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".
That's something you'll never get.
Because that's financial information and it's something that the SEC has careful eyes over, since Hasbro is publicly traded.
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."
Right here "The people suspended were members of a private group receiving stolen confidential information about upcoming sets before this information was available in any public forum on the internet. This happened over multiple sets and well ahead of preview season for the sets in question. Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group — and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet — should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen. If you come across information like this, you should immediately report it to Wizards. Major leaks in the past have been prevented by other members of our community reporting similar situations to Wizards" ....... Multiple sets though we do not know if that extent is 2-100Sets but it was not a singular incident, the exact time frame doesn't matter for such arguments, it does matter for who is being held accountable...
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.
Wow, logic fail. That is precisely the conclusion she wanted you to draw. Damn, she is pretty good at her job. Multiple expansions does not necessarily imply anything. The last leak BY ITSELF spanned over multiple expansions- it contained spoilers from Oath, SOI, and the duel-deck.
Further, there were two sets of leaks, the one with Kozilek, and the massive one. So wait. Hmm. If that group had both sets of those leaks. It wasn't a one time affair, and it was across multiple expansions. Zomg must mean its some "consistent thing thats been going on for awhile."
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".
That's something you'll never get.
Because that's financial information and it's something that the SEC has careful eyes over, since Hasbro is publicly traded.
Ah, so we just go back to blind trust and faith that WOTC has our best interests at hearts and not covering their butts to their shareholders. I just don't like that.
EDIT:
For being so horribly detrimental to their sales, Hasbro's stock value has been on a steady upward trend for the last 5 years, much of that Hasbro has publicly states is because of WOTC and MTG specifically. So really, how much are they actually suffering?
Also (yes I know it's a year old article), but a company that can grow annual revenue by the ungoldy amount that WOTC has, can't really be hurting from leaks as much as they claim to be:
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".
That's something you'll never get.
Because that's financial information and it's something that the SEC has careful eyes over, since Hasbro is publicly traded.
Ah, so we just go back to blind trust and faith that WOTC has our best interests at hearts and not covering their butts to their shareholders. I just don't like that.
You simply do not have the right to tell Hasbro whose interests it should cover, that is theirs to decided.
You have the right to Buy or not Buy magic, that is your right.
Wow, logic fail. That is precisely the conclusion she wanted you to draw. Damn, she is pretty good at her job. Multiple expansions does not necessarily imply anything. The last leak BY ITSELF spanned over multiple expansions- it contained spoilers from Oath, SOI, and the duel-deck.
I have to ask, is English your first language?
Because "not a one-time affair" and "multiple expansion" does not in any way match up with
any online community with at least one participant who posts a leak at least once
Reading it the way you have is reading hostility because you want to - not because that's what was said.
Further, there were two sets of leaks, the one with Kozilek, and the massive one. So wait. Hmm. If that group had both sets of those leaks. It wasn't a one time affair, and it was across multiple expansions. Zomg must mean its some "consistent thing thats been going on for awhile."
Look, I can't help you if you want to read a secret motive into anything that's said. No one can. But that's not what's being said, and Helene wasn't the only one to say it.
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".
That's something you'll never get.
Because that's financial information and it's something that the SEC has careful eyes over, since Hasbro is publicly traded.
Ah, so we just go back to blind trust and faith that WOTC has our best interests at hearts and not covering their butts to their shareholders. I just don't like that.
As much blind trust as literally any company requires. And it's not WotC, it's Hasbro at that level.
For being so horribly detrimental to their sales, Hasbro's stock value has been on a steady upward trend for the last 5 years, much of that Hasbro has publicly states is because of WOTC and MTG specifically. So really, how much are they actually suffering?
Check the 5 year trend on the value:
Also (yes I know it's a year old article), but a company that can grow annual revenue by the ungoldy amount that WOTC has, can't really be hurting from leaks as much as they claim to be:
"Look, they're still making money - theft doesn't hurt!"
That's what you just said. So it's okay if I steal some of your stuff - you still have more, right?
And why do you get to decide that since the line is up and to the right, they should just accept anything that doesn't make it go down?
Wow, logic fail. That is precisely the conclusion she wanted you to draw. Damn, she is pretty good at her job. Multiple expansions does not necessarily imply anything. The last leak BY ITSELF spanned over multiple expansions- it contained spoilers from Oath, SOI, and the duel-deck.
I have to ask, is English your first language?
Because "not a one-time affair" and "multiple expansion" does not in any way match up with
any online community with at least one participant who posts a leak at least once
Reading it the way you have is reading hostility because you want to - not because that's what was said.
Further, there were two sets of leaks, the one with Kozilek, and the massive one. So wait. Hmm. If that group had both sets of those leaks. It wasn't a one time affair, and it was across multiple expansions. Zomg must mean its some "consistent thing thats been going on for awhile."
Look, I can't help you if you want to read a secret motive into anything that's said. No one can. But that's not what's being said, and Helene wasn't the only one to say it.
Like I posted way earlier, that "response" to Helene was from James Bennett. Those were not my own words. I didn't make that clear this time around, but I did in my post on page 6, and that is where I copied it from. But I still agree with his sentiments, because here is the bottom line- There were two sets of leaks- and they spanned across multiple expansions. Those facts were twisted to imply the conclusions you and others drew earlier, about how this has been some "continuous" thing. It wasn't, it was two separate incidents that occurred in a short time frame. If you want to conclude that the "not one time affair," "across multiple expansions" is "continuous" when it really was just "two incidents" then be my guest. But like I said, that is misleading. You say my reading is hostile, and I say yours is based on twisted characterizations. Clearly our disagreement is based upon a lack of transparent communication from Wizards, which hopefully will be cleared up when Helene appears on MTGFocus tonight.
I'm not going to debate this further because this is starting to get inflammatory, and off topic. Our original disagreement was about whether or not people should be suspended merely for not reporting, and that is what the discussion here should be focused around. I made my piece on that earlier, and you disagreed on that sentiment. We might have a "moral" obligation to report the IP leak, but to me, that shouldn't warrant suspension. And regardless of the size of the burden, I don't think I should be forced to check sites to see if something someone sent me is legit upon fear of suspension. Maybe you do it because of the fake leaks, but that doesn't mean everyone does. If they are fake, I'll find out later. I don't feel the need to, nor should be required to, immediately research their veracity.
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".
That's something you'll never get.
Because that's financial information and it's something that the SEC has careful eyes over, since Hasbro is publicly traded.
Ah, so we just go back to blind trust and faith that WOTC has our best interests at hearts and not covering their butts to their shareholders. I just don't like that.
As much blind trust as literally any company requires. And it's not WotC, it's Hasbro at that level.
For being so horribly detrimental to their sales, Hasbro's stock value has been on a steady upward trend for the last 5 years, much of that Hasbro has publicly states is because of WOTC and MTG specifically. So really, how much are they actually suffering?
Check the 5 year trend on the value:
Also (yes I know it's a year old article), but a company that can grow annual revenue by the ungoldy amount that WOTC has, can't really be hurting from leaks as much as they claim to be:
"Look, they're still making money - theft doesn't hurt!"
That's what you just said. So it's okay if I steal some of your stuff - you still have more, right?
And why do you get to decide that since the line is up and to the right, they should just accept anything that doesn't make it go down?
Except theft has not occurred. I don't know where you're getting theft out of all this. No one has taken anything away from WOTC.
Except theft has not occurred. I don't know where you're getting theft out of all this. No one has taken anything away from WOTC.
People here that want to armchair-lawyer this whole debacle would claim IP theft, because WotC's marketing opportunities and attempts to frame the context and control the flow of information about OGW has been taken from them. However, that also rides under older, less reliable marketing models that don't really apply to the modern age. Digital-age spoilers of advanced product can be seen as early as alpha stages with many IP's and suffer no actual loss of hype. Quite the opposite, many companies are propped up on the buzz and hype and the promise of what's coming a year from now. Then you have these goofballs that protect the information until the last possible minute and blame crummy sales not on their own shortcomings, but the fact that people knew 15 cards in the set a whopping 3 weeks sooner than they planned on people knowing. If that's genuinely the case, they need to stop drinking their own Kool-Aid that tells them spoilers are the issue with their sales.
That said, people coming into contact with and reposting images of leaked cards know damn well the risks involved with such a thing, even in a so-called private group. It only takes one blabbermouth or one white knight to get people into the kind of trouble we see here. The risks are not unknown, we've seen it happen before. What we haven't seen before is this draconian guilt by association nonsense where other judges (including a whistleblower) are suspended for being a part of the private group that leaked the information. This creates hostility, but these morons in Wizards' offices have never been one to shy away from absolutely horrible PR moves and leaving a general bad taste in the community's collective mouth.
Quite honestly, from the way they've handled players, controversy, the formats, the secondary market, community relations, top-heavy set releases, and these leaks over the past year, it's long overdue for some real backlash. They deserve it for taking so much of the community for granted.
As for the leakers, they knew the risks. So the punishment fits. Wizards' attention should now be put toward this PR nightmare they've created for themselves for the way they've handled the situation, and some internal cleanup. These judges got the information from somewhere, after all.
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).
Why is it the right thing to do? Their property isn't being stolen. Just as much benefit is being done to the community as harm to Wizards bottom line. Perhaps if Wizards didn't treat their customers like a bunch of stupid cattle they might have more good will and people would want to help them out. The bottom line is that WotC doesn't appreciate or respect their customers, and it shows with how they treat them. If they're going to be jerks, then right or wrong people are going to be jerks right back to them.
The great thing is that with the success of Modern people have the ability to continue to support their game stores without supporting Wizards. Perhaps that's why Modern is seeing such an explosion in popularity.
It's all such a conundrum because I love the game, but the company has lost my respect :/
Since they derive their profits from sales, just don't buy sealed products. Buy from the secondary market.
The best way is to vote with your wallet and if enough people do it, then the company will either change direction (fire the current management) or crumble under the pressure of competition.
It's all such a conundrum because I love the game, but the company has lost my respect :/
Since they derive their profits from sales, just don't buy sealed products. Buy from the secondary market.
The best way is to vote with your wallet and if enough people do it, then the company will either change direction (fire the current management) or crumble under the pressure of competition.
Except... well, historically they seem like they'd crumble rather than change. (If they even notice the community outrage here, which I doubt.) Do you want WOTC gone? For good or ill, they do produce Magic and they have done a pretty decent job with it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
--Buck v Bell, 1927. This case, regarding the compulsory sterilization of inmates at mental institutions, has -- somehow -- never been overturned. Just a wee PSA for ya.
The best way is to vote with your wallet and if enough people do it, then the company will either change direction (fire the current management) or crumble under the pressure of competition.
The secondary market still comes from opening packs though if you're playing limited or standard. It's only in older formats where you can avoid contributing to the opening of sealed product. That's one of the many reasons I only play Modern and Legacy now, I want to support the store and have a place to play but I don't want to support WotC.
Except... well, historically they seem like they'd crumble rather than change. (If they even notice the community outrage here, which I doubt.) Do you want WOTC gone? For good or ill, they do produce Magic and they have done a pretty decent job with it.
Look, you can do this two ways:
- the capitalist way - where you vote with your wallet and pressure companies to change or adapt or face loss of revenue
- the leftist way - doxxing every echelon of the management and ask for people's resignations under infantile threats
I always go for the most civilized answer and if they want to crumble, then that's their problem.
The question of "Do you want WOTC gone?" is not a good question to be directed at customers. Customers want products they can purchase, they don't work for the company and they aren't cows awaiting to be milked their income. This question should be addressed to the company. Players have plenty of demands that often go ignored because WOTC knows best - even though they create degenerate cards, degenerate formats and mess up their own marketing/product (MM2015).
Loyalty to the company (whether you are a customer or employee) runs both ways: you cannot expect your base to remain indefinitely loyal to you when you pull shots like these, purposefully downgrade your product, ignore pleas to have the secondary market in check to make the game more available. In this case we have volunteers that invest their time (thus money) for the company and they get treated as if they were mere peons.
And finally, I cannot stress this enough: it is nobody else's responsibility than WOTC to manage their own spoilers and cards.
If PR and marketing is so important, have a PR squad ready to tackle leaks and spoilers and make it enjoyable for the customers; not negative for everyone else.
I like to think we are adults and act accordingly. If you aren't happy about something, fix it, don't just throw a tantrum and shove blame onto everyone else but yourself.
The secondary market still comes from opening packs though if you're playing limited or standard. It's only in older formats where you can avoid contributing to the opening of sealed product. That's one of the many reasons I only play Modern and Legacy now, I want to support the store and have a place to play but I don't want to support WotC.
If you minimize the cards you buy from new sets (wait like a year ahead), do not preorder, do not play sealed and do not purchase sealed products, you will hurt their sales. The secondary market will not purchase new product until the original order is consumed. Like I said, they buy a baseline and then add preorders on top. Don't buy anything and the secondary market will act accordingly of face losses.
Your conclusion is correct: play eternal-esque formats and WOTC will not profit off of you.
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)
Indeed, her statement led me to believe it involved a long-running set of leaks. I had assumed they were given access to the facebook group by the person who denounced it and that Wizards saw trace of multiple past leaks. If indeed the multiple leaks were just this one set, it is a very misleading statement.
OTOH, Wizards has little choice but to take a hard stance. It's hard enough trying to figure who knew what and when. James Bennet claims some members of that group had not logged on nor seen the leaks. Hard to prove. Stiff luck, but I do consider that they had not a lot of room without looking weak toward leakers. I had asked myself this very question, what would I do if someone where I work, say, leaked me some card info from someone they knew at some printers. I came to the conclusion that denouncing them would be douchey, but if Wizards trace the leak back to him and I get a 3-months suspension, it would suck, but that I would understand their position. I do think the judges reactions are a bit overblown.
What cuts both ways? People who are suspended for violating the rules versus people that when they get caught? Sure, that cuts both ways, in the same way that a chainsaw and a rusty butter knife both cut. 99.9% of the time when someone is suspended or punished for something, and they run to the internet proclaiming their innocence and victim status, they are absolutely full of *****. Are their mistaken suspensions? Sure. But not many. I'm I'm not terribly inclined to believe the person with a clear motive for lying vs. the organization with no incentive for fabrication.
Wizards is out for blood right now. I don't know about you, but as an American, I am against secret courts. A large corporation saying, "Trust me, we investigated" is hardly case closed. If the 3 month bans turned out to be because what...they knew the guys who may have actually leaked? Seems disproportionate. It's WOTC sending a message.
NFL 'investigated' Deflategate. We know how that worked out.
Bottom line is that Wizards takes this stuff seriously. While you call them leaks, they call it industrial sabotage and corporate espionage. These sorts of things have incredibly serious consequences in the working world. Careers and reputations lost, livelihoods threatened by lawsuits, etc. Spoilers and the handling of them prerelease tells a story deliberately induced to get us to buy packs, boxes and cases. When done Wizards way, we get BFZ type hype and an explosion of buying. When leaked as OGW was, the threat is that people will 'be over' the cards by release day and sales fall short of projection. Many hours and dollars in planning the marketing the set were wasted.
We players can understand this. (Do they really think we are so easily manipulated? Are we?)
That said, WOTC has no real right to ban you just because you 'knew' or were in the same fb group as the guilty parties. This is the same road the NFL took against Tom Brady. Tom, however, had the money and a union to fight back with.
Judges have neither. I support any efforts to back the fringe bannings. The guilty parties, of course, are liable up to their ears, and if all they get is a 2 or 3 year ban, they should count themselves extremely lucky.
Even more concerning is the looming threat that I could be banned just for belonging to my various local MTG facebook groups should someone post something to it. As a new player of less than 7 months, I really do not want to be tasked with determining if a 'spoiler' someone posts is real or fake. I have no idea, nor do I have any expertise. Plus, it seems just pointing it out can get me banned? WTF? As a vested player, I would certainly back any player or judge action in protest of this. If wizards is going to bully it's paying customers like this, then the only voice we have is with that of our wallets. It may be we boycott FNM and it's drafts (and let the store know why) or boycott DCI events, or support a judges boycott of all events for 3 months (wouldn't that throw WOTC for a loop!)
Yes, it hurts stores, but when stores lose 10% of sales, they have a pipeline to WOTC they can scream into that speaks louder than any 1000 of us can. And frankly, a Judge boycott would be a massive blow WOTC would HAVE to respond to. I would fully back a judge boycott by boycotting DCI events for 3 months, or however long they decided.
Not to protest their response to the leaks, but to protest their Soviet and Nazi-style 'Round up all the suspects and shoot them all' approach. Such actions leave resentments that linger long after most have forgotten about them. Question is, will we act, or will we grumble about it in online forums?
So lets say you are in a tournament. Oath just dropped, and its the first standard tournament since Oath became legal to play in Standard. You sit down across from someone who had seen the leaks, and was able to theorycraft and build a good standard deck, meanwhile, you have only had the entire spoiler for a week and a half.
Do you really want to be playing against that person that has had X amount of time more than you to review their best options for a deck?
W may only be paid with white mana. U may only be paid with blue mana. B may only be paid with black mana. R may only be paid with red mana. G may only be paid with green mana. C may only be paid with colorless mana. 1 may be paid with white, blue, black, red, green, or clolorless mana.
I agree with this statement but not the intent. I don't for a second have any wavering of my trust in any judge for being in possession of advance information. On the other hand, there is lack of trust in WotC after their choosing to take punitive actions against people whose only crime was to not immediately go running to WotC to spill the beans.
"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.
Guilt by association and guilty until proven innocent are quite frankly bullsh**. Imagine you are giving me a ride to a magic tournament, we get pulled over by the cops and I start freaking out. I tell you I have heroin on me. Will you tell the cops when they walk up to the window? Are you willing to go to jail, have your car towed and impounded? Do you think that you are guilty of drug possession even though you had nothing to do with it?
It's all such a conundrum because I love the game, but the company has lost my respect :/
Since they derive their profits from sales, just don't buy sealed products. Buy from the secondary market.
The best way is to vote with your wallet and if enough people do it, then the company will either change direction (fire the current management) or crumble under the pressure of competition.
Well, the bad news here is that your hypothetical of not buying sealed product doesn't work if you continue buying standard legal cards since the only way to get them is by opening sealed product, the only difference is that you aren't the one opening the product.
Well, the bad news here is that your hypothetical of not buying sealed product doesn't work if you continue buying standard legal cards since the only way to get them is by opening sealed product, the only difference is that you aren't the one opening the product.
"You must be able to stand up for what you believe in."
I abide by those words.
I haven't purchased any product since the MM2015 debacle and I intend to avoid doing so in the future.
I actively play modern and legacy and nothing else. Most of the cards I buy are from a local shop and are from discontinued sets.
I stopped playing standard, I stopped playing sealed/draft and I haven't bought into EDH.
I'd say that this hypothetical is working well for me. If 9999 other players did so they'd see a shift in their revenue. Of course, this will not happen overnight; good thing I have time and money saved to boot!
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".
You won't see it. Such an explanation would require a comparison to sales figures for a completely different set also released in May of 2011 without any spoilers ahead of the launch, which sold better than NPH did over the same time period, while legal in the same Standard and while drafted with Scars and Mirrodin Besieged. Since no such set exists, at best we would see some evidence of a coincidental correlation, but nothing that implies any causal relationship.
I agree with this statement but not the intent. I don't for a second have any wavering of my trust in any judge for being in possession of advance information. On the other hand, there is lack of trust in WotC after their choosing to take punitive actions against people whose only crime was to not immediately go running to WotC to spill the beans.
"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.
Guilt by association and guilty until proven innocent are quite frankly bullsh**. Imagine you are giving me a ride to a magic tournament, we get pulled over by the cops and I start freaking out. I tell you I have heroin on me. Will you tell the cops when they walk up to the window? Are you willing to go to jail, have your car towed and impounded? Do you think that you are guilty of drug possession even though you had nothing to do with it?
Never been in the real world have we?
i have been pulled over by police to check if my windshield whippers worked and then took and checked EVERYONE'S ID in the car.
I had a friend get a shotgun pulled on him by a police officer because he mouthed off to a cop not knowing the guy next to him just robbed someone.
I had a swarm of police surround me and a friend with guns drawn because they though our mock up foam swords were bats and we were trying to kill each other in the park.
yes its a VERY real thing..... and much much scarier in the real world.
because in those situations i could have been killed for being in the wrong place the wrong time and not taking things serious.
That's something you'll never get.
Because that's financial information and it's something that the SEC has careful eyes over, since Hasbro is publicly traded.
Right here "The people suspended were members of a private group receiving stolen confidential information about upcoming sets before this information was available in any public forum on the internet. This happened over multiple sets and well ahead of preview season for the sets in question. Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group — and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet — should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen. If you come across information like this, you should immediately report it to Wizards. Major leaks in the past have been prevented by other members of our community reporting similar situations to Wizards" ....... Multiple sets though we do not know if that extent is 2-100Sets but it was not a singular incident, the exact time frame doesn't matter for such arguments, it does matter for who is being held accountable...
Wow, logic fail. That is precisely the conclusion she wanted you to draw. Damn, she is pretty good at her job. Multiple expansions does not necessarily imply anything. The last leak BY ITSELF spanned over multiple expansions- it contained spoilers from Oath, SOI, and the duel-deck.
Further, there were two sets of leaks, the one with Kozilek, and the massive one. So wait. Hmm. If that group had both sets of those leaks. It wasn't a one time affair, and it was across multiple expansions. Zomg must mean its some "consistent thing thats been going on for awhile."
Ah, so we just go back to blind trust and faith that WOTC has our best interests at hearts and not covering their butts to their shareholders. I just don't like that.
EDIT:
For being so horribly detrimental to their sales, Hasbro's stock value has been on a steady upward trend for the last 5 years, much of that Hasbro has publicly states is because of WOTC and MTG specifically. So really, how much are they actually suffering?
Check the 5 year trend on the value:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/has
Also (yes I know it's a year old article), but a company that can grow annual revenue by the ungoldy amount that WOTC has, can't really be hurting from leaks as much as they claim to be:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/05/magic-the-gathering-hasbros-key-to-growth.aspx
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"
You simply do not have the right to tell Hasbro whose interests it should cover, that is theirs to decided.
You have the right to Buy or not Buy magic, that is your right.
I have to ask, is English your first language?
Because "not a one-time affair" and "multiple expansion" does not in any way match up with
Reading it the way you have is reading hostility because you want to - not because that's what was said.
Look, I can't help you if you want to read a secret motive into anything that's said. No one can. But that's not what's being said, and Helene wasn't the only one to say it.
As much blind trust as literally any company requires. And it's not WotC, it's Hasbro at that level.
"Look, they're still making money - theft doesn't hurt!"
That's what you just said. So it's okay if I steal some of your stuff - you still have more, right?
And why do you get to decide that since the line is up and to the right, they should just accept anything that doesn't make it go down?
Hmmm, isn't guilt by association a logical fallacy though?
Like I posted way earlier, that "response" to Helene was from James Bennett. Those were not my own words. I didn't make that clear this time around, but I did in my post on page 6, and that is where I copied it from. But I still agree with his sentiments, because here is the bottom line- There were two sets of leaks- and they spanned across multiple expansions. Those facts were twisted to imply the conclusions you and others drew earlier, about how this has been some "continuous" thing. It wasn't, it was two separate incidents that occurred in a short time frame. If you want to conclude that the "not one time affair," "across multiple expansions" is "continuous" when it really was just "two incidents" then be my guest. But like I said, that is misleading. You say my reading is hostile, and I say yours is based on twisted characterizations. Clearly our disagreement is based upon a lack of transparent communication from Wizards, which hopefully will be cleared up when Helene appears on MTGFocus tonight.
I'm not going to debate this further because this is starting to get inflammatory, and off topic. Our original disagreement was about whether or not people should be suspended merely for not reporting, and that is what the discussion here should be focused around. I made my piece on that earlier, and you disagreed on that sentiment. We might have a "moral" obligation to report the IP leak, but to me, that shouldn't warrant suspension. And regardless of the size of the burden, I don't think I should be forced to check sites to see if something someone sent me is legit upon fear of suspension. Maybe you do it because of the fake leaks, but that doesn't mean everyone does. If they are fake, I'll find out later. I don't feel the need to, nor should be required to, immediately research their veracity.
Except theft has not occurred. I don't know where you're getting theft out of all this. No one has taken anything away from WOTC.
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"
People here that want to armchair-lawyer this whole debacle would claim IP theft, because WotC's marketing opportunities and attempts to frame the context and control the flow of information about OGW has been taken from them. However, that also rides under older, less reliable marketing models that don't really apply to the modern age. Digital-age spoilers of advanced product can be seen as early as alpha stages with many IP's and suffer no actual loss of hype. Quite the opposite, many companies are propped up on the buzz and hype and the promise of what's coming a year from now. Then you have these goofballs that protect the information until the last possible minute and blame crummy sales not on their own shortcomings, but the fact that people knew 15 cards in the set a whopping 3 weeks sooner than they planned on people knowing. If that's genuinely the case, they need to stop drinking their own Kool-Aid that tells them spoilers are the issue with their sales.
That said, people coming into contact with and reposting images of leaked cards know damn well the risks involved with such a thing, even in a so-called private group. It only takes one blabbermouth or one white knight to get people into the kind of trouble we see here. The risks are not unknown, we've seen it happen before. What we haven't seen before is this draconian guilt by association nonsense where other judges (including a whistleblower) are suspended for being a part of the private group that leaked the information. This creates hostility, but these morons in Wizards' offices have never been one to shy away from absolutely horrible PR moves and leaving a general bad taste in the community's collective mouth.
Quite honestly, from the way they've handled players, controversy, the formats, the secondary market, community relations, top-heavy set releases, and these leaks over the past year, it's long overdue for some real backlash. They deserve it for taking so much of the community for granted.
As for the leakers, they knew the risks. So the punishment fits. Wizards' attention should now be put toward this PR nightmare they've created for themselves for the way they've handled the situation, and some internal cleanup. These judges got the information from somewhere, after all.
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"
Why is it the right thing to do? Their property isn't being stolen. Just as much benefit is being done to the community as harm to Wizards bottom line. Perhaps if Wizards didn't treat their customers like a bunch of stupid cattle they might have more good will and people would want to help them out. The bottom line is that WotC doesn't appreciate or respect their customers, and it shows with how they treat them. If they're going to be jerks, then right or wrong people are going to be jerks right back to them.
The great thing is that with the success of Modern people have the ability to continue to support their game stores without supporting Wizards. Perhaps that's why Modern is seeing such an explosion in popularity.
The best way is to vote with your wallet and if enough people do it, then the company will either change direction (fire the current management) or crumble under the pressure of competition.
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
Except... well, historically they seem like they'd crumble rather than change. (If they even notice the community outrage here, which I doubt.) Do you want WOTC gone? For good or ill, they do produce Magic and they have done a pretty decent job with it.
--Buck v Bell, 1927. This case, regarding the compulsory sterilization of inmates at mental institutions, has -- somehow -- never been overturned. Just a wee PSA for ya.
The secondary market still comes from opening packs though if you're playing limited or standard. It's only in older formats where you can avoid contributing to the opening of sealed product. That's one of the many reasons I only play Modern and Legacy now, I want to support the store and have a place to play but I don't want to support WotC.
- the capitalist way - where you vote with your wallet and pressure companies to change or adapt or face loss of revenue
- the leftist way - doxxing every echelon of the management and ask for people's resignations under infantile threats
I always go for the most civilized answer and if they want to crumble, then that's their problem.
The question of "Do you want WOTC gone?" is not a good question to be directed at customers. Customers want products they can purchase, they don't work for the company and they aren't cows awaiting to be milked their income. This question should be addressed to the company. Players have plenty of demands that often go ignored because WOTC knows best - even though they create degenerate cards, degenerate formats and mess up their own marketing/product (MM2015).
Loyalty to the company (whether you are a customer or employee) runs both ways: you cannot expect your base to remain indefinitely loyal to you when you pull shots like these, purposefully downgrade your product, ignore pleas to have the secondary market in check to make the game more available. In this case we have volunteers that invest their time (thus money) for the company and they get treated as if they were mere peons.
And finally, I cannot stress this enough: it is nobody else's responsibility than WOTC to manage their own spoilers and cards.
If PR and marketing is so important, have a PR squad ready to tackle leaks and spoilers and make it enjoyable for the customers; not negative for everyone else.
I like to think we are adults and act accordingly. If you aren't happy about something, fix it, don't just throw a tantrum and shove blame onto everyone else but yourself.
If you minimize the cards you buy from new sets (wait like a year ahead), do not preorder, do not play sealed and do not purchase sealed products, you will hurt their sales. The secondary market will not purchase new product until the original order is consumed. Like I said, they buy a baseline and then add preorders on top. Don't buy anything and the secondary market will act accordingly of face losses.
Your conclusion is correct: play eternal-esque formats and WOTC will not profit off of you.
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
Indeed, her statement led me to believe it involved a long-running set of leaks. I had assumed they were given access to the facebook group by the person who denounced it and that Wizards saw trace of multiple past leaks. If indeed the multiple leaks were just this one set, it is a very misleading statement.
OTOH, Wizards has little choice but to take a hard stance. It's hard enough trying to figure who knew what and when. James Bennet claims some members of that group had not logged on nor seen the leaks. Hard to prove. Stiff luck, but I do consider that they had not a lot of room without looking weak toward leakers. I had asked myself this very question, what would I do if someone where I work, say, leaked me some card info from someone they knew at some printers. I came to the conclusion that denouncing them would be douchey, but if Wizards trace the leak back to him and I get a 3-months suspension, it would suck, but that I would understand their position. I do think the judges reactions are a bit overblown.
NFL 'investigated' Deflategate. We know how that worked out.
Bottom line is that Wizards takes this stuff seriously. While you call them leaks, they call it industrial sabotage and corporate espionage. These sorts of things have incredibly serious consequences in the working world. Careers and reputations lost, livelihoods threatened by lawsuits, etc. Spoilers and the handling of them prerelease tells a story deliberately induced to get us to buy packs, boxes and cases. When done Wizards way, we get BFZ type hype and an explosion of buying. When leaked as OGW was, the threat is that people will 'be over' the cards by release day and sales fall short of projection. Many hours and dollars in planning the marketing the set were wasted.
We players can understand this. (Do they really think we are so easily manipulated? Are we?)
That said, WOTC has no real right to ban you just because you 'knew' or were in the same fb group as the guilty parties. This is the same road the NFL took against Tom Brady. Tom, however, had the money and a union to fight back with.
Judges have neither. I support any efforts to back the fringe bannings. The guilty parties, of course, are liable up to their ears, and if all they get is a 2 or 3 year ban, they should count themselves extremely lucky.
Even more concerning is the looming threat that I could be banned just for belonging to my various local MTG facebook groups should someone post something to it. As a new player of less than 7 months, I really do not want to be tasked with determining if a 'spoiler' someone posts is real or fake. I have no idea, nor do I have any expertise. Plus, it seems just pointing it out can get me banned? WTF? As a vested player, I would certainly back any player or judge action in protest of this. If wizards is going to bully it's paying customers like this, then the only voice we have is with that of our wallets. It may be we boycott FNM and it's drafts (and let the store know why) or boycott DCI events, or support a judges boycott of all events for 3 months (wouldn't that throw WOTC for a loop!)
Yes, it hurts stores, but when stores lose 10% of sales, they have a pipeline to WOTC they can scream into that speaks louder than any 1000 of us can. And frankly, a Judge boycott would be a massive blow WOTC would HAVE to respond to. I would fully back a judge boycott by boycotting DCI events for 3 months, or however long they decided.
Not to protest their response to the leaks, but to protest their Soviet and Nazi-style 'Round up all the suspects and shoot them all' approach. Such actions leave resentments that linger long after most have forgotten about them. Question is, will we act, or will we grumble about it in online forums?
Do you really want to be playing against that person that has had X amount of time more than you to review their best options for a deck?
THAT is why the 3 month bans happened.
I agree with this statement but not the intent. I don't for a second have any wavering of my trust in any judge for being in possession of advance information. On the other hand, there is lack of trust in WotC after their choosing to take punitive actions against people whose only crime was to not immediately go running to WotC to spill the beans.
Guilt by association and guilty until proven innocent are quite frankly bullsh**. Imagine you are giving me a ride to a magic tournament, we get pulled over by the cops and I start freaking out. I tell you I have heroin on me. Will you tell the cops when they walk up to the window? Are you willing to go to jail, have your car towed and impounded? Do you think that you are guilty of drug possession even though you had nothing to do with it?
Well, the bad news here is that your hypothetical of not buying sealed product doesn't work if you continue buying standard legal cards since the only way to get them is by opening sealed product, the only difference is that you aren't the one opening the product.
I abide by those words.
I haven't purchased any product since the MM2015 debacle and I intend to avoid doing so in the future.
I actively play modern and legacy and nothing else. Most of the cards I buy are from a local shop and are from discontinued sets.
I stopped playing standard, I stopped playing sealed/draft and I haven't bought into EDH.
I'd say that this hypothetical is working well for me. If 9999 other players did so they'd see a shift in their revenue. Of course, this will not happen overnight; good thing I have time and money saved to boot!
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
You won't see it. Such an explanation would require a comparison to sales figures for a completely different set also released in May of 2011 without any spoilers ahead of the launch, which sold better than NPH did over the same time period, while legal in the same Standard and while drafted with Scars and Mirrodin Besieged. Since no such set exists, at best we would see some evidence of a coincidental correlation, but nothing that implies any causal relationship.
Never been in the real world have we?
i have been pulled over by police to check if my windshield whippers worked and then took and checked EVERYONE'S ID in the car.
I had a friend get a shotgun pulled on him by a police officer because he mouthed off to a cop not knowing the guy next to him just robbed someone.
I had a swarm of police surround me and a friend with guns drawn because they though our mock up foam swords were bats and we were trying to kill each other in the park.
yes its a VERY real thing..... and much much scarier in the real world.
because in those situations i could have been killed for being in the wrong place the wrong time and not taking things serious.