Dungeons and Dragons FAQ: Why Do Customers Hate Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast?
Q: What is Wizards of the Coast?
A: Wizards of the Coast (WotC) is a subsidiary of Hasbro and responsible for publishing role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. Their products are primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes. WotCâs most recognizable brands are Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.
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Q: Why is negative customer sentiment growing toward Wizards of the Coast?
A: Negative customer sentiment is growing toward Wizards of the Coast due to an expanding number of recent and major controversies. These controversies are seen as supporting the current customer baseâs perception that WotC has become unjustifiably avaricious and contemptuous of its customers.
Further, industry analysts and other observers increasingly believe that WotC has reached a point of such disregard for its own customers and product quality that it now deliberately churns out products of inferior quality. Retailers and long-time customers feel this reflects a profound indifference to the very principles of customer satisfaction and product excellence that once defined WotCâs flagship brands.
Q: What recent controversies has Wizards of the Coast faced?
A: Recently, WotC has faced several major controversies in a very short amount of time. These controversies largely stem from their business practices. The first is the âOGL controversyâ which greatly impacted their Dungeons & Dragons brand. The second is the âMagic Raidâ controversy, which impacted their Magic: The Gathering brand. The third is the âAI Artâ controversy, which has again affected their Dungeons & Dragons brand. The latest is the âReprintsâ controversy, which is affecting their Magic: The Gathering brand.
Q: What is Dungeons & Dragons?
A: Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy-themed tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG or simply RPG). The game was created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by their company Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). WotC took over publishing in 1997. Dungeons & Dragons is popularly recognized as the grandfather of modern role-playing games and a pioneer product of the role-playing game industry. It has even deeply influenced video games, particularly within the role-playing video game genre.
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Q: What is Magic: The Gathering?
A: Magic: The Gathering (Magic or MTG) is a tabletop and digital collectible card game (CCG). It was created by Richard Garfield and first published in 1993 by WotC. Itâs notable for being recognized as the first successful trading card game, and is responsible for introducing many features which are now industry standards. Thereâs a substantial resale market for Magic cards due to a combination of production rarity and gameplay utility.
Q: What is the OGL controversy?
A: The Dungeons & Dragons Open Game License (OGL) controversy began when a leaked copy of an updated OGL for D&D was released. This updated license placed severe restrictions on the types of content that third-party creators could manufacture and sell for the fifth edition of the game (D&D 5E), implemented a heavy royalty, and included intellectual property ownership clauses that would have made it difficult for third-party creators to maintain ownership of their own ideas.
The proposed changes met with significant backlash from the D&D community, which viewed them as overreaching and unfair to third-party content creators. Tens of thousands of customers signed an open letter addressed to Hasbro, expressing their disgust at the proposed changes. In response to this backlash, Hasbro postponed its update of its Dungeons & Dragons licensing terms.
Hasbro stated that it still intends to create a new OGL but that it will not include a royalty structure or give itself access to intellectual property made by third-party content creators. This means that content previously created for the D&D 5E of the tabletop role-playing game will remain unaffected.
Q: What is the AI art controversy?
A: In Summer 2023, Wizards of the Coast was accused of using AI-generated art to create the cover art for the Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants D&D sourcebook. The coverâs artist, Ilya Shkipin, admitted to using generative AI to aid with the addition of âcertain details or polish and editingâ of the artwork. The use of AI was suspected due to deformities in painted figures, perspective errors, and other common telltale signs of AI-generated imagery.
These contributions were significant enough to have been obvious in multiple areas of the work. However, WotC either did not inspect the artwork or werenât particularly concerned that significant portions were AI-generated.
Q: What is the âMagic Raidâ controversy?
A: In April 2023, a YouTuber known as oldschoolmtg mistakenly acquired a selection of unreleased cards from the latest Magic: The Gathering set March of the Machine: The Aftermath. He performed an unboxing on his YouTube channel, revealing around the vast majority of cards in the limited release set.
In response, Wizards of the Coast sent Pinkerton agents to his home to retrieve the unreleased cards. The agents reportedly accused oldschoolmtg of stealing the cards and threatened him with jail. This confrontation reportedly terrified oldschoolmtgâs wife and resulted in the confiscation of nearly two dozen boxes of cards by private investigators. The YouTuber described the agents as âbig heavy-hitter guysâ who frightened his wife to tears.
WotC confirmed to Polygon that the Pinkertons were involved in the incident. After speaking with someone at WotC, oldschoolmtg decided to pull down his original videos. This incident has sparked a significant amount of controversy and discussion within the Magic: The Gathering community.
Q: Who is oldschoolmtg?
A: oldschoolmtg is an long-time Magic: The Gathering player and an Opal-tier YouTube influencer with over 6,000 subscribers. His video catalog averages about 10,000 views per month, but saw a spike to well over 200,000 views in April and May 2023 during and in the aftermath of the âMagic Raidâ controversy. He has been regularly uploading MTG videos since 2019 on a near daily basis.
Q: Who are the Pinkertons?
A: The Pinkertons, a division of Securitas AB, is an American private security and detective agency established in 1850 by Scottish-born American cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker. The agency became famous when Allan Pinkerton claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861.
At one time, the Pinkertons were the largest private law enforcement organization in the world. Following the Civil War, the Pinkertons worked on behalf of the Spanish government to suppress a slave revolt in Cuba, and began conducting operations against organized labor. During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businesses hired the Pinkertons to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, and recruit goon squads to intimidate workers.
Q: What is the Magic Reprints controversy?
A: In late 2023, retailer Troll And Toad announced that they would cease selling Magic: The Gathering single and sealed card products effective as of January 1, 2024. Store owner Ben Burns explained that selling Magic was no longer profitable due to constant reprints and variants of valuable cards by Wizards of the Coast, which lowers their value and demand. Burns also went on to provide insight by commenting that competitors like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Disneyâs Lorcana performed better.