Digital collectible card game

A digital collectible card game (DCCG) is a computer game usually played online that emulates collectible cards games (CCG), or in many cases, doesn't use card-like images at all, but instead icons, avatars or other symbols to represent game pieces. Originally, DCCGs started out as replications of a CCG's physical counterpart, but many DCCGs now forego a physical version and exclusively release as a computer game, such as with Hearthstone by Blizzard Entertainment.

These games manage all the rules of a CCG, such as tracking the avatar's health, removing damaged creatures from the board, and shuffling decks when necessary. The games are managed on servers to maintain the player's library and any purchases of booster packs and additional cards through either in-game or real-world money. Some games, like Chaotic, Bella Sara, and MapleStory allow online players to enter a unique alpha-numeric code found on each physical card as to redeem the card in the online version or access other features. In other cases, primarily single player games based on the existing physical property have also been made, such as the Game Boy Color version of the Pokémon Trading Card Game and Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers.

The first DCCG was Chron X in 1997 and then Sanctum in 1998, both of which had no physical CCG counterpart.

There have been CCGs developed solely for computer play and not based on any physical product. The first online CCGs were Sanctum and Chron X, both developed in 1997. Sanctum was taken offline in 2010, but has since returned due to fan intervention;Chron X still exists, producing new expansions over a decade later. Chron X was developed by Genetic Anomalies, Inc, which later developed other DCCG-like games based on licensed content. In Japan, online card battle games are a common genre of free-to-play browser games or mobile games; such games with significant populations of players include The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Kantai Collection and Million Arthur. Cinderella Girls earns over 1 billion yen in revenue monthly, whilst Kantai Collection has grown to more than 1 million players throughout Japan.

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