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, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington.[1]
Today, Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999.
Wizards of the Coast was founded by Peter Adkison in 1990 just outside Seattle, Washington, and its headquarters is still in nearby Renton.[2] Originally the company only published role-playing games such as the third edition of Talislanta and its own The Primal Order. The 1992 release of The Primal Order, a supplement designed for use with any game system,[3] brought legal trouble with Palladium Books suing for references to Palladium's game and system.[4] The suit was settled in 1993 by Wizards paying an undisclosed sum to Palladium and agreeing not to mention Palladium's products again.[5]
In 1990, Richard Garfield approached Wizards of the Coast with the idea for a new board game called RoboRally, but was turned down because the game would have been too expensive for Wizards of the Coast to produce.[6] Instead, Adkison asked Garfield if he could invent a game that was both portable and quick-playing, to which Garfield agreed.[6]
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.[4] The game proved extremely popular at Gen Con in August 1993, selling out of its supply of 2.5 million cards, which had been scheduled to last until the end of the year.[6] 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.[5] In 1994, Magic won both the Mensa Top Five mind games award[7] and the Origins Awards for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board game of 1993 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board game of 1993.[8]
In 1994, Wizards began an association with The Beanstalk Group, a brand licensing agency and consultancy, to license the Magic brand.[9] After the success of Magic, Wizards published RoboRally in 1994, and it soon won the 1994 Origins Awards for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game.[10] Wizards also expanded its role-playing game line by buying SLA Industries from Nightfall Games and Ars Magica from White Wolf, Inc. in 1994.[5] In 1995, Wizards published another card game by Richard Garfield, The Great Dalmuti, which won the 1995 Best New Mind Game award from Mensa.[10] In August 1995, Wizards released Everway and then four months later closed its roleplaying game product line. Peter Adkison explained that the company was doing a disservice to the games with lack of support and had lost money on all of Wizards' roleplaying game products.Also in 1995, Wizards' annual sales passed US$65 million.
Wizards of the Coast has built a house of cards. The company, a unit of toy behemoth Hasbro, is best known for trading card game Magic: The Gathering, which is available in several languages. Wizards of the Coast's other offerings include the granddaddy of medieval role-playing games ("Dungeons & Dragons") and various traditional games, books, and magazines. The company also makes Star Wars games through a license. Through the years, Wizards of the Coast's games have earned a cult following, with children and teens still playing the firm's games with friends into their adulthood. Former CEO Peter Adkison, game designer Richard Garfield, and several others founded the company in 1990.
TSR also ranked as one of the world's top fantasy and science fiction book publishers. Since first publishing in the early 1980s, the company had sold millions of copies of its novels, most derived from its gaming series, some of which would reach New York Times best-selling status, and featuring authors such as Simon Hawke, Rose Estes, Christie Golden, James Lowder, and Gygax himself, as well as launching the careers of R. A. Salvatore, Troy Denning, and Douglas Niles, among others.
In addition to book publishing, TSR also published two successful gaming periodicals, Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Adventures Magazine, both of which focused on the role-playing game industry, specifically TSR's games. TSR also licensed its properties to other media, including television (Total Entertainment Network) and electronic games (Interplay Inc. and Sierra On-Line). Former TSR president Lorraine Williams assumed majority control of the firm from Gygax in the mid-1980s after a hotly contested stock sale to Williams by two other shareholders.
Speculation ran rampant as to what would happen to the gaming giant under its new ownership by WotC. TSR headquarters and most of the staff (including Amazing Stories editor Kim Mohan, but notably excluding TSR book editor Brian Thomsen) were moved from their longtime home of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to WotC's facility in Washington state. WotC announced its intention to continue running the world's largest gaming convention, with attendance at over 25,000 annually, GenCon in Lake Geneva.
One of the major issues to be resolved in the purchase was the payment of royalties owed to a number of TSR authors. TSR was publishing nearly 60 books per year at the time of its purchase, all of which were distributed by Random House Inc. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Inc. (SFWA) led a vocal group of writers into negotiations, which finally resulted in WotC agreeing to cover TSR's debts.
Not content with just one acquisition, WotC also purchased Five Rings Publishing Group Inc. in 1997, best known for its Legends of the Five Rings trading card game, the Star Trek: The Next Generation collectible dice game, and the Dune: Eye of the Storm trading card game.
WotC also released two new games designed by WotC wizard Richard Garfield. Corporate Shuffle, a card game based on the United Features Syndicate Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams, was released in May 1997. The game, featuring full-color cartoons of Dilbert, his ignorant superiors, his clueless coworkers (including the delightful Ratbert and evil Human Resources Director Catbert), and his cynical dog, Dogbert, appealed to gamers of all ages, satirizing the chaos and quirks of 1990s corporate life as players compete in a mad dash to climb the corporate ladder and assume the title of "Big Boss," with all its perks.
By then the fervor for Magic cards had sparked criminal acts, with dealers reporting theft of the cards from their stores. A BRANDWEEK article entitled "The Gathering Storm" highlighted a report that "four street toughs mugged a trio of gamers at knifepoint for their collection of Magic cards valued at nearly $2,400." Other stories surfaced about riots in Japan, precipitated by dwindling supply. WotC insisted such stories were exaggerated, but the company took tighter rein of its image in June 1997, launching its first national ad campaign via Moffatt Rosenthal, San Francisco.
Hoping to extend the popularity of its highly successful Magic: The Gathering game beyond a young, male demographic, WotC released an introductory version of the game called Portal, which introduced new players to the same sophisticated game mechanics, portability, and professional artwork that made Magic: The Gathering an international success. The national cable-television ad campaign, which accounted for 62 percent of WotC's entire advertising budget was supplemented by ads appearing in Rolling Stone, Spin, and Swing, among others, and demos appearing at state fairs, the H.O.R.D.E. music tour, in-line skating and mountain biking events, military bases, and Miller Lite's Dog Days of Summer Concert Series featuring acts like Patty Loveless and Ted Nugent. Portal Second Age would quickly follow, as well as the advanced-level Fifth Edition game of Magic, and expert-level products like the Tempest and Stronghold expansion decks.
Also in 1997, WotC opened The Wizards of the Coast Game Center in Seattle, the first gaming environment and entertainment center for adventure gaming enthusiasts in the world. The facility featured more than 250 games, including the BattleTech virtual reality center, with a dozen interactive simulator pods; 3,800 square feet of state-of-the-art video game and pinball machines; 1,800 square feet of retail store; a selection of computer network games; a 5,000-square-foot tournament center for organized game playing; and multiple players' lounges. The center became a testing site for other top gaming manufacturers such as Atari and Williams/Bally, and also the headquarters for the official Magic: The Gathering World Tournament, featuring more than $1 million in prize money. WotC also received a patent on The Trading Card Game Method of Play by the U.S. Patent Office.
WotC started 1998 with a bang, releasing four games (Twitch, Pivot, AlphaBlitz, and Go Wild!) in February. The Twitch card game is all about quick reflexes, speed, and accuracy. Three-to-six players quickly flip colored cards into a bowl. If players are slow or make mistakes, others may challenge and penalize them. Like Go Fish or Uno, the first one to run out of cards wins.
In the Pivot card game, a dynamic game of ups and downs, two to eight players must turn on a dime. Rules change, directions switch, and play shifts, adding to the excitement of the game. Again, the first player to run out of cards wins.
The AlphaBlitz game introduced an innovative approach to word games. Created by one of the world's leading word-puzzle designers, the card game pits two to six players against each other in a race to unscramble words and stump their opponents. AlphaBlitz can be played either for speed or strategy, making it two word-making games in one product.
In the Go Wild! game of wild cards, two to six players play sets of matching colored cards to win tricks and points. The first player to win the first of three tricks becomes "The Wild One"--the only player who can use wild cards--until another player seizes the title. The balance of power shifts quickly in the strategic card game, making it uncertain who will score 20 points first and win.
Several months later, in April, WotC teamed with WildStorm Productions to release C23. The science fiction trading card game, part of WotC's new ARC System of games (which eventually would feature games based on Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys), featured story and art by famed comic artist Jim Lee (best known as co-creator of Image Comics and WildStorm Productions) and writer Brandon Choi (the team responsible for creating such major comic properties as Gen13 and WildC.A.T.S.: Covert Action Teams), blending the fundamentals of a traditional trading card game with comic-style art.
The post-apocalyptic Earth setting featured cybernetically enhanced humans and genetically altered humans battling for control of the planet's surface. Players compete by using resource, character, action, and combat cards to discard cards from their opponents' decks. The first player to empty his or her opponent's deck of cards wins. The release was accompanied by a C23 comic book series, the first issue of which was written by Jeff Mariotte (also writer for Desperadoes, Hazard, and DefCon 4, among others), and featured painted covers by Travis Charest, and was drawn by Alexander Lozano.
In May, WotC announced an agreement with Viacom Consumer Products, the licensing division of Paramount Pictures, for the premiere issue of the relaunch of Amazing Stories, the world's oldest science fiction magazine (founded in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback, the father of modern science fiction), to feature cover art and original short stories from the legendary Star Trek: The Next Generation television show.
Also in 1998, TSR released Alternity, a science fiction role-playing game which furnishes rules for all science fiction, from contemporary Earth settings to far-future space epics. The Star*Drive Campaign features a universe of star-spanning adventures set in the distant future in The Verge, a region of space on the frontier of human exploration. So the upstarts on the West Coast continued into the end of the 20th century with nothing but growth in sight.
Principal Subsidiaries: Five Rings Publishing Group Inc.; TSR Inc.
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1990
Employees: 500
Sales: $150 million (1997 est.)
SICs: 3944 Games, Toys, & Children's Vehicles
Key People
• President: Greg Leeds
• CFO: Mike Mayhew
• Public Relations Manager: Tolena Thorburn
Address:
1801 Lind Avenue SW
Renton, Washington 98055
U.S.A.
Today, Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999.
Wizards of the Coast was founded by Peter Adkison in 1990 just outside Seattle, Washington, and its headquarters is still in nearby Renton.[2] Originally the company only published role-playing games such as the third edition of Talislanta and its own The Primal Order. The 1992 release of The Primal Order, a supplement designed for use with any game system,[3] brought legal trouble with Palladium Books suing for references to Palladium's game and system.[4] The suit was settled in 1993 by Wizards paying an undisclosed sum to Palladium and agreeing not to mention Palladium's products again.[5]
In 1990, Richard Garfield approached Wizards of the Coast with the idea for a new board game called RoboRally, but was turned down because the game would have been too expensive for Wizards of the Coast to produce.[6] Instead, Adkison asked Garfield if he could invent a game that was both portable and quick-playing, to which Garfield agreed.[6]
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.[4] The game proved extremely popular at Gen Con in August 1993, selling out of its supply of 2.5 million cards, which had been scheduled to last until the end of the year.[6] 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.[5] In 1994, Magic won both the Mensa Top Five mind games award[7] and the Origins Awards for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board game of 1993 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board game of 1993.[8]
In 1994, Wizards began an association with The Beanstalk Group, a brand licensing agency and consultancy, to license the Magic brand.[9] After the success of Magic, Wizards published RoboRally in 1994, and it soon won the 1994 Origins Awards for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game.[10] Wizards also expanded its role-playing game line by buying SLA Industries from Nightfall Games and Ars Magica from White Wolf, Inc. in 1994.[5] In 1995, Wizards published another card game by Richard Garfield, The Great Dalmuti, which won the 1995 Best New Mind Game award from Mensa.[10] In August 1995, Wizards released Everway and then four months later closed its roleplaying game product line. Peter Adkison explained that the company was doing a disservice to the games with lack of support and had lost money on all of Wizards' roleplaying game products.Also in 1995, Wizards' annual sales passed US$65 million.
Wizards of the Coast has built a house of cards. The company, a unit of toy behemoth Hasbro, is best known for trading card game Magic: The Gathering, which is available in several languages. Wizards of the Coast's other offerings include the granddaddy of medieval role-playing games ("Dungeons & Dragons") and various traditional games, books, and magazines. The company also makes Star Wars games through a license. Through the years, Wizards of the Coast's games have earned a cult following, with children and teens still playing the firm's games with friends into their adulthood. Former CEO Peter Adkison, game designer Richard Garfield, and several others founded the company in 1990.
TSR also ranked as one of the world's top fantasy and science fiction book publishers. Since first publishing in the early 1980s, the company had sold millions of copies of its novels, most derived from its gaming series, some of which would reach New York Times best-selling status, and featuring authors such as Simon Hawke, Rose Estes, Christie Golden, James Lowder, and Gygax himself, as well as launching the careers of R. A. Salvatore, Troy Denning, and Douglas Niles, among others.
In addition to book publishing, TSR also published two successful gaming periodicals, Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Adventures Magazine, both of which focused on the role-playing game industry, specifically TSR's games. TSR also licensed its properties to other media, including television (Total Entertainment Network) and electronic games (Interplay Inc. and Sierra On-Line). Former TSR president Lorraine Williams assumed majority control of the firm from Gygax in the mid-1980s after a hotly contested stock sale to Williams by two other shareholders.
Speculation ran rampant as to what would happen to the gaming giant under its new ownership by WotC. TSR headquarters and most of the staff (including Amazing Stories editor Kim Mohan, but notably excluding TSR book editor Brian Thomsen) were moved from their longtime home of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to WotC's facility in Washington state. WotC announced its intention to continue running the world's largest gaming convention, with attendance at over 25,000 annually, GenCon in Lake Geneva.
One of the major issues to be resolved in the purchase was the payment of royalties owed to a number of TSR authors. TSR was publishing nearly 60 books per year at the time of its purchase, all of which were distributed by Random House Inc. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Inc. (SFWA) led a vocal group of writers into negotiations, which finally resulted in WotC agreeing to cover TSR's debts.
Not content with just one acquisition, WotC also purchased Five Rings Publishing Group Inc. in 1997, best known for its Legends of the Five Rings trading card game, the Star Trek: The Next Generation collectible dice game, and the Dune: Eye of the Storm trading card game.
WotC also released two new games designed by WotC wizard Richard Garfield. Corporate Shuffle, a card game based on the United Features Syndicate Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams, was released in May 1997. The game, featuring full-color cartoons of Dilbert, his ignorant superiors, his clueless coworkers (including the delightful Ratbert and evil Human Resources Director Catbert), and his cynical dog, Dogbert, appealed to gamers of all ages, satirizing the chaos and quirks of 1990s corporate life as players compete in a mad dash to climb the corporate ladder and assume the title of "Big Boss," with all its perks.
By then the fervor for Magic cards had sparked criminal acts, with dealers reporting theft of the cards from their stores. A BRANDWEEK article entitled "The Gathering Storm" highlighted a report that "four street toughs mugged a trio of gamers at knifepoint for their collection of Magic cards valued at nearly $2,400." Other stories surfaced about riots in Japan, precipitated by dwindling supply. WotC insisted such stories were exaggerated, but the company took tighter rein of its image in June 1997, launching its first national ad campaign via Moffatt Rosenthal, San Francisco.
Hoping to extend the popularity of its highly successful Magic: The Gathering game beyond a young, male demographic, WotC released an introductory version of the game called Portal, which introduced new players to the same sophisticated game mechanics, portability, and professional artwork that made Magic: The Gathering an international success. The national cable-television ad campaign, which accounted for 62 percent of WotC's entire advertising budget was supplemented by ads appearing in Rolling Stone, Spin, and Swing, among others, and demos appearing at state fairs, the H.O.R.D.E. music tour, in-line skating and mountain biking events, military bases, and Miller Lite's Dog Days of Summer Concert Series featuring acts like Patty Loveless and Ted Nugent. Portal Second Age would quickly follow, as well as the advanced-level Fifth Edition game of Magic, and expert-level products like the Tempest and Stronghold expansion decks.
Also in 1997, WotC opened The Wizards of the Coast Game Center in Seattle, the first gaming environment and entertainment center for adventure gaming enthusiasts in the world. The facility featured more than 250 games, including the BattleTech virtual reality center, with a dozen interactive simulator pods; 3,800 square feet of state-of-the-art video game and pinball machines; 1,800 square feet of retail store; a selection of computer network games; a 5,000-square-foot tournament center for organized game playing; and multiple players' lounges. The center became a testing site for other top gaming manufacturers such as Atari and Williams/Bally, and also the headquarters for the official Magic: The Gathering World Tournament, featuring more than $1 million in prize money. WotC also received a patent on The Trading Card Game Method of Play by the U.S. Patent Office.
WotC started 1998 with a bang, releasing four games (Twitch, Pivot, AlphaBlitz, and Go Wild!) in February. The Twitch card game is all about quick reflexes, speed, and accuracy. Three-to-six players quickly flip colored cards into a bowl. If players are slow or make mistakes, others may challenge and penalize them. Like Go Fish or Uno, the first one to run out of cards wins.
In the Pivot card game, a dynamic game of ups and downs, two to eight players must turn on a dime. Rules change, directions switch, and play shifts, adding to the excitement of the game. Again, the first player to run out of cards wins.
The AlphaBlitz game introduced an innovative approach to word games. Created by one of the world's leading word-puzzle designers, the card game pits two to six players against each other in a race to unscramble words and stump their opponents. AlphaBlitz can be played either for speed or strategy, making it two word-making games in one product.
In the Go Wild! game of wild cards, two to six players play sets of matching colored cards to win tricks and points. The first player to win the first of three tricks becomes "The Wild One"--the only player who can use wild cards--until another player seizes the title. The balance of power shifts quickly in the strategic card game, making it uncertain who will score 20 points first and win.
Several months later, in April, WotC teamed with WildStorm Productions to release C23. The science fiction trading card game, part of WotC's new ARC System of games (which eventually would feature games based on Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys), featured story and art by famed comic artist Jim Lee (best known as co-creator of Image Comics and WildStorm Productions) and writer Brandon Choi (the team responsible for creating such major comic properties as Gen13 and WildC.A.T.S.: Covert Action Teams), blending the fundamentals of a traditional trading card game with comic-style art.
The post-apocalyptic Earth setting featured cybernetically enhanced humans and genetically altered humans battling for control of the planet's surface. Players compete by using resource, character, action, and combat cards to discard cards from their opponents' decks. The first player to empty his or her opponent's deck of cards wins. The release was accompanied by a C23 comic book series, the first issue of which was written by Jeff Mariotte (also writer for Desperadoes, Hazard, and DefCon 4, among others), and featured painted covers by Travis Charest, and was drawn by Alexander Lozano.
In May, WotC announced an agreement with Viacom Consumer Products, the licensing division of Paramount Pictures, for the premiere issue of the relaunch of Amazing Stories, the world's oldest science fiction magazine (founded in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback, the father of modern science fiction), to feature cover art and original short stories from the legendary Star Trek: The Next Generation television show.
Also in 1998, TSR released Alternity, a science fiction role-playing game which furnishes rules for all science fiction, from contemporary Earth settings to far-future space epics. The Star*Drive Campaign features a universe of star-spanning adventures set in the distant future in The Verge, a region of space on the frontier of human exploration. So the upstarts on the West Coast continued into the end of the 20th century with nothing but growth in sight.
Principal Subsidiaries: Five Rings Publishing Group Inc.; TSR Inc.
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1990
Employees: 500
Sales: $150 million (1997 est.)
SICs: 3944 Games, Toys, & Children's Vehicles
Key People
• President: Greg Leeds
• CFO: Mike Mayhew
• Public Relations Manager: Tolena Thorburn
Address:
1801 Lind Avenue SW
Renton, Washington 98055
U.S.A.
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