WotC may have sent the Pinkertons to a magic leakers home. Update: WotC confirms it and has a response.

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

To save everyone else the search, "privity" does not mean "in a bathroom stall with," but "a close, mutual, or successive relationship to the same right of property or the power to enforce a promise or warranty."

And thank you, @Snarf Zagyg.

 

[Weiley31]

Well... jeeze...

Maybe I do need to worry about WoTC raiding my house and stopping me from playing old editions of D&D.

Just wait until you TRY add in House Rules in your current games or Half-Elves/Half-Orcs in 2024.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
Folks, we are already seeing a decline in civility in this thread.

We are all here armchair quarterbacks on what should or shouldn't be done. And that's okay. But, treating each other poorly for disagreeing with our armchair quarterback assessments IS NOT OKAY.

You have all been warned.

 

[ersatzphil]

I would like to hear from one of ENWorld's many lawyers about whether this guy committed a crime or whether WotC has a civil case against him. I'm guessing no, because they wouldn't have sent the Pinkertons to him if so -- lawyers would have sent him an email (and physically served him) instead.

There seems to be a lot of ambiguity as to how he got ahold of the cards, with some people calling it theft - my opinion would turn a 180 if that's the case - but given that apparently the current MTG set is 'March of the Machine' and the upcoming one is 'March of the Machine: Aftermath', it would seem far more likely that someone just accidentally goofed on the extremely similar name and sold or shipped something they shouldn't have.

GW recently had someone receive a new model before it had been announced, and reacted by putting out a release that said, "Sometimes things appear out of the Warp at unexpected and unplanned times: anyway, new Dante! GET HYPED!" Seems an infinitely preferable way of dealing with this kind of situation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There seems to be a lot of ambiguity as to how he got ahold of the cards, with some people calling it theft - my opinion would turn a 180 if that's the case - but given that apparently the current MTG set is 'March of the Machine' and the upcoming one is 'March of the Machine: Aftermath', it would seem far more likely that someone just accidentally goofed on the extremely similar name and sold or shipped something they shouldn't have.

GW recently had someone receive a new model before it had been announced, and reacted by putting out a release that said, "Sometimes things appear out of the Warp at unexpected and unplanned times: anyway, new Dante! GET HYPED!" Seems an infinitely preferable way of dealing with this kind of situation.

That would require Hasbro to have a sense of humor.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There seems to be a lot of ambiguity as to how he got ahold of the cards, with some people calling it theft - my opinion would turn a 180 if that's the case - but given that apparently the current MTG set is 'March of the Machine' and the upcoming one is 'March of the Machine: Aftermath', it would seem far more likely that someone just accidentally goofed on the extremely similar name and sold or shipped something they shouldn't have.

GW recently had someone receive a new model before it had been announced, and reacted by putting out a release that said, "Sometimes things appear out of the Warp at unexpected and unplanned times: anyway, new Dante! GET HYPED!" Seems an infinitely preferable way of dealing with this kind of situation.

Yeah, I'm not sure what actual problem WotC thought they were solving with this approach.

I have been part of a roll-out of a big announcement in the past that someone did jump the gun on (only about two hours, but it was before a big global livestream). My boss lost his mind because things were no longer under his control, but it just amounted to a bit of hype done by a third party. There was no actual harm done to us, other than my boss' blood pressure.

Now, if they were having trouble figuring out where the leak occurred -- and shame on them if they don't have internal practices that make it easy to narrow the suspects way down -- sure, make contact. But as I said previously, they should have approached him as fellow fans and talked to him about how they all want what's best for MTG and see if they can get the info from him in a way that wouldn't have him screaming and yelling about his treatment.

But at the end of the day, what was the actual harm that this guy did? He previewed some stuff early. Did he deter sales that were otherwise going to happen? Wouldn't those people have been deterred when the sets hit the street legally anyway, once customers started posting what was in the set then?

In any case, I guess we now know where the person behind the OGL fiasco was transferred to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I'm not sure what actual problem WotC thought they were solving with this approach.

I have been part of a roll-out of a big announcement in the past that someone did jump the gun on (only about two hours, but it was before a big global livestream). My boss lost his mind because things were no longer under his control, but it just amounted to a bit of hype done by a third-party. There was no actual harm done to us, other than my boss' blood pressure.

Now, if they were having trouble figuring out where the leak occurred -- and shame on them if they don't have internal practices that make it easy to narrow the suspects way down -- sure, make contact. But as I said previously, they should have approached him as fellow fans and talked to him about how they all want what's best for MTG and see if they can get the info from him in a way that wouldn't have him screaming and yelling about his treatment.

But at the end of the day, what was the actual harm that this guy did? He previewed some stuff early. Did he deter sales that were otherwise going to happen? Wouldn't those people have been deterred when the sets hit the street legally anyway, once customers started posting what was in the set then?

In any case, I guess we now know where the person behind the OGL fiasco was transferred to.

Maybe a phone call...

 

[Undrave]

It does seem heavy-handed, and a bad choice for Hasbro's image in the wake of recent fiasco. Hard to imagine why they thought this move was worth it.

That would require Hasbro to have a sense of humor.

Hasbro has yet to send hired goons against people who review Transformers toys we know were stolen off the factory floor (no boxes, no instructions, often missing accessories and with dubious QC, reviewed weeks before any announcements…) and built their whole subscriber base off of that … but WOTC sends Pinkertons to a guy who had, if I read this correctly, 2000 subs at the time for getting hold of some cards early...

It's really baffling.

Also, recently, some Canadian Gamestops broke the street date on a set of exclusives that Hasbro had yet to reveal, and that none of the leakers had been made aware of. Distribution is BORKED nowadays and release dates are a myth. This stuff happens, no reason for WotC to panic.

 

[ersatzphil]

But at the end of the day, what was the actual harm that this guy did? He previewed some stuff early. Did he deter sales that were otherwise going to happen? Wouldn't those people have been deterred when the sets hit the street legally anyway, once customers started posting what was in the set then?

The only reason I can think of is "we know the new set is going to be a disappointment, and we don't want people to cancel their preorders", but that seems... really unlikely to me? I haven't played magic since the 90s and have no clue what the current state of the game is, but still.

 

[darjr]

Will Wheaton has posted his opinion and it isn’t kind to WotC.