A tad bit late perhaps, but the creation of Gwent in The Witcher 3 PC RPG game has got me thinking: would a modern trading card game(hereafter referred to as TCG) like Magic: The Gathering be able to catch on and be commercially successful in the Early Renaissance period? If not, what do I have to change to make it work?
To be more precise, the setting would be heavily based on 13th to 15th Century Europe. The people behave like you'd expect them to(nosimilar levels of education, no change to human nature). No magic exists; this point is negotiable though I'd think wizards would not get directly involved in any way for a host of reasons like salty players blaming everything on them. The exact mechanics and theme of the game don't matter so long as it runs on the TCG model, roughly meaning cards of varying rarity, buy 'booster packs' to get rarer cards or get them directly from a trader or win them in prize matches.
EDIT: In order for any product(especially one that is revolutionary or unprecedented) to be commercially successful, the society in question has to be able to accommodate it(I'll call this 'cultural success'). If not, said society has to change to allow for it. Once said product hits the market it in turn usually changes society as well. A real life example of this would be the advent of consumer personal computers(PCs). Some might disagree with me, for the purposes of this question I don't see any way to decouple the two kinds of success.
This is why my question isn't solely about the commercial aspects of a TCG enterprise in this time period, but also the surrounding cultural/social/political obstacles(if any) inherent in such a world and how I can tweak this world to allow for TCGs to succeed. I was alluding to this when I mentioned 'catch on' in my original question, but it seems I need to state it explicitly so I have now. It's also why I went with 'viable' rather than 'economically viable'.
