General Oh god it's my two least favorite topics in magic
- Thread starter Chris Taylor
- Start date
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The most damning part of this is that they pride themselves on testing limited so much but somehow managed to miss that you can draft this combo in KLD-AER Limited. I know Saheeli is a mythic so it comes up rarely or maybe one of the cards got changed late, but man, you can draft that combo; I saw a buddy of mine open the combo in his prerelease pool. This is coming after people being upset about Pestermite and Kiki-Jiki both being in Modern Masters 1 as well as missing Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin in ZEN-SOM standard. Like, what are you guys doing with your time?
Here's the Sam Stoddard article where he admits the combo was missed.
The relevant text.
It's kind of funny because in the same article, they talk about how two Felidar Guardians can go infinite with each other and how they weren't really worried about it.
I know people make mistakes and cards can change late in development and there's a lot of the process of designing cards we don't see but it just boggles my mind.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I suppose that ones perspective. On the other hand, they've managed to take a small fringe card game developed in the 1990s, and somehow managed to not only keep it alive, but grow it into a successful company, while creating an entire sub-culture and competitive scene out of nothing. They've survived numerous competitors, a shift from physical to digital, while discovering and learning from a number of design mistakes that nearly sunk their own product.
Are they running optimally? Probably not. Could different leadership have anticipated and prevented this. Most likely. Will they survive and prosper despite this. Seems like it. Welcome to the world.
Thankfully, even assuming that "they suck at what they do and a million people could do it better" this isn't actually criteria for success. In fact, focusing on whether a million people better than you exist or not isn't constructive--let those hypothetical individuals do what they want, we will do what you want, and at the end of the day lets see who is still here. And so far, WOTC has been a winner--imperfect as the company has always been--27 years and counting. Which is a good thing.
What matters is how well they pivot when things go poorly, and they are already showing signs of realizing they screwed up, and are making changes. Pretty sure we are going to be ok.
I work in corporate. It sucks the life out of you. Not sure how this company is structured, but if people are just being given a paycheck to make Magic cards and how well they do that is largely immaterial (as is the case at 95% of corporate positions), a lot of what has been happening is not rocket science. "Success" is only being measured by sales numbers which is a shallow measure of quality. We know this of course, but share holders only see dollar signs. And that is what drives all this in the end. You want a game that is 100% driven by quality and how well it plays and how satisfied players are with it? Look for something indie struggling to keep the doors open.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Why are you working in corporate if you hate it? Why not just start your own game company: be that indie guy (but more stable than you outlined).
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
You could probably do it in your spare time as a hobby though. Take it around some game shops, if it starts to look like people want to play it, than you could decide whether you want to go further. You know, take the pressure out of it, keep it pure. Pressure and that fear of failure (ah, ah, see a theme here?) is what keeps us from doing things we should do.
You always seemed like the type of guy using cube as a creative medium for his own game ideas. It would be fun to see what you could do with a completely blank slate.
+ there is nothing I would like better than to be sitting here in 15 years, railing about how your company "sold its soul" and how you wreaked your latest competitive format. Talk about problems you want to have in life LOL.
You always seemed like the type of guy using cube as a creative medium for his own game ideas. It would be fun to see what you could do with a completely blank slate.
+ there is nothing I would like better than to be sitting here in 15 years, railing about how your company "sold its soul" and how you wreaked your latest competitive format. Talk about problems you want to have in life LOL.
LOL. I've started and stopped on many projects. I need a solid business person to work with that enjoys that side of it. I tend to get to a place with something where I'm faced with copyright issues or other things of that nature which add complications I don't want to deal with. I'll be honest, I'm creative but not very ambitious. That's the truth of it.
CML
Contributor
OK, OK, all of us are pretty privileged here since we play(ed) an expensive-ass conspicuously-consumptive commodity-fetishizing pseudo-investment hobbyist card game. I guess the depressing thing is that a lot of poorer people spend huge amounts of money on it (lol @ the video footage of Reid Duke making cosplay jewelry and Turtenwald's suburban Milwaukee family apartment in what was arguably a PROMOTIONAL VIDEO) and get little out of it but for the most part it's like journalism or academia—nice work if you can afford it. An acquaintance just got a gig doing text coverage for Wizards and, you know, the trust fund is enough to cover those costs and a corgi (and the shockingly high cost of living here). What does this tell you about WotC gigs?
1. Ahada is right, corporate is terrible, Seattle people in their teenage years are super-dope and in their twenties are terrible and I'm sure corporate has a lot to do with this
2. However, there is the hypocrisy at WotC that it isn't corporate. (Cf. academia, contempo literature, journalism, some software, other "creative" industries)
3. Ergo jobs are not just handed out on pure patronage (Wizards is cliqueish because, hey presto, most of the workers there are popular for the first time in their lives, damned if they're gonna give that up) but people pretend there's some meritocracy behind it too
4. This lets the pay suck, further diluting the talent pool
5. Magic players hate hate hate social criticism and anything having to do with the culture of their game, letting Wizards get away with doing most anything. Remember, in adult life, "can be good" is a much weaker force than "should be good"
6. And so the fact that the profoundly crippling problems with Magic culture are incredibly obvious rather suggest that they won't be changed. This idea should be familiar to anyone who follows US politics
7.-10. Find out more here @ https://www.etsy.com/listing/469343127/a-brief-history-of-magic-cards by me
1. Ahada is right, corporate is terrible, Seattle people in their teenage years are super-dope and in their twenties are terrible and I'm sure corporate has a lot to do with this
2. However, there is the hypocrisy at WotC that it isn't corporate. (Cf. academia, contempo literature, journalism, some software, other "creative" industries)
3. Ergo jobs are not just handed out on pure patronage (Wizards is cliqueish because, hey presto, most of the workers there are popular for the first time in their lives, damned if they're gonna give that up) but people pretend there's some meritocracy behind it too
4. This lets the pay suck, further diluting the talent pool
5. Magic players hate hate hate social criticism and anything having to do with the culture of their game, letting Wizards get away with doing most anything. Remember, in adult life, "can be good" is a much weaker force than "should be good"
6. And so the fact that the profoundly crippling problems with Magic culture are incredibly obvious rather suggest that they won't be changed. This idea should be familiar to anyone who follows US politics
7.-10. Find out more here @ https://www.etsy.com/listing/469343127/a-brief-history-of-magic-cards by me
CML
Contributor
Expecting that anything will be solved is delusional, though, and caused a lot of stress in my life, so if I can keep y'all from wasting your hopes and dreams on Wizards of the Coast (or anyone whose living depends on them) then I will feel good about myself
Here's what it's like to work there, btw: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wizards-of-the-Coast-Reviews-E4718.htm
One of the lowest-rated companies in Seattle, fwiw, over a half-star below Amazon
Here's what it's like to work there, btw: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wizards-of-the-Coast-Reviews-E4718.htm
One of the lowest-rated companies in Seattle, fwiw, over a half-star below Amazon
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Its 2.7 stars on glassdoor with 106 reviews. The link he provided dosen't function, but if you google search it you'll find it. Amazon has 3.5, with roughly a million reviews.
The complaints look about what I would expect for a small cap company selling a product to a niche market that basically tanks in a down or slowing economy. Usually there is limited upward mobility, and a focus on cost control, which is always bad for employees (or pro players evidently) because payroll is most corps biggest expense.
I don't really see a DOL complaint in the near future on this one. It looks like just another average, to slightly below average American Corporation, acting as an average to slightly below average American Corporation would. Not as exciting a narrative, but probably a good lesson when looking for your next job.
The real take away here is probably not to put companies on pedestals, as they will tell you they love you, than leave you at the altar, your life devolving into a hollow-eyed hell, eating tubs of ice cream and watching friends re-runs at 2 in the morning...
Oh god the flashbacks...
The complaints look about what I would expect for a small cap company selling a product to a niche market that basically tanks in a down or slowing economy. Usually there is limited upward mobility, and a focus on cost control, which is always bad for employees (or pro players evidently) because payroll is most corps biggest expense.
I don't really see a DOL complaint in the near future on this one. It looks like just another average, to slightly below average American Corporation, acting as an average to slightly below average American Corporation would. Not as exciting a narrative, but probably a good lesson when looking for your next job.
The real take away here is probably not to put companies on pedestals, as they will tell you they love you, than leave you at the altar, your life devolving into a hollow-eyed hell, eating tubs of ice cream and watching friends re-runs at 2 in the morning...
Oh god the flashbacks...
CML
Contributor
Laz
Developer
Not a lot to tell. A bizarre emphasis on basically killing yourself for the company, as there was constant expectations in addition to doing revenue generating work full-time, you are also expected to pick up every AWS certification there is. One I was talking to received the ultimatum from his wife: 'You are either leaving Amazon or leaving me.' after several months of 14+ hour days 7 days a week. The culture is super competitive, with each employee having a shifting ranking against their peers.
Also, structured incentive plans that essentially meant they were flogged super hard for two years then received what was essentially a mandatory pay cut, seemingly as punishment for not being promoted.
So yeah, literally every investment bank...
Hard not to chime in again on all this.
I'm assuming most live in the US? This place has become a borderline oligarchy. Not to sound like a liberal snowflake, but seriously. Corporate America is unhealthy as fuck and it has spread like a fungus to all corners of the country. Where I work is not nearly as bad as other places (though even here we have had one stress leave victim and another person who actually up and died). I've had the fortune of building a good network of people to work for/with that aren't entirely selfish or evil. But a lot of other people are not so lucky. The corporate structure is setup in a way to where abusing people and disconnecting from that is how you succeed.
When I first started working, people would joke about "sweat shops" overseas. Today, those sweat shops are all over America masquerading as ethical companies. It's an epidemic and I feel really really bad for the younger generation growing up in this because a lot of this mess is my generation's fault and my parents generation but it will fall on the innocent to fix. And it will likely take the majority of their life times to do it.
When I first started working, people would joke about "sweat shops" overseas. Today, those sweat shops are all over America masquerading as ethical companies. It's an epidemic and I feel really really bad for the younger generation growing up in this because a lot of this mess is my generation's fault and my parents generation but it will fall on the innocent to fix. And it will likely take the majority of their life times to do it.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
in 50 years some hacker will dig up a copy of Shadowrun and wonder how they were able to so accurately predict the future (he said with a half-smile)
Either that or humanity learns that profit is not the holy grail.
Either that or humanity learns that profit is not the holy grail.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Maybe I'm just being naive, but I can't say this is where I thought this thread would end up
Also, RE: USA:
Also, RE: USA:
I'd like to see a good outcome from all of this. Wizards has learned from their mistakes before, they can do so again. And I want them to keep making cards for a long, long time.
CML
Contributor
AFAIK millennials have little interest in fixing it. I have a lot of faith in the next generation but a lot of this might be the schism between growing up in Seattle and being sheltered by the corporate BS and then being an adult here and living at its whim—accentuated by my job as a tutor and my social life as a recovering Magic player, where my social group frankly is below the standards of my clientele, I admire my students but have no desire to live life anything like most of my friends here, depressingly, and pretty much only my easy, overpaid and fun job, few good pals here, and old friends from HS and college keep me sane, since god knows creating things in such a cold and corporate climate is a fool's errand (unless of course it's Magic cards—games are the pretense we have here of "culture," or like lol the people who say software is a creative industry—sure, if you'renot debugging an AWS server 24/7/365.) I'm moving in a few months and the thing that galls me about it the most is people get all defensive about Seattle when I tell them that, as if they'd been here for as long as me (25 years!) and feel threatened by my disinterest in the way things are, but that's the kind of insecurity and misery-loves-company stuff corporations inspire. At any rate, I can't wait to get the fuck out of here—and if LA isn't fun, at least there's still Eastern Europe
Real quick: Laz, these people must not have been programmers, who can largely cheese (past SDE1), though some don't realize this (programmers, oblivious to social dynamics, are docile, almost ideal workers), it's still an easier and more remunerative gig (with 6 months' CYA severance!) than, uh, the rest of AMZ. I did have a piano student once who thought he'd use his MBA to work there, and he had to stop because he'd come home grumpy (while his wife insisted on the phone they were very happy to a third party—I can't make this shit up!) I guess he was in the Air Force so he could tolerate some amount of abuse but not Amazon levels.
Anyway here's some stuff I've thought about it. I know Wadds left America and strongly prefers(?) Belgium, and the rest of Europe (even Italy!) seems even doper, so ...
http://gawker.com/how-amazon-swallowed-seattle-1724795265
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/former-current-amazon-horror-stories/
Real quick: Laz, these people must not have been programmers, who can largely cheese (past SDE1), though some don't realize this (programmers, oblivious to social dynamics, are docile, almost ideal workers), it's still an easier and more remunerative gig (with 6 months' CYA severance!) than, uh, the rest of AMZ. I did have a piano student once who thought he'd use his MBA to work there, and he had to stop because he'd come home grumpy (while his wife insisted on the phone they were very happy to a third party—I can't make this shit up!) I guess he was in the Air Force so he could tolerate some amount of abuse but not Amazon levels.
Anyway here's some stuff I've thought about it. I know Wadds left America and strongly prefers(?) Belgium, and the rest of Europe (even Italy!) seems even doper, so ...
http://gawker.com/how-amazon-swallowed-seattle-1724795265
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/former-current-amazon-horror-stories/
I think the millennials end up an easy target for ridicule. Just like every young generation is in the eyes of older people. I had my head fully up my ass through my early 30's, so to think that generation (whose oldest member turns 35 this year) is prepared to take over and fix 30+ years of mismanagement in this country seems a bit unrealistic. Give them some time.
They have several advantages over boomers and a good chunk of the gen-x'rs. For one, they grew up with technology. And while it's maybe hindered their in-person communication skills, they are much better prepared for the changes that are coming due to technology. Secondly, I believe this generation has a lot more empathy than the older ones do. Like a LOT more. And that is going to go a long way to moving the world in a better direction. We have two really selfish generations back to back that have given zero shits about what happens around them or after they die - as long as they are OK - and that has created a giant clusterfuck. Things are precarious right now with nationalistic movements happening everywhere. Last time that sort of thing happened we wound up in a world war. We won't survive another one of those.
There's a really interesting article I read - based on a book I think - about generational cycles. Short of it is you have about a 4 generation (roughly 70-80 year) cycle that basically starts with a crisis and a "hero" generation that has to deal with it. Then into a utopia phase, followed by generations taking all that for granted leading to a new crisis and hero generation that follows. Last hero generation was the GI generation. Next one is the Millennials. We are currently entering into the later part of the crisis which appears to be populism and the death of truth.
They have several advantages over boomers and a good chunk of the gen-x'rs. For one, they grew up with technology. And while it's maybe hindered their in-person communication skills, they are much better prepared for the changes that are coming due to technology. Secondly, I believe this generation has a lot more empathy than the older ones do. Like a LOT more. And that is going to go a long way to moving the world in a better direction. We have two really selfish generations back to back that have given zero shits about what happens around them or after they die - as long as they are OK - and that has created a giant clusterfuck. Things are precarious right now with nationalistic movements happening everywhere. Last time that sort of thing happened we wound up in a world war. We won't survive another one of those.
There's a really interesting article I read - based on a book I think - about generational cycles. Short of it is you have about a 4 generation (roughly 70-80 year) cycle that basically starts with a crisis and a "hero" generation that has to deal with it. Then into a utopia phase, followed by generations taking all that for granted leading to a new crisis and hero generation that follows. Last hero generation was the GI generation. Next one is the Millennials. We are currently entering into the later part of the crisis which appears to be populism and the death of truth.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I don't really see that happening. The death of national identity and post modernism has just divided western countries out into tribes. Things are much less stable, with people less empathetic and tolerant to competing groups. The empathy you see from mellianals is much more about virtue signaling, and leveraging an unearned sense of moral superiority, than it is true empathy. This whole idea that we aren't supposed to live in nations anymore, and countries are supposed to be economic zones with a diversity of populations focused on preserving their own distinctiveness is a disaster, and just ends up being segregation 2.0 in the end. An experience that I regrettably got to live.
No one wants Germany WWII levels of nationalism, but some nationalism is good. You need some common narrative, and common bonds uniting people, or its just ends up being parochial identity versus parochial identity--which ironically is the exact same type of dynamic we were trying to avoid by being anti-nationalist in the first place.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Actually we will. Well... Humankind will. I'm not convinced any "world" war will actually go global, so there's bound to be places where we, humankind, can and will survive. In any case, I think it's far more likely guerilla terrorism will continue to dominate "warfare" for the forseeable future, not outright war. The kind of nationalism that is cropping up in the western world is more focused on protecting the "own" identity of countries and reintroducing borders than it is on expanding outwards and subjugating others to nationalist ideals, so the threat of war has to come from outside the western world, and frankly, I'm not seeing any powerful nation willing and foolish enough to take up arms against the US, Europe and/or (parts of) Asia. The intertwined-ness of the world economy makes war a less interesting proposition as well in this day and age.