They said that it couldn't and shouldn't be done: re-create online the insanely popular card game Magic: The Gathering, and charge the same price for digital cards that players now pay for the cardboard ones.

Fans pouted, and critics howled. After spending untold sums of cash to assemble customized decks of Magic cards, they said, players aren't going to bother building Internet collections from scratch, especially at $3.29 for a pack of 15 cards....