They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys.
D&D has undoubtedly gotten more popular, but I wish it were under the stewardship of someone more deserving, like a geekier board game shop than greed-enthralled Hasbro. They've become the Disney of board games, all quantity and profit and no real concern for a high quality gamer experience. I bet someone like Larian (Baldur's Gate 3) would've taken better care of the IP and rulesets (and they're working on a Divinity tabletop game!)
> They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys.
For me this is the most telling part that Hasbro doesn't quite get what you're actually selling if you have a tabletop company; it's not the ruleset, that will be leaked as soon as you sell a single copy and people actually play the game. It's instead ideas and world building visions from the people who were directly involved in creating the world and rules the company tries to sell to people. People are creative, but even the best story tellers wouldn't turn their nose up at some lore to help spark creativity, long as the lore isn't needlessly restrictive.
If people are still going to pay money for D&D then they truly do not care about the hobby. I must admit before the OGL fiasco I didn't see much of the allure of other systems, but that really pushed me away and the world of TTRPGs is so much brighter and better than crappy D&D.
I still play in one D&D campaign, but it was started before the fiasco, but I have already decided that at least I won't be running another D&D game.
Also their recent move to 3-book + DM screen sets is really annoying. They did it first with Spelljammer's rerelease into 5e and I think the oceanic thirst for Spelljammer content might have sent them the wrong signal about the popularity of the actual content which was pretty thin for the amount you paid for it with notable missing rules like long range travel... for the space setting.
For those of you who are sick of Hasbro/WotC's shinanigans, give Pathfinder a shot. Its setting and rules should be very familiar for anyone used to DnD, but I've found the small changes they made to combat and progression really make the game much more interesting and rewarding.
I've found Paizo's pricing to be much more reasonable than WotC and they work well with open source projects. I've been using the open source system for Pathfinder on FoundryVTT with Paizo's official content packs and it's amazing. My experiences with DnD in Roll20 and AboveVTT don't even come close.
Yeah, WotC should never have sold themselves to Hasbro. Buying TSR was great, but selling to Hasbro was not. It may have seemed like a good idea at first because they got a lot of freedom in those first 10 years, but Habro has been tightening the screws lately and none of that has been good.
This happens in every industry once that business is opened to the stock market. Larian is great because its private. Steam is great because it's private. Facebook used to be great then it went public and went downhill fast. Same with basically any company that doesnt have 2 vectors of VERY solid competition (AMD v Intel v ARM, nvidia v AMD v Intel, Micro v Samsung v hynix, Ford v GM v Dodge, etc). Companies that exist only to drive profits will do shit to ruin their brand in the name of profits, because stock profits make more money than being a good company.
We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point, it is absurdly clear that everyone putting all their eggs in the basket with wizards of the coast and it is just a bad idea.
There are plenty of fantastic alternatives, we really don’t need the DnD universe. I mean, as highly acclaimed as BG3 is, people in general seem to feel that the dev’s previous game Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics… so idk I just think it’s time to move past wizards of the coast and embrace better systems.
I really miss 2016 MtG. I remember when full art lands and full art promos were RARE and with money for no reason other than their collectability. I really liked when cards were rare because of the fact that they were good and uncommon and maybe because they were the same as the regular card but foil, not because they were arbitrarily a different type of shiny, or like when that one card from Kamigawa had a different color neon border that made it spike to 3k for a while, let alone the new serialized cards.
I wish we could go back to that, because I was so excited about collecting cards back then. Nowadays I feel like unless I open a pack with a crazy reprint or a REALLY lucky list card, there are essentially no cards worth anything. I remember pulling some shock lands and even when they were only 8 bucks it felt really great, like it was gambling. Now, I only ever get packs of remastered sets, and standard sets are wholly uninteresting. I do a $40 draft and get $3 worth of cards, and it is to be seen if these EVER go up in value.
I still love the game, and I play it more than ever. But there are three groups of people: investors, people that realize it is a TCG, and people that think all cards should be worthless. The first is greedy, the middle is realistic, and the latter is idealistic. But I am solidly in the middle, and there is so much pushing on both sides that the middle group is demonized for wanting to play a game and have cards have relative value too.
I prefer having cheap cards. You are paying for the experience not the cards when you draft.
What I don’t like is wotc printing new powerful cards in non-standard sets. Modern horizons, commander sets, etc print absolutely must play busted cards but the sets are limited print quantity and artificially scarce.
If it was up to me all new cards would be printed in standard sets and supplemental sets are reprints only.
2016 magic was nice because you could play reserved list cards without having to sell a kidney…
There’s only two camps, investors and gamers. I think that anyone who wants to “have cards that have relative value” are investors, whether they realize it or not. Its one thing to collect because you like something inherent about the cards themselves (I recall a recent Reddit post where the user was trying to collect every single Magic card that depicted an owl in any way). But if your concern is about the monetary value of the cards in your collection, you are an investor, of some kind.
I personally think cards should be for playing, and am pretty opposed to cards being valuable if that means that playing the actual game becomes prohibitively expensive. Standard decks costing hundreds of dollars is not a good thing.
My theory is that all cards will eventually be under $10, because cards like Mana Crypt are opportunities for WoTC to make money via reprints. I’ve only been playing/buying since March, but I’ve seen so many cards dropping dramatically in price, much more often than seeing a card shoot up in price. Reprints help drive sales and justify the higher prices for booster packs.
Cutting staff implies that, perhaps, they anticipate more Universes Beyond and reprints, and fewer original sets with original mechanics. Universes Beyond is great for Wizards because they don’t have to really invent cards, and fans will pay whatever they ask for cards from their favorite shows and movies and games.
This month people are losing their minds over the Princess Bride and Dr. Malcolm Secret Lair sets.
(Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)
Prices of swaggy stuff is always irrational until the smallest attention spans have moved on.
I assume you know about Collector Packs, those are my favorites for splashing a chunk of money on a set. If I can afford to preorder a box, or pick one up on some random sale, they have the highest swag tier.
The only card I've sold in the past several years has been a copy of Parallel Lives. It got me enough store credit to cop a Chatterfang, and some other goodies to build a first Commander deck after not touching my cards in years. I had 4 or 5 copies, so it was easy to part with. I also gave one copy away to a friend who had just bought some sort of 'Hobbits and food tokens' precon deck.
That seems like a ridiculous attitude. Surely players should want all cards to be as cheap as possible, so everyone can play whatever deck they’d like.
Hasbro is ruining the brand at alarming levels. They think they are doing it "smart" because MTGA and some other plays to try and split the audience of regular players and whales.
There is no "smart" way to destroy your business.
Also as a player right now is one of the worst lore breaking and general worst story related times to care in any way about these characters, assets, places or anything else.
This comes after this year selling the rights to the Transformers movie series, an arguably larger hit to their ability to have mainstream impact. It seems very unlikely they wouldn't be looking for a buyer for WotC as well, and trimming down to just the IP may be making it a better sale.
The company is struggling and likely pulling out all the stops the avoid bankruptcy, when you need liquidity this could very much include cuts to otherwise profitable segments.
Well, why wouldn't they sell (license) the rights to make Transformers films (which as far as I know is just extending their existing contract with Paramount)?
They still own the underlying IP[^1], so as long as the contract is a decent one, Paramount has to deal with the actual making/distributing the film, and Hasbro just gets the money, and a toy line off the back of the film. Feels like an easier set up than taking the risk on movie-making yourself (which they did attempt with eOne for other properties, but seemingly have decided that it's probably not a good deal with them)
[1] yes, yes, it's a bit more complicated with Takara in the mix too, but you can essentially view it as a Hasbro-owned property
I'm not so sure. Whether this article is good or not is a moot point. Hasbro is publicly traded so there is verifiable information about the company available. As others have pointed out, we can see them rapidly selling off assets and IP and cutting staff. I'm not a professional analyst, but surely one could substantiate an argument for or against this decision.
Edit: Also, this decision isn't a single data point. We can look at the track record and business trajectory to make an informed decision. I am not particularly well informed about Hasbro, but based on historical stock price, industry trends and comments here, it really seems like they are fucking up
Yeah, MTG twitter is really mad about it, but people at WoTC often have fairly narrow skillsets, so I would not be surprised that at some point they want to rebalance the set of skills that they have access to to do something different.
I found out they fired a community manager... and I had no idea who that person was without a bunch of googling, which tells you a bit about how effective that spending was for wotc.
Not to say that I think wotc corporate is at all infallible, they are clearly not very good at doing anything besides designing the cards themselves, and even then, they have largely inherited a very good game rather than really doing anything amazing.
Wotc could really use a shake up that raises the standards of what they produce to the level of eg riot games, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
Good and bad itself depends on the perspective. Good for Hasbro? Can be argued I guess, depends also on its current economic situation and a lot of things other people may indeed not have the best knowledge about. Good for the players and fans of DnD? Good for those who actually work in the company and got laid off, or the remaining staff there? Almost surely not. This decision is not taken on their behalf and does not serve them in any way. And considering the popularity of DnD there is no surprise that the issue is going to be approached from an employee or player perspective rather than an investor or manager one.
That's how it's done in most of the world. But the US and "at-will" employment tends to benefit the company much more often than the employee. These kinds of layoffs elsewhere would mean you need to throw out a gigantic severance to compensate. 2-3 months is generous for the US tech sector, but we're easily talking 6+ months severance if this happened in most of Asia. You'd need to prove multiple quarters of loss or such a drastic loss that you are physically unable to pay labor for layoffs to go through this way.
Most of these layoffs have been very odd. These are companies making bank and then laying off people left right and center that are key to them making that bank.
Corporate companies are totally baffling Hasbro is no different.
As a long term Wizards player / purchaser, I think their product quality has been dropping over the last few years. In D&D, take the Planescape box set - it was a really empty world lacking in the imagination that the original second ed Planescape had. All the D&D content just seems like filler to me.
In MTG, they are releasing so many sets that it would cost a fortune to keep up, and the cards are all like 'meh'. They are doing Dr Who and Lord of the Rings - so of course they are easy sells, but the quality is really average.
I guess the equation is - people keep buying, we have market dominance, so who cares about the quality?
I've been playing ttrpgs for over 25 years now and have a substantial library around 500 books, mostly rulebooks, but also plenty of dnd supplements.
Overall I can say, the quality of WotC material has never been particularly good, but in recent years has fallen even below its old mediocrity, especially compared to their much smaller competition (not that it matters for the market share). Sure, 5e is pretty much late-stage dnd and splatbooks have always been rather questionable at the end of an edition. But the quasi monopoly of dnd and its success is also its greatest problem. They remember the reactions of the community towards 4th edition, as well as the ogl disaster earlier this year and they probably know that they cannot simply push "new product" to replace the current material people have purchased. They can only extend it or make slight improvements that don't disturb the average player who already spend money on something they like and plays "fine" (i.e. an inoffensive, acceptable and conventional fantasy experience). "one d&d" playtest material, anyone? d&d players are a rather conservative bunch of weirdos, why else would they cling to such a dusty system? So, what's there to promise the shareholders? A successful new edition? Unlikely. Maybe digital products? But you hardly need the old staff for that. We'll see, I guess.
On a personal note, I've all the dnd I ever need and I've been rather bored with it. For my ttrpg future it's currently at the bottom of my list of things I want to play. The market of ttrpgs is generally pretty over-saturated and while the last years have been great as far as products by small publishers go, there's been less and less interesting material, e.g. even reputable publishers are desperately picking up tv and movie franchises to turn into rpg books. The hobby has had ups and downs, the early 80s, the late 90s, and the last few years were high points, now expect a downturn. Don't get me wrong, it will remain popular, but there will be less money in it for conventional material. And I guess WotC knows it, too.
They burned me out of Magic. It used to be that the game had distinct spoiler seasons, and the Standard format and game as a whole used to stand still for a while and be explored at length. Even the rotating Standard format had a period where you could grow really familiar with the format as it was even if you weren't a really plugged in grinder. Eternal formats changed slowly because power creep, while present, wasn't completely nuts.
Now, the environment is a neverending spoiler season that it's impossible to keep up with unless you're one of those NYC squirrels on crack. See a graphical representation here:
Meanwhile, power creep is out of hand, which means more releases are more relevant to more formats, the quality of the flavour has progressively gotten worse. There's more and more of "millenial writing" that substitutes being good with being sassy. When the game costs an arm and a leg, why bother.
D&D, similar deal. You have a fantasy setting, which should mean different creatures. What does Wizards do? Progressively remove more and more differentiation between different races and creatures. A 3m/10ft tall minotaur and a half-orc are both defined by strength, both get a +2STR which just feels wrong. But wait, there's more! A halfling can now decide to have the same bonus. It cheapens the setting when things don't mean something anymore.
Similarily, RPGs are generally about overcoming challenges. And we get, what. Wheelchair-accessible dungeons?? Coffee shop modules for D&D, of all things, instead of doing the concept in a more suitable system like a FATE derivative? College student representation obsession's run completely off the rails, and it means the product starts failing at its core purpose.
Here's the process. Your company can't do shit and is losing market share everywhere.
So, you buy another company that can do shit, transfer the brand to the same people who can't do shit, and then fire all the people from the new company.
For a brief period, while you've got the new brand, your company can start to regain a bit of market share.
But that period never lasts, and you go back to the status quo.
thinly related but i could really use some advice.
There's a board game called "quoridor" that I've been playing a lot lately. I found 2 platforms where u can play this online, major one being BGA (boardgamearena). It was kinda sad to see a game on par with chess in terms of simplicity and strategy, being lumped into the same group as kids games.
So, I started building a platform for it myself in my free time. Still a work in progress (https://li-quoridor.vercel.app/).
The issue is that I have no clue if the game mechanics are copyrighted or not. The wiki says "By 1997, the five biggest game companies in the world (including Gigamic) American bought the copyright [clarify] of this game and released it to the world". But wiki itself acknowleges that this is a statement has no source. So, how do i go about making sure i have the right permissions to build this stuff, and will they even give these permission or not?
Prepare for the enshittification and bedbathandbeyonding of Magic the gathering.
If I had to make a guess as to why, given the fact that the people they laid off were all senior leaders and the numbers are good, it would be preparing for a pump and dump.
if you want to be able to pump and dump a really strong brand then you need to be able to have leaders who don’t mind burning the brands equity in order to make money. My guess is that specifically what intending to do here.
Change the leadership, make new “sticky” products, pump revenue numbers, then spin out a public offering of the magic brand that looks like a great new reboot and refresh.
However the brand is only there to smuggle in the subscription model around new products that have strong margin. Everyone* gets rich cause they slaughtered their fattest pig and yet another cultural staple is killed.
Don’t worry, another band of psychopaths will resurrect it in a few decades like Mattell is doing with the Barbie brand currently.
> Prepare for the enshittification and bedbathandbeyonding of Magic the gathering.
That happened during the original design of the game. M:tG was one of the first products to sell you a pig in a poke. That was the concept!
I've seen people say that it would be nice to regulate loot boxes in video games, but they can't figure out how to do it without banning Magic's business model. I never understood why that would be a problem.
The enshittification already happened. The most recent incorporation of other IPs, like the upcoming Dr Who, is a series of last gasps. While sales have followed along the aging income growth of existing players, the inverse pressure of exiting players is past sustainable levels. Other forms of gamba have eroded the MTG gamba allure.
Re: Youtube - Tolarian Community College - which is very good at capturing the state of the ecosystem.
The question is: who are they really firing? There are thousands of tournament organizers, consultants, dealers and judges. Perhaps they aren't touching the core creation and balance team which churns out a new expansion every rotation.
As someone who's played these games, it's disheartening to see the layoffs at Wizards of the Coast. Their contributions to the gaming world are immense, and the potential brain drain to competitors is concerning. These games hold a special place in many hearts, and the recent controversies have cast a shadow. Hoping for a brighter future for the gaming community.
[+] [-] solardev|2 years ago|reply
They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys.
D&D has undoubtedly gotten more popular, but I wish it were under the stewardship of someone more deserving, like a geekier board game shop than greed-enthralled Hasbro. They've become the Disney of board games, all quantity and profit and no real concern for a high quality gamer experience. I bet someone like Larian (Baldur's Gate 3) would've taken better care of the IP and rulesets (and they're working on a Divinity tabletop game!)
[+] [-] csydas|2 years ago|reply
For me this is the most telling part that Hasbro doesn't quite get what you're actually selling if you have a tabletop company; it's not the ruleset, that will be leaked as soon as you sell a single copy and people actually play the game. It's instead ideas and world building visions from the people who were directly involved in creating the world and rules the company tries to sell to people. People are creative, but even the best story tellers wouldn't turn their nose up at some lore to help spark creativity, long as the lore isn't needlessly restrictive.
[+] [-] nextlevelwizard|2 years ago|reply
I still play in one D&D campaign, but it was started before the fiasco, but I have already decided that at least I won't be running another D&D game.
[+] [-] rtkwe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CivBase|2 years ago|reply
I've found Paizo's pricing to be much more reasonable than WotC and they work well with open source projects. I've been using the open source system for Pathfinder on FoundryVTT with Paizo's official content packs and it's amazing. My experiences with DnD in Roll20 and AboveVTT don't even come close.
[+] [-] DonHopkins|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] musicale|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] THENATHE|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve1977|2 years ago|reply
Isn’t that the core business model of Hasbro?
[+] [-] dumpsterlid|2 years ago|reply
There are plenty of fantastic alternatives, we really don’t need the DnD universe. I mean, as highly acclaimed as BG3 is, people in general seem to feel that the dev’s previous game Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics… so idk I just think it’s time to move past wizards of the coast and embrace better systems.
[+] [-] THENATHE|2 years ago|reply
I wish we could go back to that, because I was so excited about collecting cards back then. Nowadays I feel like unless I open a pack with a crazy reprint or a REALLY lucky list card, there are essentially no cards worth anything. I remember pulling some shock lands and even when they were only 8 bucks it felt really great, like it was gambling. Now, I only ever get packs of remastered sets, and standard sets are wholly uninteresting. I do a $40 draft and get $3 worth of cards, and it is to be seen if these EVER go up in value.
I still love the game, and I play it more than ever. But there are three groups of people: investors, people that realize it is a TCG, and people that think all cards should be worthless. The first is greedy, the middle is realistic, and the latter is idealistic. But I am solidly in the middle, and there is so much pushing on both sides that the middle group is demonized for wanting to play a game and have cards have relative value too.
[+] [-] __turbobrew__|2 years ago|reply
What I don’t like is wotc printing new powerful cards in non-standard sets. Modern horizons, commander sets, etc print absolutely must play busted cards but the sets are limited print quantity and artificially scarce.
If it was up to me all new cards would be printed in standard sets and supplemental sets are reprints only.
2016 magic was nice because you could play reserved list cards without having to sell a kidney…
[+] [-] bart_spoon|2 years ago|reply
I personally think cards should be for playing, and am pretty opposed to cards being valuable if that means that playing the actual game becomes prohibitively expensive. Standard decks costing hundreds of dollars is not a good thing.
[+] [-] gymbeaux|2 years ago|reply
Cutting staff implies that, perhaps, they anticipate more Universes Beyond and reprints, and fewer original sets with original mechanics. Universes Beyond is great for Wizards because they don’t have to really invent cards, and fans will pay whatever they ask for cards from their favorite shows and movies and games.
This month people are losing their minds over the Princess Bride and Dr. Malcolm Secret Lair sets.
[+] [-] solardev|2 years ago|reply
(Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)
[+] [-] gigaflop|2 years ago|reply
Prices of swaggy stuff is always irrational until the smallest attention spans have moved on.
I assume you know about Collector Packs, those are my favorites for splashing a chunk of money on a set. If I can afford to preorder a box, or pick one up on some random sale, they have the highest swag tier.
The only card I've sold in the past several years has been a copy of Parallel Lives. It got me enough store credit to cop a Chatterfang, and some other goodies to build a first Commander deck after not touching my cards in years. I had 4 or 5 copies, so it was easy to part with. I also gave one copy away to a friend who had just bought some sort of 'Hobbits and food tokens' precon deck.
[+] [-] dontlaugh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ddtaylor|2 years ago|reply
There is no "smart" way to destroy your business.
Also as a player right now is one of the worst lore breaking and general worst story related times to care in any way about these characters, assets, places or anything else.
Hasbro blows
[+] [-] anuraaga|2 years ago|reply
The company is struggling and likely pulling out all the stops the avoid bankruptcy, when you need liquidity this could very much include cuts to otherwise profitable segments.
[+] [-] peterstjohn|2 years ago|reply
They still own the underlying IP[^1], so as long as the contract is a decent one, Paramount has to deal with the actual making/distributing the film, and Hasbro just gets the money, and a toy line off the back of the film. Feels like an easier set up than taking the risk on movie-making yourself (which they did attempt with eOne for other properties, but seemingly have decided that it's probably not a good deal with them)
[1] yes, yes, it's a bit more complicated with Takara in the mix too, but you can essentially view it as a Hasbro-owned property
[+] [-] busterarm|2 years ago|reply
Notably, the entire Death Row Records catalog, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, international distribution for The Walking Dead, etc.
[+] [-] TheCleric|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apstats|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wand3r|2 years ago|reply
Edit: Also, this decision isn't a single data point. We can look at the track record and business trajectory to make an informed decision. I am not particularly well informed about Hasbro, but based on historical stock price, industry trends and comments here, it really seems like they are fucking up
[+] [-] Eridrus|2 years ago|reply
I found out they fired a community manager... and I had no idea who that person was without a bunch of googling, which tells you a bit about how effective that spending was for wotc.
Not to say that I think wotc corporate is at all infallible, they are clearly not very good at doing anything besides designing the cards themselves, and even then, they have largely inherited a very good game rather than really doing anything amazing.
Wotc could really use a shake up that raises the standards of what they produce to the level of eg riot games, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
[+] [-] jldugger|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dimask|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dallas|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] earthboundkid|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roguas|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boringuser2|2 years ago|reply
You should have to prove some economic need to make those kind of layoffs similarly how you have to prove economic need for work visas.
[+] [-] johnnyanmac|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dave3of5|2 years ago|reply
Corporate companies are totally baffling Hasbro is no different.
[+] [-] bitcharmer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flerchin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] getwiththeprog|2 years ago|reply
I guess the equation is - people keep buying, we have market dominance, so who cares about the quality?
[+] [-] floppiplopp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soundnote|2 years ago|reply
Now, the environment is a neverending spoiler season that it's impossible to keep up with unless you're one of those NYC squirrels on crack. See a graphical representation here:
https://onlyontuesdays27.com/2022/10/18/30-years-of-magic-th...
Meanwhile, power creep is out of hand, which means more releases are more relevant to more formats, the quality of the flavour has progressively gotten worse. There's more and more of "millenial writing" that substitutes being good with being sassy. When the game costs an arm and a leg, why bother.
D&D, similar deal. You have a fantasy setting, which should mean different creatures. What does Wizards do? Progressively remove more and more differentiation between different races and creatures. A 3m/10ft tall minotaur and a half-orc are both defined by strength, both get a +2STR which just feels wrong. But wait, there's more! A halfling can now decide to have the same bonus. It cheapens the setting when things don't mean something anymore.
Similarily, RPGs are generally about overcoming challenges. And we get, what. Wheelchair-accessible dungeons?? Coffee shop modules for D&D, of all things, instead of doing the concept in a more suitable system like a FATE derivative? College student representation obsession's run completely off the rails, and it means the product starts failing at its core purpose.
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradknowles|2 years ago|reply
So, you buy another company that can do shit, transfer the brand to the same people who can't do shit, and then fire all the people from the new company.
For a brief period, while you've got the new brand, your company can start to regain a bit of market share.
But that period never lasts, and you go back to the status quo.
Rinse and repeat.
[+] [-] prakhar897|2 years ago|reply
There's a board game called "quoridor" that I've been playing a lot lately. I found 2 platforms where u can play this online, major one being BGA (boardgamearena). It was kinda sad to see a game on par with chess in terms of simplicity and strategy, being lumped into the same group as kids games.
So, I started building a platform for it myself in my free time. Still a work in progress (https://li-quoridor.vercel.app/).
The issue is that I have no clue if the game mechanics are copyrighted or not. The wiki says "By 1997, the five biggest game companies in the world (including Gigamic) American bought the copyright [clarify] of this game and released it to the world". But wiki itself acknowleges that this is a statement has no source. So, how do i go about making sure i have the right permissions to build this stuff, and will they even give these permission or not?
[+] [-] pushedx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|2 years ago|reply
If I had to make a guess as to why, given the fact that the people they laid off were all senior leaders and the numbers are good, it would be preparing for a pump and dump.
if you want to be able to pump and dump a really strong brand then you need to be able to have leaders who don’t mind burning the brands equity in order to make money. My guess is that specifically what intending to do here.
Change the leadership, make new “sticky” products, pump revenue numbers, then spin out a public offering of the magic brand that looks like a great new reboot and refresh.
However the brand is only there to smuggle in the subscription model around new products that have strong margin. Everyone* gets rich cause they slaughtered their fattest pig and yet another cultural staple is killed.
Don’t worry, another band of psychopaths will resurrect it in a few decades like Mattell is doing with the Barbie brand currently.
*Not everyone - very few actually
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|2 years ago|reply
That happened during the original design of the game. M:tG was one of the first products to sell you a pig in a poke. That was the concept!
I've seen people say that it would be nice to regulate loot boxes in video games, but they can't figure out how to do it without banning Magic's business model. I never understood why that would be a problem.
[+] [-] Supermancho|2 years ago|reply
Re: Youtube - Tolarian Community College - which is very good at capturing the state of the ecosystem.
[+] [-] mynameisnoone|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nurettin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snagglemouth|2 years ago|reply