What is the point of the arena?

[nik592]

I guess people play because it's a competitive environment with a goal.

Some people also play Arena even if they don't care about Arena rankings because they say they can't get games going outside of Arena.

Interesting, I never even bothered trying arena because I assumed it would be even HARDER to find a game in arena.

There's also a suggestion that less casual, more serious players (in terms of likelihood to complete a game vs. disappearing after a turn or two) frequent Arena more than non-Arena. It makes a kind of sense - if you're signing up to be ranked on your play, you're probably somewhat more likely to actually finish a game. That said, I find a lot of Arena is 2p, which might also contribute to games actually getting finished (given that outside of Arena I will usually choose 3+ players, which means extra people who can disappear).