The more I read about this the more I think every side is in the right.
Your buddy invites you to a poker night, even though gambling is illegal where you live. Are you going to call the cops on him? No. The actions are inconsequential, the play group is small, it would be horrible to break your friendship over something like this.
This is similar. Given the information that we know, this was a private group with repeat access to early leaks, with a limited membership. The judges probably knew each other. The group was small.
From Wizards perspective they have no choice. They need to take some action. They have a list of people who had access to early leaks. Repeatedly. They had to give out sanctions.
The very things outlined by Wizards for when one should take action and denounces is the exact cases where one is least likely and where it makes the least sense to do so: a small, private group.
The real problem here is that this time, someone took the info and leaked a large swath of cards. It was ill advised and now the whole group is paying for it. Too bad, but they'll just have to face the consequences.
(And frankly, the case outlined by Helene Bergerot is as clear as it can be. If you have to ask yourself if your group is private or not, if you're receiving info ahead of everyone else at large, then you're not the target of the policy. From what we've been told, the group was clearly private and the info was clearly ahead of times and unique. Don't be disingenuous.)
Being familiar with marketing (including "spoilers") in other industries, I can say with complete confidence that leaks in general hurt sales, bypass any clever marketing schemes the company had, and wash potentially tens of thousands of $$ down the drain in terms of careful planning.
In the beauty industry alone I know of one instance, pertaining to only one single product in the last six weeks, where $100,000 was lost in an instant and sales were jeopardised by a leak before a product was released.
Marketing is carefully judged to increase excitement, and is done with research and investment. Revealing any part of a product ahead of time is a privilege given to interested parties, not a necessity or an entitlement. It's done to give you a bit of a hint at what's to come, NOT let you break down, analyse and solve a product before it's even hit shelves and reduce the chances you'll buy it.
There's too much vitriol and entitlement in this thread. Just accept the fact that spoilers should only happen according to wizards' schedule, end of story. They make the product, they sell it. If they say it hurts sales when leaks happen, it hurts sales.
In a perfect world they wouldn't have to give spoilers at all, they'd just drop a few hints and some artwork. Unfortunately for them, it's become somewhat of a tradition. In that regard I don't envy them.
As for the judges who were suspended; If they were involved they deserve to be punished. You can't really expect a multinational company to just turn a blind eye when someone makes all of their investment into a marketing plan completely redundant. It's someone's job to plan this stuff - they won't just brush it off, and they do have to make an example. I'm sure you'd feel similarly if a couple of months' work you'd done got completely trashed by some idiot leaking your product on the net.
It seems from some of the comments here that wizards is being treated like some faceless large menacing entity. In reality it's a bunch of guys like you and me trying to make a living by producing something we all find fun. They have creative control and it's perfectly reasonable to punish those who willingly mess their planning up.
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Marketing is carefully judged to increase excitement, and is done with research and investment. Revealing any part of a product ahead of time is a privilege given to interested parties, not a necessity or an entitlement. It's done to give you a bit of a hint at what's to come, NOT let you break down, analyse and solve a product before it's even hit shelves and reduce the chances you'll buy it.
In other words, it's done to try and defeat market forces where people will make more rational purchasing decisions when they have the most information.
If your business model, particularly on a product that is meant to last decades is that people won't want it if they have time to look at your product for a couple extra weeks it's probably not a very good product in the first place.
Marketing is carefully judged to increase excitement, and is done with research and investment. Revealing any part of a product ahead of time is a privilege given to interested parties, not a necessity or an entitlement. It's done to give you a bit of a hint at what's to come, NOT let you break down, analyse and solve a product before it's even hit shelves and reduce the chances you'll buy it.
In other words, it's done to try and defeat market forces where people will make more rational purchasing decisions when they have the most information.
If your business model, particularly on a product that is meant to last decades is that people won't want it if they have time to look at your product for a couple extra weeks it's probably not a very good product in the first place.
That's literally the business model of every company out there.
I'm dead serious. Perhaps you need to rethink how marketing works? Not a single person is forcing anyone to buy on the day of release for any product out there.
(And frankly, the case outlined by Helene Bergerot is as clear as it can be. If you have to ask yourself if your group is private or not, if you're receiving info ahead of everyone else at large, then you're not the target of the policy. From what we've been told, the group was clearly private and the info was clearly ahead of times and unique. Don't be disingenuous.)
Sounds like you have fallen victim to her painstakingly phrased comment.... It is only clear if you make the assumptions she leads you towards. James Bennett, the guy who runs http://apps.magicjudges.org/ spoke on this exact point: (click the link, it goes directly to his full protest article)
"And now a longer statement is up which, despite purporting to do so, still fails to address this core concern. Notice how the language of it carefully makes a true statement (someone did leak as-yet-non-public spoilers), but uses it to mislead and imply some sort of conspiracy of repeat leakers when, in truth, any online community with at least one participant who posts a leak at least once could be described in the same language. The fact that Helene is, as with the authors of previous statements, unwilling to make direct accusations against the other members of the group is also suspicious, especially given that the previous statement openly admitted suspensions were given to people who did not participate in leaks of confidential information: Helene is most likely refraining from such accusations because she cannot legally make such accusations, knows she cannot, and is hoping clever wording will lead readers to infer the accusation for her."
I completely agree with James. If you go back and reread Helene's statement, you can notice how vague the language is. To be fair, she is supposed to be on an MTGFocus podcast later today, so I'd like to reserve my judgment until I hear if she has anything else to say other than what she wrote in the article.
I'm just not sure some of you are understanding the implications here. Example- your friend texts you a picture of a card you haven't seen yet. You now must go check and see if its out there (and report it to Wizards if not) or you could be suspended. Does that really seem acceptable?
Yes.
Just like any "leak" I'm responsible for what I do with the information. I'm held to that standard at work, I don't feel overburdened by it for this, or my other hobbies.
Yes.
Just like any "leak" I'm responsible for what I do with the information. I'm held to that standard at work, I don't feel overburdened by it for this, or my other hobbies.
Of course as an employee your employer wants you held to some kind of "loyalty" standard. That really isn't comparable to the hobbies situations.
Who said you did anything with the information? Your friend texts you a picture of a card you haven't seen. You could do literally nothing with it other than read it with your eyes. If it was leaked, you can now be suspended. There's no implication you did anything with it. Being subject to a ban merely for using your eyeballs to read something seems Draconian unless you knew with certainty that such information was obtained illegitimately. It might sound like this isn't such a big deal on a small scale. But when you have to do this every single time you see a card posted on some non-major public forum, its an absolute nightmare.
Yes.
Just like any "leak" I'm responsible for what I do with the information. I'm held to that standard at work, I don't feel overburdened by it for this, or my other hobbies.
Of course as an employee your employer wants you held to some kind of "loyalty" standard. That really isn't comparable to the hobbies situations.
Who said you did anything with the information? Your friend texts you a picture of a card you haven't seen. You could do literally nothing with it other than read it with your eyes. If it was leaked, you can now be suspended. There's no implication you did anything with it. Being subject to a ban merely for using your eyeballs to read something seems Draconian unless you knew with certainty that such information was obtained illegitimately. It might sound like this isn't such a big deal on a small scale. But when you have to do this every single time you see a card posted on some non-major public forum, its an absolute nightmare.
So you never ask for a source when someone talks about a leaked card/spoiler? You don't try and determine if it's a fake?
All you ever do is look at the card and then go on with your life?
I don't believe that. If you do anything to determine a source you're already doing this. All Wizards asks you to do is let them know if it's not an official leak. That's what - 30 seconds of your time *if* you find something like that? Yeah, totes unreasonable.
Yes.
Just like any "leak" I'm responsible for what I do with the information. I'm held to that standard at work, I don't feel overburdened by it for this, or my other hobbies.
Well then YOU can work for Wizards for free policing the internet for spoilers. The rest of us have better things to do with OUR PERSONAL LIVES. WotC does not own us and does not get to tell us how to spend our time. I for one will not be coerced into any of this bull*****, and neither should you.
Wizards may as well say "all players now have to volunteer for 1 hour per week for free working for us or else we will ban you from DCI events." Would you tolerate that? I'd hope not. Functionally, there isn't actually any difference between that hypothetical situation and what they are asking of us now.
Except it's not an hour per week. Exaggerations aren't helping you any.
And there are massive functional differences between your hypothetical situation and what they're asking of you. Literally not even comparable.
I'm fine with the sanctions as they've been described, and as for the "collateral damage," I'm fine with that too. Three months is practically nothing. Having said that, Wizards clearly needs to work on keeping a tighter lid on their information.
Some have been suspended for two years or more. Three months was the minimum suspension. They're being treated like a player who got caught cheating at a GP.
No, I get it. The ones that actually did the leaking get 2 or 3 years while the ones that "had no idea, but were still in the group" got three months (hence the "collateral damage" part of the original post). I'm 100% fine with all of that. In essence, they were in possession of stolen property, and I can't think of a plausible defense. They knew they weren't allowed to have it. Actions can and should have consequences, as far as I'm concerned.
We're getting this thirdhand, and a lot of the information is incomplete. But I believe that the person who actually did stand up and say "Hey WOTC, someone posted something that they should not have - you should investigate this!" also got smacked by the banhammer. That sounds like a pretty plausible defense to me. At least one person realized what was going on, took the proper steps, and is still being punished for it. That's what sticks in my craw.
Like I said, a lot of the facts are unknown. It's entirely possible that he'd done other things in the past that warranted a ban. Nobody knows yet.
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It doesn't matter how much time per week it takes; it's a non zero amount that WotC does not have the right to. And how do you know it's not an hour? It could actually take MORE than an hour per week, since it depends on how many "potential spoilers" your eyes happened to lock on to. You are now obligated to research every single one of them.
"Is it on MTGS?"
Realistically, that's enough research. And that's what I'd be doing anyway the minute someone mentions a spoiled card. There's been too many fake leaks in the past for me to accept anything at face value anymore.
And if that takes you more than an hour, well... I'm not sure what to tell you.
And it's not that WotC has "the right" to any of your time. They don't.
You, however, have the obligation to let any corporation or individual know if their IP has leaked.
There's a difference. One is official and acceptable, the other isn't - and leaks are what caused the problem here.
There's really no economic study between the two. The "big Kozilek reveal" is nothing different than the materials on youtube taken from pre renders for a movie. The main factor is that the data is stolen and associated parties are typically under contract to be quiet.
What can and will make a difference is secondary market impact, similar to the stock market. Wizards sales are sustained not from the hype as hype is generated for prerelease. However, unveiled cards and the previous set in the block can equally backfire.
New Phyrexia was revealed in full from the god book without any impact on sales. The last few years have seen an increase in sales expectations to outsell the last set. The game is in a growing state. The issue is now that they're becoming more "coperate" on their properties. Which is fine, to an extent since their system "works" for them.
I personally like knowing spoilers sooner as a part of anticipation to be able to budget for specific events and so forth. I actually conceptually like Oath, but there are mechanics that I have disliked such as Monstrous.
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These people that broke these rules, they are not normal people they are the leaders and pillars of the community that broke the trust of the company they volunteer for, no matter the situation breaking that trust they no longer want you around *don't let the door hit you* that's what those 2-3year ban mean. these very pillars and leaders of the community are suppose to be the ones who enforce and police WoTC policy and rules, things like stores breaking street date, win trading during tournaments, leaking of set information before its release and so on, these are the exact things expected of a person in this position *not casual players* to preform, and if you cannot do so you cannot be trusted in such a position.
they also may have used this information for a monetary gain, such as if the group had info to Modern Master way before spoilers and knew which cards to sell and which to buy, some of you may even be victims of this and don't even realize they or their friends they shared this info with already suckered you. so even seeing this information and not coming forward in a TIMELY fashion is grounds for a suspension, committing years of leaks only to try and save face by "revealing the source at the last second to try and save you own skin, doesn't work"
Entitlement at its best to think you are more important than the company that makes the game for you to play.
Other Company's have other volunteer and payment systems for such things, and after this i fear the judge program is a thing of the past and will be slowly or "quickly if it gets real bad" replaced with a similar in house system they control.
for Pokemon you have to fill out a BACKGROUND CHECK and if you have any criminal history you are not allowed to judge or even TO a sanctioned Pokemon tournament.....
you are screaming and cutting of your own noises slashing your own throats, to defend people who were in trusted positions and abused them.
anyone who feels unjustified in a suspension needs to appeal and get over it, life is not fair and a legal court system is even more unfair........
if your in a position of power and trust you are held to a higher standard.
These people that broke these rules, they are not normal people they are the leaders and pillars of the community that broke the trust of the company they volunteer for, no matter the situation breaking that trust they no longer want you around *don't let the door hit you* that's what those 2-3year ban mean.
Dude come on, please read the thread more carefully. No one thinks that those that directly leaked the cards (the ones that got the 2 and 3 year suspensions respectively) were unjustly treated. It is the 3 month suspensions for not reporting the leaks that we are debating.
Show me the exact law that states that I have the obligation to do anything for any corporation on my own personal time. You can't, because that's complete bull***** and you know it. No one has that obligation.
Did I ever say it was a legal obligation? Nope.
If you have access to something you shouldn't, the right thing to do is to let someone know. Whether it's your neighbor's garage, the local city government's payment history (because their website is designed poorly) or a trade secret leaked from a corporation or individual (which is what these cards are).
And I know this is hard to accept but not all spoilers are on MTGS right away. Maybe another site got it first? How big does that site have to be for us to be expected to check it? What if I saw over the course of the week 100 potential spoiler cards? I have to search out every single one of them now!
Hell, go look at wizards.com - they have spoiled cards there. Anything that isn't there isn't officially spoiled.
And you're seriously exaggerating the effort involved here.
These people that broke these rules, they are not normal people they are the leaders and pillars of the community that broke the trust of the company they volunteer for, no matter the situation breaking that trust they no longer want you around *don't let the door hit you* that's what those 2-3year ban mean.
Dude come on, please read the thread more carefully. No one thinks that those that directly leaked the cards (the ones that got the 2 and 3 year suspensions respectively) were unjustly treated. It is the 3 month suspensions for not reporting the leaks that we are debating.
There are in fact people fighting for those people.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
Guilt by association. because you knew and did nothing. in a VERY PRIVATE group. YEARS of leaks........
so far everyone is guilty and needs to prove your suspension is unjustified because everyone that got hit has some guilt near them....
they gave you the option to appeal that is good enough.
if your friend in school steals the test answers and you knew about it but didn't use them doesn't clean your hands of the act, simply knowing and not acting is enough.
Well then YOU can work for Wizards for free policing the internet for spoilers. The rest of us have better things to do with OUR PERSONAL LIVES. WotC does not own us and does not get to tell us how to spend our time. I for one will not be coerced into any of this bull*****, and neither should you.
Wizards may as well say "all players now have to volunteer for 1 hour per week for free working for us or else we will ban you from DCI events." Would you tolerate that? I'd hope not. Functionally, there isn't actually any difference between that hypothetical situation and what they are asking of us now.
Lol, wtf are you even talking about? Wizards is not telling you "how to live your personal life," they aren't telling you you can be banned for looking at spoilers on MTG salvation, they sure as hell aren't demanding that you volunteer once a week or else you will be banned from the DCI. I want to know what you're smoking, because I sure don't want any.
Also, let's keep some perspective as to what's a stake here - it's magic. No one's going to jail, or losing their home, or being physically harmed, etc, etc. Let's try and keep the absurd hyperbole to a minimum.
They are coercing you to search the internet for them and spend time reporting anything you think could be a leak by threatening suspensions to anyone caught NOT doing this.
And I don't care if you think 3 months is nothing; it matters to competitive players like myself that want to play in an event that might only be in the area during those 3 months out of the year. ANY amount of time is unjust.
Stop being ridiculous. Nowhere is it stated or implied that you, or me, or anyone is going to be banned for seeing a spoiler and not reporting it. At most, what is being stated, is that if you are a member of a private webpage or group of some kind that is involved in spoiling cards for YEARS against wizards wishes, they might ban you for not reporting this fact.
They are coercing you to search the internet for them and spend time reporting anything you think could be a leak by threatening suspensions to anyone caught NOT doing this.
No, they're absolutely *not* doing this. If you're not a member of some private group, there's no risk to you.
If a private group you're a member of gets a leaked card, are you going to just never research it at all? I'm 99% sure you'd look around the internet to see if it's a valid spoiler. So there's no extra time required there.
The only thing they're asking is that you report if you are a member of a private group that gets a leak. That fits such a small portion of the population it's not even worth worrying about.
And again, the actual amount of time is irrelevant because it's non-zero; Wizards has no right to my time no matter how small and/or insignificant it may be.
It's relevant because you made the horrible hypothetical earlier and said, quote
Functionally, there isn't actually any difference between that hypothetical situation and what they are asking of us now.
When there's demonstrable differences. If you want to make statements that are way out there, prepare to defend them.
They are coercing you to search the internet for them and spend time reporting anything you think could be a leak by threatening suspensions to anyone caught NOT doing this.
And I don't care if you think 3 months is nothing; it matters to competitive players like myself that want to play in an event that might only be in the area during those 3 months out of the year. ANY amount of time is unjust.
Stop being ridiculous. Nowhere is it stated or implied that you, or me, or anyone is going to be banned for seeing a spoiler and not reporting it. At most, what is being stated, is that if you are a member of a private webpage or group of some kind that is involved in spoiling cards for YEARS against wizards wishes, they might ban you for not reporting this fact.
No one in this thread is in that boat.
Please point to where this requirement of "spoiling cards for years" is.
They are coercing you to search the internet for them and spend time reporting anything you think could be a leak by threatening suspensions to anyone caught NOT doing this.
And I don't care if you think 3 months is nothing; it matters to competitive players like myself that want to play in an event that might only be in the area during those 3 months out of the year. ANY amount of time is unjust.
Stop being ridiculous. Nowhere is it stated or implied that you, or me, or anyone is going to be banned for seeing a spoiler and not reporting it. At most, what is being stated, is that if you are a member of a private webpage or group of some kind that is involved in spoiling cards for YEARS against wizards wishes, they might ban you for not reporting this fact.
No one in this thread is in that boat.
Please point to where this requirement of "spoiling cards for years" is.
Because that's what caused the bans. It wasn't a one off event, like people are saying it is.
It's a consistent thing that has been going on for a while.
They are coercing you to search the internet for them and spend time reporting anything you think could be a leak by threatening suspensions to anyone caught NOT doing this.
And I don't care if you think 3 months is nothing; it matters to competitive players like myself that want to play in an event that might only be in the area during those 3 months out of the year. ANY amount of time is unjust.
Stop being ridiculous. Nowhere is it stated or implied that you, or me, or anyone is going to be banned for seeing a spoiler and not reporting it. At most, what is being stated, is that if you are a member of a private webpage or group of some kind that is involved in spoiling cards for YEARS against wizards wishes, they might ban you for not reporting this fact.
No one in this thread is in that boat.
Please point to where this requirement of "spoiling cards for years" is.
Because that's what caused the bans. It wasn't a one off event, like people are saying it is.
It's a consistent thing that has been going on for a while.
And please point to that. Because nothing in Helene's language actually states that. You are making an assumption based on carefully crafted language.
And the response to that statement: "And now a longer statement is up which, despite purporting to do so, still fails to address this core concern. Notice how the language of it carefully makes a true statement (someone did leak as-yet-non-public spoilers), but uses it to mislead and imply some sort of conspiracy of repeat leakers when, in truth, any online community with at least one participant who posts a leak at least once could be described in the same language. The fact that Helene is, as with the authors of previous statements, unwilling to make direct accusations against the other members of the group is also suspicious, especially given that the previous statement openly admitted suspensions were given to people who did not participate in leaks of confidential information: Helene is most likely refraining from such accusations because she cannot legally make such accusations, knows she cannot, and is hoping clever wording will lead readers to infer the accusation for her."
I want to know, besides NPH, how sales have been impacted by leaks.
We're assuming that the "poor sales" of NPH had to do with leaks and not the fact that it was a mediocre set. I still would like to see their numeric 'evidence' and a direct explanation of the correlation between leaks and "not meeting sales goals/expectations".
They are coercing you to search the internet for them and spend time reporting anything you think could be a leak by threatening suspensions to anyone caught NOT doing this.
And I don't care if you think 3 months is nothing; it matters to competitive players like myself that want to play in an event that might only be in the area during those 3 months out of the year. ANY amount of time is unjust.
Stop being ridiculous. Nowhere is it stated or implied that you, or me, or anyone is going to be banned for seeing a spoiler and not reporting it. At most, what is being stated, is that if you are a member of a private webpage or group of some kind that is involved in spoiling cards for YEARS against wizards wishes, they might ban you for not reporting this fact.
No one in this thread is in that boat.
Please point to where this requirement of "spoiling cards for years" is.
Because that's what caused the bans. It wasn't a one off event, like people are saying it is.
It's a consistent thing that has been going on for a while.
And please point to that. Because nothing in Helene's language actually states that. You are making an assumption based on carefully crafted language.
And the response to that statement: "And now a longer statement is up which, despite purporting to do so, still fails to address this core concern. Notice how the language of it carefully makes a true statement (someone did leak as-yet-non-public spoilers), but uses it to mislead and imply some sort of conspiracy of repeat leakers when, in truth, any online community with at least one participant who posts a leak at least once could be described in the same language. The fact that Helene is, as with the authors of previous statements, unwilling to make direct accusations against the other members of the group is also suspicious, especially given that the previous statement openly admitted suspensions were given to people who did not participate in leaks of confidential information: Helene is most likely refraining from such accusations because she cannot legally make such accusations, knows she cannot, and is hoping clever wording will lead readers to infer the accusation for her."
Really?
"The issue with the passive participants is not a one-time affair; this information was shared within the group for multiple expansions."
Shared within the group for multiple expansions can be used to describe a community where a single participant leaks something once? Do you know the definition of "multiple"?
And her statement isn't the only one. There were some other posts that I'm too lazy to find on reddit talking about how it's been going on for a while - and those existed long before Helene's statement.
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I don't understand the "People don't like it" implies "it is right" sort of reasoning. Id definitely doesn't make any logical sense.
Your buddy invites you to a poker night, even though gambling is illegal where you live. Are you going to call the cops on him? No. The actions are inconsequential, the play group is small, it would be horrible to break your friendship over something like this.
This is similar. Given the information that we know, this was a private group with repeat access to early leaks, with a limited membership. The judges probably knew each other. The group was small.
From Wizards perspective they have no choice. They need to take some action. They have a list of people who had access to early leaks. Repeatedly. They had to give out sanctions.
The very things outlined by Wizards for when one should take action and denounces is the exact cases where one is least likely and where it makes the least sense to do so: a small, private group.
The real problem here is that this time, someone took the info and leaked a large swath of cards. It was ill advised and now the whole group is paying for it. Too bad, but they'll just have to face the consequences.
(And frankly, the case outlined by Helene Bergerot is as clear as it can be. If you have to ask yourself if your group is private or not, if you're receiving info ahead of everyone else at large, then you're not the target of the policy. From what we've been told, the group was clearly private and the info was clearly ahead of times and unique. Don't be disingenuous.)
In the beauty industry alone I know of one instance, pertaining to only one single product in the last six weeks, where $100,000 was lost in an instant and sales were jeopardised by a leak before a product was released.
Marketing is carefully judged to increase excitement, and is done with research and investment. Revealing any part of a product ahead of time is a privilege given to interested parties, not a necessity or an entitlement. It's done to give you a bit of a hint at what's to come, NOT let you break down, analyse and solve a product before it's even hit shelves and reduce the chances you'll buy it.
There's too much vitriol and entitlement in this thread. Just accept the fact that spoilers should only happen according to wizards' schedule, end of story. They make the product, they sell it. If they say it hurts sales when leaks happen, it hurts sales.
In a perfect world they wouldn't have to give spoilers at all, they'd just drop a few hints and some artwork. Unfortunately for them, it's become somewhat of a tradition. In that regard I don't envy them.
As for the judges who were suspended; If they were involved they deserve to be punished. You can't really expect a multinational company to just turn a blind eye when someone makes all of their investment into a marketing plan completely redundant. It's someone's job to plan this stuff - they won't just brush it off, and they do have to make an example. I'm sure you'd feel similarly if a couple of months' work you'd done got completely trashed by some idiot leaking your product on the net.
It seems from some of the comments here that wizards is being treated like some faceless large menacing entity. In reality it's a bunch of guys like you and me trying to make a living by producing something we all find fun. They have creative control and it's perfectly reasonable to punish those who willingly mess their planning up.
In other words, it's done to try and defeat market forces where people will make more rational purchasing decisions when they have the most information.
If your business model, particularly on a product that is meant to last decades is that people won't want it if they have time to look at your product for a couple extra weeks it's probably not a very good product in the first place.
That's literally the business model of every company out there.
I'm dead serious. Perhaps you need to rethink how marketing works? Not a single person is forcing anyone to buy on the day of release for any product out there.
Sounds like you have fallen victim to her painstakingly phrased comment.... It is only clear if you make the assumptions she leads you towards. James Bennett, the guy who runs http://apps.magicjudges.org/ spoke on this exact point: (click the link, it goes directly to his full protest article)
"And now a longer statement is up which, despite purporting to do so, still fails to address this core concern. Notice how the language of it carefully makes a true statement (someone did leak as-yet-non-public spoilers), but uses it to mislead and imply some sort of conspiracy of repeat leakers when, in truth, any online community with at least one participant who posts a leak at least once could be described in the same language. The fact that Helene is, as with the authors of previous statements, unwilling to make direct accusations against the other members of the group is also suspicious, especially given that the previous statement openly admitted suspensions were given to people who did not participate in leaks of confidential information: Helene is most likely refraining from such accusations because she cannot legally make such accusations, knows she cannot, and is hoping clever wording will lead readers to infer the accusation for her."
I completely agree with James. If you go back and reread Helene's statement, you can notice how vague the language is. To be fair, she is supposed to be on an MTGFocus podcast later today, so I'd like to reserve my judgment until I hear if she has anything else to say other than what she wrote in the article.
I'm just not sure some of you are understanding the implications here. Example- your friend texts you a picture of a card you haven't seen yet. You now must go check and see if its out there (and report it to Wizards if not) or you could be suspended. Does that really seem acceptable?
Just like any "leak" I'm responsible for what I do with the information. I'm held to that standard at work, I don't feel overburdened by it for this, or my other hobbies.
Of course as an employee your employer wants you held to some kind of "loyalty" standard. That really isn't comparable to the hobbies situations.
Who said you did anything with the information? Your friend texts you a picture of a card you haven't seen. You could do literally nothing with it other than read it with your eyes. If it was leaked, you can now be suspended. There's no implication you did anything with it. Being subject to a ban merely for using your eyeballs to read something seems Draconian unless you knew with certainty that such information was obtained illegitimately. It might sound like this isn't such a big deal on a small scale. But when you have to do this every single time you see a card posted on some non-major public forum, its an absolute nightmare.
So you never ask for a source when someone talks about a leaked card/spoiler? You don't try and determine if it's a fake?
All you ever do is look at the card and then go on with your life?
I don't believe that. If you do anything to determine a source you're already doing this. All Wizards asks you to do is let them know if it's not an official leak. That's what - 30 seconds of your time *if* you find something like that? Yeah, totes unreasonable.
Except it's not an hour per week. Exaggerations aren't helping you any.
And there are massive functional differences between your hypothetical situation and what they're asking of you. Literally not even comparable.
We're getting this thirdhand, and a lot of the information is incomplete. But I believe that the person who actually did stand up and say "Hey WOTC, someone posted something that they should not have - you should investigate this!" also got smacked by the banhammer. That sounds like a pretty plausible defense to me. At least one person realized what was going on, took the proper steps, and is still being punished for it. That's what sticks in my craw.
Like I said, a lot of the facts are unknown. It's entirely possible that he'd done other things in the past that warranted a ban. Nobody knows yet.
"Is it on MTGS?"
Realistically, that's enough research. And that's what I'd be doing anyway the minute someone mentions a spoiled card. There's been too many fake leaks in the past for me to accept anything at face value anymore.
And if that takes you more than an hour, well... I'm not sure what to tell you.
And it's not that WotC has "the right" to any of your time. They don't.
You, however, have the obligation to let any corporation or individual know if their IP has leaked.
There's really no economic study between the two. The "big Kozilek reveal" is nothing different than the materials on youtube taken from pre renders for a movie. The main factor is that the data is stolen and associated parties are typically under contract to be quiet.
What can and will make a difference is secondary market impact, similar to the stock market. Wizards sales are sustained not from the hype as hype is generated for prerelease. However, unveiled cards and the previous set in the block can equally backfire.
New Phyrexia was revealed in full from the god book without any impact on sales. The last few years have seen an increase in sales expectations to outsell the last set. The game is in a growing state. The issue is now that they're becoming more "coperate" on their properties. Which is fine, to an extent since their system "works" for them.
I personally like knowing spoilers sooner as a part of anticipation to be able to budget for specific events and so forth. I actually conceptually like Oath, but there are mechanics that I have disliked such as Monstrous.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
Mark Rosewater, whose word on this I'll take over yours, disagrees with that statement.
they also may have used this information for a monetary gain, such as if the group had info to Modern Master way before spoilers and knew which cards to sell and which to buy, some of you may even be victims of this and don't even realize they or their friends they shared this info with already suckered you. so even seeing this information and not coming forward in a TIMELY fashion is grounds for a suspension, committing years of leaks only to try and save face by "revealing the source at the last second to try and save you own skin, doesn't work"
Entitlement at its best to think you are more important than the company that makes the game for you to play.
Other Company's have other volunteer and payment systems for such things, and after this i fear the judge program is a thing of the past and will be slowly or "quickly if it gets real bad" replaced with a similar in house system they control.
for Pokemon you have to fill out a BACKGROUND CHECK and if you have any criminal history you are not allowed to judge or even TO a sanctioned Pokemon tournament.....
you are screaming and cutting of your own noises slashing your own throats, to defend people who were in trusted positions and abused them.
anyone who feels unjustified in a suspension needs to appeal and get over it, life is not fair and a legal court system is even more unfair........
if your in a position of power and trust you are held to a higher standard.
this is all about ****TRUST***
Dude come on, please read the thread more carefully. No one thinks that those that directly leaked the cards (the ones that got the 2 and 3 year suspensions respectively) were unjustly treated. It is the 3 month suspensions for not reporting the leaks that we are debating.
Did I ever say it was a legal obligation? Nope.
If you have access to something you shouldn't, the right thing to do is to let someone know. Whether it's your neighbor's garage, the local city government's payment history (because their website is designed poorly) or a trade secret leaked from a corporation or individual (which is what these cards are).
Hell, go look at wizards.com - they have spoiled cards there. Anything that isn't there isn't officially spoiled.
And you're seriously exaggerating the effort involved here.
There are in fact people fighting for those people.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
Guilt by association. because you knew and did nothing. in a VERY PRIVATE group. YEARS of leaks........
so far everyone is guilty and needs to prove your suspension is unjustified because everyone that got hit has some guilt near them....
they gave you the option to appeal that is good enough.
if your friend in school steals the test answers and you knew about it but didn't use them doesn't clean your hands of the act, simply knowing and not acting is enough.
Lol, wtf are you even talking about? Wizards is not telling you "how to live your personal life," they aren't telling you you can be banned for looking at spoilers on MTG salvation, they sure as hell aren't demanding that you volunteer once a week or else you will be banned from the DCI. I want to know what you're smoking, because I sure don't want any.
Also, let's keep some perspective as to what's a stake here - it's magic. No one's going to jail, or losing their home, or being physically harmed, etc, etc. Let's try and keep the absurd hyperbole to a minimum.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
Stop being ridiculous. Nowhere is it stated or implied that you, or me, or anyone is going to be banned for seeing a spoiler and not reporting it. At most, what is being stated, is that if you are a member of a private webpage or group of some kind that is involved in spoiling cards for YEARS against wizards wishes, they might ban you for not reporting this fact.
No one in this thread is in that boat.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
No, they're absolutely *not* doing this. If you're not a member of some private group, there's no risk to you.
If a private group you're a member of gets a leaked card, are you going to just never research it at all? I'm 99% sure you'd look around the internet to see if it's a valid spoiler. So there's no extra time required there.
The only thing they're asking is that you report if you are a member of a private group that gets a leak. That fits such a small portion of the population it's not even worth worrying about.
It's relevant because you made the horrible hypothetical earlier and said, quote
When there's demonstrable differences. If you want to make statements that are way out there, prepare to defend them.
Please point to where this requirement of "spoiling cards for years" is.
Because that's what caused the bans. It wasn't a one off event, like people are saying it is.
It's a consistent thing that has been going on for a while.
And please point to that. Because nothing in Helene's language actually states that. You are making an assumption based on carefully crafted language.
For reference, I posted this earlier, and it contains the link to Helene's statement: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/statement-concerning-recent-suspensions-2015-12-21
And the response to that statement: "And now a longer statement is up which, despite purporting to do so, still fails to address this core concern. Notice how the language of it carefully makes a true statement (someone did leak as-yet-non-public spoilers), but uses it to mislead and imply some sort of conspiracy of repeat leakers when, in truth, any online community with at least one participant who posts a leak at least once could be described in the same language. The fact that Helene is, as with the authors of previous statements, unwilling to make direct accusations against the other members of the group is also suspicious, especially given that the previous statement openly admitted suspensions were given to people who did not participate in leaks of confidential information: Helene is most likely refraining from such accusations because she cannot legally make such accusations, knows she cannot, and is hoping clever wording will lead readers to infer the accusation for her."
We're assuming that the "poor sales" of NPH had to do with leaks and not the fact that it was a mediocre set. I still would like to see their numeric 'evidence' and a direct explanation of the correlation between leaks and "not meeting sales goals/expectations".
My current trade binder.
"People most likely to cry "troll" are those who can't fathom holding a position for reasons unrelated to how they want to be perceived"
Really?
"The issue with the passive participants is not a one-time affair; this information was shared within the group for multiple expansions."
Shared within the group for multiple expansions can be used to describe a community where a single participant leaks something once? Do you know the definition of "multiple"?
And her statement isn't the only one. There were some other posts that I'm too lazy to find on reddit talking about how it's been going on for a while - and those existed long before Helene's statement.