MTG Needs New Leadership and Why Mark Rosewater (MaRo) Should Step Down

[Card Slinger J]

I'm going to talk about what it's like to work for Wizards of the Coast. Like any company Wizards of the Coast has a Glassdoor and even though they are a sub-company of Hasbro, the Glassdoor is separate to Wizards of the Coast. I decided to discuss this from an employer stance, so I employ people for my company and whenever you have employees they only go to Glassdoor when they want to write typically something bad about you. Very similar to Yelp right but here we go. Many of these Glassdoor reviews show that Wizards of the Coasts' management is exactly what Orion D. Black (a Non-Binary African American Freelancer who previously worked for Wizards of the Coast on Dungeons & Dragons) said where people shout, they yell, the management smiles at you, and doesn't listen to your ideas, they don't give you many projects, they just want to have you as almost a token If you're a minority, a woman, or a person of color. Now where does this culture stem from and how does this relate to Magic: the Gathering in general? Well If you look at the reviews they were largely positive until recently. So I've included all the reviews including the positive ones over the past few years but you can see that their rankings have since dropped.

Wizards of the Coast is trying to get away with underpaying its staff, that's why it's developers and MTGO are so bad is they're forcing people who love this game to work at below market prices as you can look at their salaries and that doesn't make any sense except that they love this game. So because they love MTG and they want to be part of something like this they're willing to take a lesser salary to do the same work but when you go out in the talent poll, you're probably not recruiting A level talent, you're probably stuck with B or C or even D level talent and that's a big problem for the game. I can take a look at Play Design. Play Design is just friends and families of the people at Wizards of the Coast. Did you realize that? I'm being totally serious Play Design / Research & Development are literally friends and families' members of Wizards of the Coast employees who then get hired. So I'm going to read you something which should make you know somewhat sense to you. It's called "nepotism". I'm going to read you the definition of it and you let me know If this is exactly what's happening with Wizards of the Coast.

So nepotism, favoritism, is an appointment to a job based on kinship. Nepotism has papal origins during papacy granting many special favors to members of the Pope in particular particularly the persons' nephews, the practice of papaya favoritism was carried on by the Pope's successors and in 1667 was the subject of Gregeria Letty's book two nepotism the roman title being the history of the Pope's nephews. Shortly after the book's appearance, nepotism began to be used in English for showing of special favor or unfair preference to any relative by someone in any position of power and so on. So when we talk about what's going on with Wizards of the Coast it kind of makes sense that not only their kinship, their family members, their friends of a friend, they're just going to hire people with the same political beliefs as them and that's a very dangerous thing to have as a company because when you surround yourself with a bunch of Yes Men even the worst ideas, the answer is "Yes" because no one has a different opinion and sometimes Yes Men actually believe what they're saying because they're so integrated into saying, "Yes" that even a bad idea sounds like a good idea.

So that's the main problem of Wizards of the Coast is you look at Lee Sharpe and Gavin Verhey, they've been there for too long. So there's a lot of turnover at the lower management or the individual levels but there's not turnover Mark Rosewater (MaRo) has been in the company for how long again? A lot of these people have been at this company and that's not to say it's bad right? But they're not quitting anytime soon. So you have to imagine that there is no other company that would ever hire them based on their skill set and because of that fact they're being grossly overpaid in my opinion. Look at Research & Development, I mean think about what Standard would look like If we got rid of all these bans and then they won't have Companions all at the same time. Not like the Companions we know of today but the Companions that were much too powerful right? Look what they did with Terese Nielsen which their company publicly basically defamed her and look what they did with banning cards or certain artworks or titles even like "Crusade" which is an historical event actually. When you think about fantasy, I don't think Crusade is offensive and the term of fantasy is a fantasy element.

So currently we have a company run by individuals who aren't the most talented people and Lee Sharpe said it best when specifically trying to hire a certain gender indentification. So he's not hiring the most talented MTG Arena developer, he's specifically trying to hire based not on talent and that's what Orion D. Black felt was he was only there because or they were only there because they wanted to kind of trot them out as a token which again is not respect and he says that many times that "You do not respect me". That's a really crazy thing to say right? "You don't respect me as a human being." I think it's pretty interesting, it's not a topic that normally we get to discuss very much and I know Double Masters and VIP Masters, that can be discussed by other YouTube Channels but as an employer like this is the worst case scenario is to have people like Noah Bradley to promote more people like him and they're destroying lives. I don't know what's wrong with this company but they specifically don't want background checks.

It's so crazy to me that they don't want background checks AT ANY COST because they're afraid of what may happen and I would be afraid too. Former Dungeons & Dragons Freelancer Orion D. Black posted an open letter accusing Dungeons & Dragons' parents' company Wizards of the Coast of exploiting African Americans. Not only does this African American accuse the company of exploiting African Americans but he also claims that Wizards of the Coast only pays lip service to diversity and attempts to silence anyone who criticizes them. So that's spot on. Remember when they banned everyone from Travis Woo's Facebook Group for a stupid Internet Meme and other controversial MTG YouTube Content Creators? Orion also goes to explain in a tweet why he took a job to work on Dungeons & Dragons at Wizards of the Coast. He took the job for two reasons: the first was the dream. That's what they sell you on. It's almost like a multi-level marketing scam to get you to work for less value than you're actually worth.

I like him a lot as I think he'd be a good fit for my company because that's what you need, you need people that are blocked in accusing Wizards of the Coast hiring them as a diversity hire. Orion firmly believes he was a diversity hire, there was no expectation for him to do anything, much of anything. He probably disrupted them by being vocal and following up. Isn't this like positive things like, "Hey we have a problem in our company, this dude is telling us we have a problem with our company, maybe we should try to publicly address it". Orion also follows up with having worked at another Start Up and the reason that most Start Ups (like Kickstarter and Indiegogo) fail is because people don't care enough. It's always more work to do it's always more things to do and let me just be completely frank with you there's always more things to do. It's very easy to kind of hide in the shadows or view a job as a paycheck but you're not going to last very long at my Start Up at least because we're so small. It's kind of hard to hide away. So you have what I think is the ideal employee for Wizards of the Coast, someone who actually has opinions, whose critical, and cares enough.

Orion elaborated that people generally proposed him as an option and it was accepted because it would look like a radical positive change, it would help quiet vocal outrage, and because he had to stay silent it was a safe bet. Wizards of the Coast was going to start talking about how they were going to treat the staff better, retaining contractors, actually answering questions, how much they were invested in diversity and change even though they hired two Caucasian dudes into two big leadership positions. So until the top with Mark Rosewater (MaRo), Lee Sharpe, and Gavin Verhey, until these people are replaced there will be no change because change comes from the top. He then goes and makes an accusation saying, "If I found out some of my work was stolen which destroyed me, it lined up with a project they were going to do and I sent it to someone in leadership a while ago." This is just a terrible environment to work in. I don't know how it became this bad, I'm sure they had good intentions of course but just until leadership changes, until Mark Rosewater steps down, or is gone nothing is going to change.

[user_938036]

First, this is mildly difficult to read due to poor grammar and sentence structure. It's not a major problem but there are a lot of free software you can get to easily fix these problems if you want to be taken seriously.

On to the actual text.

The main problem is Neopotism but the only proof offered is "trust me its neopotism" I don't know what research this person did but I couldn't find easy links between these people.

The second problem pointed out is nonsensical at best. People are at the company too long? They admit that isn't a problem, but then try to make it a problem by claiming that not wanting to quit means no other company wants to hire you. Then some bull about that means they are overpaid followed by the same nonsense of applying blame for one department to another. This entire section should be cut to make their argument more coherent and less dismissible by being factually wrong.

Then back ground checks are brought up. Which could be a valid thing to talk about except instead of talking about the people who have things in their background that would be discounting they talk about Wizards practice of diversity hires. This is also a problem but shouldn't be in the same section as background checks. Are they claiming that a background check on their diversity hires would disqualify them somehow? Is this an anti diversity campaign now?

Now we get to the point of diversity hires are bad but they get good people but because they were only a diversity hire, no one listens to them. This is a very good point but why are we talking about start-ups? stick to the point, don't derail your own argument.

Then again, with the same blame game. "Until top leadership changes" then goes on to list people we are in fact not the top leadership but do have high placed jobs. It's hard to take this seriously when you blame people who aren't in the places up absolute leadership you paint them to be. Rather than a well thought out complaint, this reads like a poorly thought out hit job by an ill informed individual who had one point of actual data and randomly grabbed at the void for the rest.

[Outcryqq]

Hard to read. Skimmed as best I could. Poor writing, poorly thought out arguments.

A few gripes: workers are paid below market value, but stay to work for a game they love - then quit, go get paid the market value, and recognize that we can't all work at the thing we love while at the same time complaining about our pay. If Wizards indeed pays below market value, maybe if their employees leave for other jobs then the market will dictate to them that they should increase their salaries.

Title of thread says MaRo must go, body of article discusses primarily contains complaints of business decisions (salary, nepotism, deceptive hiring practices, tone deaf leadership) - but isn't MaRo the head DESIGNER? If I had a complaint about how Wizards designs their products, like so many people do, aim those complaints at MaRo. But if you have complaints about Wizards' business dealings, it's pretty deceptive to aim the article at MaRo.

[void_nothing]

Title of thread says MaRo must go, body of article discusses primarily contains complaints of business decisions (salary, nepotism, deceptive hiring practices, tone deaf leadership) - but isn't MaRo the head DESIGNER? If I had a complaint about how Wizards designs their products, like so many people do, aim those complaints at MaRo. But if you have complaints about Wizards' business dealings, it's pretty deceptive to aim the article at MaRo.

This. The whole argument is absolute nonsense because Mark isn't even in charge of those things.

[robertleva]

I agree with the thread title, but yeah the re-post seems a bit off. I do think WOTC are a bunch of spineless cockroaches that will sell out any principle to make a buck. I don't however think they are much different than most companies these days. Keep in mind WOTC headquarters is just south of Seattle so yeah... yikes.

[Card Slinger J]

I agree with the thread title, but yeah the re-post seems a bit off. I do think WOTC are a bunch of spineless cockroaches that will sell out any principle to make a buck. I don't however think they are much different than most companies these days. Keep in mind WOTC headquarters is just south of Seattle so yeah... yikes.

Sounds to me as though Wizards of the Coast are mostly taking heat for Hasbro corporate's mistakes where Wizards of the Coast are just following orders while their parent company Hasbro are the ones calling all the controversial shots that makes their business partner look terrible as a company. It's really a tactic that companies use to avoid bad publicity by shifting blame on others in order to make themselves look innocent to the public eye. The irony is that before Hasbro bought out Wizards of the Coast in 1998 they had none of these problems back when the only Social Media outlets we had were message board forums such as the one we're using now.

[The Fluff]

stopped at the second paragraph..

don't really have any major complaints with wotc..

[robertleva]

stopped at the second paragraph..

don't really have any major complaints with wotc..

Really? Things are just peachy in mtg world for you?

[The Fluff]

pass, not interested to discuss further.

/exits thread

[robertleva]

Well in any case, you are in the minority. Pretty much everyone, from every format, agrees that last few years have been a dumpster fire for MTG. The company is horribly run. Their support for MTGO, the future of the entire IP, has been abysmal. Any sane company would merge MTGO and Arena and then you have a product that can compete with Hearthstone. But nah.

Instead they prefer to enter the world of social justice issues, an area they are WOEFULLY inept at navigating. Meanwhile no paper tourneys allowed anywhere. But here buy my new products that I am releasing??? No, thank you.

[Guardman]

My two cents:

1. They seem to be conflating MaRo's role in the company greatly. MaRo is the face of the company because he is the most engaged with the community. His actual ability to do anything about what is being complained about in the post is probably pretty low. It's like saying you don't like how Ford runs their company and preface that by demanding that the person who designed the Ford Escape is fired.

2. For the people that have been complaining about the state of magic for the past year or two (or more depending on where you stand), I also feel that the complaints about MaRo are misplaced. Now let me preface this that I am not a MaRo apologist, only that I think most people don't understand what his actual role is. At least based on my understanding from reading of his blog and articles, he has very little input on the cards that actually make it to print. That is a different group of people. What he does is more higher level stuff.

For example, you can't blame him for specific cards being too powerful. Cards get added, deleted, and changed a ton from when he hands them off to when they see print. I remember him saying that one of the few cards he ever created that didn't get any changes from creation to print was Walk the Plank. And in the case of Oko, Thief of Crowns he mentioned that he handed off the design file with a blank spot that only mentioned this was where the third planeswalker was supposed to go.

What you can blame him for are themes, and to a lesser extent, mechanics (as mechanics do get changed or tweaked after he hands them off). So if you didn't like the gameplay themes of Ikoria or mutate, that is all fair game to criticize him on. He had a fair amount of input in both. Also he probably deserves a good portion of the blame for Companion.

[5colorsrainbow]

My two cents:

1. They seem to be conflating MaRo's role in the company greatly. MaRo is the face of the company because he is the most engaged with the community. His actual ability to do anything about what is being complained about in the post is probably pretty low. It's like saying you don't like how Ford runs their company and preface that by demanding that the person who designed the Ford Escape is fired.

To add on he's the face of the company for the mtg side, he doesn't have anything to do with DnD or other WotC games.

2. For the people that have been complaining about the state of magic for the past year or two (or more depending on where you stand), I also feel that the complaints about MaRo are misplaced. Now let me preface this that I am not a MaRo apologist, only that I think most people don't understand what his actual role is. At least based on my understanding from reading of his blog and articles, he has very little input on the cards that actually make it to print. That is a different group of people. What he does is more higher level stuff.

Basically, he's in charge of mtg design which makes the mechanics and themes of a set and then hands it off to development who are in charge of card power/balance and gameplay. As head designer of the mtg side of the company he over sees basically every main set but not always the lead designer. World building team, once called creative, also has input on design to make sure it works with the world they wanna build (example it was the world building team who came up with dragon on Tarkir being born as adults from dragon storms and thus no baby dragons in Tarkir in story or on cards).

[The N82O Molecule]

@Guardman well said

if someone asked me if I read id tell them no. if someone asked me if I read Mark Rosewater Id say almost every word since he started his article on the magic website since its origin. it would be a crushing blow to find that he isn't for the people.

[toctheyounger]

This wasn't easy to read, it's a bit of a ramble. It also seems pretty sensationalist, and to be honest those two factors together in an opinion piece make me question the validity of what's being said. I'll buy that WotC perhaps needs a culture change (there's a lot of companies out there that do), but I really don't think the sky is falling.

[user_938036]

@Guardman well said

if someone asked me if I read id tell them no. if someone asked me if I read Mark Rosewater Id say almost every word since he started his article on the magic website since its origin. it would be a crushing blow to find that he isn't for the people.

The only real problem Mark has is that he is a White Straight Male. This means that he is mostly unaware of the suffering others face unless specifically told. He has mentioned how this has led to short comings on his part but he is aware of it and willing to change when such problems are pointed out. As always the biggest problem anyone can have is the unwillingness to be wrong and change.

[Legend]

WotC can't win. If they don't diversity hire (instead of hiring the most qualified), they're racist. I'd they do diversity hire someone who isn't otherwise qualified, it's tokenism. Then the token hire looks everywhere but in a mirror to finds all the reasons why they're still a victim of the undeserving, privileged, straight, white, Jewish man that's the face of Magic. Nevermind the fact that he's a goddam creative genius who earned his position and has worked his ass off for over 20 years to keep it. No, that can't be it. He's just another nepotistic racist that only works there because he can't get a job anywhere else. The chickens have come home to roost at WotC.

The only real problem Mark has is that he is a White Straight Male. This means that he is mostly unaware of the suffering others face unless specifically told.

Mark is Jewish, not "White".
As a white, straight male myself, I have a question for you, for anyone. How do you know that my kind are

mostly unaware of the suffering others face unless specifically told.

?
Huh? How do you know that?
Explain it.
Prove it or recant.

[robertleva]

A lot of this thread would be completely unnessassary if WOTC, you know, acted like a normal company and COMMUNICATED with their base. In 2020 the only official communcations we get from them about how they are thinking about the state of the game is a few paragraphs when they update the banned and restricted list.

This level of communication is unacceptable in the modern world, but it's par for the course over there at WOTC because they are horribly run.

The only reason they have stayed relevant for this many years has been really fun sets, pulling their asses out of the fire over and over. But you can only do that so many times and the power creep at this point has gotten to the point where every set is so pushed you can and should expect cards to break older formats and need bannings.

So welcome to the current state of MTG.

[Krishnath]

I agree with the thread title, but yeah the re-post seems a bit off. I do think WOTC are a bunch of spineless cockroaches that will sell out any principle to make a buck. I don't however think they are much different than most companies these days. Keep in mind WOTC headquarters is just south of Seattle so yeah... yikes.

If you don't like the game, WotC, and the people working for them, why do you keep playing the game?

[robertleva]

I agree with the thread title, but yeah the re-post seems a bit off. I do think WOTC are a bunch of spineless cockroaches that will sell out any principle to make a buck. I don't however think they are much different than most companies these days. Keep in mind WOTC headquarters is just south of Seattle so yeah... yikes.

If you don't like the game, WotC, and the people working for them, why do you keep playing the game?

If you keep reading after the sentence you quoted it answers your question. I dont hate the game, obviously. Who posting on this board hates MTG? None of us come on you know better. I hate the way the game is being managed, and that is the point of this thread.

[Krishnath]

I agree with the thread title, but yeah the re-post seems a bit off. I do think WOTC are a bunch of spineless cockroaches that will sell out any principle to make a buck. I don't however think they are much different than most companies these days. Keep in mind WOTC headquarters is just south of Seattle so yeah... yikes.

If you don't like the game, WotC, and the people working for them, why do you keep playing the game?

If you keep reading after the sentence you quoted it answers your question. I dont hate the game, obviously. Who posting on this board hates MTG? None of us come on you know better. I hate the way the game is being managed, and that is the point of this thread.

I never said you hated the game, i specifically used the wording "don't like", there is a very vast difference between the two. But it still doesn't account for the other two, if you dislike the people working for WotC and the company itself, why do you continue to purchase their products?

For example, I loathe EA and their business practices, despite liking several of their IP's (Mass Effect, Sim City, Spore, and the Sims specifically), but I stopped purchasing their products a long time ago because of my loathing of the company. If you had any true conviction in your belief that WotC was a %$#% company, you'd stop supporting them financially, the fact that you don't do so, makes you a massive hypocrite.

[robertleva]

If you don't like the game, WotC, and the people working for them, why do you keep playing the game?

If you keep reading after the sentence you quoted it answers your question. I dont hate the game, obviously. Who posting on this board hates MTG? None of us come on you know better. I hate the way the game is being managed, and that is the point of this thread.

I never said you hated the game, i specifically used the wording "don't like", there is a very vast difference between the two. But it still doesn't account for the other two, if you dislike the people working for WotC and the company itself, why do you continue to purchase their products?

For example, I loathe EA and their business practices, despite liking several of their IP's (Mass Effect, Sim City, Spore, and the Sims specifically), but I stopped purchasing their products a long time ago because of my loathing of the company. If you had any true conviction in your belief that WotC was a %$#% company, you'd stop supporting them financially, the fact that you don't do so, makes you a massive hypocrite.

I only support them as little as possible. I will not, however, stop playing with my toys because I don't like the toy company. If they make a new toy I want, I will buy it. But I will not be singing their praises. I really don't even see what one has to do with the other. The people that make the game aren't the game itself. I guess that's a common sense fact that is lost in the new woke era.

[Outcryqq]

@robertleva
I appreciate how active you are on these forums; however, I feel like I'm always reading your comments and rolling my eyes. And instead of just replying to you with a short quip, I thought I'd demonstrate why me, and seemingly many others on these forums, seem to get annoyed by your posts - because they seem very contradictory. Because of that, it makes me think you're contrarian just for the sake of being difficult. Let's take your posts only in this thread as an example (extraneous language removed for the sake of brevity):

I do think WOTC are a bunch of spineless cockroaches that will sell out any principle to make a buck.

The company is horribly run.

This level of communication is unacceptable in the modern world, but it's par for the course over there at WOTC because they are horribly run.

I dont hate the game, obviously. I hate the way the game is being managed.

but see also

The people that make the game aren't the game itself.

To me, these seem contradictory - you hate the company, the company is horribly run, you hate the way the game is managed, you don't hate the game, the game is not the people that make it. Yet you agree that MaRo, the DESIGNER of the game you don't hate, must go. And when making your points, as contradictory as they seem to me, you make sure to use inflammatory language and quickly get defensive.

If you want to trash Wizards or Hasbro, have at it! If you want to sing the praises of the game and take issue with the people managing the company, that's fair too. And if you use these forums to discuss these issues, that's great. But when people express their own opinions on these issues, and you respond in a snarky fashion, stop being surprised when people take issue with what you say. Because you're about as contradictory and argumentative as they come on these forums, you shouldn't be surprised when people disagree with what you say and how you say it.

[robertleva]

@outcry: I hear you. I am AWFUL at grammar and typos and proofreading and that is not helping. I think I see where the disconnect is so I will try to restate for you in a NON inflammatory way.

I have no idea how much Hasbro is or isn't involved, so I leave them out of it. To me WOTC are sellouts and they are now flailing in the development area which was their previous area of strength. I still love the game that has so far been created. I have no idea if the leadership of this company will ruin the game but I strongly suspect it will.

I personally do not see any contradictions about loving an existing game and hating it's leadership.

EDIT: Also for the record I have no opinion on MaRo. I do not hold any one person responsible for the mess at WOTC, and anyone who is trying to do so is fighting the wrong battle.

[user_938036]

The only real problem Mark has is that he is a White Straight Male. This means that he is mostly unaware of the suffering others face unless specifically told.

Mark is Jewish, not "White".

The man calls himself white. If you have issues with Jewish people referring to themselves as white then there are much deeper problems here than I can help you with.

As a white, straight male myself, I have a question for you, for anyone. How do you know that my kind are

mostly unaware of the suffering others face unless specifically told.

?
Huh? How do you know that?
Explain it.
Prove it or recant.

I "know" this because repeatedly such people including Rosewater himself have come out and said it. I'm not trying to pull anyone down. Just pointing out real problems that can be worked on. And if as a white straight male you believe you know of all the suffering that minorities face regularly without ever being told about said suffering. I ask you to take a step back and think. Would you actually know about these things if no one talked about them? I am one of these minorities but I didn't even know the majority of the stuff others suffer because I fit two of the above groups, straight male. I've seen others suffer but even what I've seen is a small drop of what is actually happening.

Maro's own words to "Prove it"

There's three truths about myself I must come to terms with. One, I'm a white man that grew up in America in the 70's and 80's. I need to recognize that a lot of things I've internalized as normal and "just part of life" have ugly aspects tied to them. I need to self-educate to understand these biases so that I can remove them. Two, I sometimes miss larger context to the things I say or do. It's on me to use whatever resources necessary to avoid doing this in the future."

You see that part where he admits that things he thought as "Normal" are in fact really bad? That is called self reflection and trying to be a better person. Refelxivly denying accusations is the opposite of this positive trait.

[Krishnath]

If you keep reading after the sentence you quoted it answers your question. I dont hate the game, obviously. Who posting on this board hates MTG? None of us come on you know better. I hate the way the game is being managed, and that is the point of this thread.

I never said you hated the game, i specifically used the wording "don't like", there is a very vast difference between the two. But it still doesn't account for the other two, if you dislike the people working for WotC and the company itself, why do you continue to purchase their products?

For example, I loathe EA and their business practices, despite liking several of their IP's (Mass Effect, Sim City, Spore, and the Sims specifically), but I stopped purchasing their products a long time ago because of my loathing of the company. If you had any true conviction in your belief that WotC was a %$#% company, you'd stop supporting them financially, the fact that you don't do so, makes you a massive hypocrite.

I only support them as little as possible. I will not, however, stop playing with my toys because I don't like the toy company. If they make a new toy I want, I will buy it. But I will not be singing their praises. I really don't even see what one has to do with the other. The people that make the game aren't the game itself. I guess that's a common sense fact that is lost in the new woke era.

Emphasis mine. That there my good sir, makes you a hypocrite.