Wizards of the Coast
Encyclopedia
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, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. 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.
Today, Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board game
s, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Award
s. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro
since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
in 1990 just outside Seattle, Washington, and its headquarters is still in nearby Renton
. Originally the company only published role-playing game
s 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, brought legal trouble with Palladium Books
suing for references to Palladium's game and system. The suit was settled in 1993 by Wizards paying an undisclosed sum to Palladium and agreeing not to mention Palladium's products again.
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. Instead, Adkison asked Garfield if he could invent a game that was both portable and quick-playing, to which Garfield agreed.
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. 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. 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. In 1994, Magic won both the Mensa
Top Five mind games award and the Origins Award
s for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board game of 1993 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board game of 1993.
In 1994, Wizards began an association with The Beanstalk Group
, a brand licensing
agency and consultancy, to license the Magic brand. 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. Wizards also expanded its role-playing game line by buying SLA Industries
from Nightfall Games
and Ars Magica
from White Wolf, Inc.
in 1994. In 1995, Wizards published another card game by Richard Garfield, The Great Dalmuti
, which won the 1995 Best New Mind Game award from Mensa. 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 announced the purchase of TSR
, the cash-strapped makers of Dungeons & Dragons
on April 10, 1997. Wizards acquired TSR and Five Rings Publishing Group
for $25 million. Many of the creative and professional staff of TSR relocated from Wisconsin to the Renton area. Wizards used TSR as a brand name for a while, then retired it, allowing the TSR trademarks to expire. Between 1997 and 1999, the company spun off several well-loved but poorly selling campaign setting
s (including Planescape
, Dark Sun
and Spelljammer
) to fan groups, focusing business primarily on the more profitable Greyhawk
and Forgotten Realms
lines.
In Summer 1997, Wizards revisited the concept of a 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, having first discussed it soon after the purchase of TSR. In 2004, Adkison looked back on the decision; "Obviously, we [Wizards] had a strong economic incentive for publishing a new edition; sales for any product line tend to spike when a new edition comes out, assuming the new edition is an improvement over the first. And given the change in ownership we thought this would be an excellent opportunity for WotC to 'put its stamp on D&D. He later "Set [the] overall design direction for the new editon of D&D." Wizards released the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2000, as well as the d20 System
. With these releases came the Open Game License, which allowed other companies to make use of those systems. The new edition of the D&D game won the 2000 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game. 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
", submitted by Keith Baker, and its first hardcover book was released in June 2004. In 2003 Wizards released version 3.5 of Dungeons & Dragons and the d20 system. Wizards helped to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the D&D game at Gen Con Indy 2004.
On August 2, 1997, Wizards of the Coast was granted on collectible card games. In January 1999, Wizards of the Coast began publishing the highly successful Pokémon Trading Card Game
. The game proved to be very popular, selling nearly 400,000 copies in less than six weeks, and selling 10 times better than Wizards' initial projections. There was such a high demand for Pokémon cards that some sports card series were discontinued in 1999 because so many printers were producing Pokémon cards. The game won the 1999 National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval.
Within a year, Wizards had sold millions of copies of the Pokémon game, and the company released a new set that included an instructional CD-ROM. Wizards continued to publish the game until 2003. One of Nintendo
's affiliates, Pokémon USA, had begun producing a new edition for the game before the last of its agreements with Wizards expired September 30, and Wizards filed suit against Nintendo the following day, October 1, 2003. The two companies resolved their differences in December 2003 without going to court.
bought Wizards of the Coast in September 1999, for about US$325 million. Hasbro had expressed interest in purchasing Wizards of the Coast as early as 1994, and had been further impressed after the success of its Pokémon game. Avalon Hill
was made a division of Wizards of the Coast, in late 1999; the company had been purchased by Hasbro in the summer of 1998.
Vince Caluori became President of Wizards of the Coast in November 1999. As of January 1, 2001, Peter Adkison resigned from Wizards. 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. Greg Leeds succeeded Loren Greenwood as President and CEO of Wizards of the Coast in March 2008. As of 2008, the company employs over 300 people.
In November 1999, Wizards announced that Gen Con would leave Milwaukee after the 2002 convention. Hasbro sold Origins to GAMA
, and in May 2002 sold Gen Con
to Peter Adkison. Wizards also outsourced its magazines by licensing Dungeon
, Dragon
, Polyhedron
, and Amazing Stories
to Paizo Publishing
. Wizards released the Dungeons & Dragons miniatures
collectible pre-painted plastic miniatures games in 2003, and added a licensed Star Wars line in 2004, and through its Avalon Hill brand 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.
After the company's great success in 1999 with Pokémon, Wizards of the Coast acquired and expanded "The Game Keeper," a US chain of retail gaming stores, eventually changing its name to "Wizards of the Coast", including the company's flagship gaming center on the Ave
in Seattle for several years, and its retail stores, which were mostly in shopping malls in the US. The gaming center was closed by March 2001 and eventually Wizards announced in December 2003 that it would close all of its stores in order to concentrate on game design
. The stores were closed in the spring of 2004.
explained the outcome: "I can say that we [Wizards of the Coast] settled the lawsuit with Rancored Elf out of court to both parties' satisfaction."
Paizo Publishing
's license to produce Dragon
and Dungeon
magazines, which Paizo had been publishing since it spun off from Wizards of the Coast's periodicals department in 2002, expired in September 2007. Wizards then moved the magazines to an online model. On June 6, 2008, Wizards released the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, with the retail availability of a new set of core rulebooks. Wizards began introducing 4th Edition online content in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. 4th Edition is designed to offer more streamlined game play, while the new rules framework intended to reduce the preparation time needed to run a game and make the game more accessible to new players.
April 6, 2009, Wizards of the Coast suspended all sales of its products for the Dungeons & Dragons games in PDF format from places such as ONEBOOKSHELF.com and its subsidiaries RPGNow.com and DRIVETHRURPG.com. This coincides with a lawsuit brought against eight people in an attempt to prevent future piracy of their books, and includes the recent 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons products that were made available through these places as well as all older editions PDFs of the game.
.
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game
Collectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
genre with Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR
TSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game
Pokémon Trading Card Game
The Pokémon Trading Card Game is a collectible card game based on the Pokémon video game series, first introduced in Japan in October 1996, then North America in December 1998...
. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton
Renton, Washington
Renton is an Eastside edge city in King County, Washington, United States. Situated 11 miles southeast of Seattle, Washington, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington. Founded in the 1860s, Renton became a supply town for the Newcastle coal fields...
, Washington.
Today, Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board game
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
s, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Award
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
s. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...
since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
History
Wizards of the Coast was founded by Peter AdkisonPeter Adkison
Peter D. Adkison is the founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast , as well as a hobby game professional.During Adkison's tenure, Wizards of the Coast rose to the status of a major publisher in the hobby game industry. Wizards achieved runaway success with its creation of "Magic: the...
in 1990 just outside Seattle, Washington, and its headquarters is still in nearby Renton
Renton, Washington
Renton is an Eastside edge city in King County, Washington, United States. Situated 11 miles southeast of Seattle, Washington, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington. Founded in the 1860s, Renton became a supply town for the Newcastle coal fields...
. Originally the company only published role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s such as the third edition of Talislanta
Talislanta
Talislanta is a fantasy role-playing game written by Stephen Michael Sechi, with significant stylistic input by artist P.D. Breeding-Black. Initially released in 1987 by Bard Games, the game quickly gained a reputation as an alternative to Dungeons & Dragons that was both much simpler mechanically...
and its own The Primal Order
The Primal Order
The Primal Order, or "TPO", is a religion-based fantasy roleplaying game supplement". Of particular note, TPO was the first work published by Wizards of the Coast and its president, Peter Adkison...
. The 1992 release of The Primal Order, a supplement designed for use with any game system, brought legal trouble with Palladium Books
Palladium Books
Palladium Books is a publisher of role-playing games perhaps best known for its popular, expansive Rifts series . Palladium was founded April 1981 in Detroit, Michigan by current president and lead game designer Kevin Siembieda, and is presently based in Westland, Michigan...
suing for references to Palladium's game and system. The suit was settled in 1993 by Wizards paying an undisclosed sum to Palladium and agreeing not to mention Palladium's products again.
In 1990, Richard Garfield
Richard Garfield
Richard Channing Garfield is a mathematics professor and game designer who created the card games Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner, BattleTech CCG, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle , The Great Dalmuti, Star Wars Trading Card Game, and the board game RoboRally...
approached Wizards of the Coast with the idea for a new board game
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
called RoboRally
RoboRally
RoboRally is a board game originally published in 1994 by Wizards of the Coast . It was designed in 1985 by Richard Garfield, who would later create the card game Magic: The Gathering. The game and its expansions received a total of four Origins Awards...
, but was turned down because the game would have been too expensive for Wizards of the Coast to produce. Instead, Adkison asked Garfield if he could invent a game that was both portable and quick-playing, to which Garfield agreed.
Adkison set up a new corporation, Garfield Games, to develop Richard Garfield's collectible card game
Collectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
concept, originally called Manaclash, into Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
. 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
Shell (corporation)
A shell corporation is a company which serves as a vehicle for business transactions without itself having any significant assets or operations. Shell corporations are not in themselves illegal and have legitimate business purposes. However, they are a main component of the underground economy,...
was shut down. Wizards debuted Magic in July 1993 at the Origins Game Fair in Dallas. The game proved extremely popular at Gen Con
Gen Con
Gen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card-style games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, non-collectible...
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. 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. In 1994, Magic won both the Mensa
Mensa International
Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test...
Top Five mind games award and the Origins Award
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
s for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board game of 1993 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board game of 1993.
In 1994, Wizards began an association with The Beanstalk Group
The Beanstalk Group
The Beanstalk Group is a brand licensing agency and consultancy headquartered in New York City, with additional offices in London, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Dearborn, Mich.. The company has nearly 100 employees around the world. Michael S. Stone and Seth Siegel co-founded the company in 1992...
, a brand licensing
Brand licensing
Licensing means renting or leasing of an intangible asset. Examples of intangible assets include a song , a character , a name or a brand . An arrangement to license a brand requires a licensing agreement...
agency and consultancy, to license the Magic brand. 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. Wizards also expanded its role-playing game line by buying SLA Industries
SLA Industries
SLA Industries is a role-playing game first published in 1993 by Nightfall Games in Glasgow, Scotland. The game is set in a dystopian far-flung future in which the majority of the known universe is either owned or indirectly controlled by the eponymous corporation "SLA Industries" and incorporates...
from Nightfall Games
Nightfall Games
Nightfall Games is a United Kingdom based role-playing game publishing company notable for publishing SLA Industries.-History:Nightfall Games was founded by Dave Allsop, Anne Boylan and Jared Earle in April 1993 in Glasgow, Scotland. In September 1993, Nightfall released their role-playing game SLA...
and Ars Magica
Ars Magica
Ars Magica is a role-playing game set in Mythic Europe, a quasi-historical version of Europe around AD 1200 with added fantastical elements. The game revolves around wizards and their allies...
from White Wolf, Inc.
White Wolf, Inc.
White Wolf Publishing is an American gaming and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein·Hagen of the former and Steve and Stewart Wieck of the latter. Since White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with...
in 1994. In 1995, Wizards published another card game by Richard Garfield, The Great Dalmuti
The Great Dalmuti
The Great Dalmuti is a card game designed by Richard Garfield, illustrated by Margaret Organ-Kean, and published in 1995 by Wizards of the Coast. It is a variant of the public domain game Asshole, dating back to late Middle-Ages. The game was Awarded Best New Mind Game 1995 by Mensa, and was in...
, which won the 1995 Best New Mind Game award from Mensa. In August 1995, Wizards released Everway
Everway
Everway is a fantasy role-playing game first published by Wizards of the Coast under their Alter Ego brand in the mid-1990s. Its lead designer was Jonathan Tweet. Marketed as a "Visionary Roleplaying Game", it has often been characterized as an innovative piece with a limited commercial success...
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.
Acquisition of TSR and Pokémon
TSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
, the cash-strapped makers of Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
on April 10, 1997. Wizards acquired TSR and Five Rings Publishing Group
Five Rings Publishing Group
The Five Rings Publishing Group was formed as a spin-out of Alderac Entertainment Group and ISOMEDIA.-History:In 1996, Alderac Entertainment Group and ISOMEDIA divested themselves of their joint operating venture, and created Five Rings Publishing Group...
for $25 million. Many of the creative and professional staff of TSR relocated from Wisconsin to the Renton area. Wizards used TSR as a brand name for a while, then retired it, allowing the TSR trademarks to expire. Between 1997 and 1999, the company spun off several well-loved but poorly selling campaign setting
Campaign setting
A campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place...
s (including Planescape
Planescape
Planescape is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, originally designed by Zeb Cook. The Planescape setting was published in 1994...
, Dark Sun
Dark Sun
Dark Sun is a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting featuring the fictional desert world of Athas. The original Dark Sun Boxed Set campaign setting was released in 1991....
and Spelljammer
Spelljammer
Spelljammer is a campaign setting for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, which features a fantastical outer space environment....
) to fan groups, focusing business primarily on the more profitable Greyhawk
Greyhawk
Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game...
and Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms
The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...
lines.
In Summer 1997, Wizards revisited the concept of a 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, having first discussed it soon after the purchase of TSR. In 2004, Adkison looked back on the decision; "Obviously, we [Wizards] had a strong economic incentive for publishing a new edition; sales for any product line tend to spike when a new edition comes out, assuming the new edition is an improvement over the first. And given the change in ownership we thought this would be an excellent opportunity for WotC to 'put its stamp on D&D. He later "Set [the] overall design direction for the new editon of D&D." Wizards released the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2000, as well as the d20 System
D20 System
The d20 System is a role-playing game system published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast originally developed for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons...
. With these releases came the Open Game License, which allowed other companies to make use of those systems. The new edition of the D&D game won the 2000 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game. 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
Eberron
Eberron is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, set in a period after a vast destructive war on the continent of Khorvaire...
", submitted by Keith Baker, and its first hardcover book was released in June 2004. In 2003 Wizards released version 3.5 of Dungeons & Dragons and the d20 system. Wizards helped to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the D&D game at Gen Con Indy 2004.
On August 2, 1997, Wizards of the Coast was granted on collectible card games. In January 1999, Wizards of the Coast began publishing the highly successful Pokémon Trading Card Game
Pokémon Trading Card Game
The Pokémon Trading Card Game is a collectible card game based on the Pokémon video game series, first introduced in Japan in October 1996, then North America in December 1998...
. The game proved to be very popular, selling nearly 400,000 copies in less than six weeks, and selling 10 times better than Wizards' initial projections. There was such a high demand for Pokémon cards that some sports card series were discontinued in 1999 because so many printers were producing Pokémon cards. The game won the 1999 National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval.
Within a year, Wizards had sold millions of copies of the Pokémon game, and the company released a new set that included an instructional CD-ROM. Wizards continued to publish the game until 2003. One of Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
's affiliates, Pokémon USA, had begun producing a new edition for the game before the last of its agreements with Wizards expired September 30, and Wizards filed suit against Nintendo the following day, October 1, 2003. The two companies resolved their differences in December 2003 without going to court.
Acquisition by Hasbro
Seeing the continued success of Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering, the game and toy giant HasbroHasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...
bought Wizards of the Coast in September 1999, for about US$325 million. Hasbro had expressed interest in purchasing Wizards of the Coast as early as 1994, and had been further impressed after the success of its Pokémon game. Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...
was made a division of Wizards of the Coast, in late 1999; the company had been purchased by Hasbro in the summer of 1998.
Vince Caluori became President of Wizards of the Coast in November 1999. As of January 1, 2001, Peter Adkison resigned from Wizards. 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. Greg Leeds succeeded Loren Greenwood as President and CEO of Wizards of the Coast in March 2008. As of 2008, the company employs over 300 people.
In November 1999, Wizards announced that Gen Con would leave Milwaukee after the 2002 convention. Hasbro sold Origins to GAMA
Game Manufacturers Association
The Game Manufacturers Association is a non-profit trade association based in Columbus, Ohio, dedicated to the advancement of the non-electronic social games industry - Board/Tabletop Games, Miniatures Games, Card Games, Collectable/Tradeable Card Games, Role-Playing Games, and Live-Action Role...
, and in May 2002 sold Gen Con
Gen Con
Gen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card-style games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, non-collectible...
to Peter Adkison. Wizards also outsourced its magazines by licensing Dungeon
Dungeon (magazine)
Dungeon Adventures, or simply Dungeon, was a magazine targeting consumers of role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons. It was first published by TSR, Inc. in 1986 as a bimonthly periodical. It went monthly in May 2003 and ceased print publication altogether in September 2007 with Issue 150...
, Dragon
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
, Polyhedron
Polyhedron (magazine)
Polyhedron was a magazine which started out as the official publication of the RPGA . Publication began in the year 1981, and the target audience was players of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game...
, and Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
to Paizo Publishing
Paizo Publishing
Paizo Publishing is an American publishing company in Redmond, Washington that specializes in game aids and adventures for "the world's oldest fantasy roleplaying game" and its flagship spin-off game and setting, Pathfinder...
. Wizards released the Dungeons & Dragons miniatures
Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game
The Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game is a collectible miniatures game played with pre-painted, plastic miniature figures based on characters and monsters from the Dungeons & Dragons game. The figures are 30mm in scale...
collectible pre-painted plastic miniatures games in 2003, and added a licensed Star Wars line in 2004, and through its Avalon Hill brand 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.
After the company's great success in 1999 with Pokémon, Wizards of the Coast acquired and expanded "The Game Keeper," a US chain of retail gaming stores, eventually changing its name to "Wizards of the Coast", including the company's flagship gaming center on the Ave
The Ave
University Way NE, colloquially The Ave , is the commercial heart of the University District and the off-campus extension of the University of Washington in Seattle. Once "a department store eight blocks long," The Ave has gradually turned into what now resembles an eight-block-long global food...
in Seattle for several years, and its retail stores, which were mostly in shopping malls in the US. The gaming center was closed by March 2001 and eventually Wizards announced in December 2003 that it would close all of its stores in order to concentrate on game design
Game design
Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...
. The stores were closed in the spring of 2004.
Recent years
In early 2006, Wizards of the Coast filed a lawsuit against Daron Rutter, then administrator of the MTGSalvation website (on which he is known as "Rancored Elf"). The charges stemmed from Rutter publicly posting confidential prototypes for upcoming Magic: The Gathering card sets to the MTGSalvation forums, ten months before the cards were to be released. Mark RosewaterMark Rosewater
Mark Rosewater is a Magic: The Gathering card designer. He is currently Magics head designer.-Biography:Rosewater grew up in Pepper Pike, Ohio, where he attended the Orange High School. Rosewater has a Jewish background. Rosewater has described himself in his youth as a "social outcast", who did...
explained the outcome: "I can say that we [Wizards of the Coast] settled the lawsuit with Rancored Elf out of court to both parties' satisfaction."
Paizo Publishing
Paizo Publishing
Paizo Publishing is an American publishing company in Redmond, Washington that specializes in game aids and adventures for "the world's oldest fantasy roleplaying game" and its flagship spin-off game and setting, Pathfinder...
's license to produce Dragon
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
and Dungeon
Dungeon (magazine)
Dungeon Adventures, or simply Dungeon, was a magazine targeting consumers of role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons. It was first published by TSR, Inc. in 1986 as a bimonthly periodical. It went monthly in May 2003 and ceased print publication altogether in September 2007 with Issue 150...
magazines, which Paizo had been publishing since it spun off from Wizards of the Coast's periodicals department in 2002, expired in September 2007. Wizards then moved the magazines to an online model. On June 6, 2008, Wizards released the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, with the retail availability of a new set of core rulebooks. Wizards began introducing 4th Edition online content in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. 4th Edition is designed to offer more streamlined game play, while the new rules framework intended to reduce the preparation time needed to run a game and make the game more accessible to new players.
April 6, 2009, Wizards of the Coast suspended all sales of its products for the Dungeons & Dragons games in PDF format from places such as ONEBOOKSHELF.com and its subsidiaries RPGNow.com and DRIVETHRURPG.com. This coincides with a lawsuit brought against eight people in an attempt to prevent future piracy of their books, and includes the recent 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons products that were made available through these places as well as all older editions PDFs of the game.
Games and products
In addition to Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Pokémon, Wizards has produced numerous other games, including board, card, miniature, and role-playing games. They also publish novels based on games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and Legend of the Five RingsLegend of the Five Rings
Legend of the Five Rings is a fictional setting created by the John Wick and published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 1995. The setting primarily involves the fictional country of Rokugan, though some additional areas and cultures have been discussed. Rokugan is based roughly on feudal Japan...
.