What The Hell Is Hasbro Doing With D&D and MtG? With Amanda McLoughlin

Most states in the US have a minimum working age of 16, so you gotta start considering what companies are doing with that labor. A great example of a company we should consider is Wizards of the Coast, how they’re further monetizing the games they make, and the financial documents where they’re showing their entire profit-driven face. Former financial worker and only person who still has a soul and knows how to read these documents Amanda McLoughlin joins us for our first official episode of Games and Feelings and Workers Rights.


Links

- Toy Company Slammed For Getting Greedy With Magic: The Gathering” from Kotaku

- Hasbro's Fireside Chat

- Dungeons & Dragons executives think “the brand is really under monetised”

- Could Dungeons & Dragons Be The Next Harry Potter? Stranger Things Have Happened


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Credits

- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver

- Editor & Mixer: Mischa Stanton

- Music by: Jeff Brice

- Art by: Jessica Boyd

- Multitude: multitude.productions


About Us

Games and Feelings is an advice podcast about being human and loving all types of games: video games, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, game streams, and anything else that we play for fun. Join Question Keeper Eric Silver and a revolving cast of guests as they answer your questions at the intersection of fun and humanity, since, you know, you gotta play games with other people. Whether you need a game recommendation, need to sort out a dispute at the table, or decide whether an activity is good for a date, we’re your instruction manual. New episodes drop every other Friday.


Transcript

Eric: Are you ready? 


Amanda:  Ready! Whoo! 


Eric: Whoo


Amanda: Wooooa.


Eric: Whoo.


Amanda: Whoo.


Eric: [Chris Pratt as Mario impression] Wa - wahoo.


Amanda: If I were Christopher Walken, I would say [Christopher Walken impression] Woo.


Eric: Does he say woo?


Amanda: That was my Christopher Walken voice saying 'woo.' 


Eric: [Christopher Walken impression] A-woo.


Amanda: [Laughs] Yeah that's better.


Eric: [Christopher Walken impression] "Let's go. I'm-a Mario." [Amanda laughs] That's Christopher Walken, and you, you - 


Amanda: Ah, shit.


Eric: I just need to double check that, you know, who -


Amanda: I know, I know who he is, my impression just wasn't good. 


Eric: Okay, we'll work on it later.


Amanda: Thank you.


Eric: Hello gamers! Welcome to Games and Feelings, an advice show about playing games, being human, and dealing with the fact that those games will involve other humans. I'm your host and question keeper Eric Silver and the character from games who I think needs the most investment advice is the Koopa Troopa from the Mario Party series in Mario Party 4. There is Koopa's Seaside Soiree that has the Koopacabana hotel, and you have to invest every time you go buy it, and then a wave knocks it out every time that you like land on it. It's just like a bank thing. But I think it's always funny that a massive tsunami knocks out the hotel every time someone lands on it. But apparently in Mario Party 8, Koopa gets a whole town. There's Koopa's Tycoon Town where he owns an entire town, so maybe he doesn't need my help. The rich are just getting richer, regardless of their skills. Amanda McLoughlin, which character from games do you think needs the most investment help?


Amanda: I think that Chairman Rose from Pokemon Sword and Shield needs the most investment.


Eric: Aw, good choice!


Amanda: Because listen, ummm trying to trigger the metaphysical event, the darkest day to solve a power crisis, quote, "1000s of years in the future" is simply not a good use of your resources.


Eric: And the worst part is that in Galar, everyone just cares about old money, new money doesn't even matter because you don't even know the queen of Pokemon.


Amanda: Yeah. And in, in Wikipedia, there's, there's an inset box about the Galar region, and the photo was just Buckingham Palace! 


Eric: [Laughs] Do you think there's a House of Lords in Galar as well? Probably, right?


Amanda: Yeah, of course there is!


Eric: Yeah, definitely. All right, Amanda, it's just us today, because we're here for a very important episode of Games and Feelings. Instead of doing our first segment, 'Games that are giving us Feelings,' we're doing a new segment, which is where we talk about games business called 'Games and Feelings and Workers Rights.' 


Amanda: Yaaaaay!


Eric: Yaaayyy! [Folky Guitar Twang] Roll to form a union. There have been some articles coming out lately about Wizards of the Coast, the company. This has definitely been spurred, but like how much standee equipment these folks had at PAX Unplugged, which we were both at, which was wild. And I just wanted to cover a lot of the stuff because I think people get confused that Wizards of the Coast and therefore their sub brands, Magic: the Gathering the company, and Dungeons & Dragons, the company are inextricable from the games being played. And I think that's what the company wants. But one, that's not true. Because there are all these discrete, like, interactions between people that have nothing to do with the company, and two, they're not good at business. So I wanted you to come on and use your financial brain to talk about this stuff. And let's unpack what's going on with with with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.


Amanda: Absolutely. I think there is a real kind of tone of dismissal when public companies especially talk about their consumers where they're like, Oh, you dumb-dumbs, you don't know what you want. We know what you want. And we're doing things that are bad for you now like sending you to bed without eating dinner of ice cream and eating dinner like vegetables instead. You know you dumb-dumn, you don't know what's good for you. But they don't know what's good for us. We know what's good for us. We know what we want. And the rare instances when people in the financial world look at it also and say, "Oh, I think you're fucking up here." That is tasty and delicious. And that happened recently with Hasbro.


Eric: Yeah, let's start with this first thing. This was an article published in Kotaku, back in November. This is November 14, "Toy company slammed for getting greedy with Magic: the Gathering." Basically, Bank of America released a document saying that Hasbro was fucking up. Can you give some context to this document? And then let's explain the document.


Amanda: Yes. So before I was a podcaster, I used my English degree to work in finance. It was a dark day, I had student loans. Don't worry.


Eric: It's pretty funny. It's more funny than anything now.


Amanda: But the specific thing I did in finance is I helped to manage a department of equity researchers who are basically reporters that work at an investment bank and talk about how public companies are doing, so there's like the airlines team and the restaurants team and the you know, entertainment team and the steel team and the paper team.


Eric: I think it's worth pointing out like banks are companies too. And this, there's an entire division called equity research.


Amanda: Yes. 


Eric: Where people are looking into the sectors to tell the bank what to do with your money when you put your stuff in savings, because they're investing it to like, generate more money for themselves and you.


Amanda: It's content marketing. Yeah, it's content marketing for the bank where they get to say, oh, yeah, if you, you know, the manager of the like Firemen's pension fund, or if you rich individual who we want to, you know, invest your money with us, if you want to know how to invest your money, we got to prove to you that we know what to do with your money. And part of that is spending a lot of money on very highly paid experts to write reports about how these companies are doing. Because you can't just like look at the stock market be like "meeh, I'll take some of those" like, they need to know, oh, is this is this stock more expensive than it should be? Or is it cheaper than it should be? Because that's the whole point, right, is to sell things that are too expensive and buy things that are too cheap, and then cash out when everybody else catches up with what you know. And instead of doing like insider trading, or - some people do insider trading - [Eric laughs] and other people just look at the public documents that public companies are forced to, to publish every quarter and every year, which in theory should let us the, you know, the dumb-dumb consumers like know what we're doing with our money, and know if they're telling us the truth or not. And so anyway, these are experts that know about an individual sector. So you know, Hasbro might tell us they're doing really well, but somebody else who knows how all of Hasbro's competitors are doing and how they should be doing, how much they should be making if their decisions are good or bad, are the ones who are best equipped to tell us if what they're saying is true. And if what they're doing is good.


Eric:  Yeah. So this document was written up by Jason Haas, who is a research analyst where you used to work.


Amanda: A different bank but the same department. And by the way, this report was probably written by his research analyst, Elizabeth Tsuzuki, and Sara Park. So shout out to Elizabeth and Sarah.


Eric: That's true, fair. Okay. So tell me what this document says. B-because this is the summary that Kotaku got from CNBC, he said that the primary concern is that Hasbro has been producing Magic cards, which has propped up Hasbro's recent results, but it is destroying long term value of the brand. Kotaku then summarize this is like, by making more cards of valuable older cards, it's devaluing the secondary market of them or just the cards in general, this is very specific to Magic: the Gathering.


Amanda: It is and so the point of this report, is to say, Hey, I know before we were telling you that you should buy Hasbro stock because it's going to increase in value in the future, we think. But instead of just saying, Oh, nevermind, we don't think you should buy it just like hang out for now. Basically, they can give companies three ratings. They - each bank calls it differently, but it's essentially buy, don't bother, or hold and sell. And so Hasbro went from a buy to a sell, which is really rare. Because the company, the bank looks kind of silly in "being like I know yesterday, we were saying that you should buy Hasbro, but actually you should sell it because it's not doing well. It's priced too high and it's gonna lose money in the future."


Eric: I like the title of this particular document. It's called "Hasbro is killing its golden goose semicolon downgrade to underperform."


Amanda: Yeah. And so this is essentially a like an AP wire, a press release, the bank saying, "Hey, we were wrong about our previous opinion. And we think you should actually sell this. And because these reports are read by the people who, who, you know, move the stock market with all their buying and selling, the Hasbro share price they knew was going to take a hit after they report this. And by the way, these reports are read by like dozens of really highly paid lawyers and compliance experts at the bank. You are not supposed to say things that are inflammatory without reason. And so that quote, you read the fact that they're saying they're destroying value. That's a word that a bunch of experts had a meeting about probably and said, you know, are we true? Like, is it really being destroyed? Should you say something less? And the fact that it made it out there and got published means that they are really confident about their conclusions here?


Eric: What are we getting from this document that Kotaku isn't covering? Because Kotaku, this guy, Ethan Gach, who is a good reporter does not really know that much about banking. 


Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs]


Eric: It's a way to like talk about stuff on message boards. And he summarizes the fact that like this is true. Wizards of the Coast is pumping out regular sets for Magic: the Gathering. There have been seven products in seven months, which is wild and it just seems that they want to shove things down your throat. There's more stuff coming in 2023 such as a Lord of the Rings set and a Doctor Who set followed by Final Fantasy 7 and Assassin's Creed mini sets in 2024. So that's just like oh man Hasbro selling out to brands blah, blah, blah. Like what is what is the bank saying is they're doing badly here?


Amanda: Yeah, the bank is saying, so I got my hands on the actual report. And the text from the report that I think is most interesting is they're saying quote, "we're concerned that the company has been over producing Magic: the Gathering which is damaging the long term value of the brand and will lead to lower demand for future releases." So from Magic's perspective, they're saying, "Whoa, whoa, guys, we're just making more cards for you to buy. Whoa whoa whoa. We're making it easier for you to get your hands on the cards that you really want." And the analysts, the experts in companies like Hasbro are saying, actually like you are creating panic like, quote, "creating panic among collectors, because they are making new cards, Reserved List cards that they had promised to never reprint." And so the fact is that a lot of players see magic cards as investments, they buy them when they come out, because they think they're going to increase in value going forward. And when Hasbro like, you do that with stocks, and then if a company is like, no, no, we're gonna sell like, we're gonna triple the amount of stock out there. And now anyone who wants to buy one too, the people who bought it years ago are like, "Oh, fuck me, I guess, like I guess it's worth a lot less."


Eric: Yeah, there's an interesting thing that this guy who works at Bank of America, and the two women who work under him, who - 


Amanda: Who probably wrote the report. Yeah.


Eric: Yeah, who wrote this report, are considering the secondary market and like the customer base of Magic: the Gathering with the people who are playing, investing, like he's considering, or these analysts are considering the brand of Magic: the Gathering under Hasbro, where it seems like Hasbro is not, we talk about this a lot how putting out as much stuff as possible is squeezing all the juice you can out of customers, and then they're gone. And then there's no more juice left.


Amanda: Exactly. And what this report is doing that I think is really interesting is like quantifying sentiment of customers, they are saying that, you know, Hasbro can say all it likes, and we'll get into what they are saying in response to this report, which is "Umm actually you're wrong and I'm right," which is incredibly hilarious, and I'd love to see it. But Hasbro is saying all they want to convince you that the decisions that they are making are right. And listen, these analysts are doing their best from the outside, they - no one can predict the future. Like they, you know, some of the things they're saying might be unfounded. They're saying, Hey, we're concerned about this. So maybe don't pour your money, you know, manager of a retirement fund for teachers in New Jersey, into Hasbro right now. But it is really significant that they are saying "if you piss off your customers enough, the customers are going to fight back, the customers are going to not buy the things in the future. You can't just assume that you can do whatever you want, extract as much money out of these people as possible, and then move on." There's ways to quantify that. It's called things like customer churn, where you make your customers mad enough, and they don't come back and keep buying. It's not an infinite well, of you know, people who love your, love the things that you make and make it a part of their lives. And you just go back to them again and again and again, or piss off the people who have been the heart of your brand in favor of let's say new people who need to spend a lot of money upfront. And right now this quarter, when you know, the corporate heads of Hasbro are getting their pay based on the performance of their stock, which is the thing that happens. And not two years from now.


Eric: Yeah, it's confusing. It's wild. So of course, Hasbro has to respond. So they had a fireside chat [Amanda laughs] quote-unquote, on December 8 at 11am, which is it's just so funny. It also hearing the different articles summarize what this was is really funny. 


Amanda: Yes.


Eric: They called it a fireside chat in Polygon. But the first place that I saw this, and this is Dicebreaker. So it's British. So I wonder if it's a little bit, if it's a little bit different. They call it an investor focused web seminar.


Amanda: Yeah. But you know what, Eric, they start this document with a disclaimer that says, "Uuuh by the way, we're not going to be saying anything today that like changes our forecasts, by the way, like this is just a call. And you know, it's important that you know that we are not like making any predictions for the future and forward-looking statements." So this is literally just a press event in response to bad press they got from this Bank of America statement.


Eric: Right. So this is with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks - spelled without an x. Just so you know.


Amanda: Just so you know.


Eric: And Wizards of the Coast CEO and president Cynthia Williams. This call is mainly about Magic: the Gathering and probably in response to that Bank of America document, but they also touch on Dungeons and Dragons, which I really want to talk about because it's really, really wild. What Hasbro and Wizards think is the business model for the future about these games that our people love so much and why we should be a little bit worried about that.


Amanda: Yeah, and like I had to ask a friend who works in finance and whose boss pays for a very expensive subscription to -


Eric: You can say it's my brother. 


Amanda: Okay, I'd ask Eric's brother [Eric laughs] who works at a hedge fund to get me the transcript of this call because this isn't public like it's it's for investors of Hasbro, it's for people that Hasbro invites to this call. 


Eric: The audio is public on the Hasbro website, which is even funnier though because it's like, I can go to a different place and like buy Monopoly. 


Amanda: Yes, it's very funny. 


Eric: Like I can buy Sorry. And then it's like just a link to the webcast. I just caught, a fireside chat, which is very funny.


Amanda: Yeah, Hasbro doesn't post the transcripts, but Bloomberg posts the transcript. And so my point In saying that is like, you know, we as consumers, we look at what these companies are doing. And we say, hey, this feels bad, or, Hey, this seems different. Or you ask your friends, Hey, have you noticed that like, you're less likely to buy new magic cards because like, I don't know, if they might just reprint a bunch of them later when they decide to and you know, I'm not going to do the thing I've done for many years. But the companies just say it, they are very clear about what they're trying to do and what they think of the people who's paid their salaries.


Eric: Especially for this stuff, where they really don't think that anyone outside of someone who works at a financial institution or ever read this.


Amanda: Yeah.


Eric: Which is why it's important we have you here -


Amanda: Wheee!


Eric: - to translate this document. That's why I wanted to do it, is that you were the only person who can read this stuff and explain it to other people who I know, which is very important. So do we want to touch on Magic: the Gathering stuff first, which is ostensibly the idea of the call.


Amanda: Yes.


Eric: And then we're gonna get to D&D stuff later, which they do slip in, which is wild.


Amanda: Exactly. First, it's important to know that their share price has fallen 41% this year, which I think is very funny.


Eric: [Eric sighs] Oh, god. [Amanda laughs] Share price, stock share price, as we've learned from GameStop. And all the other bullshit doesn't mean everything. But it - 


Amanda: It does mean something!


Eric: It does mean something. That's bad. It's not good.


Amanda: Yeah. So that's just a funny thing that you guys need to know. A few things that I thought were really interesting from this 12 Page transcript of this 30 to 45 minute call, which, by the way, is not long enough for real questions, which is what a company does when they just want to tell you something and change headlines and not have hard questions back, FYI. So firstly, Magic: the Gathering didn't know who played their game until 2016, when they got a new CEO and decided to, I don't know, survey their players and figure out who was buying their stuff and why.


Eric: That was so recently.


Amanda: That's very recent. And so when they had this brilliant idea to figure out who was buying their cards, they figured out some interesting things. For example, they've learned recently that their average player is 30 years old, about what I would guess.


Eric: That sounds about right.


Amanda: 1/3 of their players have less than three years of experience with the game, and another third of them playing the game for more than 10 years. 


Eric: Interesting. 


Amanda: So the bell curve, like the center of that bell curve, you know, is about whatever that is, six years, six, seven years of experience, but they don't care about [Eric and Amanda chuckle] the two thirds of their customers who have been playing for more than three years. Because their whole strategy is to base all of their product releases, and investments and spending on new players to the game.


Eric: That's wild. Some might say that the people who've been playing for more than three years, the people who played all the time, buy it, care about it, and maybe play it competitively, even with their friends or together or at tournaments. And so that that explains why there's so many like brand deals happening constantly, because they want people to buy. It's like they're turning Magic cards into souvenirs, ignoring the fact - they're Pokemon: the trading card gaming their own game by saying no, no, no, don't care about the fact that this is used for play. Just what don't you want a David Tennant Doctor Who card instead?


Amanda: Yes. And you can see this very clearly because they have names for these kinds of players, which is how you know it's a real corporate strategy when they've assigned it a stupid brand name. 


Eric: Oh, no. 


Amanda: So for Magic's eyes in Hasbro's eyes, they have three kinds of players, the competitive player who plays competitively with other people, the social player, a person who plays more casually, kind of collects, like just is mostly in it for the social experience with friends. And the collector people who, you know, I think they don't say this, but I'm assuming are more interested in the secondary market. And it just kind of like owning, you know, what, what I would think of as most dedicated Magic players or most traditional Magic players.


Eric: And also the people that the Bank of America report is worried about?


Amanda: Yes. And so this is a quote from Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro - who, by the way, just puts it out there in these transcripts, he just says whatever he feels like, which is very funny, as opposed to the the president of Wizards who does not. So, quote, "we had a really monolithic view of the player, the player of Magic, we thought there was one player who was the competitive player, we knew that there were other player segments that existed like casual and collectors. But honestly, we were a little afraid that if we built products that deviated at all, from our traditional approach of appealing to the competitive player, we would just hurt the business. And what we found was actually the opposite. If we were able to segment our player profiles in really simple ways, competitive/social/collector, and build products that were bespoke to each of them -" 


Eric: Noooooo.


Amanda: "- make each of those segments happier, engage them more and get more of their time and more share of their wallet to grow the business as a whole." So they're literally saying that they simply want to make as much money as possible from every style of kind of person, you know, sector a player who wants to buy Magic cards.


Eric: Can I take this a step further? If we're now in the boardroom of them coming up with products going forward, and those are our three segments, is social, competitive, and collector. Competitive needs one or two sets a year to keep the metal fresh, right? Social doesn't really only care, they're probably just playing the same game with their friends. Maybe they'll pick up a pack or two, if they think it's interesting, right? The collectors are the ones who want to buy the thing, who's getting served the most segmenting your audience?


Amanda: Yeah, well, Hasbro says another quote from a little bit earlier in the call, "we've seen growth in casual players who we estimate represents about 80% of the player base with the competitive player representing the remaining."


Eric: Okay, so now, it's another - three segments, but really, it's 80%, 20%. The collector and the social are 80% and the competitive, it's 20%. So we're going to serve those other folks. 


Amanda: Yup.


Eric: Oh, boy. That's what happens when you put math together.


Amanda: And you know what, it's just like fans have known this for as long as there's been fandom and like, there's a reason why fan fic originated in zines shared between friends and like mailed for free and like printed at people's day jobs and libraries. You know, fandom knows that people want to make money off of us. And this has only gotten truer throughout our adulthood, Eric, in the last like 10, 15 years. But it's, it's gross and it sucks to see them just say it. So this is a quote from Cynthia Williams, president of Wizards. Quote, "I'd say our growth has come from monetizing more player segments, and not just from increasing the spend on the same core set of players." Again, referring to Magic. Again, quote, "you'll see us leaning heavily into the expansion of D&D through D&D Beyond, the acquisition that we did that closed this past May, we have about 13 million customers registered users there, and we'll continue to serve them by giving them more ways to express their fandom," which is simply - 


Eric: That doesn't mean anything!


Amanda: Simply a gross way of saying spend money.


Eric: Remember, D&D Beyond was an online component that someone else made. So you could have your D&D stats online, Dungeons and Dragons bought it recently. So they combined all this stuff, but you still need to buy both the print book and the Online Edition at the same time. That's how we're going to express our fandom, Amanda, [Amanda laughs] buying official Wizards of the Coast products twice.


Amanda: And again, like out of one side of her mouth in the next remark she gives, they're like, Oh, they they had like a sort of softball question about, you know, how do you how do you distribute your cards, have the players actually bough it? And so she spends, like, you know, four or five sentences talking about, oh, well, you know, we work with a network of small businesses, the global Wizards play network hobby stores, but also of course, quote, "we've continued to evolve our omni channel retail strategy that involves continuing [Eric laughs] to expand our footprint at retail globally, e-commerce as well as our developing direct consumer collectible offering." So, "um don't worry, we're working with small businesses, but also our omni channel." Like I picture like an octopus like, Doc Ock taking over a lab.


Eric: Omni channel sounds like what TVs are gonna be like, 2030 you can plug your brain into the channel, and you're there with Jeff Probst watching Survivor.


Amanda: Yeah, and you know, I think it's important like - I am, listen, I'm delighted by corporations acting badly. I think it's really funny. And I like that my, the stuff I had to do to pay back my student loans equips me to understand what companies are trying to do to me as like a geek and fan identified person. But this is important like, it's, it's important that you're able to, like use media literacy skills to read between the lines of like, literally, the person who's hosting this call is called the head of Investor Relations at Hasbro. And what that means is, I'm a publicist for the company to investors being like, "no, no, everything's fine, give us your money," because I'm paid by like stock dividends, or my compensation is tied to the price of the stock, like the fiduciary responsibility that like, by law, the priority of the people in charge of public companies is to benefit their shareholders, the people who own their stock, not their customers, like the customers are a byproduct to increasing share price, that is at the end of the day, the truth like that's what they're mandated to do by their jobs, their corporate bylaws, and I just think that it doesn't serve any of us when they get to sort of cloak this stuff in just press release that say "no, no, no, we're letting you express your fandom," when what they're actually literally doing is saying, "um, no, 80% of our customers are new. And so we're going to make a bunch of products, or in D&D's case, make you pay a recurring subscription fee instead of buying a book and keeping a book for several years in order to make more money." 


Eric: Yeah. Alright, so let's talk about Dungeon & Dragons. 


Amanda: Let's do it.


Eric: They accidentally touch on this in this Fireside Chat. They really do. And this is this came out when this Fireside Chat popped up and a bunch of folks have covered it. But I'm referring specifically to this Dicebreaker article that we're looking at the same fireside chat that we were just talking about. Dungeons and Dragons executives think, quote, "The brand is really under monetized" quotes. They just say that! Wizard of the Coast CEO and President Cynthia Williams just says this. "Dungeons and Dragons has never been more popular and we have really great fans and engagement, but the brand is really under monetized."


Amanda: Yep. 


Eric: Bwoof. This is paired with the recent learning as of time of recording that they're changing the word 'race' to the word 'species.' But of course, they haven't really moved the needle in any particular way. I had thought about this quite a lot lately, especially as we're going into a new campaign, in Join the Party. And a lot of other folks all over D&D media has thought about this, that like, this doesn't change the problem, though. All you're doing is a vocabulary switch, which is good. But it really just puts you in like 1996 era of being aware of who your customer base is, and being kind to others. 


Amanda: Yeah, it's like calling them mail carriers than a mailman, it doesn't fix the like the gender ratio of hiring at the post office, you know what I mean?


Eric: Yeah, exactly. And there's still a lot of things that are baked in here. And I was, you know, the thing that had happened with race bonuses before, that, like, instead of being like, goblins are extra sneaky, Orcs are stupid so they don't die. They were just like, yeah, you can make race bonuses anything you want. But it is still inherently tied to race. But now it's, these are still inherently tied to species no matter what you do. They're not changing the fact that these bonuses are tied to who you are in your DNA, which is weird still, for a storytelling game, which is incredibly complicated. So that happened right before this. And I've been positing. I'm like, Why does Dungeons and Dragons the company, and Hasbro, why is it taking them so long to make moves, they're taking these tiny steps forward. And one little tiny step forward, maybe a tiny step back when they keep hiring all these people. But really, it's like the same three white guys are getting final approval on anything anyway. And there was that quote, a few years ago when like the Washington Post, and people started writing about this stuff that's like, even inside the company, they want to keep D&D, D&D, whatever the fuck that means. Now, like, oh, I guess they're still trying to serve all types of people who play Dungeons and Dragons. We've learned from Fifth Edition, that lots of people in the modern age are attracted to it, because they like the new role playing, the game interaction that's in fifth edition inherently, as opposed to the more war and fighting focused 3.5. And of course, the original where Dungeon & Dragons came from, it was literally like a fantasy war game. Like, obviously, that has attracted quite a lot of minority groups. And I'm not saying minority groups to be - 


Amanda: No. I mean, - 


Eric: I mean literally, anyone who is not the in any sort of societal hierarchy - 


Amanda: Straight, cis,  Christian, you know, dude, who gets all the Star Wars references and has a lot of money to like, watch all these movies and buy all these comics, like it was very specific.


Eric: They're - Anyone who considers themselves some type of minority in the place, the country they're living in have been attracted to this game, because they get to play out a story that means something to them, because they buy into the story, right? But that does not mean that there isn't a major contingent of people still buying Dungeons and Dragons books, who are the old school nerd, the person who you think of in your head, who hates the wokeness that is changing to Dungeons and Dragons, what they're calling the wokeness, right? And I'm realizing that people are buying that stuff. And that's important to the company, especially if they're going to call D&D, a massive growth driver and something that is so popular right now. And this, this call has borne that out.


Amanda: Eric, a few, a few more nuggets from this transcript around D&D that I think you'd really appreciate. First of all, speaking of all the hiring, they're doing. So Chris Cox, interrupts President Cynthia Williams, to say, "the only thing I want to add here, Cynthia is every time you talk about a hiring rate wizard, I'm absolutely floored my family still lives in Seattle. I live here in Providence, and I'll go back to the Wizards office. It's like, I'm a senior. It's like a graduating senior returning the next day to high school. I don't recognize how fast, it's a tribute, to like a tribute to the business and the great job that teams doing growing the talent pool." 


Eric: Yeah, they keep hiring people and then not listening to them. 


Amanda: Yes.


Eric: You gotta have a lot of people around and then you it ultimately comes down to like three dudes.


Amanda: Yep, that's very true. So right after that quote from Chris, after he opined about Seattle, talking about how - 


Eric: [Laughs] All the young people of Seattle.


Amanda: - how the brand is under monetized. Both of them said it by the way, it's a it's a phrase they love to use. So then he talks about why they acquired D&D Beyond. Eric, what do you think they acquired D&D Beyond, what have they said?


Eric: I don't - they've said probably the stuff that you're saying. But I think they just acquired it so that they can make you pay double, and they get to put the second one in their pocket?


Amanda: Well, Eric, that's true. And most people might think like, eh, business has got a business, that's fine. What I think is pretty gross is they mostly got it for player data. So Chris Cox says -


Eric: Oh fuck, Jesus Christ. 


Amanda: Quote, "we made this connection to strengthen our connection to players and power our next phase of product development, user acquisition and to have live service tools through which we gain really valuable data driven insights. With D&D Beyond we have a window into how fans are playing the game daily, even if they're playing around the dining room table." Ellipses here as we skip forward a bit. "When we think about our future monetization, we start here. Dungeon masters which are the people who guide you through the adventure make up only about 20% of the audience, and they are they are the largest share of paying players. The rest of the players the table -"


Eric: Oh my god, that's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna we have to dive into that.


Amanda: "The rest of the players at the table we believe digital will let us offer a lot more options to create rewarding experiences post sale that helps us unlock the type of recurrent spending you see in digital games, where more than 70% of the revenue in digital gaming comes post sale."


Eric: Wait! This - This explains why keep thinking One d&d is a game of service!


Amanda: It is.


Eric: It literally is!


Amanda: It is.


Eric: Jesus fucking Christ. 


Amanda: Yes. They say later to we've been a publishing company, but now we're going to be a like digital games company.


Eric: Okay, can we go back to the net number thing about the DM? So the DM is 20% of all people, all audience and they're the ones who spend the most.


Amanda: Yes. 


Eric: Okay. But like, that's because they buy the thing on behalf of the table.


Amanda: Right!


Eric: And then they distribute in most tables, on average from, are four players, one DM.


Amanda: Well, Eric - 


Eric: Did they not think? Did they not - [Exapserated stammer]


Amanda: That's not good enough for them because they want to make players spend money too. And again, I think it's just it's fundamentally disrespectful. Like the reason D&D is a cultural force is because dungeon masters have been like studying and creating and spending money and making stuff and buying pizza and soda to like, invite their friends over and teach them how to play this game and run stories for them. And I just feel disrespectful and bad for Hasbro to say "That's nice. Thank you, also, here are ways" like in, in another article, they talk about how "Well you know, in Fortnite players don't care that they spend 99 cents to like, buy a different gun. So why wouldn't people pay a little bit of money to like put their face on their character's avatar," and it's just it's, it's reductive. It's stupid. It's dismissive, and they're just saying this stuff.


[Segment Transition Music]


Eric: Hey, it's Eric, and I picked up some snacks for Games and Feelings. I have mulled cider, much like being a dungeon master, making mulled cider is a lot easier than you think and it makes you seem really cool. Just reduce cider down to like 70% and throw in some cinnamon and cloves and star anise and bing bang, boom, you got a hot holiday drink. 

One note about this episode. We recorded it a few days ago because I was frothing at the mouth to talk about it. But we did not touch on the Open Gaming License, or called the OGL, which allows people to make home brewed content for Dungeons and Dragons and then sell it. That's why there's a huge like cottage industry of people making, you know, space stuff and different classes and all this stuff around it. And it also kind of touches on actual play podcasts as well. If this has been baked into Dungeons and Dragons since its creation, which is why people were allowed to do this. It seemed like it was gonna go away. People were really worried about how it was going because Wizards of the Coast had been doing a lot of the things that we're describing in this episode. But 30 minutes ago, they released on D&D Beyond that an OGL is going to be in One D&D, the next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons, which is the games of service type living document living game that we've been talking about. There's going to be a version 1.1 coming in 2023. We're going to see what it covers or what it doesn't cover. But they've summarized it here saying that "anyone who sells content commercially has to accept the license terms, report OGL related revenue annually, and include a creator product badge on their work." So not great. They're definitely changing from what it used to be. There also apparently are 20 creators worldwide who make more than $750,000 in income, and that's going to have a royalty starting in 2024. So they're gonna have to pay Wizards for the privilege of selling this much stuff. So I'm not really sure what the deal is here, we're going to see what this looks like in 2023. But definitely more to look into. More 'G and F and W R' coming in the future. 

If you like Games and Feelings and Workers Rights the podcast, you should be part of our Patreon at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings just like our newest patrons, Payton and Inooksi Monslave. Thank you again to our producer level patrons Polly Berge and Kelsey Duffy, who are very calm and clear headed while playing Mario Party, even when the computer cheats. If you like episodes where Amanda and I talk to each other and analyze working conditions, and what it's like being a person in the 21st century, you're gonna love this stuff on The Replay, which is the full podcast you get if you join the patreon patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. 

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[Chiptune chirp]


Eric: I want to get to the big plan here for Dungeons and Dragons, which is like why are they taking such small steps while they're doing all this? There's, because they're trying to acquire more money. They want to extract more money out of people. And the way to do that is to turn Dungeons and Dragons to into a quote "four quadrant brand" similar to Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. 


Amanda: They said that three times in the in the fireside chat.


Eric: So to that end, that means they don't want to just do games and books. They want to push into the other three places, entertainment, big triple A games, and an expanded line of toys. Here's the thing, they're already doing two of these. Baldur's Gate 3 is coming out really soon. They've been making Dungeons and Dragons video games for years. We have so many toys, collectibles and merchandise of D&D, whether we're talking about dice, whether they're talking about plushies or Funko pops that are licensed out. We have those. But now they're pushing into movies, which we're seeing with D&D: Honor Among Thieves the movie coming out in 2023.


Amanda: Yeah, you want to know what Chris Cocks says about this mix? 


Eric: Yes, please.


Amanda: He says quote "to me the D&D film is the first big wide up opportunity for that powerful four quadrant brand."


Eric: There it is.


Amanda: By all accounts he feels it's gonna have a healthy box office, ellipses. I think - 


Eric: Says who?! What?? I bet you, you mean when movies are terrible or no one is going to see movies in theaters except for Top Gun: Maverick?!


Amanda: I was gonna skip this but I think you'll like it. Paramount prior to the latest Transformers, the way the Transformers drive the best trailers, that was just released this week. D&D was on track to be one of the top viewed trailers ever by Paramount, transformers took that honor recently so we're still happy about that.


Eric: Boof. Boof.


Amanda: By the way, just internal dick measuring with the Transformers franchise. "I think we're going to be able to wide up D&D awareness, we're going to be actively be able to activate that awareness" aka make people spend money based on the fact they know at the end is. Quote "with the host of products at retail, gaming and online and then we're going to follow it up with a host of video games that we license out and work with trade partners like Larian with Baldur's Gate 3."


Eric: Right. Here's the thing. This guy is just serving up rewarmed over bullshit. 


Amanda: Yeah.


Eric: D&D has been trying to do this for years. Again, this is Baldur's Gate 3. They've been making Baldur’s Gate games for years and been trying to push Dungeon & Dragons into video games for years. We already talked about the merchandising, and there is a flop Dungeon & Dragons movie in 2000. That was in 2000. That was not in 85. It was in 2000. That was in this millennium. 


Amanda: Yeah, it lost - 


Eric: They're just using same stuff and they they failed at it? 


Amanda: Yeah, it lost millions and millions of dollars. 


Eric: And the only reason why they're bringing it back is that fifth edition and the groundswell that comes from Fifth Edition. Now they're like, "Alright, there's enough nerds, let's buy them." Here's the problem about nerds. They have different social expectations. And some of them are like alt-right assholes. And some of them are liberals who care about their friends. So that's - Wizards of the Coast is trying to balance that so that they can serve all of them dollars. That's why they're only taking these tiny steps forward, because they don't want to alienate their alt right buyers as well, because they're trying to get everyone, every single person to go to that movie. Here's what I don't understand, Amanda. And maybe this is my fault for being a plebe with a creative brain and not a financial brain, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, are book series that turned into successful movies that were phenomena, correct? Lord of the Rings, obviously, is the fundamental work. It's the it's a little different, Lord of the Rings, it was written quite a number of years ago, the fundamental backbone of the fantasy genre, right? Harry Potter, current obsession, definitely has taken its hits lately because JK Rowling is a transphobe, and I'm not sure why anyone wants to consume any new content from Harry Potter, because you're putting money in her pocket. So it just really doesn't matter. But - literally they're IP, right? If we're going to be gross about it, it's IP, it exists. It's a book, right? 


Amanda: Yup.


Eric: How in god's name are they going to make IP out of Dungeons and Dragons, which is a game system, not a story? It's not even their story. It's not the Forgotten Realms, the default setting, that D&D sells in their books, and it's not your home brewed story at your table. It's just kind of this amalgam of high fantasy vocabulary that they're kind of smooshing together. Like they can use the word Bard, Fighter, Monk, Warlock, Wizard, because that's part of the game. And like, maybe they can make him some references to like, well known monsters or, or gods, which, again, they can kind of just took from mythology and shoved into their game like Bahamet, for example, but it's not - there's no cohesive story. They gotta make something up every time. And it has to fit high fantasy pablum. So like, what are they trying to four quadrant? This isn't like making an owl bear toy. You got to make a story. Like what's your IP? 


Amanda: Mhm.


Eric: That's what I don't understand.


Amanda: Yeah. And then this puff piece in Forbes that you found that was published back in October. D&D clearly thinks of itself like, what's the headline on this piece, Eric? 


Eric: Yeah, the headline here is Dungeon and Dragons. "Could Dungeons and Dragons be the next Harry Potter? Stranger Things have happened." Boo! 


Amanda: Boo puns.


Eric: I'm concerned - Actually, I'm not concerned, I think Wizards of the Coast has paid for this article. 


Amanda: Oh yeah. 


Eric: It's definitely a puff piece. It also feels like - was this within the realm of the Bank of America article?


Amanda: No, this came up before that.


Eric: But they're definitely laying the groundwork for this four quadrant thing. Because this is an interview with Cynthia Williams. Cynthia Williams is a nerd, a self described nerd. She grew up in like the woods of North Carolina. She is a woman. She's in, I would say 45 to 50. She looks like a regular American woman who is 45 to 50. And now she's like trying to be the face, the nice face -


Amanda: They are trying to make her than nice, approachable face of D&D.


Eric: Of the company Dungeons and Dragons, of the company was really close. We just like blows my fucking mind. They've been laying the groundwork for this in Forbes earlier.


Amanda: Yeah. And I mean, it's [sighs] like there's a video with this piece. Like they they absolutely, you know, if not pay them, like did some did some trades to get this to happen? Because they like listen, they want to use headlines to tell us what to expect as consumers. And to say like, Oh, yes, this is the next fandom I am prepared to fall in love with, which is not really how fandom works. And that's something that they just don't understand. And you know, it's a puff piece, in part because there are just nonsensical financial comparisons happening in this Forbes article. For examples, they brag first about how big D&D is and how much the reaches and how much it's grown, et cetera. And then the author Brett Knight says, quote, "the 11 movies based on JK Rowling's Harry Potter books have grossed $9 billion worldwide, more than 60 times D&D's annual revenues." You can't just compare the multi-decade total worldwide grossing of some movies based on a book franchise to the annual revenue of D&D, a game. Like that's just but that doesn't mean anything that comparison only exists to say "ah look at the opportunity!" And then they want you to just sort of believe what they're saying and not question why these are the numbers are choosing to compare.


Eric: Yeah, looking at this article. There actually isn't a lot of quotes from Cynthia Williams here, it's actually a history of Dungeons and Dragons. Like the majority of this stuff is a pretty chunky article and a lot of it is just kind of like Wikipedia dump. Here's a here's a fun paragraph. "Despite those impressive numbers, Dungeons and Dragons looks just as much like a missed opportunity. Steeped in canonical Western literature from Beowulf (c. 900) [Amanda laughs], medieval tales of King Arthur, not to mention JRR Tolkien's novels of the mid 20th century, D&D introduced a modern generation to fantasy worlds of swords and sorcery. But while is the basis of the 1980s cartoon, and a mixed bag of video games, D&D remained at its heart a publishing business selling a set of lavishly illustrated hardcover rule books supplemented by novels and pre written adventure." And then, of course, d&d plotted along then Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire and JK Rowling's Harry Potter fucking blew up.


Amanda: Yeah. And one of the quotes they do from Williams is like, a, they point out that she previously worked at Xbox and Amazon. And so one of the quotes that they have from her is, quote, "I draw inspiration from what I've seen from so many games as a service. She says, Today, it's a publishing business, I think will expand beyond that."


Eric: Yikes, fucking Yikes. Amanda I also want to dip into your business brain, because you've also been around a lot of like, business guys and entrepreneurial guys. And this article reminds me of when people see a good small business and like, "Wow, good for this good, small business." And then a business guy like kicks his way into the room and be like, "ugh, they can't scale and like, oh, you need humans to do all of this. How are you supposed to scale it all? It's handmade." Like they, they take words that people usually mean are good. And they mean it bad because they can't make more money out of it. 


Amanda: Right. 


Eric: And this is what this article feels like. Like Forbes is laying this out. From a business perspective being like "Dungeons and Dragons is a bad company. They decided that books and creative things and games were going to be their business model. And that's stupid. They should push into other thing, but I think this new president Cindy Williams is going to do it and make it a real good business. Congratulations."


Amanda: And listen, I have some feelings about a woman in business as a woman in business about how they're kind of holding her up. For example, the last paragraph this article is, quote from Williams, "D&D, as a game is a lifestyle, has the potential to help people be more comfortable with who they are, express themselves more, says Williams, who finally got the opportunity to play this game this year with Kocsis, her dungeon master."


Eric: Man, your CEO and boss is your Dungeon Master?! Jesus Christ earlier, I just want to before you continue, earlier in the article, they say the first time that she wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons was in the 80s when she was living in the tobacco fields of North Carolina. 


Amanda: Yeah! 


Eric: So, but you can just say that, that's like the video - That's like, when Chris Pratt says, "I love Mario, I loved Mario forever," like you can just say those things!


Amanda: And maybe it's true. But you know what, again, they're trying to wrap all of these things like the very end of the article is like, "yeah, yeah, there's been some diversity problems, but they're working on it." And they, they're using that as a veil for saying that, you know, they're democratizing the game, make it easier to play whatever, but all for the low, low monthly subscription price of whatever it's going to be to, you know, to access One D&D. And again, there can be there can be things we enjoy about it, but we don't have to let the company take credit for the things that we fans are doing. Like the people who invite you to a table are not the company. It's the people in your lives in your community in your local game store who say like, no, no, I promise this is for you too. Who like put, you know, pride flags or whatever, like outside their their stores and make it clear that you are welcome there too. And the company doesn't get to take credit for that.


Eric: Yeah. Dungeons and Dragons is a TTRPG. It is a skeleton for you to fill in and tell the story you want to tell. That's it. Regardless of your playing a module, or Adventurers League, which is ostensibly sponsored by them or written by them, the thing you do at your table has absolutely nothing to do with this bullshit. They are trying to codify things to sell it back to you. That's why they're making a movie. They're creating IP so that they can tell you what their story is, and then you buy it.


Amanda: But that's never, that's never been the heart of the game and why it has endured for 50 years. 


Eric: Yeah. All right. I'm - what do we want people to take away from this necessarily? What shouldn't they're, like ultimate takeaways, and things to think about for the future in terms of how Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast is dealing with Magic: The Gathering, and Dungeons and Dragons. My first thing, which is why I want to get it out of the way. So we can say some optimistic things afterwards, is that businesses aren't good at business. Companies don't know what they're doing. And they try to run after profit, even if it's not necessarily what's good for business. And you can make your choices and don't like fall for their marketing, necessarily, just because the Joe Manginello is there. You know.


Amanda: Just because a company is big doesn't mean that it's good. And just because it makes money doesn't mean it's good I'm making money or is making the most money possible or that making the most money possible is the best strategy for longevity. Again, like all of these people who are making these choices have, you know, make millions of dollars a year, and their compensation is tied to the price of the stock of that company, if it's a public company, and that is really significant, which is why when things like you know, this Bank of America report comes out where they sent Elizabeth and Sarah, by the way, to two Targets in Midtown to check out what cards are being sold there - 


Eric: [Laughs] I never saw this, there are just photos of Magic cards! 


Amanda: Oh, yeah, no sources be available research, aka Sarah and Elizabeth's iPhones. 


Eric: Oh my god.


Amanda: And they said that in the two targets they visited, there was a high mix of older product, one didn't carry Magic, the other hand, a lot of older stuff. And so they are concerned that national retailers are selling Magic less and less, and there hasn't been enough new player growth to offset what Magic is saying it's doing. So again, Magic can say whatever they want, like at the end of the day, their job in that Fireside Chat is to make investors feel great and optimistic about their future. And so the thing that I want people to take away from the most is your opinions and feelings about the games that you play are important economic indicators. And no matter what the company is saying, like how they treat you how they make you feel, how the game that you are pouring care and love and time into, that is what creates value for these companies. Ultimately, they can print and make all they want. But if people don't want to buy it, it's not going to be successful. And so I feel that seeing how like - companies try to mold us into wanting the things they want us to want. Like D&D is trying to mold us into wanting to use D&D Beyond to you know, have the spell cards up on our phone, instead of buying physical spell cards one time that you never have to buy again, much less Eric, buying them from an independent seller, right, like buying from somebody on Etsy, or at your local con, or your local game store. And so, feeling okay with having the things you want and expect be different from what the company is telling you to want and expect is really good. And you may not get a lot of sort of affirmation in your life that your opinions and your feeling squicky or like the things you feel that are not reflected by what the company is saying, or what sort of stands on the internet are saying is okay, and that's tough. And I know why that's tough, but it really matters. And there are occasionally people out there who are like, "hey, people are pretty mad about this." And that's... even though companies don't pay attention to it, they should.


Eric: If I can add a codicil to that, if I could add an addendum to that one.


Amanda: Please!


Eric: I would say vote with your dollars and vote with your not dollars. Spending money on other things is a way to indicate that you want this thing and you like this thing. There are also ways to play these games in, as Amanda said, non optimal economic ways. And also free ways. Play with the magic cards you have, share with friends. Take screenshots, like there are plenty of ways to do this that don't have to vote with your dollars. We're also not saying don't play Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. Just play it on your own terms. Don't do what the company is trying to tell you. If you don't like what they're doing. There's also the voting with your dollars, spend money on other games, spend money on independent creators spend money on folklore on Etsy, and people at cons who are making stuff for your thing that you might like, vote with your dollars and vote with your not dollars. I was gonna do an advice question, but I think we're out of time.


Amanda: Yeah, we were concerned that this conversation wouldn't necessarily be long enough for a full episode, but I think it was.


Eric: But it was. Definitely. 


Amanda: Listen, games give us feelings. Games are made by people and those people have motives all their own that are not making sure you have a fun experience at home.


Eric: Yeah, there's one final thing I would like to add to to because you reminded me from that group of freshmen, who are the people who work in Seattle at Wizards of the Coasts. Lots of people work for wizards whether for Magic: the Gathering, for Dungeons and Dragons, whether in a writer or or narrative capacity or creating content like video or podcast content. Wizards of the Coast has a stranglehold on the upward mobility of being a content creator or a games writer right now. You need to have them on your resume. Or you need their giant marketing machine to uplift you. People do it because they have to.


Amanda: People need to get paid. And there's nothing wrong with that.


Eric: Right. The thing is that Amanda and I are not like... I wouldn't say we're like D&D content creators, necessarily, you know, like, in the way how everyone on Twitch is like a variety streamer. If they stream more than one game. Yes, it's like that. Like we're not just only making Dungeons and Dragons content, while lots of people are and they want to get recognized by Wizards to use, be, to be elevated or to put something on the resume. Luckily Amanda and I don't need that. So we're able to just say this stuff freely. Some folks are gonna do that. And it's like, you know, that's just the way it is. And unfortunately, it silences some people who might feel that type of way, or they have to sign their NDA after a time working there. That's kind of like why the stuff with Orion Black was so important. And when they left Wizards of the Coast and said they had a terrible experience, because not a lot of people have said that and a lot of people have to keep quiet. So like, just know that although they're making these bad business decisions, as we're laying it out, there's still a massive company and have a massive stranglehold on the community that has created such a good feeling around them.


Amanda: Yeah, and if you are a, you know, a game designer or writer, or an artist who wants to work anywhere but Hasbro, an internship at Hasbro is gonna really help your resume, like, there are - like everything, like climate change, like capitalism, like our individual choices and individual kind of abstaining from things we think are unethical. If we wanted to live a fully ethical life in capitalism, like we would have to fully abstain from it, like it's just, it's just not possible - 


Eric: We'd have to live off the grid and you, make your own water.


Amanda: And that has all its own kinds of barriers to entry. So, you know, there is there's absolutely no judgment on any of the people who need to work with the, you know, make some kind of compromise and peace with this dominant player. And it is, you know, unusual when, like us, like we, you know, we work for ourselves, there's no bosses having us sign NDAs or making us not talk badly about a player whose economic collaboration we need in order to exist. And so I just, I think it's important. And it's also rare that like, I happen to work in the industry, where I can understand what these documents mean, when Bank of America says, you know, one day you should buy the stock, we think it should be worth about $73. And then the next day say, no, no, you should sell it. And we think that it's only worth $42, compared to its, you know, on the day of publication price of $63.


Eric: That's why I find your perspective so valuable, Amanda, I truly don't know anyone else who can navigate this stuff who doesn't currently work in finance.


Amanda: Oh, thanks honey.


Eric: Or work who is not like a CFO somewhere.


Amanda: You know why that is?


Eric: Why?


Amanda: Because the financial system benefits and profits on people not knowing what the fuck they're talking about. 


Eric: That's 100% true. 


Amanda: And if banks make it so difficult to figure out how to keep your checking account above zero, they get to charge you overdraft fees, and that is how the world goes around.


Eric: Yep, now that's totally true. But so basically, folks just keep your head on a swivel, keep playing what you're playing, but remember to vote with your dollars and with vote with your not dollars and play with your not dollars.


Amanda: Scan and upload your books!


Eric: Yep, I don't know, be a buccaneer. Not that other thing, not that other thing that I'm saying. Amanda where can people find you if they want to hear more?


Amanda: I'm @shessomickey on social media. And I think I'm going to try a suggestion that Eric had which is annotating and and talking through the public reports that companies are forced to publish each quarter. Because hey, the, the font they put real big is the stuff they want you to think and the font, they put real small is the stuff that's actually really interesting. 


Eric: Are you looking to resurrect your YouTube channel? That might be huge? 


Amanda: Maybe!


Eric: It can be good. It could be good.


Amanda:  We'll see. 


Eric: All right, well, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at el_silvero, which is my name if I was a lucha libre wrestler, and you can find the show @GamesnFeelings, again, with an n like Linens N Things on Twitter. But we're also on Instagram as well. The best place to submit questions would we - I definitely have. And we were definitely going to answer, is on our website, gamesandfeelings.com/questions. And you can support the show at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings where Amanda and I do The Replay, where we replay and reply to games questions from advice columns of yore who truly have no idea what they're doing, and it's really funny to answer. And you can check out all the links, especially the links to these articles. And Amanda, can we upload some of these things to Google Drive? 


Amanda: We cannot.


Eric: We cannot? 


Amanda: No.


Eric: We cannot share with you the documents we got from Bank of America and from Bloomberg. But that's what we're referring to. We're gonna include the articles that have them summarized.


Amanda: And we can link to the audio of the fireside chat. 


Eric: We will link to the the audio the fireside chat as well. Amanda, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. That was another episode of Games and Feelings and Workers Rights. But remember, the instruction manual doesn't have anything about feelings because the banks are suppressing them. Goodbye, bye.


[End Music]


Eric:  Games and Feelings is produced by Eric Silver and edited and mixed by Misha Stanton. The theme music is "Return to French Toast Castle" by Jeff Bryce and the art was created by Jessica Boyd. Find transcripts for this episode, and all episodes at our website, gamesandfeelings.com. Until next time, press X to enjoy the podcast.

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