Just began Hesse's Magister Ludi/The Glass Bead Game and skipped the intro, is this bad?

I'm just curious if the intro of Hesse's TGBG is necessary to read for the story. I am happy to go back and read it now that I'm hooked, I just couldn't start with it before being attached to the novel (as it is a bit dense and definitely hard reading, imho).