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United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

unitedwizardsofthecoast.com

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Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#11

Post by hungryhobbit »

Avicebron wrote: post #4

Hopefully they can push back against some of these collabs. I have yet to meet someone who is thrilled with playing a deck with Post Malone, TMNT, or The Walking Dead in it. The best you get is indifference.

Same here: I own (literally) 50 Commander decks ... and I stopped playing 100% as soon as Transformers and My Little Ponies became cards.

Magic will either become "generic TCG that's unrecognizable to the original" or it's going to pay a very painful long-term cost for their short-term gains.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#12

Post by legitster »

Anytime this comes up, it's worth pointing out how deeply weird US unionization is compared to the broader world.

There is now a union ... just for Wizards of the Coast employees. UWOTC-CWA now has a monopoly on negotiating for WotC employees. Dues flow up to the CWA, but members don't necessarily get the benefit of bargaining industry-wide. There is also no choice within WotC for what union represents you.

It's still a deeply flawed relationship, especially compared to what a median European enjoys. It's not a simple "US companies bad - EU companies good" - the NLRA is in desperate need of reform by Congress and political actors across the US have stymied progress.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#14

Post by derektank »

legitster wrote: post #12

Anytime this comes up, it's worth pointing out how deeply weird US unionization is compared to the broader world. There is now a union ... just for Wizards of the Coast employees. UWOTC-CWA now has a monopoly on negotiating for WotC employees. Dues flow up to the CWA, but members don't necessarily get the benefit of bargaining industry-wide. There is also no choice within WotC for what union represents you. It's stil…

I’m familiar with sectoral bargaining in the abstract but wasn’t aware European workers had the ability to choose which union represented them in negotiations. How does that work in practice?

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#15

Post by bluefirebrand »

Avicebron wrote: post #4

Hopefully they can push back against some of these collabs. I have yet to meet someone who is thrilled with playing a deck with Post Malone, TMNT, or The Walking Dead in it. The best you get is indifference.

I don't think current WOTC actually cares if people play MTG at all, only if they continue buying cards. It has become a collectible more than a game

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#16

Post by kayson »

p1necone wrote: post #7
Avicebron wrote: post #4

Hopefully they can push back against some of these collabs. I have yet to meet someone who is thrilled with playing a deck with Post Malone, TMNT, or The Walking Dead in it. The best you get is indifference.

I completely lost interest in Magic when they started churning out all the licensed crossovers. It feels like they really jumped the shark compared to how they used to be - they used to seemingly care deeply about the lore, gameplay, structure of releases etc whereas now it all just feels like a cash grab.

I feel that. I really do. But I also LOVED the Avatar crossover. To be fair, I haven't played any other ones, but this one played so well and seemed to be very well thought out. They really did the IP justice.

It's also probably worth pointing out that Lego was nearing bankruptcy and was saved by a ton of licensing (and Ninjago, to be fair). Fortunately, they've used that income stream to still consistently put out a lot of high quality first party sets. Hopefully WotC doesn't lose sight...

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#17

Post by s1artibartfast »

Avicebron wrote: post #4

Hopefully they can push back against some of these collabs. I have yet to meet someone who is thrilled with playing a deck with Post Malone, TMNT, or The Walking Dead in it. The best you get is indifference.

Seems highly unlikely. Us unions Almost Never have input in product strategy and marketing decisions. That isn't part of their Union contract and they don't have a seat at the table of governance

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#20

Post by JuniperMesos »

Avicebron wrote: post #4

Hopefully they can push back against some of these collabs. I have yet to meet someone who is thrilled with playing a deck with Post Malone, TMNT, or The Walking Dead in it. The best you get is indifference.

As a counter-point, I was hanging out with my brother the other day, who has recently gotten into Magic the Gathering, and he was specifically talking about the TMNT collab as something he thought was neat (I wasn't aware of that specific collab until he mentioned it). I suspect that the collabs are actually making WotC a decent amount of money, because people who do not share your specific tastes are buying them.
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