MTG Salvation

On December 16, 2015, Trick Jarrett posted this article entitled "Why Leaks Hurt." This is nothing new, as every few years Wizards experiences a rather large or ugly leak of their card designs well before they had intended to show them to the public. It has been addressed by Wizards repeatedly, with a number of voices chiming in over the last decade. Wizards' bottom line? Leaks are bad, and not just for them but for you, the consumer. But is that really true? In this article, we'll discuss how and why leaks happen, examine some of the claims made about leaks and analyze why these claims are at best overstated or misleading.

A Simple Fact

I really need to begin this discussion with one very important fact: Wizards of the Coast is a company. Mind blowing, I know. There are some companies out there who have such an incredible amount of brand loyalty that people begin to believe that the company represents them. Companies like Nintendo and Apple have an almost religious following. It becomes easy to forget that these companies are, in fact, out for profit. While they may produce products you like, they are not your friends. They are not providing a public service. It is in a company's best interests for you to forget that what is good for the company is not the same thing as what is good for you, the consumer, or for the community surrounding their products.

Magic: the Gathering players are legion. A look at the subforums here on MTGSalvation will tell you there is a wide array of formats and play styles. Magic is a versatile game with a storied history that attracts a loyal player base. People spend a lot of time and money playing Magic, to the point where a lot of us fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy. We're so dedicated to Magic that the idea that it could fail is inconceivable. That makes it much easier for you to believe that supporting Wizards is what is best for you and the community, because you like playing Magic. But Wizards of the Coast and its partners have a vested interest in keeping you financially engaged in the game, whether or not it's really what is best for you. This isn't done nefariously on their part. It's simply the reality of business.

What is a Leak?

So, what is a leak, and how is it different from a spoiler? I should start out by saying that I'm not a lawyer. I'm going to be speaking in layman's terms, from the perspective of someone who deals with confidential or protected information on a regular basis. That said, a leak is the release of confidential information, while a spoiler is simply pieces of information released in advance of the whole. A leak is a spoiler, but not all spoilers are leaks. Wizards releases spoilers all the time, and it's an effective part of their marketing strategy. They tease the community with a trickle of information to keep interest high right up until release.

When that information is released before they intend it to be, it messes with their plan. So how do they keep that information from getting out in advance? The answer is usually going to be some sort of non-disclosure clause in their employees' contracts, or in a separate Non-Disclosure Agreement. This is important because it makes the individual who revealed the information personally accountable. If employees didn't sign it, Wizards wouldn't have much of a recourse in pursuing them.

Wizards of the Coast has a fairly extensive history of leaks. To put it in perspective, you should take a look at these articles covering the last thirteen years and how Wizards has reacted to various information leaks.

• Why Leaks Hurt by Trick Jarrett
• The New Phyrexia Leak
• Timeshifting into Gear by Mark Rosewater
• The Leak that Was by Mark Rosewater
• "What Card Leak?" by Kyle Murray

Why so many leaks? That's a pretty good question. As many of these articles themselves attest, hundreds of employees located around the world are involved in the creation of Magic: the Gathering. They also partner with printers, shipping companies and others to actually make and distribute their product. Add everyone they have to partner with to market their product, and it equals a lot of people expected to keep quiet. With so many people involved, it's impossible to keep every detail of the game secret from the community, especially because the community has such a voracious appetite for information. It is important for Wizards to at least try to prevent leaks, especially because a leak can be indicative of deeper problems for Wizards. It's okay for them to seek to protect their intellectual property, even though their attempts can often be misguided or heavy handed.

What's not okay, in the case of Trick Jarrett's article, is to insult the community that is so passionate about their product by implying that we're at fault for wanting more information. Compared to the measured and reasonable responses of say, Mark Rosewater or Kyle Murray, Trick's article and the subsequent judge suspensions have spawned a fair amount of backlash.

For the purposes of this article, I'm not going to get in-depth into specific leaks and who was to blame for them. That information is out there already if you want it, and those people don't need me dredging up the past for them, especially when the ramifications, through the legal system or the DCI, are still an ongoing concern for many of them.

Full Disclosure

I should stop to mention here that MTGSalvation has carried some extremely early and controversial spoilers in the past.

Mark Rosewater's article Timeshifting into Gear is a direct reference to events that happened on MTGSalvation. I was not there, and I don't want to dredge up the past for the people that were, but suffice it to say it ended up not being a pleasant experience for anyone involved. I only mention it because I would be remiss to talk about spoilers without mentioning MTGSalvation's own spoiler controversy.

As a result, MTGSalvation had a less than stellar relationship with Wizards for a long time. This is something we've tried to mend, and to Wizards' credit, they've even offered us preview cards in the past. We turned them down due to the rather stringent terms we were given. We remain committed to the community first and foremost.

A Wild Leak Appears!

We know what leaks are, but it may not always be clear to people where they come from. Let me be clear here and say that I have no inner knowledge of the workings of Wizards' business. What I do know is logistics and data breaches, and so I'll talk about how and where leaks generally happen and then relate it to Magic.

Corporate - Starting from the top, we've got executive-level staff, the marketing team, the design and development teams, and the creative team. Leaks are very unlikely to involve any of these people, as the stakes are high and a halfway decent loss prevention department would have plenty of security policies that help prevent information about cards from leaving the building, or at least catch those who do leak it. These people would also have the most ironclad contracts and would have to give up their firstborn child in the event of a breach.

Contractors - Wizards, like any reasonably sized company, uses a fair amount of contractors in their business. Not everyone who works at or for Wizards is technically a Wizards employee, whether it's maintenance staff, artists, interns, or various kinds of freelancers. Contractors are a useful way for companies to accomplish tasks without tying themselves to the indirect costs of a full-time employee.

Print Shops - Wizards doesn't print their own cards. They contract with a third party to do so, and sometimes with multiple third parties for different products. This is why the card stock or printing quality is sometimes slightly off for supplemental products. Having worked in print shops myself, I can tell you this is by far the easiest place for leaks to happen.

Distributors - Who isn't familiar with the hallowed shipping tradition of things "falling off the truck"? It's unlikely that either Wizards or the print shops do their own shipping from place to place (although they may maintain their own warehouses). Most likely, they contract with a freight company to pick up the completed print runs and cart them off to distribution centers.

Journalists - As shown by the New Phyrexia godbook leak, sometimes the people who get sent review copies of the game break the embargo they've agreed to, violate their NDAs, or otherwise share copyrighted material. Typically, reviewers will get advance copies of a set in exchange for coverage of the product. For Wizards, that usually only includes print journalism, in order to help them make deadlines. A late review is a pointless review. Clearly, that doesn't always work out.

Local Game Stores - It's fairly common for small business to break the release dates of products, or reveal promotional material that gives us a tantalizing glimpse of whats to come. For the same reason spoilers are valuable to fan sites, stores that are... kind to their fans can get an advantage on their competition and compete better with big box stores or online outlets. I've been guilty of buying products that have broken the street date - but those sweet, sweet Pokemon Jungle boosters were just calling my name back in 1999.

Leakers Anonymous

Now that we know a little bit about who and where leaks come from, let's talk about why. Trick's article characterized leakers as egotistical thieves, but that's simply not an accurate depiction. Wizards has the right to enforce their contracts, but not all leakers are created equal. Having encountered a lot of different people who create data breaches in a lot of different ways, here are some profiles on who leaks and why.

The Whoopsie Daisy - This is the most common kind of leak that can happen. Essentially, the release of confidential information happens entirely by accident or negligence. A store updating their site with marketing material before they were supposed to or an employee unintentionally letting important details slip are both examples of accidental leaks. These people, in general, are not dealt with as harshly as with intentional leakers, although it's important to remember the end result is the same.

The Disgruntled Employee - Maybe they're on a contract that isn't being renewed. Maybe they've got a gripe with their boss. This leaker is just releasing information in a passive-aggressive attempt to show someone up. This is unlikely to be the case with Magic leaks in particular, but it's still a possibility.

The Egotist - This person is the worst. They post cryptic hints about their leak and expect people to beg for the information. They use their limited knowledge to get some minor level of fame. You seem them all around the Internet, for a whole lot of reasons. The hows and whys differ, but it all boils down to ego.

The Eager Idiot - This person just doesn't quite get what an NDA means. I mean sure, they made you sign it and it said you could get sued, but it's not like one card is that big a deal, right? And you've seen a card so cool, you just have to tell people about it so they can be excited about it with you. This is the attitude of the eager idiot. Wizards will sue you. Like, a lot.

The Untrustworthy Friend - The leaker gets their information from a third party, usually a friend or acquaintance who shared a little too much. They expect their friend to keep it a secret, but secrets never just stop with that friend. The friend needs to tell just one person, too. If you've ever seen the film Contagion, this is what happens to Laurence Fishbourne's character. And it's far, far more common than you'd think. When you tell a friend a secret, and ask them not to tell anyone, that only extends as far as the people they think they can also swear to secrecy. After all, if you were asked to keep quiet about it and didn't, why would you expect your friends to?

The (Actual) Thief - I don't like characterizing most leakers as thieves, because that ignores the actual thieves. I mentioned earlier that leaks can be indicative of greater problems, and this is what I meant. If someone is taking company property to leak images of it, they're likely not stopping with a Magic card or two. Information breaches can indicate a larger problem of theft, corruption, corporate espionage or security vulnerabilities. Calling the eager idiot a thief devalues the danger of actual thieves.

Of all of these profiles, the Untrustworthy Friend is by far the most common source of leaks. They share information intended only for their friend, who goes on to share it with the Internet. Sometimes it's just snippets of a card. Sometimes it's blurry photos. Sometimes it's over twenty fairly clear images from multiple sets at once. Sometimes it's the entire godbook. This is the one I feel the most for the leaker. They trusted a friend they really shouldn't have and opened themselves up to a huge legal liability in the process. If you're under an NDA, and you're reading this, don't trust your friends. Seriously. You don't deserve what they're willing to do to you, and the callousness with which some of them risk your career and financial well being is astounding. If you're a Wizards employee, and you've ever gone home and told a family or friend about what you're working on, take pity on these people. Everyone leaks information about their jobs they shouldn't, at some point or another, even if it's just to blow off some steam.

As much as I love seeing leaks, if you're in a position to leak confidential information, don't do it. The Internet's enjoyment or roasting of a card a little early is not worth the legal hell you're opening yourself up to. I know leaks will never stop because, as I've laid out above, there are a lot of reasons for them. Every situation is different.

So... Are Leaks Bad?

Up until this point, I've really made it seem like leaks are bad, haven't I? But the answer really lies with who you ask. For the people who've worked hard on a set and believe that leaks hurt the impression of their work or even the sales, they may believe so. But that doesn't make them right, so let's talk a little bit about the common arguments for why leaks are bad, and why they're not necessarily true.

The Health of the Community - We're not the only fan website on the Internet, and spoilers are carried across the digital winds to pollinate everywhere fans gather. This isn't just true for official spoilers, but for leaks as well. In the months between releases, every fan community has a notable decline in activity, but a single spoiler can make a huge impact on the discussion and draw in more people. Leaks keep the community engaged between Wizards' official marketing blitzes. With leaks, websites also get time to actually implement changes. Do you like the fact that you can use the C symbol already? Thank the Kozilek leak. Leaks usually clue us in to changes that will require work on the back end of the website, to create new templates, revise the card database, or implement additional features that weren't necessary before. Leaks can let us get a head start on those changes, so that when the official spoilers roll around your discussions are easier, because you have the tools you need. For the community, leaks are just as good as, if not better than official spoilers. We get to evaluate cards well before the hype barrage, and maybe make smarter decisions with our money when we're not reading about things through the lens of the marketing department. Any marketing department worth their salt is going to make even a terrible set seem at least somewhat enticing, and so it's important for the community that we sometimes get to see the unvarnished truth.

Haters Gonna Hate - With the recent Kozilek leak, thousands of posts of discussion were generated right here on MTGSalvation, and I'm sure thousands more on all of the other major sites, too. Mark Rosewater's reaction is to imply this is a bad thing because the reaction was heavily skewed toward making the initial reaction to Oath of the Gatewatch worse. First of all: Hi Mark! Keep up the great work. This is not intended to in any way diminish the great work you and your coworkers do, set after set. But I'm afraid it's likely that you don't see the discussion evolve in the same way we do in the community. The reality here is that initial reaction to any change in Magic is going to have a reaction that heavily skews negative. Remember, people hated double-faced cards at first too and now they're one of the most demanded mechanics in the game. Yes, cards without context can often come across in a negative light. But what changes people's minds is playing with a set, not any kind of marketing scheme. The initial reaction to any change is always negative, and then the prerelease happens and all of a sudden there is a huge amount of support for new mechanics that turn out to be good. If Wizards is putting out a great product, that will bear itself out.

Sales Figures - This isn't a reason you'll commonly see expressed, but it's a pretty fundamental factor in any business decision. As they don't typically release sales figures, let's say for the sake of argument that following a leak, the sales of a set are below expectations. Wizards, in search of a reason, might blame the leak as part of the loss, and conclude they were therefore harmed by the leak. The problem with this line of thought is that sales figures fall below expectations all the time in every business. Contractions are a normal part of business, and a leak is an easy scapegoat. But, again for the sake of argument, let's say that the leak did hurt the sales of the set. Why would that be? I can think of a few explanations, but all of them boil down to the set being lackluster and the consumers voted with their wallets. That's certainly bad for Wizards, but not for everyone who saved their money. Wizard's spoiler season is important for them and for retailers because it drives hype, which in turn drives sales and pre-sales. Speaking of which...

Pre-Orders - Don't. Preorders are heavily weighted against you, the consumer, in every capacity. You're paying for a product in the hope that it's good, and gambling that it will be worth the price you pay. Preorders are essentially free money for companies, and their marketing plans are centered around getting you to buy that product as soon as possible.

The Spoiler Effect - One of the common arguments that comes up when Wizards posts about leaks is the comparison to film spoilers. This example doesn't actually work like they want it to, because there is a clear demand for film spoilers, too. If a movie is any good, it won't matter whether or not the major plot points are spoiled in the trailer. That's why people watch movies more than once. It doesn't matter that we know how it ends because it's the journey that ultimately matters. I would be remiss here if I didn't give a shout-out to my Vorthos friends and the biggest complaint about Battle for Zendikar: the way the plot was handled. If Wizards really cared about spoilers, they wouldn't publish the entire plot in the set's fat pack months before the story concludes. We understand you're trying to make the plot more accessible, but it undercuts your spoilers argument when you do so.

The Unfair Advantage - One of the other claims made against leaks is that it puts less enfranchised players at a disadvantage. How? Who are these players that don't have access to the Internet and Google to find the dozens of fan sites that carry these leaks? They spread like wildfire throughout social media, and they're featured prominently on sites like MTGSalvation. If a player somehow misses all of those, they'll be sure to find out next time they go to FNM and people are talking about it, because at least one person will have seen them and want to share. And if they're not playing competitive games regularly, what does it matter if they miss out on the leaks?

What is Journalism?

Let's take a moment here and talk about the idea of journalism. Trick's article implies that leaks don't fall under the auspices of journalism because there is no "cover-up," but that's a common business reaction to the consumer's demand for information. Leaks may go counter to a carefully crafted marketing plan, or show Wizards and its products in a negative light, but we don't work for Wizards and we have no obligation to portray Wizards in a positive manner. We have a responsibility to ourselves and the community. When Wizards implements practices like introducing a mythic rarity, or incorporates the "super mythic" Zendikar Expeditions into a product, it's important that independent fan sites, unconnected the business side of Magic, are available for fans to discuss it in an unvarnished capacity. Magic isn't large enough for it to routinely get a mention in the larger games journalism industry, which means as fans we need to speak for ourselves.

The Information Vacuum

Anyone who has navigated a Magic fan site for a spoiler season knows the question, "When do spoilers start?" Players are hungry for information, and cramming everything into a two week period before the prerelease just doesn't satisfy players. In that vacuum, the community will attempt to fill the void with something, whether it's by attempting to find "leaks," or by taking advantage of those hungry for leaks and posting fake cards. Wizards, if you don't want people stealing your thunder by leaking, revise the way you reveal information. There is nothing stopping you from feeding the community's desire for information. The viral marketing from the Innistrad block was an excellent way to keep the community engaged and satiate the desire for information in advance of the block itself.

What is Theft?

Let's start with the statement that sharing leaked information, in general, isn't theft. Violating the terms of a non-disclosure agreement isn't theft. The final version of a Magic card is not a trade secret, and Wizards doesn't gain a competitive advantage by keeping them secret until spoiler season. Leaking information is a violation of the NDA and that is all. Comparing it to theft is hyperbole. It is a breach of contract, and that is all. A leaked Magic card isn't like a pirated film. The card's value isn't in its visual consumption, but in the actual use. Actually taking something that doesn't belong to you, like removing cards from a building, IS theft, and I've discussed earlier why it's important to note the difference.

The War on Drugs Leaks

Let me preface this by saying Wizards has every right to enforce their contract and litigate breaches of said contracts. Bans and suspensions from the DCI? Also their prerogative. Just don't contend that these are preventive rather than punitive measures, especially when the bans and suspensions have a tendency towards blanket punishment. The prospect of being sued into oblivion is always something that happens to someone else, and is obviously not a major consideration in the minds of most leakers. Something fundamental isn't working out for Wizards, because they're experiencing leaks every set and major breaches every other year. They're fighting a losing battle, and as Magic continues to get bigger, they're only going to find it harder to contain. They have the right to go after the people who violated their contractual obligations, but after thirteen years of leaks and lawsuits, I find it hard to swallow the idea that these measures are preventing the dozens of leaks that supposedly aren't happening. Are they really not happening because of the lawsuits, or are they not happening because the majority of people will respect their contractual obligations regardless? If thirteen years of bans, suspensions, and lawsuits haven't stopped the problem, then clearly leaks are not the result of insufficient punishments. And for those punishments to be effective, you can't also punish those who try to report the issue or are merely associated with it.

The Bottom Line

It's important for everyone to understand the difference of perspective here. For Wizards, the community is a resource to be exploited. That doesn't mean they have nefarious plans for us, but they have a fundamentally different relationship to the community and the product than the community has to them. We are not Wizards of the Coast employees. We are consumers. Our interests may parallel, but they're not the same, and as such we have very different perspectives on what is "good" for Magic. Wizards believes leaks are bad because it messes with their marketing plan. I contend that leaks are good because it allows us a view into a product without hype or marketing helping to cloud our judgment. We have a responsibility to ourselves and our wallets, and that responsibility includes taking advantage of every piece of information to determine what to do with our money.