Wizards of the Coast

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Wizards of the Coast
Type Subsidiary
Founded 1990
Headquarters Renton, Washington, USA
Key people Peter Adkison: Founder, ex-Chairman and ex-CEO
Industry Collectible card game, RPG & other assorted media.
Parent Hasbro
Website http://www.wizards.com

Wizards of the Coast (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, and experienced tremendous success with the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Today the company publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. Wizards has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999.[1]

Contents

History

Wizards of the Coast was founded by Peter Adkison in 1990 just outside Seattle, Washington, and their headquarters is still in nearby Renton.[2] Originally the company only published role-playing games such as the third edition of Talislanta and their own The Primal Order. The release of The Primal Order in early 1992 brought legal trouble with Palladium Books suing for references to their game and system.[3] The suit was settled in 1993 by Wizards paying an undisclosed sum to Palladium and agreeing not to mention their products again.[4]

Magic: The Gathering's card back design

Adkison set up a new corporation, Garfield Games, to develop Richard Garfield's collectible card game concept, originally called Manaclash, into Magic: The Gathering. This kept the game sheltered from the legal battle with Palladium, and 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.[3] The game proved extremely popular at Gen Con in August 1993. The success of Magic generated revenue that carried the company out from the handful of employees in 1993 working out of Peter's original basement headquarters into 250 employees in its own offices in 1995.[4]

In 1994, Wizards began an association with The Beanstalk Group, a brand licensing agency and consultancy, to license the Magic brand.[5] Wizards also expanded its role-playing game line by buying SLA Industries from Nightfall Games and Ars Magica from White Wolf, Inc. in 1994.[4] In August 1995, Wizards released Everway and then four months later closed its roleplaying game product line, with Peter Adkison explaining that the company was doing a disservice to the games with lack of support and had lost money on all of their roleplaying game products.[4][5]

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

Wizards announced the purchase of TSR, Inc., the cash-strapped makers of Dungeons & Dragons on April 10, 1997.[4] Many of the creative and professional staff of TSR relocated from Wisconsin to the Renton area, and Wizards re-hired many game designers who had been laid off during the troubled last years of TSR. TSR was used as a brand name for a while, then retired. Wizards of the Coast allowed the TSR trademarks to expire. Between 1997 and 1999, the company spun off several well-loved but poorly-selling campaign settings (most notably Planescape, Dark Sun and Spelljammer) to fan groups, focusing their business primarily on the profitable Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms lines.

On August 2, 1997, Wizards of the Coast was granted U.S. Patent 5,662,332  on collectible card games.[4] In 1999, Wizards of the Coast began publishing the highly successful Pokémon Trading Card Game,[5] which continued for a number of years before Nintendo took back control.

The game and toy giant Hasbro bought Wizards of the Coast in September 1999.[6] In late 1999, Avalon Hill, which had been purchased by Hasbro in the summer of 1998, was made a division of Wizards of the Coast.[7] In June 2002, the computer game Magic: The Gathering Online went "live". [8]

The Dungeons & Dragons v3.5 Player's Handbook

Adkison personally led the team to redesign Dungeons & Dragons for 6 months, before Jonathan Tweet became lead designer.[9] Wizards released the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2000, as well as the d20 System. With these releases came the Open Gaming License, which allowed other companies to make use of those systems. In 2002, Wizards sponsored a design contest which allowed designers to submit their campaign worlds to Wizards, to produce an entirely original campaign world; Wizards selected "Eberron", and its first hardcover book was released in June 2004. In 2003 Wizards released version 3.5 of the Dungeons & Dragons (and thus d20) system.[4]

Vince Caluori became President of Wizards of the Coast in November 1999.[10] As of January 1st, 2001, Peter Adkison resigned from Wizards.[4] Chuck Huebner became President and CEO of Wizards of the Coast in June 2002, and Loren Greenwood succeeded Huebner in these positions in April 2004.[11] Greg Leeds succeeded Loren Greenwood as President and CEO of Wizards of the Coast in March 2008.[12] As of 2008, the company employs over 300 people.[2]

Hasbro sold Origins to GAMA[4], and in May 2002 sold Gen Con to Peter Adkison.[13] Wizards also outsourced their magazines by licensing Dungeon, Dragon, Polyhedron, and Amazing Stories to Paizo Publishing.[4] Wizards released the Dungeons & Dragons miniatures collectable pre-painted plastic miniatures games in 2003, and added a licensed Star Wars line in 2004, and an Axis & Allies World War II miniatures game in 2005. Wizards of the Coast's book publishing division has produced hundreds of titles that have sold millions of copies in over 16 languages.[2]

Wizards of the Coast also ran a chain of 85 gaming retail stores, run under the names "The Game Keeper" and "Wizards of the Coast",[4] including their flagship gaming center on the Ave in Seattle for several years, and their retail stores, which were mostly in shopping malls in the US. The gaming center was closed by March of 2001[3] and eventually Wizards announced in December 2003 that it would close all stores in order to concentrate on game design. The stores were closed in the spring of 2004.[4]

In early 2006, Wizards of the Coast filed a lawsuit against Daron Rutter, then administrator of the MTGSalvation website. [14] The lawsuit accused Rutter of engaging in copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, trade secret violation, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract. The charges stemmed from Rutter publicly posting confidential prototypes for upcoming Magic: The Gathering card sets to the MTGSalvation forums. Wizards of the Coast attempted to obtain summary judgment.[15] The case was settled out of court, and the terms of the settlement have been sealed.[16]

In 2008 Wizards of the Coast, as successor to TSR, was named as a co-creator of Neverwinter Nights when the game was honored (along with Everquest and World of Warcraft) at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form of MMORPG games.[17]

Web community

Wizards has a vocal online community. Its members' posts on "magicthegathering.com" sub forum has made Wizards change some of their online employees, contents of articles and even the content of the website.[citation needed]

Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons game designers have also been known to visit the D20 Character Optimization Board to get information on how character classes have been used, and which ones are considered too powerful.[citation needed]

Wizards Community members have the privileges to:

  • Contribute to "You Make the Card!" project where members create cards of their own that may be chosen to show up in Magic: The Gathering sets.
  • Contribute to "Select Xth Edition" where members present their votes publicly for cards they like to see in Core Sets.

Members run an annual "Urza Awards" competition to recognize the contributions of noteworthy users. Forum moderators also organize "UnCon", Unconventional Convention. Special guests (WotC employees, Artists and Writers) also appear in WotC's "Live Chat'"

From 2007-2008, Wizards' website incorporated a community-focused site called Gleemax.

Games and Products

Further information: List of Wizards of the Coast products

References

  1. ^ "...Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc." "Wizards of the Coast (home page)" (2008). Archived from the original on 2008-06-13. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.
  2. ^ a b c "About Wizards" (HTML). Wizards of the Coast, Inc (2008). Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
  3. ^ a b c Tynes, John (2001-03-23). "Death to the Minotaur: Part 1" (HTML). Salon Media Group, Inc.. Retrieved on 2006-09-01.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Appelcline, Shannon (2006-08-03). "Wizards of the Coast: 1990–Present" (HTML). A Brief History of Game. RPGnet. Retrieved on 2006-09-01.
  5. ^ a b c Tynes, John (2001-03-23). "Death to the Minotaur: Part 2" (HTML). Salon Media Group, Inc.. Retrieved on 2006-09-01.
  6. ^ "Hasbro last Thursday announced its intention to buy Wizards of the Coast, which sells Pokémon trading cards, for about $325 million. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of this month." "Hasbro Buys Pokémon Cards". Phillips Publishing International, Inc. (1999-09-15). Archived from the original on 2008-06-13. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.
  7. ^ "A (Very) Brief History of Avalon Hill" (HTML). CaptainPrimate.com (2008-9-21). Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
  8. ^ ""Wizards Press Release"" (HTML). The Gamer's Temple (2002-06-24). Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
  9. ^ White, Damon (2002-03-24). "Interview with Peter Adkison". GamingReport.com. Archived from the original on 2008-08-25. Retrieved on 2007-06-21.
  10. ^ "Vince Caluori promoted to president of WoTC" (HTML). Fantasy and Science Fiction News (1999-11-17). Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
  11. ^ "Loren Greenwood Named New WotC President" (HTML). ICv2.com (2004-04-21). Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
  12. ^ "Greg Leeds Joins as New Head of Wizards of the Coast" (HTML). Wizards of the Coast, Inc (2008-03-13). Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
  13. ^ Bub, Andrew S. (2003-07-26). "Interview with Peter Adkison". GameSpy.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-21. Archive page 1 (2008-08-25) Archive page 2 (2008-08-25)
  14. ^ "Wizards Of The Coast Takes Legal Action" (HTML). Wizards of the Coast, Inc (2006-01-19). Retrieved on 2006-09-02.
  15. ^ Rutter, Daron (2006-02-18). "Wizards of the Coast vs. Daron Rutter: An Update" (HTML). MTGSalvation.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-02.
  16. ^ Rutter, Daron (2006-04-06). "Wizards vs. rancored_elf: the Resolution" (HTML). MTGSalvation.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-02.
  17. ^ 2008 Tech Emmy Winners from Kotaku.com

External links

Magic: The Gathering
 
Gameplay & History
Gameplay
Magic Staff
Related Companies, Products, & Services
Wizards of the Coast · Magicthegathering.com · Video games · The Sideboard · The Duelist · Scrye

Coordinates: 47°27′52″N 122°13′18″W / 47.46444, -122.22167

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_of_the_Coast"

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