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The Courts Government Entertainment Games News

Wizards of the Coast Sues Rumor Site 64

Posted by Zonk from the they-were-doing-so-well-there-for-a-while dept.
foo fighter writes "Wizards of the Coast is suing the owner of MTG Salvation, a site that posts rumors and spoilers about upcoming releases of Magic: the Gathering. This suit has come as a disappointing and disturbing shock to Magic's large and diverse community and raises several questions too familiar to Slashdot readers: Do leaks of upcoming products really hurt sales of those products? Do these kind of lawsuits damage the companies initiating them more than they help?"
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Wizards of the Coast Sues Rumor Site More

Wizards of the Coast Sues Rumor Site

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  • From the article... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Orrin Bloquy ( 898571 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @03:30PM (#14521122) Journal
    ...Apparently WoC is in talks with Fark to integrate all the user-made cards played in Fark discussions, including "Summon Bevets" and "The Goggles."

  • And... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @03:31PM (#14521128) Homepage
    And more importantly, how many lands did they have to tap to initiate this lawsuit?

  • Other than to piss off a large proportion of the magic community I'm not sure why wizards would do this. The rumour mill fires anticipation rather than deadens it, and I'd hazard a guess that it boosts both pre-release attendance and sales. Not that they need boosting, they're practically printing money as it is.
    • This was explained by Wizards at GenCon several years ago.

      WotC is the Big Kid on the Block... very big. And as a result, WotC is slow... very slow. The products they'll be releasing six months to a year from now are already done, and in some cases, printed.

      Other, smaller gaming companies are far more nimble, and can react to WotC rumors by producing simlar products, bringing them to market FIRST. So the rumor sites can hurt WotC by giving competitors ideas that can be used to reach market first.

      I don't a
      • With stuff like Combo Winter lurking in Wizard's collective nightmares, and the more recent Affinity debacle (the reason I stopped playing Magic altogether) rearing it's head, Wizards needs to have their sets designed as far in advance as humanly possible, so that they can test the bajeezus out of them, so that these ridiculously broken cards and combos are identified as early as possible.

        There's apparently an internal Magic league in the design department of Wizards designed to help these kind of broken th
        • There's apparently an internal Magic league in the design department of Wizards designed to help these kind of broken things float to the surface. Most of the time it works well enough. It kept them going well up until Mirrodin, where they were 100% blind to the fact that they had printed Skullclamp, the most overpowered card since Memory Jar.

          The problem cards that have come out of WotC recently (Skullclamp, and to a lesser extent, Umezawa's Jitte) were all the result of modifications to the card *after*

          • Yes, the problem was that they didn't playtest their changes anywhere near as hard as they tested the original card.

            A failure of the playtesting system, not to mention the people on the playtesting system, which had been doing fairly well up until Mirrodin.
  • I don't understand what the harm is when product releases sneak out - especially given the huge amount of hype it tends to generate. The only thing I can think of is that it might help for companies to manage expectations as leaked info often sounds better than what actually gets released. On the flip side, though, you can't buy the kind of loyalty that is evident when you have a whole community built up around the hype of products that aren't even released yet!

  • Too different to compare, I think (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jclast ( 888957 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @03:45PM (#14521250) Homepage

    Since the article summary posed the question: Do leaks of upcoming products really hurt sales of those products?

    You've got to compare similar things. A leaked image of what a new Magic card looks like will get people talking and strategizing and whatnot. A leaked version of a complete game gets people downloading and playing.

    For one thing, you can't play a tournament with cards you printed yourself. You'll get laughed out of any serious match I can think of, too. Hell, my friends would laugh at me if I tried to play with Xeroxed cards. If I fire up a leaked version of a single-player game, nobody knows but me. Assuming the game is complete, I could play through the whole thing. Magic is a game that is played in person with tangible, physical things. That changes everything.

    • Re:Too different to compare, I think (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      my friends would laugh at me if I tried to play with Xeroxed cards

      Don't worry, you'll be laughed at playing with real cards too.

    • I think that the more apt comparison would be between this and Apple. As you say a leaked image of a Magic Card cannot really be used by most players. Yes there are *some* who might print it out but those people are likely photocopying whole decks anyway so they are not really lost revenue (0 - 0 = 0). Similarly there is little competitive advantage in that competing game companies are not able to rush better products to market based upon this information, nor is anyone going to make a knock-off. Again,
    • For one thing, you can't play a tournament with cards you printed yourself.

      You most certainly can. Just not DCI sanctioned ones.

    • Strange.. I played quite a number of games with xeroxed cards back in my Magic days.
      Things were getting boring, so I borrowed some killer cards, went to office depot, and spent a couple hours with a razor and some glue and some old lands. Ended up with a very cool deck.

      The guys were so amazed with the exotic deck I was playing with, it never occurred to them to check if they were fake or not (I did tell them at the end of the night, and it was a FUN night of gaming, for everyone).

      I *think* I had a way to ge
  • or just about any auto manufacturer sue the various car magazines for printing their obviously surrepticiously obtained photos of new models?

    I think any company that sues is doing more harm than good. Why hurt those that love your products and are eager for some insider information? Companies might win a trade secret battle only to lose a public relations war.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • A large number of those car magazine photos are obtained by knowing where cars are driven for real-life road tests and basically being in the right place at the right time. So, for these type of photos, the car is in the public eye. There is sometimes a certain amount of disguise used on the vehicle to cover it up, but it's being driven on a public road.
    • They do, last year, a website leaked a pic of the Z06. And the GM lawyers in their infinite wisdom decided to after all the corvette enthusiast sites and threatened law suits. What happens in the auto industry is that automakers give high rez pics to magazines in exchange for a promise that they won't publish until a certain date. This is good for magazines because they have a chance to work with their images and layout and knows that other magazines won't scoop them

      However, if the magazine takes a pic o
  • According the press release, the lawsuit is over disclosure of trade secrets. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding about "trade secrets" is that you have actively protect your secrets or they cease to become secrets. From a free legal advice website [freeadvice.com]:

    Courts generally require active steps to protect the secrecy of valuable information. However, if there's a stated "don't tell" policy, then that can represent sufficient activity to preserve secrecy. Here too, the nature of the secret will dictate the typ

    • Re:Trade Secret Issues (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lehk228 ( 705449 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @04:22PM (#14521599) Journal
      more likely they have to sue in order to find out who on their staff leaked the info, then the real suing can begin.
      • And what happens if it's just that the notes from the last board meeting were found sitting beside the dumpster? A *lot* of companies safeguard their computers, records, etc... but really don't pay enough attention to the sticky notes and leaflets that end up in the ol' bin.
    • Once it's out in the public domain, it's no longer a trade secret. You can't put the monkey back in the bag. You can go after the person that leaked it, but that's because they signed a non disclosure agreement, absent such an ageeement, an innocent third party who did not have reason to know it was a trade secret is free to divulge it all they want.

  • Actually... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Toloran ( 858954 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @03:53PM (#14521336)
    I read TFA and they AREN'T sueing him over cards that were spolied before the set came out. They are suing him over posting prototype cards for a set another year off. These cards aren't supposed to be EVER seen by the public. In addition, unlike other leaks, these can only come from someone working at Wizards of the Coast.

    This lawsuits primary purpose is to find the names of Darons sources. The only reason they are going after him is because hes the only one whos name they know.

  • WoC == NHL (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ShadowsHawk ( 916454 )
    I put this on the level of the NHL striking for a full year. It hurts your profits, damages your customer relations, and costs the trust of your fans. Way to go WoC!
  • MTG Salvation published information that they were given by individuals. MTG Salvation is not responsible for where those individuals got the information, or whether those individuals had the right to give them the info.

    For the WoTC employees who leaked the info -- depending on their NDA, they may be liable for a civil suit (but good luck proving damages, WoTC!).

    Doesn't seem to me like MTG Salvation did anything wrong -- unless the unpublished material was copyrighted (and it normally isn't, until publ

  • Article incorrect (Score:3, Informative)

    by 1WingedAngel ( 575467 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @04:17PM (#14521550) Homepage
    The suit is being filed against one of the Site Admins (who partially got his admin status due to his consistency on posting spoilers). The site owner is not the target of the suit.

    • Re:Article incorrect (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20, 2006 @05:16PM (#14522083)
      This is correct, the suit is pending against one single user at MTGSalvation, not the site itself or the head anmin. Daren aka Rancored_Elf has only been an admin 2 months and stepped down to global mod this morning (the promotion was originaly announced as temporary)

      MTGSalvation would like to have the article edited to point this out

      from the thread at MTGS:

      -The slashdot article is INCORRECT. Can members please contact the appropriate parties to rectify and correct it?
      -We aren't supporting boycotts, hate mailings, or other forms of protest along these lines.
      -The best way to let your voice be heard is probably this:
      Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
      PO Box 707
      Renton, WA 98057
      Snail Mail WoTC with your INTELLIGENT, COHERENT thoughts on this issue.
      -The exact reason for the suit is not 100% sure, but we are reasonably sure it does not pertain to the leaks for GP or the reactions of forum members to the GP cards.

      Almost 2 months ago R_E recieved a picture of "playtest cards" for an expansion (Cold Snap) that is suppossed to be released this fall. These were cards at a very early stage of testing and most of the forum members thought they were fakes. The cards were stickers stuck to basic land with playtest names and card effects, these were for R&D to use to playtest the expansion set. The playtest cards had "Confidential" printed in red down their sides. If looks likes these cards were real and R_E is being sued for posting them when he did not know (untill now) if they were real or not.

      IMO if WotC's R&D can't keep their mouth shut WotC should fire all non senior members and re-hire from the pool of thousands of aplicants. Pressing charges against a forum member of a rumor site that has never paid for information, sol information, or is held liable by a NDA is IMO bad publicity.
  • "Do these kind of lawsuits damage the companies initiating them more than they help?"

    People still play this game? I thought everybody moved on to the new CCG of The Week long ago.

    At any rate, I fail to see how a rumor site could hurt the revenue model: random distribution of cards in packs requiring you to buy them by the pallet to get the ones you really want.
    • People still play this game?

      I'm actually surprised that people still do, too. The game is stale, and the historical cards completly unbalance the game.

      • The vast majority of competative play occurs in formats that allow only cards from the last 2-5 for precisly this reason. The larger the card pool, the stupider things get, and the harder it is to get the cards required to win.

        Casual play is regulated in the same "stop playing that $%^$^ deck" as it has always been.
      • As other comments mentioned, most competitive tournament play is done in the T2 or Extended formats which only allow the last 2 years or 6 years of cards respectively. Also, even in the formats where you can use cards back to the beginning (T1 and Legacy), Wizards keeps a close watch on what cards are causing problems and maintains the banned and restricted list well enough to preserve balance.
        • Also, even in the formats where you can use cards back to the beginning (T1 and Legacy), Wizards keeps a close watch on what cards are causing problems and maintains the banned and restricted list well enough to preserve balance.

          Then why does everyone play Blue in T1?

  • was that rhetorical? :) (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @05:08PM (#14522011) Homepage
    > "Do leaks of upcoming products really hurt sales of those products?"

    Well, in my case, the chance that I would buy the product has gone from zero to zero, so I would say no. The sales have not been affected at all.

    > "Do these kind of lawsuits damage the companies initiating them more than they help?"

    Well, in my case, the chance that I would buy the product has gone from zero to zero, so I would say no. The company has not been affected at all.

    Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

    In the general case, yes, leaks CAN hurt, if it causes people to hold off on current purchases while they wait for the next release with the new features. This is known as the "Osborne effect," in honor of computer pioneer Adam Osborne, who apparently destroyed his own company by announcing "next version" features too early. As for the second question, well, that's going to have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Trying to make it into a simple "yes or no" question is naive and silly.
  • Anyone familiar with the 'Osborne effect'? (Somewhat debunked these days, but they did lose sales.) Osborne pre-announced their next-generation computer, sales dried up for their current model, and they went under because they lost too much money between the announcement and the rollout. Why do you think Steve Jobs made sure that people thought there'd be no Intel-Macs until the summer? If everyone had known there'd be some in January he wouldn't have sold nearly as many Macs over the holiday season.

    Looks like Wizards has someone on the inside leaking information. Why would they not want to ferret out this piece-of-crap and fire him? As an employee, you have an obligation not to reveal information your company doesn't want revealed. Once you've proven yourself to be untrustworthy, well, what's your limit? Why wouldn't you sell trade secrets to Wizard's competitors? Why wouldn't you sabotage a database or server or printing machine? Integrity has to still mean something.

    • Anyone familiar with the 'Osborne effect'?

      I worked for a company that died that way. Our salesfolk alternated between telling prospective clients to not buy our software until the next version came out and putting pressure on developers to incorporate extra features into patches for clients who had bought the previous version outright (not paying for support so no more money coming in for those new features) to the point where starting the new version was delayed indefinately. As a consequence there wasn

  • Seriously, Wizards biggest obsticle is itself. Them and all their damn lawsuits against websites and whatnot that only help the game. They effectively do nothing more than piss off customers.

    When it comes to spoiler leaks, nothing is as hype-generating as those. A spoiler a week or two ahead of release is what makes you wanna buy the cards or attend the prerelease. Maybe if Wizards dished out more than 5 cards per set per week during their previews, this wouldn't be an issue. If they'd go ahead and spoil

  • I am a player of Magic, and I cannot imagine how leaking the spoilers would hurt sales. What they may affect is a level playing field on the day of the prerelease. WOTC normally releases the spoiler list the day of or day after the prerelease. If some, but not all people, have access to a spoiler list before the prerelease they will have an advantage in being more familiar with the cards than those who only got WOTC's very limited teasers.

  • MT. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Arivia ( 783328 ) <arivia@gmail.com> on Friday January 20, 2006 @07:00PM (#14522954) Journal
    As a representative member of the Magic playing community, and a member of multiple message boards dealing with the game, I find that this lawsuit could be seen in many ways by a fan base that is as diverse socially as it is in mental capacity. Though it would be low of me to suggest as much, the members of certain popular gaming message boards have been known to function strictly on reactionary levels. They mere seek what they believe is in their best interest and do not seek to find out what is legally binding, or even logical for that matter.

    While I can honestly say that, yes, I did repeatedly view the spoilers for the most recent set of trading cards; I do not feel any qualms about it. Much as many members of this community may not experience pangs of guilt from p2p networks or bit torrent file sharing. The theft and proliferation of intellectual property with this day and age is strikingly active. Record sales are dropping, box office numbers dwindle, and all around the entertainment industry, for lack of a better expression, pooches are getting screwed.

    What does that have to do with the matter at hand? I wish I knew. Sometimes I just type things up to entertain myself and quit thinking mid-sentence. It's an issue that neither Ritalin nor manual stimulation has solved. To get back to the point though, the release of undisclosed information to an outside source about a product before the release of it could just breach some nondisclosure agreements that many of the persons with leaked information may have signed.

    In which case Wizards of the Coast is justified and right in suing for the information provided. The website in question may be taken back by such a claim and rest indolently on journalistic anonymity of source. Not that it matters to me. A thief has to fill out a police report before selling a stolen radio to a pawn shop, and so should the rumor mongers who provided the website in question with the offending information.

    No, I do not work for or favor the interests of Wizards of the Coast, or Hasbro Inc., though I would willing accept money from them to support their products and likely would engage in corporate espionage against rival companies for a nominal fee. This is not an offer of services, but if it were, then any pertinent party could easily find my e-mail within my member profile and establish a line of contact from there. I do not wish to cause any malice within the gaming community, but will for price consider many things, much like the mercenary employees and contacts within the Hasbro organization that sold company information to a third party rumor mill.
    For those that would argue the accuracy of this article, I hardly think it matters. No one involved in the matter is going to sue Slashdot for inaccuracy or libel, at least until a couple of weeks after their current deposition and subsequent trial has ended. Far be it from a site that markets unsettled hearsay on a daily basis to argue over minced words with a truly respectable website. That kind of complaint would be little more than bolstering of voice and being general internet busybodies. I, for one, don't care if Slashdot had mistakenly implicated Santa Claus in this whole debacle, and, really, what does it matter if Santa is? He never gets me anything that I like anyhow.

    Rambling on, and on about one's matter on legal opinions, corporate allegiances, and the interminable jabbering of net-savvy jackanapes is hardly what one would like to be doing with his free time. Perhaps one could read a book, work for minimum wage, lie on one's taxes, insist on extra pickles, or just be a productive member of society. Were any of the members of the Magic community are legal council, or have a vested interest in the matter beyond the game itself, I would heartily encourage them to seek the fullest and strongest involvement in the perpetuation of this case, though I very much doubt there are many that fit that bill.

    I am a gamer. I enjoy playing them, buying them, meeting people to play them with, buying

  • Free Publicity (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doctor Cat ( 676482 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @08:49PM (#14523627) Homepage
    Well, P. T. Barnum said "There's no such thing as bad publicity". Which suggests that leaks about upcoming cards probably do them more good than harm. On the other paw, the lawsuit generates a bunch MORE publicity, so by that metric maybe it's good for them too.

    Since it's about someone in-house leaking info about stuff coming out a year hence, I suspect they'll offer to drop the lawsuit in exchange for being told who the source was. Of course any news about them dropping the lawsuit will get them some further inexpensive publicity too!

  • The thing about this situation is that the people who are upset by the move are the small majority that buys the majority of WotC products. The commmunity of the site is fairly small (a thousand or so), but it's a loyal fanbase that looks forward to and gets excited with the spoilers/leaks.

    That being said, WotC may have overlooked the community implications of their move. I've already heard a lot of players signifying their intention to boycott the next release. The fanbase that have expressed their suppor

    • The community is easily more than a thousand. In general, leading up to a release, there are at least 500 people online simultaneously throughout the two or three weeks leading up to the prerelease, with well over 1000 being online during peak hours. Now, I wouldnt bet on them all being online continuously, so...
  • Do leaks of upcoming products really hurt sales of those products?

    How could this possibly hurt sales? This is called "hype" people, and you should be thanking your fans for giving it to you for free (many companies have to pay for their own guerilla marketing), not suing them into oblivion. The only exception I can think of would be a new and innovative product that is in danger of being ripped off--but that's hardly relevant for a creative product such as this.

    At some point it seems as though the
    • Whatever happened to any publicity=good publicity?

      What happened is that big companies have a constant publicity trickle all the time, so they really don't need outsiders "helping" them with the process. In this case, Wizard has a policy regarding how cards are revealed prior to an expansion hitting store shelves. If they thought it was a good idea to reveal more and do it earlier, they'd do it themselves. Thus, if someone is crapping on their business plan, they're going to get pissed. One negative r
  • In conclusion: someone leaked a card, and they want to fire that person.

    Sounds reasonable to me. If you get to work with secret information, you keep it secret. That's not so hard!

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