Not the ones I respect/value. From my perspective - and I'm not alone - intellectual property is about as unethical as it gets. But this isn't the place for that discussion. There's another forum for that: see this topic.
As before, props to the leakers. Regardless of moral considerations, they're giving us information we want to have.
Edit: Added link to intellectual property debate thread.
Fair enough, intellecutal property is a complicated and sticky legal question. We could debate it for hours and hours and should not do that here.
And again, you're right to point out the irony of the fact that we're discussing this on "the rumor mill." To be honest, I never really thought of leaks as a problem until I heard Ali Antrazi and Frank Lepore talking about it. The points they brought up made me realize that they do have a negative impact on some people.
Much much simpler than the gray area of whether it's okay to use this information for a gameplay advantage and where the lines can and should be draw with regards to intellectual property is this situation:
Person A had access to information that was, to most of the world, a secret.
Person B told that person not to reveal that secret until given the go-ahead.
Person A went ahead and revealed that information anyway.
If someone's in a position to leak a card, they're probably somewhere on the chain of command that has privileged access to this information and has either explicitly stated they won't reveal it early or implicitly understands the implication. Agreeing to abide by the rules and then breaking the rules is a type of lying. It's called lying by assent. Now, I don't know about you, but I find people who can't be trusted and are likely to go behind your back and do something you both agreed they weren't going to do very difficult to work with. I endeavor not to be such a person myself (I've worked a bit in local arts journalism, where I might know something early -- something relatively innocuous like the shows a community theatre is putting on next year, for example -- and I have to promise not to release the info until a given date. Totally part of the biz, and just freaking respectful when you think about it), and I imagine most people who are able to function in society do as well.
So, while I still don't think this is a super-big deal, I think there is a moral code of honesty being broken here that is basically a consensus. It seems very odd to me that people are going out of their way to defend someone for deliberately breaking their word.
There is a large amount of opinion presented as fact when you later read:
Why?
There are literally hundreds of Wizards team members around the world working hard to create amazing gaming experiences for you, the Magic community. This is our passion. When leaks occur, it damages our hard work and robs the Magic community of these experiences.
Leaks create an unfair advantage as—because they do not go out over official channels—they are not as widely distributed to less-enfranchised players, thus creating an unfair advantage for some players.
Leaks often lead to bad first impressions. Not always. But it is unrealistic (and would be unhealthy for the game) for every card to be designed in such a way that it would be 100% exciting when viewed out of context and on its own. That would force power creep in design to levels that would surely ruin the game.
You are seriously misinformed if you believe that WotC doesn't believe their marketing scheme is the most effective way to drive sales. They can say all they want about experiences, hard work, disruption, unfair advantages, etc., but the bottom line is: Did they sell enough packs to make Hasbro happy? Period. Nobody is working at WotC for free. Granted some might work there partially for the love of the game, but that doesn't put a roof over your head or food on your plate. Again, people are entitled to their opinions, but WotC shouldn't be surprised that the community at large doesn't fall on their knees and repent of their leaking and leak enjoying ways because some WotC employees FEEL their work was but for naught.
What's your point? Everything done in this world was done to pay a mortgage? (full disclosure: that's lifted from Thank You for Smoking. Speaking of intellectual property. )
It's one thing to say you read between the lines and you believe the writer is more concerned about the bottom line than the things he actually claims are at stake. But your complaint was that he presented the idea that early leaks costs money in sales as fact when it's merely opinion, and he didn't bring that up. You did.
But now that you mention it, yes, I really believe that there are people at Wizards who love their jobs and think it's really cool that they get to make a living doing fun things like making sure the flames coming out of a dragon's nostrils are centered or decide who gets to write the story about the vampires fighting back against the evil tentacle monsters. There are plenty of people in this world who grew up in fantasy and gaming and have the skills to be graphic designers or project managers or content editors and love and cherish their jobs and those people, like you and I, are worthy of respect, and those people, like you and I, get really frustrated when their boss tells them "Team, I'm sorry to say this but you've all heard about the big mess out there and we have to put in extra work to fix it!" Would you actually be yelling "go, leakers!" if you were the one spending all day writing emails about a project you thought you had finished? If so, you might want to get your empathy gland looked at.
There's no secret exposé about the working conditions of goblins on Ravnica, or the water quality on Zendikar, or the climate change on Mirrodin (though that one might have something). Leaks are all things that the public will find out eventually.
I know, right? What would be the meaning of our lives if we didn't get a professional report on Zendikar's water quality?! There is no doubt that whatever year that was, someone stole your Nobel Prize for unveiling us such crucial bit of information!
Aw. I thought this was one of the best parts. He predicts the argument "But the tenants of journalism! The people need to know!" And instead of the logical response, "no, they don't. You people are acting like entitled brats" he injects a little humor into the situation to make his point. Maybe that's the passive-aggression you're talking about, but I smirked a bit and I think it's a smart move because it showed that he can laugh about the situation a bit.
Given how tense things probably are internally at Wizard's publicity HQ this week, I think this article could have gone a number of different ways and the official response to be seems to be pretty reserved and to the point. I really think people are just looking for things to get upset about.
Not only this example is completely out of place, it doesn't even help the point he is trying to make. Getting angry at having your pregnancy "spoiled" would be such an infantile reaction from an actually selfish human being, since the conception of a new human life is something that everyone close to the couple should know as soon as possible. Life should be celebrated, not hidden from people who care about it.
Ew. Remind me never to let you use my bathroom. No thank you, if I'm having a baby, I'd like to be the one who decides when that news is going public. It's not a guilt trip, it's more of the classic "how would you feel is someone did this to you?" Again, empathy.
Secondly, the leak was actually much more exciting and controversial than your planned reveal could ever hope to be. Immediately explaining the new mana symbol would prevent a lot of interesting discussions that happened all over the internet.
You mean those discussions where some people explained to some other people that there was a difference between colorless mana and generic mana, and that this wasn't a vast rewrite of the rules, over and over and over and over again? Yeah, I'm sure glad we had those.
Looks like Wizards needs to re-evaluate WHO they are releasing these cards to. Clean up their own house first and these things will take care of themselves.
Yeah, they most likely will. I think that's part of the point of the article.
I don't mean to go on and on about this, but the reaction here to what is essentially a person getting caught doing a dishonest thing is really troubling to me. I get kind of offended when I hear articles about how immature and entitled Magic players are, but when I read some of these comments I can see where that perception comes from and I'm kind of embarrassed to be associated with it. Be mad at Wizards all you want for whatever you want, there are plenty of areas where it makes sense to do that, but in a situation where a bunch of people's work lives are negatively affected because a person chose to do something selfish and dishonest, try having some respect for your fellow human being.
So basically someone knew that Zendikar 2 was gonna be a flop so in order to sell boosters and booster boxes Zendikar Expeditions was conjured up as a "lottery" for obtaining fetchlands, shocklands, filterlands, and apparently some odd choice land breaking lands from back in the day. I can only imagine how much a devoid art Wasteland is gonna sell for...
Not really, this is just the continuation of the orignal zendikar treasures.
By Zendikar 2 I meant the whole block ("Return" to Zendikar). Someone must've realized that it'd be awful in time to at least add some merit in buying boosters and boxes.
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Fair enough, intellecutal property is a complicated and sticky legal question. We could debate it for hours and hours and should not do that here.
And again, you're right to point out the irony of the fact that we're discussing this on "the rumor mill." To be honest, I never really thought of leaks as a problem until I heard Ali Antrazi and Frank Lepore talking about it. The points they brought up made me realize that they do have a negative impact on some people.
Much much simpler than the gray area of whether it's okay to use this information for a gameplay advantage and where the lines can and should be draw with regards to intellectual property is this situation:
Person A had access to information that was, to most of the world, a secret.
Person B told that person not to reveal that secret until given the go-ahead.
Person A went ahead and revealed that information anyway.
If someone's in a position to leak a card, they're probably somewhere on the chain of command that has privileged access to this information and has either explicitly stated they won't reveal it early or implicitly understands the implication. Agreeing to abide by the rules and then breaking the rules is a type of lying. It's called lying by assent. Now, I don't know about you, but I find people who can't be trusted and are likely to go behind your back and do something you both agreed they weren't going to do very difficult to work with. I endeavor not to be such a person myself (I've worked a bit in local arts journalism, where I might know something early -- something relatively innocuous like the shows a community theatre is putting on next year, for example -- and I have to promise not to release the info until a given date. Totally part of the biz, and just freaking respectful when you think about it), and I imagine most people who are able to function in society do as well.
So, while I still don't think this is a super-big deal, I think there is a moral code of honesty being broken here that is basically a consensus. It seems very odd to me that people are going out of their way to defend someone for deliberately breaking their word.
I agree with this (for most part), plenty of people are seeing this from the solely consumer's point of view, which is basically, the more (and faster) the information the better (although that point of view is actually pretty natural). This particular case is not about the power level of the cards, or actually even the overall marketing plan they envisioned - it is simply about the trust of the parties involved in said marketing plan.
What I really don't like about the article is that it's released "publicly" for the consumer to read, yet with the "accusatory tone" meant for the people who leaked the cards - like you said, people with access to the information had to be link with the chain (at least the marketing one) and were most likely told to not inform anyone about the information. Instead of sending this "reprimand/warning" privately to those people involved in the chain, it is instead put onto the website for the public, majority in which are consumers.
By doing that, it sends out the message of "As consumers you should be supportive of our marketing plans even if you're not at the part of the marketing chain that has access to information beforehand". Honestly, consumers don't buy that (and this thread can serve as evidence of consumer being pretty much the opposite).
Even if we understand that the leaks are a result of trust being broken, the article does nothing to address the issue. This is not "We apologize for spoiling your spoiler season surprises, we'll be taking those involved in marketing to task", this is essentially "It's your (consumer's) fault for discussing leaks that people who broke our trust have leaked to you, ruining our glorious marketing plans." It's not playing one victim card, but it's like playing two victim cards by trying to point out its a "lose-lose" scenario, then blaming one of the losing parties for it (the consumer), instead of dealing with the root source and accounting it to the other losing party, which happens to be your customers.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the important point that they pretty much grouped the people who broke their trust and the consumers together as one, and that is the true disaster of the article.
Your intellectual property? I'm sorry?
Your copyright mark and the various company legal details remain sprawled all over the bottom of those cards. About the only IP the leaker is breaking is that they're maybe stealing hits from your website. They're not printing wads of the things and flogging them on eBay. Good luck proving loss of income on that one in court. IP, my hat.
And protecting the Magic community? From what? From the horrible Spoiler Mafia Goons?
Intellectual property is far more than just copyright. Wizards also probably has a copyright in each card. Reproducing it in a meaningful way (which prior to official release, this would likely qualify) could easily constitute a violation. There is also very likely contracts that were violated here because someone at some point in the chain broke some provision. As far proving damages, Wizards could easily use data from NPH leak to show damage and where there is a willful violation of either IP or contract, a court could very easily accept that information. Protecting the community could easily include things like protecting the community members who get a spoiler--there will be many fewer spoilers for the community this time, which lowers traffic and then business for those community members. That is just one way preventing leaks helps the community.
So really this article was nonsense to me. If anything, getting a massive leak like we did for OGW did more good for the set than not. I didn't sit around getting my enthusiasm poisoned with cards I could care less about before I finally saw cards like the new Nissa, or the new Octopus and Sphinx mythics that I do actually want and inspire me to invest in the set. But by all means make everyone wait weeks to throw darts around. We all saw how well that worked for the sister set of OGW that everyone is still complaining about.
You really believe Wizards has zero evidence that leaks of this kind hurt various metrics for a set? It's baffling how many people think Wizards is terrible at being a business despite the blatant evidence to the contrary.
You really believe Wizards has zero evidence that leaks of this kind hurt various metrics for a set? It's baffling how many people think Wizards is terrible at being a business despite the blatant evidence to the contrary.
I didn't see evidence of this supplied. "Market research" has become a term, not presented evidence of anything. I doubt what you're suggesting can be even proven.
Yes. Magic the Gathering is intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast. They and they alone should decide how, when, or even if information surrounding it gets revealed. It is confidential information and there are laws to prove it. It's similar to how a doctor can't discuss a patient's medical information. It is unlawful and unethical to reveal information that belongs to someone else.
This is elementary school ethics, people. Come on.
And how is it unethical to threaten to take legal action when someone does stuff like that? Wouldn't you want to take some kind of legal action if someone, for example, revealed your name and social security number on the internet?
Intellectual property is far more than just copyright. Wizards also probably has a copyright in each card. Reproducing it in a meaningful way (which prior to official release, this would likely qualify) could easily constitute a violation. There is also very likely contracts that were violated here because someone at some point in the chain broke some provision. As far proving damages, Wizards could easily use data from NPH leak to show damage and where there is a willful violation of either IP or contract, a court could very easily accept that information. Protecting the community could easily include things like protecting the community members who get a spoiler--there will be many fewer spoilers for the community this time, which lowers traffic and then business for those community members. That is just one way preventing leaks helps the community.
Look, you're both right, of course...
... my point is that there is a very gray and fuzzy line between doing what you're legally allowed to enforce, and being a complete and utter douche and killing community in the act of pursuing your legal rights. And I really don't want to see WotC trundling blindly over that line. There's a fantastic community they've managed to build up around the game, and being heavy-handed with the lawyers is a surefire way of beginning to kill that community off (or, at the very least, inciting rebellion against you).
Again, from before, are WotC ethically permitted to follow up on such breaches? Sure. Does the slippery-slope of ethicism potentially see them not giving a crap about other people in the process? You bet.
You really believe Wizards has zero evidence that leaks of this kind hurt various metrics for a set? It's baffling how many people think Wizards is terrible at being a business despite the blatant evidence to the contrary.
I didn't see evidence of this supplied. "Market research" has become a term, not presented evidence of anything. I doubt what you're suggesting can be even proven.
You have never seen this kind of evidence because WOTC isn't dumb enough to publish their market research (competition and all). It would be naive to think people in marketing for big companies such as this don't know what they are doing.
... my point is that there is a very gray and fuzzy line between doing what you're legally allowed to enforce, and being a complete and utter douche and killing community in the act of pursuing your legal rights. And I really don't want to see WotC trundling blindly over that line. There's a fantastic community they've managed to build up around the game, and being heavy-handed with the lawyers is a surefire way of beginning to kill that community off (or, at the very least, inciting rebellion against you).
I'm not sure I'd characterize suing someone who broke a legal contract as being "heavy handed with lawyers." That's the point of contracts; you give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they're going to behave like grownups, but protect yourself when they don't follow through on the agreement. If you're expecting the magic community to rally around Leaker X as if s/he were Spartacus, I think you'll find that many people in the community are adults with jobs who understand that when you violate an important part of your contract, you get fired at best and sued at worst.
Yeah, sure, maybe we have an imperfect society that is excessively litigious, but we have laws for a reason. I go to bed at night reasonably sure that nobody's going to break into my home because most people who break into homes get arrested. If we could all be truthful and respectful all the time that would be paradise, but we're not, so there's systems in place to correct antisocial behavior. That's just life.
... my point is that there is a very gray and fuzzy line between doing what you're legally allowed to enforce, and being a complete and utter douche and killing community in the act of pursuing your legal rights. And I really don't want to see WotC trundling blindly over that line. There's a fantastic community they've managed to build up around the game, and being heavy-handed with the lawyers is a surefire way of beginning to kill that community off (or, at the very least, inciting rebellion against you).
I'm not sure I'd characterize suing someone who broke a legal contract as being "heavy handed with lawyers." That's the point of contracts; you give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they're going to behave like grownups, but protect yourself when they don't follow through on the agreement. If you're expecting the magic community to rally around Leaker X as if s/he were Spartacus, I think you'll find that many people in the community are adults with jobs who understand that when you violate an important part of your contract, you get fired at best and sued at worst.
Yeah, sure, maybe we have an imperfect society that is excessively litigious, but we have laws for a reason. I go to bed at night reasonably sure that nobody's going to break into my home because most people who break into homes get arrested. If we could all be truthful and respectful all the time that would be paradise, but we're not, so there's systems in place to correct antisocial behavior. That's just life.
No, definitely not saying Spartacus leaked OGW.
I don't really mind what WotC choose to do to him/her and their firstborn children - that's between them, as it rightfully should be.
Threatening the entire freaking Magic community because of a leak? Not so much.
Not that that's necessarily what Trick was aiming to do with that article - I'm 99.999% sure it wasn't, anyway. But casually lobbing in a "here's what we do to people like that when we find 'em, folks" was not exactly Exhibit A in public relations and fostering community spirit. It makes Trick and WotC look to the casual outside observer as a group of people hellbent on maintaining their status quo by the use of brute force and legal entities, kitchen table gamers, young tournament players and small kittens be damned.
TL;DR: Every time someone spoils a Magic card before WotC does, Trick Jarrett kills a kitten. Think of the kittens.
I for one am thankful that they published the article. I was mildly annoyed by the leaks, but never really stopped to think about how they actually affected the game. The negative impact on everyone involved was obvious once it was pointed out to me, and getting the message out to a wide audience ensured that people heard it. I think that it's reasonable to hope that audience would be less supportive of leaks when they realize the negative impact they have, and perhaps there would be less incentive to perpetrate them in the future. Perhaps most people at this site have not been receptive of the message, but people elsewhere certainly have.
I for one am thankful that they published the article. I was mildly annoyed by the leaks, but never really stopped to think about how they actually affected the game. The negative impact on everyone involved was obvious once it was pointed out to me, and getting the message out to a wide audience ensured that people heard it. I think that it's reasonable to hope that audience would be less supportive of leaks when they realize the negative impact they have, and perhaps there would be less incentive to perpetrate them in the future. Perhaps most people at this site have not been receptive of the message, but people elsewhere certainly have.
Getting the message out was fine, but the article was in my opinion, poorly structured.
Yes, it would be good if the audience will be less supportive of leaks, which reduces "incentive"... but ultimately isn't it easier to get partners who are... "immune to incentive" to provide timed spoilers? To be more blunt, isn't it Wizards' responsibility to do just that? Yes, they said they're enforcing it and it's hard to keep it in line, but the way the entire article was structured, it's also feels like them saying "Hey you consumers also have the responsibility not to tempt our selected people not to leak them ahead of time". The "lose-lose scenario" of the leaks also seem to be adding more salt in the form of "See, now you've tempted them and ruined your own surprise and wasted our efforts."
This is why the heavy-handed tactics of handling the method seems to be more prominent, because that came after the "It's your fault your surprise is ruined", resulting in a "Now watch the punishment you caused to happen".
At the end of the day, what happens? They either stop handing spoilers out to others, or find those "immune to incentive" partners and the problem is solved. Saying that the consumers provide incentive for people to leak cards is irrelevant in the face of those scenarios, so stating that is basically "faulting the consumers for the sake of faulting" and that is honestly, a bad PR move to your consumers.
Just a reminder I'm finding fault with the article's structure itself - I'm actually pretty neutral to the actual scenario itself - the leaks were carried out by others at their own risk and I'm a consumer who simply absorbs whatever information was provided regardless of source. Assuming there are contracts between them (something we never had confirmed by any party), then yes, they broke the trust of the contract, that is a fact, but this is one those scenarios I wouldn't call them either a "hero" or a "thief", because at the core it's a matter of breaking trust and the other losses (financial, surprise-emotion) are "secondary concerns" in a sense.
If you know you're gonna be annoyed, why click it?
You don't have to see what you don't wanna see.
How realistic is it for someone who's active in the Magic community to avoid every place that's discussing the leaks? And having to do that is in itself very frustrating.
I for one am thankful that they published the article. I was mildly annoyed by the leaks, but never really stopped to think about how they actually affected the game. The negative impact on everyone involved was obvious once it was pointed out to me, and getting the message out to a wide audience ensured that people heard it. I think that it's reasonable to hope that audience would be less supportive of leaks when they realize the negative impact they have, and perhaps there would be less incentive to perpetrate them in the future. Perhaps most people at this site have not been receptive of the message, but people elsewhere certainly have.
Getting the message out was fine, but the article was in my opinion, poorly structured.
Yes, it would be good if the audience will be less supportive of leaks, which reduces "incentive"... but ultimately isn't it easier to get partners who are... "immune to incentive" to provide timed spoilers? To be more blunt, isn't it Wizards' responsibility to do just that? Yes, they said they're enforcing it and it's hard to keep it in line, but the way the entire article was structured, it's also feels like them saying "Hey you consumers also have the responsibility not to tempt our selected people not to leak them ahead of time". The "lose-lose scenario" of the leaks also seem to be adding more salt in the form of "See, now you've tempted them and ruined your own surprise and wasted our efforts."
This is why the heavy-handed tactics of handling the method seems to be more prominent, because that came after the "It's your fault your surprise is ruined", resulting in a "Now watch the punishment you caused to happen".
At the end of the day, what happens? They either stop handing spoilers out to others, or find those "immune to incentive" partners and the problem is solved. Saying that the consumers provide incentive for people to leak cards is irrelevant in the face of those scenarios, so stating that is basically "faulting the consumers for the sake of faulting" and that is honestly, a bad PR move to your consumers.
Just a reminder I'm finding fault with the article's structure itself - I'm actually pretty neutral to the actual scenario itself - the leaks were carried out by others at their own risk and I'm a consumer who simply absorbs whatever information was provided regardless of source. Assuming there are contracts between them (something we never had confirmed by any party), then yes, they broke the trust of the contract, that is a fact, but this is one those scenarios I wouldn't call them either a "hero" or a "thief", because at the core it's a matter of breaking trust and the other losses (financial, surprise-emotion) are "secondary concerns" in a sense.
Point acknowledged. I don't agree that the article was poorly constructed, but that is a valid opinion.
For those that defend WOTC, I would like to point out an interesting fact. When they put misleading information on the holiday gift box, a product already on the market likely to be bought by many players, it gets a slight mention on one of their blogs. When a minority of the community start digging up leaks, the post a feature article. This isn't about ethics, its about Wizards trying to keep us from knowing what exactly we are opening.
EDIT: Grammar
They release the full spoiler of every product a week before the release, in a feature article too, so I honestly don't see your point.
Wizards' point is not about the community looking at leaked material, wizards' problem is with people STEALING copyrighted material and publishing it ahead of schedule, and they are entitled to take whatever measures they deem necessary within the bounds of the law, which by the way is absolutely on their side on this.
If you know you're gonna be annoyed, why click it?
You don't have to see what you don't wanna see.
When the spoiled cards are posted as images on the front page of this site, it makes it extremely hard to "not see what you don't wanna see."
With their renewed emphasis on story, and weekly story articles, I see why this has a major repercussions. The article which revealed Kosilek did not impact me as much as a story moment because I already saw the card spoiled.
I am only making an assumption, but those that get access to these cards would be under a non-disclosure agreement. That is why Wizards has the right to repercussions. If you work for a company that does business with WOTC, and you are found to have leaked information, you are risking not only your job, but the company that you work(ed) for.
Why is it so hard for some people to acknowledge that their personal experience is not the universal response? Hell, the stuff that drives us psychologically is rarely known to us. It would be like saying "I don't have a problem eating peanuts, and neither does anyone I know. Sorry, I am not buying that peanut allergies exist." If you take the time to learn about it there are a lot of psychological studies that show that how we feel about something is directly tied to how it is presented to us.
It is their information to release. I am continually surprised by how many geek communities display no ability to consider how things impact others or wider implications, just as long as they themselves get what they want. I have always waved my geek flag high, but this kind of thing makes certain communities an embarrassment to be apart of.
A universal experience? You mean like when the author states:
There is a natural struggle between players and Wizards when it comes to knowing the game's future. Magic's entire premise is that of constant change, and this tantalizing premise creates a constant tension between our storytelling and players wanting to know what comes next.
You really want to argue against spoilers in a Thread dedicated to spoilers, in a Forum dedicated to spoilers, on a Site that grew up on spoilers? I have a hard time taking your argument seriously when you obviously read the spoiler threads too.
To take your peanut allergy analogy (say that 5 times fast) a bit further your argument reminds me of the person who says "Well, I have a peanut allergy so peanuts must be bad for everyone. Therefore, nobody should be allowed to eat peanuts. In fact, all people who grow peanuts, process peanuts, distribute peanuts, purchase peanuts, and consume peanuts are ruining life for those with peanut allergies. However, I refuse to take any personal responsibility myself and avoid locations where I may be exposed to peanuts. It's on everybody else to keep peanuts away from me."
One issue with this logic is that you assume Wizards doesn't have information on the impact. There is probably a huge pile of information from the NPH leak and how it affected that set. And before people jump in with how that information was just about NPH, any reasonable information would be compared in a meaningful way--so they would look to a set's metrics that are most similar to NPH and compare. I know lots of people like to talk about Wizards as though they are incompetent (unless, of course, you need to discuss some maniacal scheme) but the facts are simple--Magic is bigger than it's ever been and it has survived for 22+ years when dozens of other games haven't. An incompetent company would not be able to pull that off for that long.
So, just because you are not privy to all of the facts Wizards has, does not conclusively mean they do not exist.
So, you proof that they exist relies on the fact that I can't prove they don't? Look, I agree that WotC likely does have marketing research that they have interpreted to mean one thing or another about spoilers. A significant issue I take with the whole article is that no objective data is mentioned or referenced in the entire article. However, assuming that the data exists, what is the source of the data? Is it the opinion polls on the home site? I can state with a high degree of confidence that if that is the data they rely on, it is not a random sampling of MtG players and has an ample amount of bias. Simple matter of fact is, by your own argument, WotC has survived 22+ years even after spoilers and the internet became things. As long as they continue to design a game that the community as whole will spend money on, their long term viability is assured independent of spoilers.
Day by day, I care less about the game experience of Magic. I care about the cards that I want to adquire, to collect. The last set was a waste of money, because with their aggressive marketing, progressively they've turned the collectibe card game in a lottery card game. They started with the premium cards and some sporadic promos. With the mythics, they killed most of the rares. They introduced from the vault series as an experiment, to see the response of people, if they were disposed to change money directly for some specific cards. And with this new expeditions, they've killed partialy the value of the rest of the set of Battle for Zendikar, including some of the mythics. Also, all these judge promos, alt arts, etc., and things like the comic con exclusive set, introduced a few years ago, contributes to create a kind of unnecessary elitist separation.
All of this started when Hasbro adquired Wizards of the Coast, some years ago. I understand that some cards gain vaule over the years by collectible reasons. But they have created their own secondary market with some exclusive products... and they know that this game will have an end, maybe due the pressure of the virtual culture, and they are burning the product until the inviability of releasing more content. And when this happens, I'm convinced that nobody in this company will be interested on "people's game experiences", they will be making money with another thing.
So, Why beign compassive with the people that are playing with fan's greed? They run a big business, their objective is to make money, not to make friends. I gave them a lot of support, buying boosters and boxes for more than 20 years (More than 100 boxes in total isn't an exageration for a regular player of this game), including the last modern masters, that was an horrible example of package design. Now, thanks to these leaks, I can anticipate my next movment, I know that I won't buy any sealed product of this set, so I'm very happy to have this knowledge with me.
I'm very confused as to how anything your saying make sense from your perspective. You like collecting cards, and Wizards introduced a way for you to aim for some really collectible cards (Expeditions) that will retain their value and are super unique. The lottery aspect is what makes them collectible, and is true for most collectible cards in magic (or any other CCG). All other cards have dropped in price because of people wanting to crack Expeditions (and because it's an amazing limited set), therefore making other cards easier to collect. This hatred towards promos is completely counter-intuitive to the whole notion of collecting things.
How do promos cause a separation within the player base?!? It's literally just a way to swag out your deck just like foils. There is no impact to gameplay, no sense of elitism derived from it. It almost always amounts to just a way to show how devoted you are to a deck/the game. Where do you see the class warfare of the plebians and patricians?
"Mythics killed rares" is a laughable statement that is completely further than the truth than anything you've said so far. Look at cross format all-stars like Snapcaster Mage, most of the delve spells, etc... all of them rare. There are always more good rares in a block than good mythics that see play in Eternal Formats. Yes there's the occasional cash-grab Voice of Resurgence mythic, but that's hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and those in recent memory haven't turned out to be relatively powerful in eternal (VoR, Brimaz, Bonfire). The biggest offender in recent memory is baby jace, but everyone ironically thought that card was terrible.
Fact of the matter is, standard release sets are primarily targeted for limited, secondarily for Standard and then Eternal formats. Right now BfZ ranks probably in the top 5 limited formats we've had, and the best since Inninstrad. Once standard rotates out Khans/Fate I'm sure some more BfZ cards will be played fixing the standard playability of the set. As for Modern, Newlamog is certainly making waves, as well as few other choice cards, which is really all we should expect from a new set.
Most of this is backwards tin-foil hat conspiracy schlock and the fact of the matter is Magic is at its all time high, and I only see more and more people at the various LGSs I frequent, so clearly all this is good for the health of the game.
While the story / marketing team at Wizards surely felt robbed of their plan for the Kozilek reveal, let's not deform reality: the unexplained new mana symbol on the leaked Kozilek generated way more buzz than they would have ever achieved with their plan. The thread discussing it got very large and people passionately dissected it and provided their own reasoning in favour of the various possibilities.
The uncharted realm story? People speculate every week on them. I don't see much buzz outside of the flavour forum. Immediately explaining the new mana symbol? There would be a small thread about it, no more. It's a small evolution of colorless mana.
In the end though, I find it hard to be moved by a company marketing plan being damaged.
Day by day, I care less about the game experience of Magic. I care about the cards that I want to adquire, to collect. The last set was a waste of money, because with their aggressive marketing, progressively they've turned the collectibe card game in a lottery card game. They started with the premium cards and some sporadic promos. With the mythics, they killed most of the rares. They introduced from the vault series as an experiment, to see the response of people, if they were disposed to change money directly for some specific cards. And with this new expeditions, they've killed partialy the value of the rest of the set of Battle for Zendikar, including some of the mythics. Also, all these judge promos, alt arts, etc., and things like the comic con exclusive set, introduced a few years ago, contributes to create a kind of unnecessary elitist separation.
All of this started when Hasbro adquired Wizards of the Coast, some years ago. I understand that some cards gain vaule over the years by collectible reasons. But they have created their own secondary market with some exclusive products... and they know that this game will have an end, maybe due the pressure of the virtual culture, and they are burning the product until the inviability of releasing more content. And when this happens, I'm convinced that nobody in this company will be interested on "people's game experiences", they will be making money with another thing.
So, Why beign compassive with the people that are playing with fan's greed? They run a big business, their objective is to make money, not to make friends. I gave them a lot of support, buying boosters and boxes for more than 20 years (More than 100 boxes in total isn't an exageration for a regular player of this game), including the last modern masters, that was an horrible example of package design. Now, thanks to these leaks, I can anticipate my next movment, I know that I won't buy any sealed product of this set, so I'm very happy to have this knowledge with me.
Wow, all of the things you've whined about here, I enjoy. What is wrong with creating more options for players to have? Don't like premiums/ mythics/ FTVs/ Expeditions? You aren't forced to buy them. There is no "elite" class of Magic players. Just Magic players with self esteem issues who perceive such a caste.
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I wouldn't believe a single thing about what Wizards is telling us about these "unintentional leaks" because they did at least part of them (if not all of them) themselves and now they're crying wolf. And there is proof that they are at the very least lying about the Kozilek/Wastes leak being unintentional:
zOMG a smoking gun! I can't believe I was so easily duped.
You should totes sue Wizards for their fraud; I'm pretty sure that document will hold up in court. I'm busy that day, though, so if you don't mind I'll just take Jarrett's words at face value and assume that he's telling the truth when he says they intended to spoil Kozilek at a very public event with lots of fanfare and appropriate explanations. Wizards does look bad if a bunch of players are confused by their game, so I think it's logical to assume they want things as clear as possible. I imagine their were lots of people cringing when they were reading people saying things like "Kozilek is bad because nothing produces waste mana" and being unable to publicly correct them.
the way the entire article was structured, it's also feels like them saying "Hey you consumers also have the responsibility not to tempt our selected people not to leak them ahead of time". The "lose-lose scenario" of the leaks also seem to be adding more salt in the form of "See, now you've tempted them and ruined your own surprise and wasted our efforts."
You make some good points, but I really don't see where you're getting this particular reading of the article. What I see the structure as is:
1) "Leaks totally screw up our spoiler-season plans, which is the result of people's honest work."
2) "We understand why people do it but it's really not justifiable."
3) "Kozilek could have been pretty cool but instead was awkward and frustrating."
4) "We try to avoid talking about leaks, but this is a unique situation."
5) "If someone leaks a card, they will be punished."
6) "Here as some reasons why leak sucks for everybody." (and yeah, the second one, about unfair advantage, is notably a little soft)
7) "You've obviously noticed that leaks happen, but we look it as a failure in quality control, and overall we have a good track record."
Is it that last section you're talking about? The fact that he's addressing people not involved in the leaking that are just casual observers? I guess I can see a reading that is damning us between the lines but that seems to me to be reading a lot into it. The structure of the article seems (to me) to describe the relationship between Wizards publicity department and the Magic-playing community at large as a mutually beneficial good-faith arrangement that the leaker is disrupting to serve his/her own interests. They reassure those that spoil cards the legitimate way that they're doing the right thing and bad apples will be weeded out, and reassure people who were irritated by the confusing nature of the Kozilek reveal that "that wasn't us, we wouldn't do that to you."
Now I can see how someone could read this and say, "yeah, but I don't care about the building of suspense during spoiler season, I'd rather just have a big ol' list of cards as soon as possible," and a lot of this article would seem dismissive or condescending to that person's perspective, but as I've held that very perspective for a while, and had discussions about this with people who get totally into the idea of teasing out the set bit by bit, I wouldn't want to spoil those people's fun for my own interests, so I think the system works pretty well because, after all, when it works as intended I still get the full list a week before prerelease and they get the fun of anticipating what might be revealed tomorrow.
I think the question of whether we should be encouraging people who leak by adding to the buzz comes from not from Jarrett's article but from this thread itself, and I think it's more of a moral gray area, but my attitude is the damage is already done so I might as well start the brewing process early if I can. I think a lot of people here feel that way; they wouldn't leak a card themselves, but they'll take advantage of it if someone else has. At the same time, I wouldn't feel bad if they got better at plugging leaks and I had to cram a whole bunch in the last couple weeks. I think the reason this is worth discussing is it can only help us understand each other better if we view Wizards and its fanbase as a complex network of relationships with a lot of different interests involved, rather than an "Us vs. them" attitude (not that you're doing this yourself, but it seems to be pervasive around here).
Really, guys? Like REALLY?You don't have anything better to do than arguing about whether leaks are ok or not? Nobody thought about this for years!The leaks are here and that's all that is to it. Discuss the nice cards,the strategy or whatever you want about MTG and NOT about some legal stuff you know nothing about. Discuss MTG the game or lock this thread already!
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While the story / marketing team at Wizards surely felt robbed of their plan for the Kozilek reveal, let's not deform reality: the unexplained new mana symbol on the leaked Kozilek generated way more buzz than they would have ever achieved with their plan. The thread discussing it got very large and people passionately dissected it and provided their own reasoning in favour of the various possibilities.
The uncharted realm story? People speculate every week on them. I don't see much buzz outside of the flavour forum. Immediately explaining the new mana symbol? There would be a small thread about it, no more. It's a small evolution of colorless mana.
In the end though, I find it hard to be moved by a company marketing plan being damaged.
This is what kills me, they just let it go on, sticking to their current schedule. I can't help but think that a more dynamic marketing department would have seen all the discussion going on and moved up their plans to seize that energy and take it for themselves.
The more I stew on this issue, the more that response from Trick Jarret annoys me. I can't help but think of the Coldsnap debacle. "Oh, we found it in a filing cabinet and polished it up" story. I not only believed it, but I also defended WOTC, over and over and over on the old official forums (where did those go? Oh, they shut them down, another brilliant marketing strategy ). I fought tooth and nail against the doubters, knowing in my heart that WOTC wouldn't make up a story like that, and they sure as heck did.
Will somebody get in trouble for the leak? Yes. Is that understandable, yes.
Does the community deserve to be "shamed" for enjoying and spreading the information? Go pound sand.
While the story / marketing team at Wizards surely felt robbed of their plan for the Kozilek reveal, let's not deform reality: the unexplained new mana symbol on the leaked Kozilek generated way more buzz than they would have ever achieved with their plan. The thread discussing it got very large and people passionately dissected it and provided their own reasoning in favour of the various possibilities.
The uncharted realm story? People speculate every week on them. I don't see much buzz outside of the flavour forum. Immediately explaining the new mana symbol? There would be a small thread about it, no more. It's a small evolution of colorless mana.
In the end though, I find it hard to be moved by a company marketing plan being damaged.
This is what kills me, they just let it go on, sticking to their current schedule. I can't help but think that a more dynamic marketing department would have seen all the discussion going on and moved up their plans to seize that energy and take it for themselves.
The more I stew on this issue, the more that response from Trick Jarret annoys me. I can't help but think of the Coldsnap debacle. "Oh, we found it in a filing cabinet and polished it up" story. I not only believed it, but I also defended WOTC, over and over and over on the old official forums (where did those go? Oh, they shut them down, another brilliant marketing strategy ). I fought tooth and nail against the doubters, knowing in my heart that WOTC wouldn't make up a story like that, and they sure as heck did.
Will somebody get in trouble for the leak? Yes. Is that understandable, yes.
Does the community deserve to be "shamed" for enjoying and spreading the information? Go pound sand.
I didn't see that article as shaming the community at all. There's been a little of that here on this forum, but not in the article itself. He was certainly shaming the person who leaked the cards, but I do not in any way see that as shaming the community at large and I'm having a little trouble understand why so many people seem to be taking it this way.
The only thing I didn't like about Trick's article was the "unfair advantage" bit because it sounds like bs to me. Other than that it all seemed pretty kosher. Someone, somwhere, stole these cards and images from Wizards in one way or another to post them online. This person wasn't leaking dirty secrets Wizards was hiding from us, unethical things that they were caught doing, or uncovering some hidden conspiracy, they were just getting attention for themselves. Will I still start brewing and speculating about cards as we get them, no matter how we get them? Absolutely. Does that mean I have to applaud the people leaking or even approve at all what they're doing? Not at all.
If this were an era where we didn't know anything about the set until it was on sale or if Wizards was hiding something about it for whatever reason, or if they actually tried some sort of legal action against people/sites that talk about the cards that get spoiled early, I might have a different opinion on this matter. As it stands, though, we always have the full set officially spoiled a week before the set goes on sale. Not only that, Wizards also crafts a spoiler season, which many people actually enjoy, and even give cards to prominent sites and people in the community to spoil to help bolster their views for a bit, which helps them make a profit and keep them doing what they're doing. At this point, people that spoil stuff early are just breaking the law to feed their own ego, and I don't think they should be congratulated or defended for that.
Fair enough, intellecutal property is a complicated and sticky legal question. We could debate it for hours and hours and should not do that here.
And again, you're right to point out the irony of the fact that we're discussing this on "the rumor mill." To be honest, I never really thought of leaks as a problem until I heard Ali Antrazi and Frank Lepore talking about it. The points they brought up made me realize that they do have a negative impact on some people.
Much much simpler than the gray area of whether it's okay to use this information for a gameplay advantage and where the lines can and should be draw with regards to intellectual property is this situation:
Person A had access to information that was, to most of the world, a secret.
Person B told that person not to reveal that secret until given the go-ahead.
Person A went ahead and revealed that information anyway.
If someone's in a position to leak a card, they're probably somewhere on the chain of command that has privileged access to this information and has either explicitly stated they won't reveal it early or implicitly understands the implication. Agreeing to abide by the rules and then breaking the rules is a type of lying. It's called lying by assent. Now, I don't know about you, but I find people who can't be trusted and are likely to go behind your back and do something you both agreed they weren't going to do very difficult to work with. I endeavor not to be such a person myself (I've worked a bit in local arts journalism, where I might know something early -- something relatively innocuous like the shows a community theatre is putting on next year, for example -- and I have to promise not to release the info until a given date. Totally part of the biz, and just freaking respectful when you think about it), and I imagine most people who are able to function in society do as well.
So, while I still don't think this is a super-big deal, I think there is a moral code of honesty being broken here that is basically a consensus. It seems very odd to me that people are going out of their way to defend someone for deliberately breaking their word.
What's your point? Everything done in this world was done to pay a mortgage? (full disclosure: that's lifted from Thank You for Smoking. Speaking of intellectual property.
It's one thing to say you read between the lines and you believe the writer is more concerned about the bottom line than the things he actually claims are at stake. But your complaint was that he presented the idea that early leaks costs money in sales as fact when it's merely opinion, and he didn't bring that up. You did.
But now that you mention it, yes, I really believe that there are people at Wizards who love their jobs and think it's really cool that they get to make a living doing fun things like making sure the flames coming out of a dragon's nostrils are centered or decide who gets to write the story about the vampires fighting back against the evil tentacle monsters. There are plenty of people in this world who grew up in fantasy and gaming and have the skills to be graphic designers or project managers or content editors and love and cherish their jobs and those people, like you and I, are worthy of respect, and those people, like you and I, get really frustrated when their boss tells them "Team, I'm sorry to say this but you've all heard about the big mess out there and we have to put in extra work to fix it!" Would you actually be yelling "go, leakers!" if you were the one spending all day writing emails about a project you thought you had finished? If so, you might want to get your empathy gland looked at.
Aw. I thought this was one of the best parts. He predicts the argument "But the tenants of journalism! The people need to know!" And instead of the logical response, "no, they don't. You people are acting like entitled brats" he injects a little humor into the situation to make his point. Maybe that's the passive-aggression you're talking about, but I smirked a bit and I think it's a smart move because it showed that he can laugh about the situation a bit.
Given how tense things probably are internally at Wizard's publicity HQ this week, I think this article could have gone a number of different ways and the official response to be seems to be pretty reserved and to the point. I really think people are just looking for things to get upset about.
Ew. Remind me never to let you use my bathroom. No thank you, if I'm having a baby, I'd like to be the one who decides when that news is going public. It's not a guilt trip, it's more of the classic "how would you feel is someone did this to you?" Again, empathy.
You mean those discussions where some people explained to some other people that there was a difference between colorless mana and generic mana, and that this wasn't a vast rewrite of the rules, over and over and over and over again? Yeah, I'm sure glad we had those.
Yeah, they most likely will. I think that's part of the point of the article.
I don't mean to go on and on about this, but the reaction here to what is essentially a person getting caught doing a dishonest thing is really troubling to me. I get kind of offended when I hear articles about how immature and entitled Magic players are, but when I read some of these comments I can see where that perception comes from and I'm kind of embarrassed to be associated with it. Be mad at Wizards all you want for whatever you want, there are plenty of areas where it makes sense to do that, but in a situation where a bunch of people's work lives are negatively affected because a person chose to do something selfish and dishonest, try having some respect for your fellow human being.
By Zendikar 2 I meant the whole block ("Return" to Zendikar). Someone must've realized that it'd be awful in time to at least add some merit in buying boosters and boxes.
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I agree with this (for most part), plenty of people are seeing this from the solely consumer's point of view, which is basically, the more (and faster) the information the better (although that point of view is actually pretty natural). This particular case is not about the power level of the cards, or actually even the overall marketing plan they envisioned - it is simply about the trust of the parties involved in said marketing plan.
What I really don't like about the article is that it's released "publicly" for the consumer to read, yet with the "accusatory tone" meant for the people who leaked the cards - like you said, people with access to the information had to be link with the chain (at least the marketing one) and were most likely told to not inform anyone about the information. Instead of sending this "reprimand/warning" privately to those people involved in the chain, it is instead put onto the website for the public, majority in which are consumers.
By doing that, it sends out the message of "As consumers you should be supportive of our marketing plans even if you're not at the part of the marketing chain that has access to information beforehand". Honestly, consumers don't buy that (and this thread can serve as evidence of consumer being pretty much the opposite).
Even if we understand that the leaks are a result of trust being broken, the article does nothing to address the issue. This is not "We apologize for spoiling your spoiler season surprises, we'll be taking those involved in marketing to task", this is essentially "It's your (consumer's) fault for discussing leaks that people who broke our trust have leaked to you, ruining our glorious marketing plans." It's not playing one victim card, but it's like playing two victim cards by trying to point out its a "lose-lose" scenario, then blaming one of the losing parties for it (the consumer), instead of dealing with the root source and accounting it to the other losing party, which happens to be your customers.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the important point that they pretty much grouped the people who broke their trust and the consumers together as one, and that is the true disaster of the article.
You really believe Wizards has zero evidence that leaks of this kind hurt various metrics for a set? It's baffling how many people think Wizards is terrible at being a business despite the blatant evidence to the contrary.
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I didn't see evidence of this supplied. "Market research" has become a term, not presented evidence of anything. I doubt what you're suggesting can be even proven.
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Look, you're both right, of course...
... my point is that there is a very gray and fuzzy line between doing what you're legally allowed to enforce, and being a complete and utter douche and killing community in the act of pursuing your legal rights. And I really don't want to see WotC trundling blindly over that line. There's a fantastic community they've managed to build up around the game, and being heavy-handed with the lawyers is a surefire way of beginning to kill that community off (or, at the very least, inciting rebellion against you).
Again, from before, are WotC ethically permitted to follow up on such breaches? Sure. Does the slippery-slope of ethicism potentially see them not giving a crap about other people in the process? You bet.
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You have never seen this kind of evidence because WOTC isn't dumb enough to publish their market research (competition and all). It would be naive to think people in marketing for big companies such as this don't know what they are doing.
I'm not sure I'd characterize suing someone who broke a legal contract as being "heavy handed with lawyers." That's the point of contracts; you give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they're going to behave like grownups, but protect yourself when they don't follow through on the agreement. If you're expecting the magic community to rally around Leaker X as if s/he were Spartacus, I think you'll find that many people in the community are adults with jobs who understand that when you violate an important part of your contract, you get fired at best and sued at worst.
Yeah, sure, maybe we have an imperfect society that is excessively litigious, but we have laws for a reason. I go to bed at night reasonably sure that nobody's going to break into my home because most people who break into homes get arrested. If we could all be truthful and respectful all the time that would be paradise, but we're not, so there's systems in place to correct antisocial behavior. That's just life.
No, definitely not saying Spartacus leaked OGW.
I don't really mind what WotC choose to do to him/her and their firstborn children - that's between them, as it rightfully should be.
Threatening the entire freaking Magic community because of a leak? Not so much.
Not that that's necessarily what Trick was aiming to do with that article - I'm 99.999% sure it wasn't, anyway. But casually lobbing in a "here's what we do to people like that when we find 'em, folks" was not exactly Exhibit A in public relations and fostering community spirit. It makes Trick and WotC look to the casual outside observer as a group of people hellbent on maintaining their status quo by the use of brute force and legal entities, kitchen table gamers, young tournament players and small kittens be damned.
TL;DR: Every time someone spoils a Magic card before WotC does, Trick Jarrett kills a kitten. Think of the kittens.
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Getting the message out was fine, but the article was in my opinion, poorly structured.
Yes, it would be good if the audience will be less supportive of leaks, which reduces "incentive"... but ultimately isn't it easier to get partners who are... "immune to incentive" to provide timed spoilers? To be more blunt, isn't it Wizards' responsibility to do just that? Yes, they said they're enforcing it and it's hard to keep it in line, but the way the entire article was structured, it's also feels like them saying "Hey you consumers also have the responsibility not to tempt our selected people not to leak them ahead of time". The "lose-lose scenario" of the leaks also seem to be adding more salt in the form of "See, now you've tempted them and ruined your own surprise and wasted our efforts."
This is why the heavy-handed tactics of handling the method seems to be more prominent, because that came after the "It's your fault your surprise is ruined", resulting in a "Now watch the punishment you caused to happen".
At the end of the day, what happens? They either stop handing spoilers out to others, or find those "immune to incentive" partners and the problem is solved. Saying that the consumers provide incentive for people to leak cards is irrelevant in the face of those scenarios, so stating that is basically "faulting the consumers for the sake of faulting" and that is honestly, a bad PR move to your consumers.
Just a reminder I'm finding fault with the article's structure itself - I'm actually pretty neutral to the actual scenario itself - the leaks were carried out by others at their own risk and I'm a consumer who simply absorbs whatever information was provided regardless of source. Assuming there are contracts between them (something we never had confirmed by any party), then yes, they broke the trust of the contract, that is a fact, but this is one those scenarios I wouldn't call them either a "hero" or a "thief", because at the core it's a matter of breaking trust and the other losses (financial, surprise-emotion) are "secondary concerns" in a sense.
Point acknowledged. I don't agree that the article was poorly constructed, but that is a valid opinion.
It doesn't produce colorless, so why would the symbol be there?
Wizards' point is not about the community looking at leaked material, wizards' problem is with people STEALING copyrighted material and publishing it ahead of schedule, and they are entitled to take whatever measures they deem necessary within the bounds of the law, which by the way is absolutely on their side on this.
When the spoiled cards are posted as images on the front page of this site, it makes it extremely hard to "not see what you don't wanna see."
With their renewed emphasis on story, and weekly story articles, I see why this has a major repercussions. The article which revealed Kosilek did not impact me as much as a story moment because I already saw the card spoiled.
I am only making an assumption, but those that get access to these cards would be under a non-disclosure agreement. That is why Wizards has the right to repercussions. If you work for a company that does business with WOTC, and you are found to have leaked information, you are risking not only your job, but the company that you work(ed) for.
A universal experience? You mean like when the author states:
You really want to argue against spoilers in a Thread dedicated to spoilers, in a Forum dedicated to spoilers, on a Site that grew up on spoilers? I have a hard time taking your argument seriously when you obviously read the spoiler threads too.
To take your peanut allergy analogy (say that 5 times fast) a bit further your argument reminds me of the person who says "Well, I have a peanut allergy so peanuts must be bad for everyone. Therefore, nobody should be allowed to eat peanuts. In fact, all people who grow peanuts, process peanuts, distribute peanuts, purchase peanuts, and consume peanuts are ruining life for those with peanut allergies. However, I refuse to take any personal responsibility myself and avoid locations where I may be exposed to peanuts. It's on everybody else to keep peanuts away from me."
So, you proof that they exist relies on the fact that I can't prove they don't? Look, I agree that WotC likely does have marketing research that they have interpreted to mean one thing or another about spoilers. A significant issue I take with the whole article is that no objective data is mentioned or referenced in the entire article. However, assuming that the data exists, what is the source of the data? Is it the opinion polls on the home site? I can state with a high degree of confidence that if that is the data they rely on, it is not a random sampling of MtG players and has an ample amount of bias. Simple matter of fact is, by your own argument, WotC has survived 22+ years even after spoilers and the internet became things. As long as they continue to design a game that the community as whole will spend money on, their long term viability is assured independent of spoilers.
How do promos cause a separation within the player base?!? It's literally just a way to swag out your deck just like foils. There is no impact to gameplay, no sense of elitism derived from it. It almost always amounts to just a way to show how devoted you are to a deck/the game. Where do you see the class warfare of the plebians and patricians?
"Mythics killed rares" is a laughable statement that is completely further than the truth than anything you've said so far. Look at cross format all-stars like Snapcaster Mage, most of the delve spells, etc... all of them rare. There are always more good rares in a block than good mythics that see play in Eternal Formats. Yes there's the occasional cash-grab Voice of Resurgence mythic, but that's hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and those in recent memory haven't turned out to be relatively powerful in eternal (VoR, Brimaz, Bonfire). The biggest offender in recent memory is baby jace, but everyone ironically thought that card was terrible.
Fact of the matter is, standard release sets are primarily targeted for limited, secondarily for Standard and then Eternal formats. Right now BfZ ranks probably in the top 5 limited formats we've had, and the best since Inninstrad. Once standard rotates out Khans/Fate I'm sure some more BfZ cards will be played fixing the standard playability of the set. As for Modern, Newlamog is certainly making waves, as well as few other choice cards, which is really all we should expect from a new set.
Most of this is backwards tin-foil hat conspiracy schlock and the fact of the matter is Magic is at its all time high, and I only see more and more people at the various LGSs I frequent, so clearly all this is good for the health of the game.
The uncharted realm story? People speculate every week on them. I don't see much buzz outside of the flavour forum. Immediately explaining the new mana symbol? There would be a small thread about it, no more. It's a small evolution of colorless mana.
In the end though, I find it hard to be moved by a company marketing plan being damaged.
Wow, all of the things you've whined about here, I enjoy. What is wrong with creating more options for players to have? Don't like premiums/ mythics/ FTVs/ Expeditions? You aren't forced to buy them. There is no "elite" class of Magic players. Just Magic players with self esteem issues who perceive such a caste.
zOMG a smoking gun! I can't believe I was so easily duped.
You should totes sue Wizards for their fraud; I'm pretty sure that document will hold up in court. I'm busy that day, though, so if you don't mind I'll just take Jarrett's words at face value and assume that he's telling the truth when he says they intended to spoil Kozilek at a very public event with lots of fanfare and appropriate explanations. Wizards does look bad if a bunch of players are confused by their game, so I think it's logical to assume they want things as clear as possible. I imagine their were lots of people cringing when they were reading people saying things like "Kozilek is bad because nothing produces waste mana" and being unable to publicly correct them.
You make some good points, but I really don't see where you're getting this particular reading of the article. What I see the structure as is:
1) "Leaks totally screw up our spoiler-season plans, which is the result of people's honest work."
2) "We understand why people do it but it's really not justifiable."
3) "Kozilek could have been pretty cool but instead was awkward and frustrating."
4) "We try to avoid talking about leaks, but this is a unique situation."
5) "If someone leaks a card, they will be punished."
6) "Here as some reasons why leak sucks for everybody." (and yeah, the second one, about unfair advantage, is notably a little soft)
7) "You've obviously noticed that leaks happen, but we look it as a failure in quality control, and overall we have a good track record."
Is it that last section you're talking about? The fact that he's addressing people not involved in the leaking that are just casual observers? I guess I can see a reading that is damning us between the lines but that seems to me to be reading a lot into it. The structure of the article seems (to me) to describe the relationship between Wizards publicity department and the Magic-playing community at large as a mutually beneficial good-faith arrangement that the leaker is disrupting to serve his/her own interests. They reassure those that spoil cards the legitimate way that they're doing the right thing and bad apples will be weeded out, and reassure people who were irritated by the confusing nature of the Kozilek reveal that "that wasn't us, we wouldn't do that to you."
Now I can see how someone could read this and say, "yeah, but I don't care about the building of suspense during spoiler season, I'd rather just have a big ol' list of cards as soon as possible," and a lot of this article would seem dismissive or condescending to that person's perspective, but as I've held that very perspective for a while, and had discussions about this with people who get totally into the idea of teasing out the set bit by bit, I wouldn't want to spoil those people's fun for my own interests, so I think the system works pretty well because, after all, when it works as intended I still get the full list a week before prerelease and they get the fun of anticipating what might be revealed tomorrow.
I think the question of whether we should be encouraging people who leak by adding to the buzz comes from not from Jarrett's article but from this thread itself, and I think it's more of a moral gray area, but my attitude is the damage is already done so I might as well start the brewing process early if I can. I think a lot of people here feel that way; they wouldn't leak a card themselves, but they'll take advantage of it if someone else has. At the same time, I wouldn't feel bad if they got better at plugging leaks and I had to cram a whole bunch in the last couple weeks. I think the reason this is worth discussing is it can only help us understand each other better if we view Wizards and its fanbase as a complex network of relationships with a lot of different interests involved, rather than an "Us vs. them" attitude (not that you're doing this yourself, but it seems to be pervasive around here).
This is what kills me, they just let it go on, sticking to their current schedule. I can't help but think that a more dynamic marketing department would have seen all the discussion going on and moved up their plans to seize that energy and take it for themselves.
The more I stew on this issue, the more that response from Trick Jarret annoys me. I can't help but think of the Coldsnap debacle. "Oh, we found it in a filing cabinet and polished it up" story. I not only believed it, but I also defended WOTC, over and over and over on the old official forums (where did those go? Oh, they shut them down, another brilliant marketing strategy
Will somebody get in trouble for the leak? Yes. Is that understandable, yes.
Does the community deserve to be "shamed" for enjoying and spreading the information? Go pound sand.
I didn't see that article as shaming the community at all. There's been a little of that here on this forum, but not in the article itself. He was certainly shaming the person who leaked the cards, but I do not in any way see that as shaming the community at large and I'm having a little trouble understand why so many people seem to be taking it this way.
The only thing I didn't like about Trick's article was the "unfair advantage" bit because it sounds like bs to me. Other than that it all seemed pretty kosher. Someone, somwhere, stole these cards and images from Wizards in one way or another to post them online. This person wasn't leaking dirty secrets Wizards was hiding from us, unethical things that they were caught doing, or uncovering some hidden conspiracy, they were just getting attention for themselves. Will I still start brewing and speculating about cards as we get them, no matter how we get them? Absolutely. Does that mean I have to applaud the people leaking or even approve at all what they're doing? Not at all.
If this were an era where we didn't know anything about the set until it was on sale or if Wizards was hiding something about it for whatever reason, or if they actually tried some sort of legal action against people/sites that talk about the cards that get spoiled early, I might have a different opinion on this matter. As it stands, though, we always have the full set officially spoiled a week before the set goes on sale. Not only that, Wizards also crafts a spoiler season, which many people actually enjoy, and even give cards to prominent sites and people in the community to spoil to help bolster their views for a bit, which helps them make a profit and keep them doing what they're doing. At this point, people that spoil stuff early are just breaking the law to feed their own ego, and I don't think they should be congratulated or defended for that.