3 ms·

Wizards of the Coast seems to be on a rampage to do as much damage to their brand as possible. Weren't they pretty beloved by fans before some of these more rec

Wizards of the Coast seems to be on a rampage to do as much damage to their brand as possible. Weren't they pretty beloved by fans before some of these more recent actions? It's like they've turned into the Comcast of table top games. What do they really have beyond their brand? People can play other games.

dgb23 3y ago
It's a shit show and plenty of people are not OK with it, including prominent content creators (for both DnD and MTG) that have a huge draw.
permo-w 3y ago
the DnD movie was very good. maybe they’re getting overconfident
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  Apparently not good enough for a sequel though. Kinda sad how good something has to do to be considered successful these days.
  - permo-w 3y ago
    I find it more sad that something being good necessitates sequels
  - danjoredd 3y ago
    They said before the movie released that it was not their intention to make a franchise out of the movie. They were open to making a franchise, but the movie was designed to stand alone. In the age of cinematic universes making a D&D cinematic universe makes a lot of sense, but thats not what the authors wanted. “It was never our intention when we came on board this film to make a franchise . . . I think that would cloud our ability to focus entirely on the film at hand. The cardinal mistake many studios make is to put the cart before the horse, where they start crafting a cinematic universe before they even make a good single film. So first and foremost for us was getting this right.” https://www.polygon.com/23665427/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-among-thieves-sequel-drizzt-dourden https://www.polygon.com/23665427/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-...
esharte 3y ago
>"Weren't they pretty beloved by fans before some of these more recent actions?" No definitely not
digging 3y ago
> What do they really have beyond their brand? People can play other games. Certainly Dungeons and Dragons has tons of competition from other systems and I won't be playing it anymore, but it does have the network effect and weekly hosted games and name recognition. MTG, I think, doesn't have serious competition. It is a unique juggernaut. Playing a 5e D&D game today has no relation to old 2e adventures, but many forms of Magic make use of ancient cards with serious monetary value. Magic is also such an intricate and surprisingly balanced game and has something that other games somehow always struggle with: exactness. There is, technically, no room for interpretation on any Magic card (please correct me if I'm wrong here, I haven't played in 5+ years). Every possible interaction has a precise outcome that can be derived from the rules, or at worst from card-specific errata which are available freely and easily online. The combination of amazing art, historic value, well-known lore, a massive library, and exact gameplay makes MTG difficult to buck. I'm certainly not buying any more cards, but I don't know where I would start looking if I got the itch for a card game again.
- jsmith45 3y ago
  Right, assuming players have access to the oracle text (the canonical post errata text for the card), and a copy of the comprehensive magic rules, it should be possible to deterministically determine the result of any interaction (modulo any specified randomness or opportunities for human choice). The comprehensive rules are intended to be fully comprehensive, with only simply logic needed to connect the parts. If this has failed anywhere leaving something without a clear resolution this would be considered a defect in the comprehensive rules or the card's canonical text. Such defects are not especially common, as they tend to get noticed before new cards or mechanics are released. This is especially true since WOTC ends up programming these mechanics into software not once but at least twice. (First for MTGO, and then again for MTG Arena's backend, and sometimes needing to program it again for the Arena's front end code.) The need to program it into the software gives makes it much more likely than any remaining ambiguity in the Card's Oracle text or the comprehensive rules gets noticed and addressed.
fwlr 3y ago
Hasbro (who are actually the Comcast of table top games) bought WotC in 1999, initially operating it as a legal subsidiary. I only followed MtG from 2001 to 2005; at that time it seemed pretty clear to me that Hasbro was taking a fairly hands-off approach. I don’t know what has happened in the interim but recent news indicated WotC was something like 70% of Hasbro’s entire revenue, so I imagine what happened was, as WotC grew and Hasbro shrank, Hasbro started exercising more of the power of WotC that they have long held but rarely used - basically, becoming more hands-on as the profits grew (unsurprisingly). There seems to have been several reshuffles of just how legally independent WotC is from Hasbro over the years, although I’m not sure those legal reshuffles are indicative of how much actual power Hasbro was exercising. My general impression is that WotC had found a point on the Pareto curve of “greedy” vs “respectful” where they were quite greedy but also quite respectful, and Hasbro’s more recent influence has pushed them into “very greedy”, not realizing the Pareto curve was extremely steep and so this caused a corresponding move all the way from “quite respectful” to “very disrespectful”.

dgb23 3y ago

It's a shit show and plenty of people are not OK with it, including prominent content creators (for both DnD and MTG) that have a huge draw.

permo-w 3y ago

the DnD movie was very good. maybe they’re getting overconfident

nickthegreek 3y ago
Apparently not good enough for a sequel though. Kinda sad how good something has to do to be considered successful these days.
- permo-w 3y ago
  I find it more sad that something being good necessitates sequels
- danjoredd 3y ago
  They said before the movie released that it was not their intention to make a franchise out of the movie. They were open to making a franchise, but the movie was designed to stand alone. In the age of cinematic universes making a D&D cinematic universe makes a lot of sense, but thats not what the authors wanted. “It was never our intention when we came on board this film to make a franchise . . . I think that would cloud our ability to focus entirely on the film at hand. The cardinal mistake many studios make is to put the cart before the horse, where they start crafting a cinematic universe before they even make a good single film. So first and foremost for us was getting this right.” https://www.polygon.com/23665427/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-among-thieves-sequel-drizzt-dourden https://www.polygon.com/23665427/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-...

esharte 3y ago

>"Weren't they pretty beloved by fans before some of these more recent actions?" No definitely not

digging 3y ago

> What do they really have beyond their brand? People can play other games. Certainly Dungeons and Dragons has tons of competition from other systems and I won't be playing it anymore, but it does have the network effect and weekly hosted games and name recognition. MTG, I think, doesn't have serious competition. It is a unique juggernaut. Playing a 5e D&D game today has no relation to old 2e adventures, but many forms of Magic make use of ancient cards with serious monetary value. Magic is also such an intricate and surprisingly balanced game and has something that other games somehow always struggle with: exactness. There is, technically, no room for interpretation on any Magic card (please correct me if I'm wrong here, I haven't played in 5+ years). Every possible interaction has a precise outcome that can be derived from the rules, or at worst from card-specific errata which are available freely and easily online. The combination of amazing art, historic value, well-known lore, a massive library, and exact gameplay makes MTG difficult to buck. I'm certainly not buying any more cards, but I don't know where I would start looking if I got the itch for a card game again.

jsmith45 3y ago
Right, assuming players have access to the oracle text (the canonical post errata text for the card), and a copy of the comprehensive magic rules, it should be possible to deterministically determine the result of any interaction (modulo any specified randomness or opportunities for human choice). The comprehensive rules are intended to be fully comprehensive, with only simply logic needed to connect the parts. If this has failed anywhere leaving something without a clear resolution this would be considered a defect in the comprehensive rules or the card's canonical text. Such defects are not especially common, as they tend to get noticed before new cards or mechanics are released. This is especially true since WOTC ends up programming these mechanics into software not once but at least twice. (First for MTGO, and then again for MTG Arena's backend, and sometimes needing to program it again for the Arena's front end code.) The need to program it into the software gives makes it much more likely than any remaining ambiguity in the Card's Oracle text or the comprehensive rules gets noticed and addressed.

fwlr 3y ago

Hasbro (who are actually the Comcast of table top games) bought WotC in 1999, initially operating it as a legal subsidiary. I only followed MtG from 2001 to 2005; at that time it seemed pretty clear to me that Hasbro was taking a fairly hands-off approach. I don’t know what has happened in the interim but recent news indicated WotC was something like 70% of Hasbro’s entire revenue, so I imagine what happened was, as WotC grew and Hasbro shrank, Hasbro started exercising more of the power of WotC that they have long held but rarely used - basically, becoming more hands-on as the profits grew (unsurprisingly). There seems to have been several reshuffles of just how legally independent WotC is from Hasbro over the years, although I’m not sure those legal reshuffles are indicative of how much actual power Hasbro was exercising. My general impression is that WotC had found a point on the Pareto curve of “greedy” vs “respectful” where they were quite greedy but also quite respectful, and Hasbro’s more recent influence has pushed them into “very greedy”, not realizing the Pareto curve was extremely steep and so this caused a corresponding move all the way from “quite respectful” to “very disrespectful”.