WotC Greg Tito On Leaving WotC: 'It feels good to do something that doesn't just line the pockets of *****'

We reported earlier that WotC's communications director Greg Tito had left his 9-year stint managing the Dungeons & Dragons brand for a political appointment as Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Washington secretary of state's office.

Greg Tito Leaves Wizards of the Coast

Greg Tito, formerly the communications manager in charge of overseeing messaging for the Dungeons & Dragons brand, is departing Wizards of the Coast for a career in the public sector. Tito announced that he would be joining the Washington secretary of state's office starting this week, ending an...

www.enworld.org

In a surprising turn of events, Tito criticized his former employers, saying "It feels good to do something that doesn't just line the pockets of a**holes." He later went on to clarify "Sorry. I meant "shareholders".

Tito is now Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Washington Secretary of State office in Olympia, WA.

 

[Oofta]

If you want something another person owns, and that person doesn't want to talk to you, I guess you're not getting that thing. That doesn't mean you get collection agencies or lawyers involved.

You get a collection agency to retrieve property a person is not entitled to. Collecting property is not what lawyers do. You get lawyers involved when you're ready to take legal action against that individual. I don't get why you don't see the escalation of threat or why you think lawyers would have been the better choice.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

But the product does not belong to Wizards. The store has bought it, either from Wizards or a distributor. When they did, they likely agreed that they wouldn't sell it before a certain date, but that box of cards still belongs to the store. The store then sells it to someone else. That's a perfectly legitimate sale. Wizards may have a civil claim against the store for breaking the street date, and the store might have trouble getting stuff before the street date again later, but that's all between Wizards and the store and has nothing to do with the buyer.

I understand your argument.

I'm not a lawyer. I can only comment on what feels wrong or right. The product belonged to Wizards. The store who passed on the cards had no right to do so. The person who had Pinkerton show up at their door may or may not have been aware of this. I suspect that they did know, but that's only relevant if they had a hand in the potential deceit carried out by the party who passed on the cards.

What follows is my take on what happened.

Either way, Wizards sent a collection agency to recoup their property from a person who may or may have not had a hand in accessing that property. Let's assume this person is an innocent party and had nothing to do with their inappropriate acquisition of these cards. After being contacted multiple times by Wizards (allegedly, I understand), this person still refused to hand over the cards. It would be unreasonable to assume that no contact from Wizards had taken place at this point? Agreed? The 'elderly neighbours' had been contacted re: 'hey, trying to get a hold of these folks'?

So this person knows that they have cards that broke the street date. Not their problem right? They can get cred for their channel at this point, super cool? This is an option open to them. What is the ethical stance here? Return the cards without being asked, because you have something that you know doesn't belong to you? Maybe you take the grayer position... let them ask me first. But then they ask you... and you refuse. What are their options now? They've tried to get a hold of you to negotiate something reasonable.

At this point, the holder of the cards has been contacted. They understand the ethics involved, but still choose to hold onto the cards.

Involve lawyers now? Seems a bit of a nuclear option honestly, despite what I said earlier. The most straightforward approach at the point where this person has refused contact is to send a collection agency to get their property. The problem here is that this person is out actual money for these cards. Sounds like they were offered a full refund though?

I guess you can make a case for lawyers before collection agency? Either way, it doesn't look great for dude holding the cards.

To me, it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who does something they know is wrong, at someone else's expense, for their own personal gain. It's not okay if it's an individual or a corporation. Just don't do that.

Again, these are my particular views, based on the facts I have been presented with. Happy to change these views based on clarification of existing facts or presentation of new ones.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

A store pays for merchandise before they receive it. That merchandise once it in the store's hands is the store's property, not the producer's.

However, the store might be under contract not to break street date as a condition of their purchase of the merchandise.

If that store breeches their contract by selling before street date (breaking street date), then it is a civil matter between the store and the producer and has no bearing on there person who bought the product early -- that product is still their free and clear and there's no legal right on the producer's part to get the product back in any form except under discovery for use as evidence for the civil suit--which can be done via subpoena rather than hired goons.

Hired goons are for when you default on a loan be it with loan shark or loan shark with FDIC backing.

It's also not ethically correct to hold onto that property. Terrible behaviour on the card holder's part in my opinion.

It's the hired goons bit where you're losing me. Ease off that please? Hyperbole never strengthens an argument. What is it about Pinkerton that is bothering you here?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

I don't think I understand where this discussion is going.

If we take things at face value, links below, the youtuber bought stolen product. WotC repossessed stolen product, and gave the youtuber compensation. WotC has every right to the stolen product, the youtuber has none. And WotC is not required to give compensation, but did.

One could argue that WotC should have used the police to do this, over a private security company. But they likely had a sense of urgency, given the leak, that they didn't feel the police would be able to accommodate. So they used a private company. This is not uncommon.

So where is this discussion going? Either we agree on the above. Or we don't. But if we don't, is there any chance at agreement? And if we do, why poo-poo on WotC for reasonable actions that are more friendly than the norm?

It makes me wonder.

Sources: Magic 'Raid' Wasn't the First Time Wizards of the Coast Hired Pinkertons [UPDATED]

Wizards Of The Coast Raids YouTuber’s House To Take Back Magic: The Gathering Cards [Update]

A Magic: The Gathering YouTuber found Pinkerton agents at his front door on Saturday morning

kotaku.com

 

[Oofta]

I understand your argument.

I'm not a lawyer. I can only comment on what feels wrong or right. The product belonged to Wizards. The store who passed on the cards had no right to do so. The person who had Pinkerton show up at their door may or may not have been aware of this. I suspect that they did know, but that's only relevant if they had a hand in the potential deceit carried out by the party who passed on the cards.

What follows is my take on what happened.

Either way, Wizards sent a collection agency to recoup their property from a person who may or may have not had a hand in accessing that property. Let's assume this person is an innocent party and had nothing to do with their inappropriate acquisition of these cards. After being contacted multiple times by Wizards (allegedly, I understand), this person still refused to hand over the cards. It would be unreasonable to assume that no contact from Wizards had taken place at this point? Agreed? The 'elderly neighbours' had been contacted re: 'hey, trying to get a hold of these folks'?

So this person knows that they have cards that broke the street date. Not their problem right? They can get cred for their channel at this point, super cool? This is an option open to them. What is the ethical stance here? Return the cards without being asked, because you have something that you know doesn't belong to you? Maybe you take the grayer position... let them ask me first. But then they ask you... and you refuse. What are their options now? They've tried to get a hold of you to negotiate something reasonable.

At this point, the holder of the cards has been contacted. They understand the ethics involved, but still choose to hold onto the cards.

Involve lawyers now? Seems a bit of a nuclear option honestly, despite what I said earlier. The most straightforward approach at the point where this person has refused contact is to send a collection agency to get their property. The problem here is that this person is out actual money for these cards. Sounds like they were offered a full refund though?

I guess you can make a case for lawyers before collection agency? Either way, it doesn't look great for dude holding the cards.

To me, it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who does something they know is wrong, at someone else's expense, for their own personal gain. It's not okay if it's an individual or a corporation. Just don't do that.

Again, these are my particular views, based on the facts I have been presented with. Happy to change these views based on clarification of existing facts or presentation of new ones.

When Dan opened the box he knew they were from a set they had not yet been released, the box label did not match the cards.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

It's the hired goons bit where you're losing me. Ease off that please? Hyperbole never strengthens an argument. What is it about Pinkerton that is bothering you here?

A reputation from the 1930s before Securitas bought, gutted, and reorganized the company.

When Dan opened the box he knew they were from a set they had not yet been released, the box label did not match the cards.

If you listen to his reuploaded video on it. He said, and Im paraphrasing,

"my buddy called me up a week ago and said Ive got 22 collectors boxes real cheap from march of the machines"

This lends some credibility, that he also had an idea of their "stolen" nature. This wasn't a game store mistake, if you take the youtuber at his word.

 

[Nikosandros]

I don't think I understand where this discussion is going.

If we take things at face value, links below, the youtuber bought stolen product. WotC repossessed stolen product, and gave the youtuber compensation. WotC has every right to the stolen product, the youtuber has none. And WotC is not required to give compensation, but did.

One could argue that WotC should have used the police to do this, over a private security company. But they likely had a sense of urgency, given the leak, that they didn't feel the police would be able to accommodate. So they used a private company. This is not uncommon.

So where is this discussion going? Either we agree on the above. Or we don't. But if we don't, is there any chance at agreement? And if we do, why poo-poo on WotC for reasonable actions that are more friendly than the norm?

It makes me wonder.

Sources: Magic 'Raid' Wasn't the First Time Wizards of the Coast Hired Pinkertons [UPDATED]

Wizards Of The Coast Raids YouTuber’s House To Take Back Magic: The Gathering Cards [Update]

A Magic: The Gathering YouTuber found Pinkerton agents at his front door on Saturday morning

kotaku.com

The Kotaku article is not, IMHO, clear at all, but how is breaking the street date for a sale equivalent to stealing?

 

[Oofta]

A reputation from the 1930s before Securitas bought, gutted, and reorganized the company.

I think most people's impressions of the Pinkertons likely comes from the most reliable source of all, the video game Red Dead Redemption.

If you listen to his reuploaded video on it. He said, and Im paraphrasing,

"my buddy called me up a week ago and said Ive got 22 collectors boxes real cheap from march of the machines"

This lends some credibility, that he also had an idea of their "stolen" nature. This wasn't a game store mistake, if you take the youtuber at his word.

I don't think we'll ever know the whole story. I simply don't see anything wrong with what WotC did; if there were any evidence or proof that the Pinkertons did anything wrong Dan could have reported them. There's even a link in the article where he could do that.

But let's imagine for a moment the Pinkertons did threaten Dan. The guy went out of his way to talk about how nice the customer service folks were. So it's still not an issue with WotC, it's an accusation made (again with no evidence and contradictory reports) against the investigators.

 

[Staffan]

I understand your argument.

I'm not a lawyer. I can only comment on what feels wrong or right. The product belonged to Wizards. The store who passed on the cards had no right to do so. The person who had Pinkerton show up at their door may or may not have been aware of this. I suspect that they did know, but that's only relevant if they had a hand in the potential deceit carried out by the party who passed on the cards.

That's where we differ. The product does not belong to Wizards. The store has bought it. Not being allowed to sell the product is a civil matter between Wizards and the store, and has nothing to do with the buyer. The only party Wizards should be able to bring legal power to bear against is the store. If they want something from the buyer, they have to come to an agreement with him, but they have no right to demand anything from him, anymore than they can make any demands about the PHB on my bookshelf.

You seem to be under the impression that the store is just acting as a Wizards storefront, with inventory being owned by Wizards until it's sold to a customer. That's not how things work. Stores buy things from distributors and publishers. It is then theirs. They may or may not be limited in what they can do with them by contracts, but it's still theirs. Breaking a street date is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Either way, Wizards sent a collection agency to recoup their property from a person who may or may have not had a hand in accessing that property.

Not their property.

So this person knows that they have cards that broke the street date. Not their problem right? They can get cred for their channel at this point, super cool? This is an option open to them. What is the ethical stance here? Return the cards without being asked, because you have something that you know doesn't belong to you?

It does belong to the buyer. He paid for it. It is his.

At this point, the holder of the cards has been contacted. They understand the ethics involved, but still choose to hold onto the cards.

The owner of the cards, not the holder.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Woah.

So I did mention I regret mentioning this. Again, there is nothing new (which was my point). And yet...

@Ulorian - Agent of Chaos I will reiterate what I said before; having tried to provide some legal analysis the first time this went around, I learned that it doesn't matter. Beliefs are what they are and won't change.

ETA- @Staffan Unless you are very comfortable with the federal laws and the laws of the jurisdiction where this occurred, I would be hesitant to make sweeping statements about the issues and what can, or can't, be done.