Jun 1, 2026 · 1 hr 47 min · 12 segments
Chase is joined on this episode (which is #37 despite what he says) by Jenna Stoeber and Tomas Franzese to discuss two overlapping issues between the tabletop and video game industries. First, the…
Chase Taylor CarterHost
Tomas FranzeseGuest
Jenna StoeberGuestAnd so thank you very much for that just, like, really professional segue that I'm gonna stomp all over-
Uh, yeah, you're absolutely right because, um, Hasbro has a lot of attention on it, uh, because of that a, like sort of increased pop culture presence which maybe goes against it whenever, say, uh, a, a big part of your digital games team unionizes, like the Magic: The Gathering Arena folks have done with United Wizards of the Coast.
This is a new union that popped up about a month ago, roughly a month ago.
They are unionizing under the Communication Workers of America, CWA, which is a large sort of umbrella union that represents, I, I don't know the exact number, but quite a few, like, writers and media workers in the United States.
Um, it, there's a fair, the pretty fair guess that if you are looking at a union of, like, creatives, uh, in an industry in the United States, they're probably affiliated with CWA.
Um, so-So yeah, U d-, uh, United Wizards of the Coast, they announced saying that like the, the Arena team, which is the digital version of Magic: The Gathering, it's the, the most popular one, were unionizing with a few like big asks that they wanted.
And among those was like protections against AI, which if you're a Rascal reader, you have seen me wax long on how AI is sneaking through all of the back doors within Hasbro.
Uh, CEO Chris Cocks's big, two big thumbs up about AI and what it, what it's gonna do for that company.
Uh, even though Wizards of the Coast itself and Magic have tried their best to put protections against like, say, AI art sneaking onto Magic cards and, uh, onto the team itself within like D&D books, all that sort of stuff.
But anywhere where art is inv- involved, AI seems to be sort of like creeping up through the concrete of that company.
But also some like real other like tangible material stuff, such as like an end to the, to work abroad or work, uh, like from home with a return to office mandate, which is becoming very popular in corporate settings these days.
Uh, Hasbro really wants folks to come back to the office, but for the Arena team, and I interviewed one of them, they said that like Arena really blew up over the pandemic, and so many of the workers who are there now were hired under a like, um, work from home sort of setup, and they don't have...
... or the, the areas around Seattle where Wizards of the Coast is operated.
And so now Wizards is asking them to uproot their lives and their family and everywhere they live to come to live in one of the highest cost of living cities in America-
And so thank you very much for that just, like, really professional segue that I'm gonna stomp all over-
Uh, yeah, you're absolutely right because, um, Hasbro has a lot of attention on it, uh, because of that a, like sort of increased pop culture presence which maybe goes against it whenever, say, uh, a, a big part of your digital games team unionizes, like the Magic: The Gathering Arena folks have done with United Wizards of the Coast.
This is a new union that popped up about a month ago, roughly a month ago.
They are unionizing under the Communication Workers of America, CWA, which is a large sort of umbrella union that represents, I, I don't know the exact number, but quite a few, like, writers and media workers in the United States.
Um, it, there's a fair, the pretty fair guess that if you are looking at a union of, like, creatives, uh, in an industry in the United States, they're probably affiliated with CWA.
Um, so-So yeah, U d-, uh, United Wizards of the Coast, they announced saying that like the, the Arena team, which is the digital version of Magic: The Gathering, it's the, the most popular one, were unionizing with a few like big asks that they wanted.
And among those was like protections against AI, which if you're a Rascal reader, you have seen me wax long on how AI is sneaking through all of the back doors within Hasbro.
Uh, CEO Chris Cocks's big, two big thumbs up about AI and what it, what it's gonna do for that company.
Uh, even though Wizards of the Coast itself and Magic have tried their best to put protections against like, say, AI art sneaking onto Magic cards and, uh, onto the team itself within like D&D books, all that sort of stuff.
But anywhere where art is inv- involved, AI seems to be sort of like creeping up through the concrete of that company.
But also some like real other like tangible material stuff, such as like an end to the, to work abroad or work, uh, like from home with a return to office mandate, which is becoming very popular in corporate settings these days.
Uh, Hasbro really wants folks to come back to the office, but for the Arena team, and I interviewed one of them, they said that like Arena really blew up over the pandemic, and so many of the workers who are there now were hired under a like, um, work from home sort of setup, and they don't have...
... or the, the areas around Seattle where Wizards of the Coast is operated.
And so now Wizards is asking them to uproot their lives and their family and everywhere they live to come to live in one of the highest cost of living cities in America-
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