WotC Anyone Else Tired of the Wizards Bashing?

[UngeheuerLich]

They don't own the product. They sold it to a distributor who sold it to a retailer who sold it to him.

This is more complicated than you think
... but IANAL.

 

[Oofta]

Comparing what he did -- buying MTG cards -- to picking up something that fell off a truck and keeping it without paying for it is what I was referencing.

Keeping something that fell off a truck is also illegal so I'm a bit confused.

 

[Raiztt]

No.

Lmao ignorance is bliss I guess?

 

[SteveC]

I'm not demonizing him - I'm saying that even with that mistake WotC has civil legal options for dealing with that sort of mistake and demanding the return of that property is well within that scope.

And as an honest question: how's that working out for them? Sending people to strong-arm the guy into returning something he received by mistake is questionable at best. Things like "he didn't answer his phone!" are just insane: if I get calls from a number I don't know, I don't answer it either! I don't know how everything with the Pinkertons actually went down, but depending on how it did, he should talk to a lawyer if one hasn't already approached him.

And regardless, it's making WotC look bad all over again, when they had just largely gotten over the bad press from their last enormous mistake. This all could have been avoided if WotC used even basic PR strategy.

 

[Raiztt]

This is more complicated than you think
... but IANAL.

It is, but people are self admittedly not really concerned or interested in the nuance of civil law.

 

[Raiztt]

And as an honest question: how's that working out for them? Sending people to strong-arm the guy into returning something he received by mistake is questionable at best. Things like "he didn't answer his phone!" are just insane: if I get calls from a number I don't know, I don't answer it either! I don't know how everything with the Pinkertons actually went down, but depending on how it did, he should talk to a lawyer if one hasn't already approached him.

And regardless, it's making WotC look bad all over again, when they had just largely gotten over the bad press from their last enormous mistake. This all could have been avoided if WotC used even basic PR strategy.

I don't give a naughty word about WotC - D&D is an inferior product to my preferred system so far all i care they can go bankrupt - I'm just not clutching my pearls at the thought that a corporation would want to keep as tight of control over their unreleased product as possible.

 

[payn]

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's also not clear if WOTC knew that the guy received the product because of a shipping error or if they suspected theft (which has happened previously).

In both cases, an in-house investigation would be the most productive. Are they not scanning all boxes before they're put on the trucks to distributors? Are they monitoring the rest of their inventory properly? Especially since they've had these issues before, that seems like the area they need to be focusing on.

The streamer presumably knew he should not have had the product.

But as has been said, getting stuff before street date is extremely common. I suspect a large portion of this community has gotten stuff early. We've had people post about getting D&D books from stores before the street date and no one came out of the woodwork to scold them for doing so.

It is bizarre that suddenly so many people seem to have a problem with this, when I suspect we can see many of the same people in those old threads, asking about whether a given subclass was updated since the UA or what levels one of the adventures in the book is for.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Keeping something that fell off a truck is also illegal so I'm a bit confused.

Keeping something that fell off a truck is definitely illegal.

People keep wanting accidentally buying something before intended release date to be illegal, but it's hard to find any evidence that's actually true.

 

[Raiztt]

It is bizarre that suddenly so many people seem to have a problem with this, when I suspect we can see many of the same people in those old threads, asking about whether a given subclass was updated since the UA or what levels one of the adventures in the book is for.

When I break a rule, which I do often in many different contexts, I don't act surprise when there are consequences - is the point.