Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

unitedwizardsofthecoast.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 72 posts

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#51

Post by jshier »

jgalt212 wrote: post #36
sockbot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only in Europe, but in Canada too. Think of the union as a corpo offering bargaining and administrative services. Unions compete with each other for workforces. The typical case would be for a newly unionizing workforce needing to choose which union to join. It is rare, but a workforce can even choose to move to a different union.

But without a monopsony how do these choose your own adventure unions have any real bargaining power?

In countries where meta-strikes are legal, the unions cooperate on basic rights, and strike together when needed. Such coordination is explicitly illegal in the US, and has been since the '30s (IIRC).

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#52

Post by annzabelle »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #40
s1artibartfast wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends heavily on the country but a worker at a company can pick a union to represent them. You might see a billboards saying join Union a or Union B. If you Union a is corrupt or screwing over one group of workers in favor of another group of worker, the laborers will just leave it and go to a different one. This solves a lot of problems with us unions, where they have a state sanctioned Monopoly on the workers.…

On the otherhand, having a plethora of unions at a workplace weakens labor's bargaining power: A US union, by the nature of having a closed shop, has the power to destroy the business with a prolonged strike. Nobody wants that (capital's out their investment, labor's out their jobs), but it serves as the nuclear option from which the union's bargaining power is derived.

This makes US unions very all or nothing, and excessive demands from unions (particularly RE: pensions) have driven many businesses out of business and bankrupted many municipalities.

My understanding is German and Scandinavian unions are much more collaborative and are unlikely to force demands that bankrupt companies.

This is why unions have such a negative connotation in the US. A lot of people see municipal governments being held hostage by unions over pensions and early retirement, and union employees being so hard to fire that you end up with "rubber rooms" and end up associating unions with expensive enshittification of services.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#53

Post by __turbobrew__ »

grimgrin wrote: post #21
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.

yeah. scrolling this expansion list, you can see 2018 was really the last _block_ as we knew them: few sets labeled under a theme an author might write a book about also shortly after we see new sets stopped getting their own wiki articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_n...

There is a whole format of pre-2018 legacy due to how starkly game design changed that year.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#54

Post by josh_p »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #46
josh_p wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m “uhm acshually”-ing a bit. The MLP cards aren’t legal in any format and Transformers, legal in commander yes, was a very small set. You can’t deny the popularity of the Final fantasy set. Selling that well indicates a desire. I don’t think the small secret lair releases deserve the hate. Wizards is still committed to making in-universe sets. The first novel in years was just published with the release of strixhav…

I think it's legit to criticize a game that was fantasy only (about MAGIC) for decades ... when it stopped being that.

I suppose that’s fair. I also think it’s okay for a game that’s been around as long as magic has to change a bit. Maybe an agree to disagree situation.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#55

Post by busterarm »

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.

The average duration that anyone is actively playing a TCG is something like 2 years. There’s also way more players than ever. Most of the new players never engage in online community around their game.

So you may not hear a lot of excitement but that’s still the minority opinion. Universes Beyond sell like gangbusters.

I remember multiple players at my local’s prerelease for TMNT saying that was the most fun they’d had playing a prerelease in years. And none of these things have really sunk in the secondary market after they’ve gone out of print.

Heck my Warhammer 40K collector commander decks are up several hundred percent post release. And I’ve made a small fortune buying up all the things the online MTG community seems to hate…

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#56

Post by busterarm »

josh_p wrote: post #24
hungryhobbit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m “uhm acshually”-ing a bit. The MLP cards aren’t legal in any format and Transformers, legal in commander yes, was a very small set. You can’t deny the popularity of the Final fantasy set. Selling that well indicates a desire. I don’t think the small secret lair releases deserve the hate. Wizards is still committed to making in-universe sets. The first novel in years was just published with the release of strixhav…

Nobody playing commander ever made a stink about peoples alters at the table

People are trying to rationalize their behavior based on their hurt feelings

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#57

Post by busterarm »

d4mi3n wrote: post #10

Worked in tech for a long time before I got to WOTC. Went through a lot of layoffs and short term executive decisions that invariably leave anyone without preferred stock out to dry. Wish I had a union then. Glad to have one now. Edit: Words are my own. I am not a rep of WOTC or Hasbro.

Did you not know what you were getting into? Most folks I know in Seattle have pretty commonly talked about wotc being an absolutely abysmal company to work for going all the way back to the early 00s.

The only reason to be there was for the love and the buying access/perks. That access & perks are long gone.

Had a friend whose dream job was to work on D&D. He's got a fairly high profile in the TTRPG space and developed one major product/book release for D&D. The experience spun him out of Hasbro and the TTRPG industry entirely.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#59

Post by s1artibartfast »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #40
s1artibartfast wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends heavily on the country but a worker at a company can pick a union to represent them. You might see a billboards saying join Union a or Union B. If you Union a is corrupt or screwing over one group of workers in favor of another group of worker, the laborers will just leave it and go to a different one. This solves a lot of problems with us unions, where they have a state sanctioned Monopoly on the workers.…

On the otherhand, having a plethora of unions at a workplace weakens labor's bargaining power: A US union, by the nature of having a closed shop, has the power to destroy the business with a prolonged strike. Nobody wants that (capital's out their investment, labor's out their jobs), but it serves as the nuclear option from which the union's bargaining power is derived.

I think you are confusing terms. Closed (only members can even apply to work) shops were outlawed in the us in 1947.

24 states allow Union shops (workers must join the union after hire).

In theory multiple unions could strike together. Alternatively, dissenting members of a single union can keep working.

In both systems striking is the union leverage.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB

#60

Post by s1artibartfast »

jgalt212 wrote: post #48
reverius42 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like they'd at least have more power than a single-employer union, by virtue of being larger and having more resources.

I'd much rather run a factory where only 10% of my workers may strike than one where 90% may strike.

It is usually like 2 or 3 and they will strike together. Having multiple keeps the unions in check and arguing for a pay raise for 60% of workers and nothing for 40%. I that case, the 40 would form their own union
Post reply on HN