CCG Collection

It’s hard to say. CCG necrology isn’t an exact science by any means. But there are some tipoffs.
First, if the manufacturer goes away, as happened with TSR. If there is no clear successor to buy and continue the game (or if, as in Spell/ire’s case, the new owner shows little interest), that’s usually a bad sign.
Second, if the license to produce the game has been lost. Comics character Spawn went from Spawn PowerCardz by one company to Wildstorms by another. Wizards of the Coast’s NBA Showdown only came out in early 2002, but the company announced soon afterward that it no longer had the license. That doesn’t mean Wizards of the Coast won’t be happy to answer your questions about the game, but it does mean that you’ve probably seen the last of it, unless someone else picks up the license.
Since many game manufacturers stay around forever, there might be a third category added to “dead” and “alive”: “dormant,” or something like that. There hasn’t been a new release for Columbia Games’ Dixie in years, but Columbia is still around and will be happy to answer any of your questions and sell you cards. And there is nothing to stop them from putting out, say, Dixie: Chancellorsville tomorrow and putting the game back into the fully “live” column.

The list below includes the 28 CCGs we regard as living at press time. That’s one more than two years ago, interestingly, and about 21% of all CCGs that have ever come out.
Fully “living” games in early 2003
Baseball 3010
Bionicle
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Digimon D-Tector
Dragon Ball Z
Football Champions
A Game of Thrones
Harry Potter
Legend of the Five Rings
Lord of the Rings
Magi Nation
Magic: The Gathering
Marvel ReCharge
Medabots
The Mission
MLB Showdown
NFL Showdown
Pokemon
Raw Deal
Redemption
Shadowfist
Star Trek
Star Wars (Trading Card Game)
Timestream
Vampire
Warhammer 40,000
Warlord
Yu-Gi-Oh!