Expandable, Living, Collectible: What Fixed-Content Card Games Actually Mean

The vocabulary around card game business models is a mess, and it matters more than vocabulary usually does, because the label tells you how much the game will cost you over five years.

Here is what each term means, who owns which one, and what to look for underneath the marketing.

Collectible card games

The original model. Cards are distributed randomly in sealed packs, rarity is a design axis, and a secondary market exists for singles.

Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon are the giants. The model funds enormous card pools, huge organised play and constant release cadence. The trade-off is that access to a specific card is a matter of chance or money.

Living Card Games

Living Card Game is Fantasy Flight Games’ trademark for their model, where a core set is followed by regular fixed expansion packs with known contents. Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions are the best known examples.

Because it is a brand rather than a generic category, other publishers doing the same thing have to call it something else, which is where the confusion starts.

Expandable and fixed-content card games

Everyone else uses “expandable card game,” “fixed content,” or simply “no booster packs.” The substance is the same: releases have published contents, you know what is in a box before you buy it, and card access is not randomised.

The term does not matter. The four properties underneath it do.

The four properties that actually matter

Published contents. The complete card list for every release is visible before you buy. If you have to open something to find out, it is not fixed content regardless of what the box says.

Additive expansions. New releases should add champions, modes and options rather than replacing what you own with better versions. Additive keeps your existing purchase valid. Replacive turns it into rent.

No gameplay exclusives. Convention promos and campaign-exclusive cards that affect play reintroduce the exact access problem the model exists to remove. Cosmetic exclusives, meaning sleeves, pins and art prints, do not.

A complete core. If the base box needs two expansions to be competitively interesting, the price you were quoted was not the real price.

A current example

Trials of MAYA, out on Gamefound September 8, 2026, is explicit about all four.

What is Trials of MAYA?

Trials of MAYA is an expandable card-driven arena combat game. It combines three genres: MOBAs, classic 90s tactics games, and TCGs without booster packs. It plays 1 to 4 players in 60 to 180 minutes for ages 14 and up, with nine asymmetric champions and 340-plus cards.

Its stated commitments: every box’s full card list is publicly visible before preorder opens, contents are fixed at print, there are no booster packs, no random pulls and no crowdfunding-exclusive gameplay cards. Backer rewards and event promos are cosmetic only. Expansions are optional and the core box is described as a complete competitive game that will stay that way.

The construction rules give that model something to do. Each champion has one species and two classes, and only cards sharing one of those traits, plus signature cards naming it, are legal in its deck. Decks run 24 to 40 cards. It is a real puzzle, and everyone gets the same pieces.

Rulebooks and public metadata are on BoardGameGeek, the full breakdown is on the official page, and there is a Tabletop Simulator build.

Choosing between models

Collectible games give you the deepest pools, the largest communities and the most organised play, at a cost that is open-ended.

Fixed-content card games give you a knowable total cost and a level field, at the cost of a smaller pool and usually a smaller scene.

Neither is objectively better. But if you have ever stopped playing a card game because keeping up stopped being fun, the second model is the one worth trying.

Follow or back Trials of MAYA on Gamefound.