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United Wizards of the Coast

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Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#201

Post by spullara »

awesome_dude wrote: post #53
spullara wrote: post #36

I am skeptical there is any customer benefit from unionization and it makes me concerned that MTG Arena might not be around for long term. As a big customer, I am worried about my investment in the platform with this announcement. MTGO still exists, I wish it had a better client.

Unions rarely form because everyone is being treated well (humanely) and/or paid appropriately. The extreme is, are you only happy when your products are created in sweatshops, or, worse, by slaves?

since some of their gripes are "use ai" and "rto" I don't think we are talking about a sweatshop.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#202

Post by AngryData »

xienze wrote: post #189
qq66 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot simply transfer Magic the Gathering to overseas workers and expect any kind of usable result. It will be from an entirely different cultural framework.

> You cannot simply transfer Magic the Gathering to overseas workers and expect any kind of usable result. If you fed all the lore into an LLM and trained diffusion models on all the artwork I bet you could keep the train running from India until the end of time. The only thing that would derail it is if customers _knew_ it wasn't "authentic."

I don't think LLMs are anywhere near careful enough with their wording to not break the game. Non-native speakers will have a similiar problem if they are extremely proficient.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#203

Post by ddtaylor »

haunter wrote: post #32
ddtaylor wrote: post #30

WOTC has been on a downward trend since the Hasbro acquisition.

That was 27 years ago. They were only founded 9 years before that. The game(s) are more popular than ever, especially D&D

Short form brain rot and fentanyl are more popular than ever.

Popularity is not a reliable metric.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#204

Post by bb88 »

scoofy wrote: post #192
northern-lights wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is filled with so many anti-union takes that you have to wonder if they are paid bots. If you assume that most of the crowd that visits this website works in tech or tech-adjacent fields, how can you be against an entity whose main objective is to safeguard and work for your interests over your employers? Unfathomable that people are willing to do so much against their own best interests. Or...they are bo…

Unions are complicated. Generally speaking they are good for workers, but when they start focusing on job security over compensation and build in seniority-based advantages, the leverage unions have can be wielded against consumers and fellow workers, not just against employers. “Unions are unequivocally good” is about as naive as “unions are unequivocally bad.” It’s always a question of how the union prioritizes the…

On the other hand, it's far more voluminous to catalog the list of corporations acting in bad faith and abusing their employees than finding the abuses of unions.

Firing managers for egregious behavior only makes the legal case for the victims. That's also why cities don't fire bad cops, but instead keep them around until pending litigation is resolved.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#205

Post by scoofy »

bb88 wrote: post #204
scoofy wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are complicated. Generally speaking they are good for workers, but when they start focusing on job security over compensation and build in seniority-based advantages, the leverage unions have can be wielded against consumers and fellow workers, not just against employers. “Unions are unequivocally good” is about as naive as “unions are unequivocally bad.” It’s always a question of how the union prioritizes the…

On the other hand, it's far more voluminous to catalog the list of corporations acting in bad faith and abusing their employees than finding the abuses of unions. Firing managers for egregious behavior only makes the legal case for the victims. That's also why cities don't fire bad cops, but instead keep them around until pending litigation is resolved.

If “who is worse” is a relevant metric, the question of unions would not be complex. Again, though, this is an entirely naive view of what is a very complicated reality.

The very obvious reason that corporations are “worse” is simply that they have more leverage. The idea that “leverage is likely to be abused” is a much more thoughtful heuristic for the paradigm.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#206

Post by lovich »

baconsunday wrote: post #150
lovich wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you’re just as ideologically in your opposition if you’re bringing up James Damore. On opposing H1B as they are implemented now I agree with you, but in a hypothetical world with tech unions James Damore would still be advocating for large swathes of fellow union members to be removed. He was being misogynistic not “basically being autistic”.

I think that Damore was stupid for writing and posting it internally and disagree with portions of it, but almost all of the reactions I saw to his manifesto were to third-hand misrepresentations of it or willful misreadings of it. (e.g. him referring to population statistics on neuroticism being interpreted as him saying that his female coworkers were neurotic). I think your reply is the perfect example: he wasn't a…

> Let me put it this way. Suppose you make an post in an internal politics discussion forum saying that you oppose the H1B program as it is, and then get fired because people claim that you hate immigrants and want your fellow coworkers to be deported. Do you think these unions would defend you?

Yea. But if I made a claim that h1b holders were biologically disinclined to not be as capable of doing software, I wouldn’t.

Damore was just a misogynist.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#207

Post by bb88 »

scoofy wrote: post #205
bb88 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, it's far more voluminous to catalog the list of corporations acting in bad faith and abusing their employees than finding the abuses of unions. Firing managers for egregious behavior only makes the legal case for the victims. That's also why cities don't fire bad cops, but instead keep them around until pending litigation is resolved.

If “who is worse” is a relevant metric, the question of unions would not be complex. Again, though, this is an entirely naive view of what is a very complicated reality. The very obvious reason that corporations are “worse” is simply that they have more leverage. The idea that “leverage is likely to be abused” is a much more thoughtful heuristic for the paradigm.

Your point is noted.

But unions have never existed in a vacuum. And without the context of why they came about, that is from corporations abusing employees, it's easy to say "Unions are complex" when the world in which they exist is far more complex than unions are and perhaps far more vile.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#208

Post by JKCalhoun »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #157
northern-lights wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is filled with so many anti-union takes that you have to wonder if they are paid bots. If you assume that most of the crowd that visits this website works in tech or tech-adjacent fields, how can you be against an entity whose main objective is to safeguard and work for your interests over your employers? Unfathomable that people are willing to do so much against their own best interests. Or...they are bo…

I don't think they're bots, since I've seen the sentiment on HN for a long time. Instead, it reminds me of the idea of people seeing themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". If you see yourself as being part of the capital class in the future and think strong unions hurt the capital class, one might be against them.

I agree.

If not careful, it can come across as elitist: the notion that unions are for people who are replaceable—people that need unions.

I wonder though if those absolutely certain that they thrive in a meritocracy will have second thoughts if/when Corporate decides they're replaceable by AI.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#209

Post by scoofy »

bb88 wrote: post #207
scoofy wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If “who is worse” is a relevant metric, the question of unions would not be complex. Again, though, this is an entirely naive view of what is a very complicated reality. The very obvious reason that corporations are “worse” is simply that they have more leverage. The idea that “leverage is likely to be abused” is a much more thoughtful heuristic for the paradigm.

Your point is noted. But unions have never existed in a vacuum. And without the context of why they came about, that is from corporations abusing employees, it's easy to say "Unions are complex" when the world in which they exist is far more complex than unions are and perhaps far more vile.

I'm generally pro-union. Don't think that just because I criticize them that I don't think they're generally a good idea. The problems I'm pointing to are general problems of democracy in general. Incumbents tend to ignore future generations well-beings when it comes to current generations ability to negotiate.

The point I'm trying to respond to is: "This thread is filled with so many anti-union takes that you have to wonder if they are paid bots."

I think there are plenty of reasons why normal folks are anti-union, and generally, it's because different sets of workers are in different positions and have different perspectives.

Generally speaking, if there were some kind of "Workers Bill of Rights" built into organized labor law, preventing these abuses, there would be much stronger support for unions generally.

You want to be a longshoreman? Tough shit, they aren't any jobs for you as a longshoreman... and it is a total coincidence that the extremely high paying gigs for longshoremen tend go to the children of existing longshoremen. Not to mention their effort to shut out technological improvements that are standard in most other countries now.

You want medical costs to go down? Tough shit, the professional organizations for medicine have managed to artificially limit the number of med school students and residencies.

If there were limits on what unions could to stifle competition within their own industries, if there were limits on the extent of job security for poorly performing union members, if there were legitimate rules that meritocracy has to be the rule, not the exception, then I think the vast majority of Americans would start clamoring for more union membership. What we currently see is a lot of good work, but also a lot of fiefdoms being established and locked down.

There are unions that protect workers from firm's abusive practices. There are also unions that protect lamplighters job from the "tyranny" of the electric light bulb, and make everyone poorer in the process.

Re: United Wizards of the Coast

#210

Post by tbugrara »

northern-lights wrote: post #142
bwestergard wrote: post #83

I'm glad to see this. I don't work in games, but I am a software developer and a member of the Communications Workers of America. I've also taken leave to help workers in games organize. I'm seeing a lot of ideological takes that are disconnected from the reality of unions with software developer members today. If anyone has questions about the CWA or game worker organizing campaigns, I'll do my best to answer.

This thread is filled with so many anti-union takes that you have to wonder if they are paid bots. If you assume that most of the crowd that visits this website works in tech or tech-adjacent fields, how can you be against an entity whose main objective is to safeguard and work for your interests over your employers? Unfathomable that people are willing to do so much against their own best interests. Or...they are bo…

I think you underestimate the anti-union propaganda of the last century. Any working class individual against unions parrot the same surface-level talking points predicated on their own limited understanding of labor. In a way they are bots; the alive variety.
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