Wizards Of The Coast Sends The Pinkertons After One Of Their Fans 

They literally would have been ahead to do the exact same thing and just hiring a different brand of goon. (IMHO that would have been the *2nd* dumbest option possible.)

DM, "You find yourself in a delicate situation where diplomacy is of the utmost importance." WoTC, "I cast "Fireball!"

@@0utdoorsman DM "You miss and the fireball fizzles away against the stone wall. Now everyone is staring you and clutching their weapons waiting on your next move..." WotC: "I consume an invisibility potion and sneak away, the masters at Hasbro Castle will not be pleased with me....again."

​@@forposterity4031 "Cobra, RETREAT!"

@@benjaminshropshire2900 The Wagner group was too busy committing war crimes so the Pinkertons were the next best option.

Dont forget removing half species..

"Hold on, what's that phrase you used, 'not intentionally harming the community?' Those words each make sense individually, but..."

Magic 30th.

Don't forget comparing black people to Orcs. When you're so progressive you sound incredibly racist.

@@milktobo7418 they’ve done enough crap so stop repeating nonsense.

100%, if he was SPECIFICALLY given docs that said these cards are NOT to be shared, then yes it's his fault and WotC can be pissed. But if the guy genuinely thought it was a box he was supposed to be opening, there is absolutely no justification for their behavior.

Literally THE END. And, yet, here we are...

Yeah, it's like - remember that time at the 2002 E3 where Sega's reference models for PSO Ep III CARD Revolution came up missing, so they loaded up the Sega Assault Vehicle with a bunch of armed goons and started tear-a**ing around LA - knocking skulls until the culprit finally coughed them up? No? Oh, right - yeah, they just put up notices on their website and via fan sites and journals asking for them back like sane people, then commissioned a new set to replace them in case the originals never turned back up. Because that's what you do when trying to run a professional organization and appreciated the people who bought their products. At least when Sega and Nintendo were dealing with the Yakuza back in the day, they at least kept it to corporate sabotage and developer strong-arming. They didn't sick Majima on the own customers.

The fact they choose to do that kind of thing without a second thoughts is a prove that sh*t might be a normal thing to do in that company…

Yes, but that would require a company that is community minded, sane, has restraint, isn't seemingly managed by psychopaths. That's asking far too much.

It was a gift on a silver plate to pump the hype before the May release. And they didin't even see the opportunity right there at their feet. "Send in the Pinkertons." Truly a Games Workshop level of corporate hubris and lunacy.

Mention to dispatch that they are armed, you don't know who they are, they have no warrant, they are making threats and you are in fear of your life. Now, a possible 2A intervention is on the table. 😁

they don't care about the pr hit anymore after dungeons and dragons scandal. its more about sending a message for the future then compromise. Think about it this way if you got a pack of unreleased cards are you going to upload it or sell it after this? knowing WOTC are going to send the closest thing to modern day mafia after you?

As far as anyone can tell they don't seem to have a functioning comms dept.

@@armorclasshero2103 That is probably true. Or they do but it's a couple of 23 year olds getting paid just over minimum wage to put out media releases. Hasbro would certainly have one but they may not have been invited to the meeting. This happens all the time--I can't tell you how many clients have said to me, "I didn't call Comms about (insert impending disaster) because we don't want to say anything to the public." Buddy, talking to the media is a very small part of what I do. And if you think I'm going to leak, ask yourself why I would ruin my own day. You want me in that meeting so that someone in the room will be protecting your brand like it's their favourite child and pointing out apparently baffling things like that "Goons, hired goons" is not the solution. I've heard that they did try to reach out to this guy by phone and email, and maybe they did and maybe they didn't (and, if they did, who knows what the tone of those emails and voice mails was)... but you still don't send Pinkertons. Jesus, was Blackwater not available?

This.

Communication breakdown is fatal!!! You have an Important job!!!

Some simple communication, perhaps offering him a couple booster boxes of an older set in return for his cooperation, it wouldn't have been hard. The immediate corporate shitkick response is one of the worst possible options.

The people they offer services to are the exact type of people that would want to hire people like the Pinkertons.

I'm surprised too.

They were absorbed by Securitas. So where I live, they go by Securitas Security Services. But it's the same company (for better or worse... mostly worse) with different owners at the top. I had no idea they were still went by Pinkertons elsewhere.

I thought the same thing about the Atlantic Puppy-Grinder Company.

no need to rebrand, their branding is accurate

Whats not being said here is once they discovered the cards were not theft or the result of a form of intentional leaking they stated they would be compensating the guy.

That is not infringing...

@@patnor7354 The biggest factor in business naming disputes that is examined in court cases is customer confusion, which that would definitely fall under. With the money the real microsoft has for legal battles, its no stretch that they would push their weight around in this capacity, and even win if the guy decided to fight them about it.

its like what the rich millionaire scientology ha elite neighbors do after they harass you, they pay off all the hells angesl and their offsprings to target and discredit you after they tell the local corrupt nrp cop to forge a foia and tell the locals not to hire you...oh wait i didnt get any payoffs, the locals broke into my apt and gave the wishbook stuff to the ha associates, yah so not the same

😂😂😂

I see what you did there. 😏

Ooh that explains something. He choose the option he knows best, just not the smart one...

Man, wouldn't that just be a kick in the pants, if the Pinkertons got hired just because the guy in charge of the situation wanted to make work for his contacts there?

Christ, that's disturbing...

Hope he gets fired for this stupidity.

They did multipel times and they got Ignored.

I thought it was a joke when I heard. I thought the person who told me was referring to Peaky Blinders 😂

I think a visit from Ebenezer McCoy would be totally appropriate

It's important to emphasize that it wasn't "a photo of her house" she was mad about. That implies her house was the subject of the photograph. What actually happened was a government project to photograph the coastline (surprisingly) took a lot of photographs of the coastline, and her house *happened* to be visible in one of the large sequence of photographs.

IIRC the picture had only been viewed like 10 times when it was taken to court and half of them were her own lawyers. after the court case was brought it had thousands of downloads within like a day.

😂

Hasbro has been around since the 1920s. This has probably been their preferred method of dealing with these types of situations for a century and they don't understand how social media has changed things.

I think you just described most companies, though don't forget the part about throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks

😆😆😆

I think the League of Giant Headless Chickens would resent that remark. Bwawk! 🐓

Being a former VP of a fortune 500 company made up of numerous divisions I can confirm your suspensions. My full time job was to just try and keep said divisions on the same page.

@@starrywizdom You know Giant Chickens are real, dont cross them. I did not tell you this, but there is a video on YT of one giant Chicken leaveing a hen house, i did not say this, I did not think this..

Extortion is more like it. It was theft by use or threatening force.

I don't think it's illegal to make an unrealistic threat of legal action... ? "Hey stranger, give me your car or I'll sue you for not giving it to me, and I'll get the judge to throw you in prison for 10 years for being mean." You're supposed to just know that that's not a realistic outcome.

​@OptimalOwl that's fraud, extortion and conversion.

@@OptimalOwl That is a good point. However, they didn't just make an unrealistic legal threat. They brought a bunch of armed goons and then made the threat. I have no clue how the law works in such a situation, especially not American law, but there may be some sort of law on intimidation that could have been breached.

@@Gjellebel I would think it could be theft by intimidation which I have heard tossed around as an offense.

Long live Paizo.

Runkle's been diving into ALL the WotC nonsense over on Role of Law!

I forgot that he was involved in that

@@RenataKleinRK especially when they are already doing it yes I was wrong but I will also own my own errors and keep the record of them.

​@@RenataKleinRK hah! I get it. Don't worry, your clever wordplay is not lost to the winds.

Same.

Glad I sold off my MTG cards

Yeah, started buying D&D stuff, learned of drama like this among other things, and immediately stopped.

@@RandomPerson-nd2ey I transferred to pathfinder 1.0, it's basically plug and play with d&d 3.5, but a bit more powerful. I'm not claiming they are saints, but I'm unaware of this level of stupidity.

​@@sinisterthoughts2896On his other channel (Roll of Law) he discussed the new ORC licence put out by paizo. Turns out it's the same to worse than what wotc put out. Sadly no one else seems to notice.

Short answer, they don’t.

Absolutely 0 and technically now the guy has a lotta possible legal options in front of him now. Not only that it’s going to kill a chunk of the player base. This coulda been solved with a C&D and a request to take the video/s down. That’s the simplest solution.

@@GamblerofFates A C&D would not have any legal leg to stand on unless he had signed a confidentiality agreement or had induced the mistaken shipment.

@@b.s.864 lotta lay people/ average joes wouldn’t know that unless consulting with a lawyer. It would’ve been the less violent option.

Same as drug cartels. They got guns, and can get away with using them, cause they pay police to look the other way. Guys are literal union busters, and have historically thrown grenades at children on occasions.

You should look up the Dungeons and Dragons SRD issue. The controversy related to that one may have killed one of WotC's most profitable intellectual properties...

The problem is that they would've had to have been on the rails to go off of them...

Yup. WotC just committed theft via intimidation, essentially the same as if a mugger claimed you had their wallet and flashed a gun to make you give it up. The RU-vidr made the choice to comply and deescalate the situation which was probably the smartest thing to do even if it doesn't feel like a win. If it were me in that situation I'd have told the thugs to f off and slammed the door in their face, then been ready to shoot said faces if they tried to break in or set fire to my house. Which of course they'd have done because they're the Pinkertons.

Stupidity and I'm assuming the same thing that keeps making kel-tec keep making some of the weirdest god damn mechanical devices on this planet... Illicit substances

​@@a_guyontheinternetfor kel-tec it's their gimmick. For WotC, they are ran by corpos installed by hasbro who have zero history in these fields.

There are no adults in charge. Its fully grown children running a lot of these media companies these days.

Incompetence is rewarded in the corpo world so long as you lick enough boot.

"Twice"? They're pretty consistent with making dumb decisions, and they've made more than a couple, big and small. my favourite was that their very first action to take after that whole OGL debacle was to change their social media logo into a bitcoin. This is funny to me.

Let the lawsuits commence!

There is probably some loophole, because the product legally was still under seal and could not be sold. But that still does not make the youtuber the bad guy.

It depends on distribution agreement

Something similar happened when the last edition of The Walking Dead comicbook was coming out. One comic bookstore received their order a few days early and started selling them. So, of course it was leaked on the internet real fast. Image Comics did the right thing. They released a statement basically saying, 'Yo we fucked up, we made a mistake somewhere and shit got sent out to early and of course our small retailer started selling a handful of copies. Enjoy it if you already have the comic, but please keep it on the low and don't spoil it for others.' Done. Nobody got sued, nothing came out of it. WOTC is being very, very dramatic about this.

The simple answer is they don't own the property and upon sending those cards to the RU-vidr the seller didn't own them either. In the USA if you're sent something by mistake you get refunded your money AND get to keep whatever was sent to you. WotC committed theft via intimidation (Pinkertons are infamous for arson and murder) the same way a mugger who flashes a gun to get you to give him your wallet does.

Sadly, I think this is a done and done thing. The situation is "resolved" and unless the guy goes after WotC I dont think anything is going to come of it because he willingly let those guys in and handed over the materials. So, unless he has evidence that they strong armed him which knowing pinkerton histroy wouldnt surprise me there really is not much that can be done here.

He needed Clint Eastwood!

The problem with that is they'd probably beat the living crap out of you and possibly kill you.

Also it would turn the negative into a sales positive!

Yes, because they dont have a legal avenue to stand on. They are completely in the wrong here.

Once the cards are sent to a retailer the parent company doesn't own them anymore. By USA law, if you're sent something other than what you ordered you get a refund AND get to keep the mistaken items. WotC just committed theft via intimidation like they were muggers flashing a gun to get someone's wallet.