WotC New D&D survey from WotC as part of the 50th anniversary year.

[Ruin Explorer]

I have no reason to suppose the geeky WotC kid who had been tasked to deal with this would know any more than I do.

...

I...

I'm genuinely confused that you would even think that. Are you messing with me lol?

A "geeky kid" would under no circumstances be allowed to be hiring a security company to investigate an incident for a billion-dollar corporation. The number of levels of approval that would have to go through would be significant. I've worked in multiple places exactly as corporate as WotC seems to be and the idea that anyone not management would be making decisions on that is just wild. There would already be a procedure in place, and it would be followed, and I rock solid guarantee actual experienced managers not "geeky kids" would be decision-making. Hell, if "geeky kids" are making decisions like that, WotC is sunk, man, this is the least of their problems.

This isn't like, some mom n' pop shop or a dodgy start-up. This is a super-corporate billion dollar operation.

On that front, they could have skipped straight to legal action.

Honestly? I'd have had a lot more respect for that, though given my background perhaps I'm biased. At the very least mailing a Letter Before Claim or sending a process server (I say mailing because I am under the perhaps mistaken and unresearched belief that it is illegal to just put something in someone's mailbox in the US as they are USPS property). They seem to have skipped over that, given he says they didn't, and WotC didn't say they did. This is also part of why I think it's perhaps overreach from the security rather than some mustachio'd WotC exec in an olde-timey white suit going "SEND IN THE PINKERTONS!!!" whilst chewing on a cigar and slamming a fist on their desk - unfortunately the de facto impact is very similar!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A "geeky kid" would under no circumstances be allowed to be hiring a security company to investigate an incident for a billion-dollar corporation.

I'm pretty sure everyone working at WotC is geeky, and I'm pretty confident most are younger than me, i.e. kids. I mean, Elon Musk is a geeky kid so far as I'm concerned.

 

[MoonSong]

"WotC hired the Pinkertons!" is just...not sympathetic to me.

It's valid to you, but to me it is triggering. I want my hobbies to be made by companies that feel welcoming and wholesome. Them sending armed goons to a fan's home over what is essentially a toy is too much. There's too much gun violence around me to overlook it.

 

[Amrûnril]

A key feature of our legal system is that both parties in a dispute have rights. If you pressure the other party into accepting a settlement before they can apprise themselves of their rights, you are behaving unethically, even if you remain within the letter of the law. WotC, in the MtG cards dispute, claims to have made several contact attempts, but they conspicuously refrained from using any form of communication that would leave a paper trail or allow the recipient to contact a lawyer before responding.

Of course, "pressure" is something of an understatement when talking about sending private armed guards to someone's house. Frankly, the underlying idea that private agents should be allowed to do the work of law enforcement while being accountable to an individual or corporation rather than to the public is mind boggling to me. But even if one accepts the existence of such organizations, deploying them as WotC did is simply not a reasonable response to a contract/IP dispute where the worst damage (a mild disruption of marketing plans) is already done.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Frankly, the underlying idea that private agents should be allowed to do the work of law enforcement while being accountable to an individual or corporation rather than to the public is mind boggling to me.

Statistically speaking, members of my family are more likely to survive an encounter with rent-a-cops than an encounter with actual cops. Plus, corporate security has no real power to abuse and no qualified immunity to exploit if they get trigger happy. I would consider sending a few annoying rent-a-cops to haggle with me less aggressive than calling in actual law enforcement.

Edit: But we're getting way off topic, so I'll let everyone else have the last word. I'll refrain from making any further comments on this particular tangent.

 

[Parmandur]

Honestly? I'd have had a lot more respect for that, though given my background perhaps I'm biased. At the very least mailing a Letter Before Claim or sending a process server (I say mailing because I am under the perhaps mistaken and unresearched belief that it is illegal to just put something in someone's mailbox in the US as they are USPS property). They seem to have skipped over that, given he says they didn't, and WotC didn't say they did. This is also part of why I think it's perhaps overreach from the security rather than some mustachio'd WotC exec in an olde-timey white suit going "SEND IN THE PINKERTONS!!!" whilst chewing on a cigar and slamming a fist on their desk - unfortunately the de facto impact is very similar!

"OMG, did you hear that WotC sued a customer for buying Magic cards???"

What it seems to me happened is that WotC wanted two things: to nip thisnim the bud, and to avoid actually going to legal action, because that would make it worse. I also assume theybused the Pinkertons because Hasbro probably has a standing contract, as you suggest. And...they nipped it in tge bud, and the guy got free stuff instead of a legal battle.

Pretty dang tame for corporate Anerica.

 

[Parmandur]

It's valid to you, but to me it is triggering. I want my hobbies to be made by companies that feel welcoming and wholesome. Them sending armed goons to a fan's home over what is essentially a toy is too much. There's too much gun violence around me to overlook it.

I have absolutely no such expectations of any company I do business with, beyond avoiding entanglements with formal or direct cooperation with evil. That way lies madness, and living in a community off the grid.

 

[mamba]

Both his wife and multiple neighbours felt threatened and upset by the behaviour of the Hired Goons.

I only heard him talk about his wife. He did not feel threatened and he was the one talking to them, wasn’t he? So how bad can it have been…

The Hired Goons also painted a rather fanciful picture of the consequences of not cooperating, which to a certain extent is to be expected

yep, expected, you want him to cooperate fast. Nothing to see here

good luck with that. Whilst they may handle the 5E 2024 SRD gracefully (or not, we shall see), they seem to be feet-dragging on the previous-edition SRDs, and the 3D VTT is likely to be a disaster on multiple levels. Even if it succeeds, if it's set up as MTX-heavy and ultra-monetized as WotC's own announcement video for it suggested, it's going be pretty bad PR.

I did not say they would succeed

As to the VTT, I do not care about that, it might be a financial success, it might be a financial disaster, it does not move the needle wrt whether I like WotC. If they stopped supporting print and other VTTs, that would, adding their own to the mix does not.

Given that they just started supporting Foundry that does not seem to be all that likely in the near future however

 

[Stormonu]

That was mind-boggingly short.

I was ready to answer the usual fare of what I bought, what I liked, what I didn't like, etc.

"Do you love WotC?"

"No, I-"

"GOOD DAY SIR!"

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"OMG, did you hear that WotC sued a customer for buying Magic cards???"

I guess what we're illustrating here is that we're two old cynics who are cynical about different things lol.

I would absolutely shrug at that and then probably boringly explain how I thought WotC's position was fairly reasonable! Also you normally just legally threaten people and then negotiate - taking actual legal action is cringe Nintendo stuff.

I'm pretty sure everyone working at WotC is geeky, and I'm pretty confident most are younger than me, i.e. kids. I mean, Elon Musk is a geeky kid so far as I'm concerned.

I cannot argue with that logic, though I am willing to bet that a whole bunch of people at WotC are absolute non-geeks/nerds, just not the people working directly on the games. The execs are mostly Microsoft corporate, and lot of MS corporate are MBA racquetball types (not that there's anything wrong with that, but geek it ain't) who just happen to have come into the tech field because it has $$$ in it, even if MS' top leaders (like Nadella) are indeed nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds. Thankfully I am younger than Musk so he is not "a kid" to me!

Given that they just started supporting Foundry that does not seem to be all that likely in the near future however

Yeah that's pretty interesting because it indicates that WotC has essentially three competing strategies for digital D&D, which is to say, D&D Beyond, who are gradually (very slowly) building their own simple and easy to use conventional VTT, the 3D VTT team, who are massive compared to the actual D&D and Beyond teams, and building an incredibly flashy and bells-and-whistles-oriented 3D VTT, and the D&D team themselves who are presumably behind licencing out D&D to various extant VTTs. At least it's not all eggs in one basket!