deck-building game
- Creature Feature (2022), card game
- King of Monster Island (2022), cooperative board game
- Dungeons, Dice & Danger (2022), roll-and-write game
References
- ^ "Magic: The Gathering Fact Sheet" (PDF). Wizards of the Coast. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 24, 2009. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
- ^ a b c Varney, Allen. "Richard Garfield Archived 2014-01-22 at the Wayback Machine." The Escapist. 10 JULY 2007. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
- ^ "Complex Hearts". Math.unl.edu. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g Vasel, Tom (2005-06-19). "Interviews by an Optimist # 49 - Richard Garfield". Archived from the original on 2007-08-14.
- ^ a b c Garfield, Richard (March 12, 2013). "The Creation of Magic: the Gathering". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on March 14, 2013. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
- ^ a b List of Winners, Origins Game Fair. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
- ^ Varney, Allen (December 1997). Dragon Magazine #242 (PDF). p. 120.
- ^ Rosewater, Mark. "Blogatog: Stasis".
- ^ Zurcher, Christopher (1998-12-27). "Just like magic". PolkOnline. Archived from the original on 2009-07-15.
- ^ 26.5248
- ^ "Richard Garfield - the Mathematics Genealogy Project".
- ^ "Magic: The Gathering––A Game's Origins and Influence at Whitman College".
- ^ ISBN 978-1-932442-96-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
- ^ a b Elias, Skaff (2002-03-08). "Legendary Difficulties". Latest Developments. Archived from the original on June 14, 2002.
- ^ Rosewater, Mark (2005-09-05). "City Planning, Part I". Making Magic. Archived from the original on January 4, 2006. Retrieved 2007-04-27.
- ^ Rosewater, Mark (2011-09-05). "C'mon Innistrad, Part I". Making Magic. Archived from the original on September 25, 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
- ^ "Pecking Order". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
- ^ "AVALON HILL WELCOMES BACK RICHARD GARFIELD; Rocketville Set to Blast-Off on March 10". 2006-02-07. Archived from the original on 2007-11-07.
- ^ "Richard Garfield's Net Worth". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2023-02-24.
Further reading
- Reid, Zachary (April 1995). "A look at the man who made Magic". Inquest. p. 12-16.
External links
- Richard Garfield at BoardGameGeek
- Richard Garfield at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- "Immer für eine Überraschung gut: Richard Garfield: Der Mann hinter Magic" (PDF). Amigo Spiele (in German). 2004-01-30.