Hipsters of the Coast
Hipsters of the Coast is a Magic content website created in the fall of 2012 by a small group of Magic: The Gathering players based in Brooklyn, New York, USA.[1][2]
History
The site began as a blog with Zac Clark (2012 – 2023) taking a four-part look at the impending Standard rotation that would come with Return to Ravnica. Over the next few months Hipsters of the Coast grew exponentially. In October the blog doubled in size with the addition of Matt Jones (2012 – 2016). November saw the staff more than double as Li Xu (2012 – 2013), Giaco Furino (2012 – 2015), and Rich Stein (2012 – 2023) signed on. By the time 2012 ended Jess Stirba (2012 – 2017) had joined as well. In five years more than 50 contributors have produced thousands pieces of published content for Hipsters of the Coast.
The breadth of content included editorial content and news articles, tournament reports, metagame analysis, Commander and Legacy content, articles aimed at the Vorthos community, etc. After some time we had our audience, and it was big. In 2017 and 2018 we topped 1.5M page views, and in 2019 they cleared 2.5M. They outgrew their original sponsorship agreement with a small local Magic site called CastHaven and replaced it with a more lucrative deal with Card Kingdom. After this, they started paying for content and bringing on more writers.
The Covid Pandemic of 2019 hit hard. Wizards of the Coast had to suspend in-person events. Stores with incredibly thin profit margins had to shutter their doors. Everything came to a grinding halt and people were stuck at home. At first, sales skyrocketed. And then it ended and the sales plummeted. Plans to expand the site never really got off the ground. One by one, the active managing owners of Hipsters of the Coast stepped away. Meanwhile, the site had grown the content in anticipation of revenue growth that didn’t come to fruition. And then Card Kingdom decided they needed to move in a different direction, and Hipsters of the Coast were left without their primary source of revenue.
On December 8th, 2023, CEO Rich Stein stopped publishing paid content and put the site on hiatus.[3]
References
- ↑ Rich Stein (September 11, 2017). "Five Years of Hipsters of the Coast". Hipsters of the Coast.
- ↑ Zac Clark (September 13, 2017). "Five Years and Running". Hipsters of the Coast.
- ↑ Chris Stein (December 8, 2023). "Back to Basics". Hipsters of the Coast.