Apparently, continued pursuit of legal proceedings weren’t necessary for Wizards of the Coast and Pokémon USA. The two companies have agreed to settle things out of court after WotC charged two former employees of revealing trade secrets to their new employer, Pokémon. No details have been revealed, and likely never will be. With any luck, no further Pokémon products will be revealed either. I can dream, can’t I?
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I’d like that dream also, but for a very heinous reason: to observe the shutdown of Pokemon USA’s Trading Card Game department, which will result in the loss of many jobs, including the two former Wizards employees. I make no apology for being a Scrooge, but I wish them all one lump of coal.
I personally think the employees that *are* being fired because of the Pokemon slowdown would be of value elsewhere, but we all know WotC’s track record on that. Fire a bunch of ’em, bring in new ones for a new project, fire those guys, rinse, and repeat. They don’t seem to keep many — if any — workers from one project to the next.
I have no love for Pokemon, nor for collectible card games, nor for WotC’s bogus patent on them. But I wouldn’t wish unemployment on anyone. Especially those with families.
Actually, I’m talking about Pokemon USA, a different company than WotC that now handles the waning Pokemon TCG (among other things). IMHO, Wizards should not have pursued renewing that license since we all know that Pokemon is pretty much on the “out” list since December 2001. BTW, what other product does Pokemon USA market? As for Wizards’ track record, well, that’s what you get when you sell your company to a larger corporation, and the payrolls of senior employees — whose salary could have covered three new ones — can put a crimp on the business operation budget. If you ask me, it was a good business move to let go some of the employees and work on a freelanced contracting basis. That’s how they do it at Steve Jackson Games’ office. Of course, their only drawback is their less-than-stellar reputation of their editing/proofreading staff which they retained.