Richard Garfield

Richard Garfield is one of those rare people who genuinely changed a hobby forever — he didn't just design a game, he invented an entire category. Magic: The Gathering launched in 1993 and the collectible card game genre it spawned has never really stopped growing since. What gets me is that Garfield came at it as a mathematician first, and you can feel that in how Magic actually works: the mana system, deck construction constraints, card rarity — it's elegant game theory dressed up in dragons and spells. He's continued designing games since (Artifact had a rough landing, but the ambition was there), and he still teaches and lectures. The guy holds a PhD in combinatorics, designs some of the most strategically deep games on the planet, and somehow makes it look like a lifelong obsession rather than a career. That's the real tell of a genuine creator.

Name (English)

Richard Garfield

Name (Japanese)

リチャード・ガーフィールド

Reading

りちゃーど・がーふぃーるど

Born

June 26, 1963 (age 63)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Cancer / Rabbit

Origin

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Occupation

game designer / professor / mathematician / businessperson / video game developer

University

University of Pennsylvania

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%89

Tags

• Pennsylvania
• game designer
• professor
• mathematician

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.