The current state of Magic

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At the cost of shipping Arena and building a "Digital Game Studio", Wizards no longer values its employees, nor are they committed to a diverse and welcoming workplace.

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Changing your mind about business strategy every 6 months is a great way to waste your employee's time and effort, so you should stop doing that.

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So the Community thread about what makes Magic great mentioned the bad Glassdoor reviews of WotC. I knew they were terrible, but oh man, apparently in October they laid off 30+ full time employees ("a full third of the full-time equivalents in the technology groups"), mostly older (40+). Not sure if that was mentioned on here previously. Also a lot of complaints about how management was changing direction and priorities constantly. I don't know the release/development schedule of the supplemental product (thought 1-2 years), but the haphazard product releases (masterpieces on and off, conspiracies, even Unstable) and sudden changes seem to be hitting the market now.

And yeah, it does seem that the new management is hardcore going all-in on Arena. If Arena fails, then WotC is going to be a dumpster fire.

Granted, these reviews generally come from disgruntled employees, but still...

https://i.imgur.com/n71wDC8.png

They sure try to push their new legendary border onto everything. :mad: This looks like a child didn't cut out the card properly and called it a day.

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Originally Posted by Barook

https://i.imgur.com/n71wDC8.png

They sure try to push their new legendary border onto everything. :mad: This looks like a child didn't cut out the card properly and called it a day.

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The child was Urza, clearly.

Did they modify existing cards?

What a shitshow.

"technology groups"

If that means anything related to computer programming, it's quite possible they should have fired these guys fifteen years ago.

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Originally Posted by Claymore

So the Community thread about what makes Magic great mentioned the bad Glassdoor reviews of WotC. I knew they were terrible, but oh man, apparently in October they laid off 30+ full time employees ("a full third of the full-time equivalents in the technology groups"), mostly older (40+). Not sure if that was mentioned on here previously. Also a lot of complaints about how management was changing direction and priorities constantly. I don't know the release/development schedule of the supplemental product (thought 1-2 years), but the haphazard product releases (masterpieces on and off, conspiracies, even Unstable) and sudden changes seem to be hitting the market now.

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In fairness, haven't a number of people here been suggesting that Wizards of the Coast needs to "clear the decks" of the old guard?

looks like the dog chewed on the card

I wish a dog would chew on every copy of Leovold...

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Originally Posted by ParkerLewis

"technology groups"

If that means anything related to computer programming, it's quite possible they should have fired these guys fifteen years ago.

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Don't worry, they're about to fix everything with machine learning! There is inherent power in trendy terms like 'in the cloud,' 'blockchain,' and now 'machine learning.' :laugh:

@ Barook, the more pressing question is why this MTG Arena stuff is glutting the mtgo twitch when all I want to do is see real magic be it paper or mtgo. You have to scroll through 5-6 more rows of junk now - and I do mean junk, people who are less competent than an average FNM player, playing magic on a platform that doesn't create better players (unless they play mtgo or paper on top of it). That special border for legends looks bad, but it was on a modern border to begin with....so it's not like the aesthetics really took a hit; at least now you can look at a border shape and never read the card to have to know Karakas sends it back to hand.

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Originally Posted by Fox

@ Barook, the more pressing question is why this MTG Arena stuff is glutting the mtgo twitch when all I want to do is see real magic be it paper or mtgo.

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Because it's new, shiny, exciting - and WotC literally pays off popular streamers from other games to promote the game (e.g. Day9 commented on that while streaming Arena). Nothing wrong with that kind of marketing, but I wouldn't read too much into that regarding Arena's popularity.

Firing 30 senior programmers and paying streamers to play/promote Arena are two of the best things I've heard of wotc doing in years.

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Originally Posted by Fox

at least now you can look at a border shape and never read the card to have to know Karakas sends it back to hand.

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I laughed, but that's not necessarily true. The new border also appears on other legendary permanents.

I don't understand why they changed the boarder for all legendary permanents except Planeswalkers?????

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Originally Posted by Tittliewinks22

I don't understand why they changed the boarder for all legendary permanents except Planeswalkers?????

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For the same reasons that other stuff isn't consistent.

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Originally Posted by Barook

Because it's new, shiny, exciting - and WotC literally pays off popular streamers from other games to promote the game (e.g. Day9 commented on that while streaming Arena). Nothing wrong with that kind of marketing, but I wouldn't read too much into that regarding Arena's popularity.

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Paying streamers to play your game is normal these days if a company wants extra exposure for a new game.

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Originally Posted by morgan_coke

Firing 30 senior programmers and paying streamers to play/promote Arena are two of the best things I've heard of wotc doing in years.

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I dunno about the first one. DOM on MTGO has currently the issue that 38 out 42 legendary creatures can't show up as foils in packs, screwing up both EV and foil redemption.

The Glassdoor reviews didn't specify that the technology employees were Programmers. I think insinuated that they were engineers, but seemed to be spread across all of the different tech groups.

Regardless, it does seem that MTGO's usual bugginess has taken a turn for the worse lately.

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Originally Posted by Claymore

Regardless, it does seem that MTGO's usual bugginess has taken a turn for the worse lately.

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Well, even just scale effects alone could explain that, although we know there is more to it. Adding more things to already poorly and haphazardly implemented things will have ever greater side-effects, which will dictate there being even more awkwardly implemented things for new cards to eventually come in and break. It will always just get worse, because the foundation isn't right and every addition exposes that.

Supposedly, Hasbro Gaming (including MTG and Monopoly) dropped 20% according to Hasbro 1Q18 earnings report compared to 1Q17. D&D was listed as a brand that had gains, but MTG was not.

Ben Bleiweiss has a big post on reddit mathing out that MTG is stable and we're just in between sets, Toys R' Us did it, but, well, SCG GM and all.

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Originally Posted by Claymore

Supposedly, Hasbro Gaming (including MTG and Monopoly) dropped 20% according to Hasbro 1Q18 earnings report compared to 1Q17. D&D was listed as a brand that had gains, but MTG was not.

Ben Bleiweiss has a big post on reddit mathing out that MTG is stable and we're just in between sets, Toys R' Us did it, but, well, SCG GM and all.

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Ben Bleiweiss' post

Dominaria seems to be doing very well, if social media is too believed. Maybe WotC gets the hint to return more back to the roots.