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Wizards of the Coast

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Wizard Entertainment.

Wizards of the Coast LLC
FormerlyWizards of the Coast, Inc.
(1990–2009)
TypeSubsidiary
Industry
  • Collectible card games
  • role-playing games
  • magazines
Founded1990; 31 years ago (1990)
FounderPeter Adkison
Headquarters
Renton, Washington
,
United States
47°27′52″N 122°13′18″W / 47.46444°N 122.22167°W / 47.46444; -122.22167Coordinates: 47°27′52″N 122°13′18″W / 47.46444°N 122.22167°W / 47.46444; -122.22167
Key people
  • Chris Cocks
    (President)
  • David Schwartz
    (VP, Digital Publishing)
  • Timothy O'Hara
    (SVP, Finance and Operations)
Products
Number of employees
1,000+ (2020)
ParentHasbro (1999–present)
SubsidiariesSee § Studios
Websitewizards.com

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidiary of Hasbro,[1][2] which acquired the company in 1999.[3] During a February 2021 reorganization at Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast became the lead part of the new "Wizards and Digital" division.[4][5]

Originally a role-playing game publisher, the company originated and popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s. It also acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by buying TSR and increased its success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington, part of the Seattle metropolitan area.[6][7]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company also produced sports cards sets, releasing association football, baseball, basketball and American football series.

History[]

Original logo designed by Rich Kaalaas[8]

Wizards of the Coast (or WOTC) was founded by Peter Adkison in 1990 outside Seattle, Washington,[9] and its current headquarters are located in nearby Renton.[10] The company was named after a guild of wizards from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign Adkison was playing.[8] Originally the company only published role-playing games such as the third edition of Talislanta and its own The Primal Order.[9] The 1992 release of The Primal Order, a supplement designed for use with any game system,[11] brought legal trouble with Palladium Books for references to Palladium's game and system.[12] The suit was settled in 1993.[13]

In 1991, Richard Garfield approached Wizards of the Coast with the idea for a new board game called RoboRally, but was turned down because WOTC felt the game would have been too expensive to produce.[14] Instead, Adkison asked Garfield if he could invent a game that was both portable and quick-playing, to which Garfield agreed.[14][15]

Adkison set up a new corporation, Garfield Games, to develop Richard Garfield's collectible card game concept, originally called Manaclash, into Magic: The Gathering. The new name kept the game sheltered from the legal battle with Palladium. Garfield Games then licensed the production and sale rights to Wizards until the court case was settled, at which point the shell company was shut down. Wizards debuted Magic in July 1993 at the Origins Game Fair in Dallas.[12] The game proved extremely popular at Gen Con in August 1993, selling out of its supply of 2.5 million cards - an amount which had been scheduled to last until the end of the year.[14] The success of Magic generated revenue that transformed the company in two years from a handful of employees working out of Peter's basement headquarters into 250 employees in its own offices.[13] In 1994, Magic won both the Mensa Top Five mind games award[16] and the Origins Awards for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game of 1993 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game of 1993.[17]

In 1994, Wizards began an association with The Beanstalk Group, a brand licensing agency and consultancy, to license the Magic brand.[18] After the success of Magic, Wizards published RoboRally in 1994 and it won the 1994 Origins Awards for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game.[19] Wizards also expanded its role-playing game line by buying SLA Industries from Nightfall Games and Ars Magica from White Wolf in 1994.[13] In 1995, Wizards published another card game by Richard Garfield, The Great Dalmuti, which won the 1995 Mensa Best New Mind Game award.[20] In August 1995, Wizards released Everway before closing its roleplaying game product line four months later. In 1995, Wizards' annual sales passed US$65 million.[21]

Acquisition of TSR and Pokémon Trading Card Game[]

Peter Adkison, founder of Wizards of the Coast, at Gen Con Indy 2007

Wizards announced the purchase of TSR, the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, on April 10, 1997.[13][22][23] Wizards acquired TSR and Five Rings Publishing Group for $25 million.[24] As part of the sale, TSR employees were offered an opportunity to relocate from Wisconsin to the west coast.[25][23] Wizards continued to use the TSR brand name until 2000 and allowed the trademark to expire in 2004.[26] Between 1997 and 1999, the company spun off several TSR campaign settings, including Planescape, Dark Sun, and Spelljammer to focus the business on what the company deemed to be the more profitable Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms lines.[27]

In summer 1997, Wizards revisited the concept of a 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, having first discussed it soon after the purchase of TSR.[28][29] Wizards released the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2000 alongside the d20 System.[29][30] With these releases came the Open Game License which allowed other companies to make use of those systems.[13]

The new edition of the D&D game won multiple Origins Awards in 2000 such as Best Roleplaying Game for Dungeons & Dragons and Best Graphic Presentation of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement for the Monster Manual.[31] In 2002, Wizards sponsored a design contest which allowed designers to submit proposals to the company to produce a new campaign world. Wizards selected "Eberron", submitted by Keith Baker, and its first campaign book was released in June 2004.[9] The Eberron Campaign Setting won the 2004 Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Supplement.[32] In 2003, Wizards released version 3.5 of Dungeons & Dragons and the d20 system.[13] The 30th anniversary of the D&D game was celebrated at Gen Con Indy 2004.[33]

Pokémon TCG[]

On August 2, 1997, Wizards of the Coast was granted U.S. Patent 5,662,332 on collectible card games.[13] In January 1999, Wizards of the Coast began publishing the Pokémon Trading Card Game after acquiring the rights in August 1998.[34][18] The game sold nearly 400,000 copies in less than six weeks and sold 10 times better than Wizards's initial projections.[35] Some sports card series were discontinued in 1999 because so many printers were producing Pokémon cards.[14] The game won the 1999 National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval.[19]

Within a year, Wizards had sold millions of copies of the Pokémon game and the company released a new set that included an instructional CD-ROM.[36] Wizards continued to publish the game until 2003. One of Nintendo's affiliates, Pokémon USA, began producing a new edition for the game one day after the last of its agreements with Wizards expired September 30, and Wizards filed suit against Nintendo the following day, October 1, 2003, accusing them of "abandoning a contract with Wizards, the longtime producer and distributor of Pokémon trading-card games, and using Wizards-patented methods and technology to manufacture the games itself."[37][38] The two companies resolved their differences in December 2003 without going to court.[39]

Retail stores[]

After the company's success in 1999 with Pokémon,[14] Wizards of the Coast acquired and expanded The Game Keeper, a US chain of retail gaming stores, eventually changing its name to Wizards of the Coast.[40][41] The company's gaming center in Seattle was closed in March 2001.[12] In December 2003, Wizards announced that it would close all of its stores in order to concentrate on game design.[40][42] The stores were closed in the spring of 2004.[13]

Acquisition by Hasbro[]

In September 1999, Hasbro bought Wizards of the Coast for about US$325 million.[3][43] Avalon Hill was made a division of Wizards of the Coast, in late 1999; the company had been purchased by Hasbro in the summer of 1998.[44][45] In November 1999, Wizards announced that Gen Con would leave Milwaukee after the 2002 convention.[46] Also in November, Vince Caluori became President of Wizards of the Coast.[47]

On January 1, 2001, Peter Adkison resigned from Wizards.[13] In August 2001, the company went from a semi-independent division of Hasbro to being consolidated into Hasbro's game division. ICv2, an industry trade magazine, reported that "this is seen as a loss of autonomy for WotC by most. The Hasbro release specified that despite the consolidation at the management level, WotC will continue to operate out of its Seattle offices".[48] Between 2001 and 2002, Hasbro sold Origins to GAMA,[13] and in May 2002 sold Gen Con to Peter Adkison.[49] Around this time, Wizards outsourced its magazines by licensing Dungeon, Dragon, Polyhedron, and Amazing Stories to Paizo Publishing.[13][50]

2000–2010[]

Chuck Huebner became President and CEO of Wizards of the Coast in June 2002.[51][52] In 2003, the company employed 850 people.[53] Throughout the early 2000s, Wizards won multiple Origins Awards, including: 2001 Best Role-Playing Game Supplement (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting) and the Best Game Related Novel (Clan War 7th Scroll: The Lion); 2002 Best Role-Playing Adventure (City of the Spider Queen); 2005 Collectible Card Game or Expansion of the Year (Ravnica: City of Guilds expansion for Magic: The Gathering) and Gamer’s Choice Best Historical Game of the Year (Axis and Allies Collectible Miniatures Game), and the 2006 Miniature or Miniatures Line of the Year (Colossal Red Dragon).[54][55][56][57]

In 2002, Wizards of the Coast's periodicals department was spun off and Paizo Publishing got the license to produce Dragon and Dungeon magazines. The license expired in September 2007 and Wizards began publishing the magazines online.[58][59] In 2003, Wizards released the Dungeons & Dragons miniatures collectible pre-painted plastic miniatures games. In 2004, the company added a licensed Star Wars line. In April 2004, Loren Greenwood succeeded Huebner in his positions.[60][61] Also in 2004, Avalon Hill became a subsidiary of Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast division.[45]

In early 2006, Wizards of the Coast filed a lawsuit against Daron Rutter, who was then administrator of the MTG Salvation website.[62] The charges stemmed from Rutter publicly posting confidential prototypes for upcoming Magic: The Gathering card sets to the MTG Salvation forums,[62] ten months before the cards were to be released.[63][64] The lawsuit was settled out of court, according to Mark Rosewater.[63]

Greg Leeds succeeded Greenwood as President and CEO of Wizards of the Coast in March 2008.[65][66] Then on June 6, 2008, Wizards released the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Wizards began introducing 4th Edition online content in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. The 4th Edition was designed to offer more streamlined game play, while the new rules framework intended to reduce the preparation time needed to run a game and make the game more accessible to new players.[67][68][69][70]

Throughout the 2000s, Wizards released new editions of Magic: The Gathering (Seventh Edition in 2001, Eighth Edition in 2003, Ninth Edition in 2005, and Tenth Edition in 2007). In 2009, Wizards announced a new edition called Magic 2010, which was the first major rules change to Magic since the Revised Edition was released in 1994.[71][72] According to Aaron Forsythe, the new set was intended to make the game easier for players of all levels to play.[73] Magic 2010 was the first core set since Beta to feature new cards and it was the first core set with planeswalkers.[72][74]

By 2008, the company employed over 300 people[75] and went through a restructuring.[76] On April 6, 2009, Wizards of the Coast suspended all sales of its products for the Dungeons & Dragons games in PDF format from places such as OneBookShelf and its online storefronts RPGNow and DriveThruRPG.[77][78] This coincided with a lawsuit brought against eight people in an attempt to prevent future copyright infringement of their books, and included the 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons products that were made available through these places, as well as all older editions PDFs of the game.[79][80]

2010–2020[]

Wizards of the Coast logo (2010-2021)

In 2012, Ethan Gilsdorf, for the New York Times, reported that Dungeons & Dragons sales had slumped.[81] Despite the company not releasing sales figures, analysts and gaming experts that sales had been declining.[81] That year, Wizards announced a public playtest to develop a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons called D&D Next.[81][82][83][84] The 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons was released on July 15, 2014, with the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set featuring a set of pre-generated characters, a set of instructions for basic play, and an adventure module Lost Mine of Phandelver.[85][86][87] In 2014, 126,870 units of the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set were sold. In 2018, 306,670 units of the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set were sold.[88]

In 2014, 20th Century Fox acquired the screen rights to Magic the Gathering to turn the property into a movie series with Simon Kinberg attached to the project.[89][90] Wizards filed a lawsuit against Cryptozoic Entertainment and Hex Entertainment in 2014 alleging that their online card game Hex: Shards of Fate was a Magic the Gathering clone.[91] All three companies agreed to a settlement the following year.[92] In 2015, it was reported that an estimated 20 million people played Magic the Gathering around the world and that the game had tournaments, a professional league and a weekly organized game program called Friday Night Magic.[93]

In 2015, Wizards won multiple Origins Awards, including: Role-Playing Game Fan Favorite (Dungeon & Dragons: Players Handbook), Role-Playing Supplement Fan Favorite (Dungeon & Dragons: Monster Manual), and Collectible Card Game (Magic the Gathering: Khans of Tarkir).[94]

Since the release of 5th edition, there have been over twenty Dungeon & Dragons books published including new rulebooks, campaign guides and adventure modules.[95][96] According to The Seattle Times, 2017 had "the most number of players in its history".[97] In Bloomberg, Mary Pilon reported that sales of 5th edition Dungeon & Dragons "were up 41 percent in 2017 from the year before, and soared another 52 percent in 2018." Also, "In 2017, 9 million people watched others play D&D on Twitch."[88]

In 2016, Wizards of the Coast partnered with OneBookShelf to create an online community content program called Dungeon Masters Guild (DMsGuild) that allowed creators to make and sell content using Wizards of the Coast properties. In addition to being able to purchase community content, older editions of Dungeon & Dragons are available to be purchased on DMsGuild as PDFs or as print on demand books.[98][99][100]

In 2016, Chris Cocks was announced as a replacement for Greg Leeds.[101][7][102][103] Giaco Furino, for Vice, wrote of high tensions at the company over deadlines.[104] In 2019, Wizards of the Coast became a member of the Entertainment Software Association.[105][106]

In April 2019, Wizards of the Coast announced gaming industry veteran, James Ohlen, as the head of its new studio based in Austin, Texas; in January 2020 the new studio was revealed to be Archetype Entertainment.[107][108] In June 2019, Netflix announced that Anthony and Joe Russo would partner with Wizards to create an animated series based on the mythology of Magic the Gathering. The Russo brothers were executive produce on the series, with writers Henry Gilroy and Jose Molina as showrunners and Bardel Entertainment on animation.[109][110] In July 2019, Joe Deaux reported in Bloomberg that "Magic is part of the [Hasbro’s] 'franchise brands,' a segment that accounted for $2.45 billion in net revenue for the company last year." According to Chris Cocks, Magic accounted for a 'meaningful portion' of that, and KeyBanc estimated the game’s contribution was more than $500 million of the franchise brands.[43]

In open beta testing since September 2018, Wizards released a Hearthstone competitor in 2019 called Magic: The Gathering Arena which is a free-to-play digital collectible card game with microtransaction purchases.[111][112] Brett Andress, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, predicted that Magic: The Gathering Arena would add at least a 20% boost to earnings.[43]

2020–present[]

During the Hasbro earnings call in February 2020, Chief Executive Officer Brian D. Goldner reported that Wizards of the Coast was delivering positive results and that the company planned to double WotC's revenues between 2018 and 2023.[113] He also reported that Magic: The Gathering's revenues increased over 30%, Magic: The Gathering Arena had a strong first year and Dungeons & Dragons revenues grew for the sixth straight year.[113] During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Wizards of the Coast partnered on a webcam version of Magic: The Gathering playable online called SpellTable, which allows remote play of the Commander format.[114][115]

In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Ash Parrish wrote in Kotaku about WotC's statement in support of their Black fans, employees, and communities. However, Wizards' statement was criticized as 'an act of gross tokenism'.[116] The New York Times, Polygon and Kotaku all reported that Wizards of the Coast then banned seven cards depicting racist imagery from tournament sanctioned play and removed the card art from the official card index site Gatherer. These cards, Invoke Prejudice, Cleanse, Stone-Throwing Devils, Pradesh Gypsies, Jihad, Imprison, and Crusade, dated back to 1994.[117][118][116] Polygon highlighted that the Invoke Prejudice card "effectively kills off creatures that don’t look like the creatures already on the table" and that the card on Gatherer was displayed "at a web URL ending in '1488,' numbers that are synonymous with white supremacy".[118]

A week later, Polygon reported that the D&D team announced that it would be making changes to portions of its 5th edition product line that fans had called out for being insensitive, including racist portrayals of a people known as the Vistani, an in-fiction analog for the Romani people. The company also announced plans to be make changes to character creation to broaden the permissible spectrum of character types.[119] Historically, some races in Dungeons & Dragons have been automatically evil,[120][121] and have been described with "language used to denigrate nonwhite peoples of the real world, specifically those of Asian or Black ethnicity".[122] In their official statement, the D&D Team wrote that some of the peoples in the game, such as orcs and drow, have been characterized as monstrous and evil, and their descriptions were reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. The company stated that these descriptions were "just not right, and it’s not something we believe in." They also admitted that, despite conscious efforts to the contrary, they allowed some old descriptions to reappear in the game.[123][124]

In July 2020, Wizards of the Coast added a sensitivity disclaimer to some legacy products that are on sale digitally.[125] Many of these products feature cultures inspired by Asia, Mesoamerica, and the Middle East.[126] Sebastian Modak, for The Washington Post, reported that the tabletop community has widely approved these changes. Modak wrote that "in its statement addressing mistakes around portrayals of different peoples in the D&D universe, Wizards of the Coast highlighted its recent efforts in bringing in more diverse voices to craft the new D&D source books coming out in 2021." However, Orion D. Black, a narrative designer, who was contracted by Wizards for seven months, wrote a statement describing a workplace where they felt tokenized and neglected. He also wrote that the company's conversations about depictions of race and alleged treatment of employees of marginalized backgrounds and identities had encouraged players to seek out other tabletop roleplaying experiences.[127]

In October 2020, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman filed suit against Wizards of the Coast for breaching a licensing deal with Weis and Hickman for a new Dragonlance novel trilogy.[128][129] Boing Boing reported that "according to the lawsuit, Weis and Hickman agreed with Wizards of the Coast to produce the new novels in 2017, capping off the series and giving fans a final sendoff. But the company pulled the plug in August 2020".[130] In December 2020, Weis and Hickman filed to voluntarily dismiss without prejudice their lawsuit,[131] and "the filing noted that Wizards of the Coast had not formally answered their lawsuit, nor had they filed for a summary judgement".[132]

In December 2020, Matthew Gault reported for Wired on the roundtable discussions Wizards of the Coast has hosted with fans and community leaders on diversity and inclusion. However, Gault also highlighted that other efforts, such as revisions to old material and the release of new material, have been less great and at times minimal. Gault wrote, "Stereotypes, regressive ideas about race and thoughtless caricatures are baked into the setting. WotC appears to be trying to change things, but it keeps stumbling, and it's often the fans who pick up the pieces. [...] WotC is trying to make changes, but it often feels like lip service".[133]

In January 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that, according to Liz Schuh, head of publishing and licensing for Dungeons & Dragons, "revenue was up 35% in 2020 compared with 2019, the seventh consecutive year of growth," and in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, "virtual play rose 86% [...] aided by online platforms such as Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds".[134] Sarah Parvini, for the Los Angeles Times, wrote, "players and scholars attribute the game’s resurgent popularity not only to the longueurs of the pandemic, but also to its reemergence in pop culture" including on shows such as the Netflix series Stranger Things and the sitcom The Big Bang Theory or via celebrities who play the game.[134]

In February 2021, during the 2021 Investor Event, Hasbro announced a company reorganization with three divisions: Consumer Products, Entertainment, and Wizards & Digital.[4][5] The Wall Street Journal reported that "Wizards & Digital will house the assets of Wizards of the Coast and focus on expanding the existing games, creating new ones and overseeing digital licensing for the entire business". The Journal also reported that "Hasbro’s net revenue fell 8% last year", but Wizards of the Coast "posted revenue of $816 million last year, up 24% from 2019.[4] The announcement was paired with a rebrand including a new logo and refreshed website for Wizards of the Coast.[135][136]

Wizards opened a new development video game studio in September 2021 led by Ames Kirshen, formely Vice-president of Production & Creative at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) on DC Comics game franchises like Batman Arkham series.[137] The first project of studio will be a high-budget game based on the G.I. Joe franchise.[138]

Studios[]

  • Archetype Entertainment in Austin, Texas, U.S.; opened in April 2019.[139][140]
  • Mirrorstone Books; opened in 2004.[141]
  • Studio X in Renton, Washington, U.S.; opened in 2018.[142]
  • Tuque Games in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; founded in 2012, acquired in October 2019.[143]
  • Unnamed studio in Raleigh, North Carolina, led by Ames Kirshen, formerly vice-president of production and creative at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE), opened in September 2021.[144]
  • Wizards Kids Studio in Seattle, Washington, U.S.; opened in December 2020.[145]

Former[]

  • Avalon Hill in Renton, Washington, U.S.; founded 1952, acquired by Hasbro in 1998, moved to Wizards of the Coast in 2004, moved again to Hasbro Games in 2021.[146][147]
  • Last Unicorn Games in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.; founded in 1994, acquired and dissolved in 2000.[148]
  • TSR, Inc. in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, U.S.; founded in 1973, acquired and dissolved in 1997.[22][23]

See also[]

References[]

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