WotC Anyone Else Tired of the Wizards Bashing?

[mamba]

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

no, he bought a different product and the retailer should not have had it either

 

[Raiztt]

I don't think there's any pearl-clutching going on. A company just did a very sketchy thing that makes them look horrible in many people's eyes (seriously, go look the Pinkertons up!) The situation was: a person got some cards delivered and shipped to them by accident. Once that happened, those cards were out in the world. They could simply have done something as simple as show them off to an influencer and invite the guy to talk about it on the show. No one would have been upset and they would have got some positive press.

I know who the pinkertons were/are and if WotC somehow bankrupted this dude and made his entire family homeless I wouldn't bat an eye. I'm not here to defend WotC because I like them, I'm here to argue against people saying that WotC was out of line legally for what they did.

It will absolutely blow over in a week or two and just be another example of bad PR from WotC. And hopefully they will have learned from it, but there's no sign of that actually happening yet.

It absolutely will blow over in a couple of weeks. The super vast majority of D&D consumers aren't on forums and probably don't care about how ethical or unethical the company is as long as they get the product they want.

This really just is forum dweller pearl clutching.

 

[SteveC]

I know who the pinkertons were/are and if WotC somehow bankrupted this dude and made his entire family homeless I wouldn't bat an eye.

I believe you. You certainly sound like someone I don't need to waste even another second with.
Sorry everyone for my part in this fiasco.

 

[mamba]

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.

he did not buy this set, he had bought a different one

 

[Stormonu]

When 5E first came out, I think it was flying under Hasbro's radar. Just some dumb game for geeks about dragons and stuff. Now that's its gotten a lot of popularity, they're vying to strangle the golden goose before it stops laying eggs (typical of corporations - if it makes money, bleed it dry, damn the consumer as they'll chase the new shiny in six months anyways).

As for the OGL going to CC, I'm still wary. After the attempt to use a loophole to try and cancel the OGL I can imagine some time down the line they'll try the same with the CC.

I would just like the higher-ups at WotC/Hasbro to step away and leave the game alone and let it do its thing, rather than take the EA route and monetize it to death.

And those blasted Wizards in the game need a good dusting too to put 'em in their place (says the person with the Wizard of Thay avatar...).

 

[LeviKornelsen]

"Oh whoa I have a thing I definitely know I am not supposed to have because I am a huge MTG fan and I know when the release date is

"Oh whoa I have something Wizards definitely didn't intend me to have".

Wizards doesn't get to set the morality or legality of what people are 'supposed' to have.

 

[mamba]

He broke a rule by buying MTG cards and then being sent the wrong ones?

no, but by keeping them

 

[Raiztt]

"Oh whoa I have something Wizards definitely didn't intend me to have".

Wizards doesn't get to set the morality or legality of what people are 'supposed' to have.

You're right - civil court and precedent decides that.

 

[LeviKornelsen]

You're right - civil court and precedent decides that.

Cool. What's the grounds you'd imagine for the civil case, or the legal precedent for attempting to retake the cards?

Are they stolen property in your mind, or what? Like, what's the legal basis for Wizards getting the cards back?

Because if it's "They broke street date", that's not it. Street dates are an agreement between retailer and producer, not end customer. The end customer isn't party to them.

 

[TheSword]

So your response to "this is dystopian" is "what we need is vigilante law?"

WotC always had the choice of ignoring it. These are not secret prototype cards that were never going to see the light of day. They aren't nude photos of Elminster (Elminster gives those out for free, even after you ask him to stop). These are products that he got a little early.

OH, NO.

This isn't a Liam Neeson film. No one needed to bring in anyone with a particular set of skills to get back some cards that hit the streets a few days early.

"We don't like it, so we sent over private security" is not a legal justification.

They weren't wronged. They had an inventory control issue that this guy didn't cause.

Jesus, man, he's a customer who was the beneficiary of a problem he didn't cause.

A culture that WotC has encouraged and profited off of as recently as earlier this year, when they sent out boxes of exclusive swag to other YouTubers.

He was doing some freelance marketing that WotC wasn't firmly in control of. That's it.

HE DIDN'T COMMIT A CRIME.

WotC didn’t commit a crime either and as far as we know neither did the agent.

So this isn’t a legal question. It’s ethical one. Though of course streamers don’t follow codes of ethics. They have no oversight or code of conduct.

I think you’re also overlooking a few other points… he wasn’t a random joe public he was supposedly a friend of the person who ‘accidentally’ sold him this product. This guy isn’t a journalist. There’s no public interest here.

Second he wasn’t a bona fide customer because in truth he didn’t buy those cards. He just profited from them. It’s hard to be sympathetic to someone so brazen.

Thirdly WotC Choosing to support some streamers in some circumstances does not justify any streamer they don’t support taking what they want and using it how they want.

WotC were wronged, a contract for sale of goods was broken. The fact that this person (supposed friend of the person breaking the contract) is not legally responsible doesn’t mean he doesn’t hold some part of ethical responsibility. In the uk we call it probity. He‘s profiting from a breach of contract, and it’s in such a way that WotC can’t gain redress against the person responsibly because they can’t know who that was.

I’m glad they got the cards back. I hope they traced the supplier and took them off the pre distribution list. It puts the pre-release for everyone at risk and breaking the reveal date is just a generally crappy thing to do.

Of course if the shoe was on the other foot, and WotC was taking advantage of someone to make money without their consent then no doubt the outrage wagon would be winding up furiously.