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Wizards of the Coast

There was a day when WotC was a fun, supportive, adventurous place to work, but it is not this day.

Several years ago the company started recruiting managers from outside the company. Not inherently negative but it did impact the culture of creativity, exploration and experimentation. The drive from senior leadership (if you could call it that) was to take the slack out of the schedules and hit delivery dates 'or else.' Once again, not a negative itself but it was joined with yearly reorganizations followed by layoffs. It was so common the employees would ascertain the exact date of the layoff before it was announced (winner of the pool didn't have to buy the first round).

Over time, the number of people doing the actual work has decreased as the number of deliverable assets, game releases and components continues to climb. Overtime is expected and if you're not doing it, you're not a team player. If you speak to members of another team with anything but the utmost in reverence, you're not a team player. If you explain to an internal customer that you can't do something because there are other jobs already in progress or there aren't enough hours in the day to include their request, you're not a team player. If you don't do exactly as you're told ... well, you probably see the pattern here.

There is an obvious culture of favoritism in the company today. Certain teams and departments continually receive budget, functional freedom, headcount, and legitimate consideration for their ideas. The rest are on their own. There's a 'Lord of the Flies' vibe for everyone other than those select groups.

Several years ago there was a quote from a director where he said "We want to source the best talent." Sounds fine, but the underlying intent is that the company has no interest in training employees to improve or to help develop new skills. Individual initiative will only be supported if 1) You are a member of the select group mentioned above or 2) Your idea is actively supported by one of those chosen few or 3) The idea costs the company nothing (or has a ridiculously low price point). They want to hire skillsets, not necessarily develop them.

The entrepreneurial spirit that launched WotC is almost totally gone and the company has become quite risk-averse. Based on the current pattern of behavior, it's probable leadership would not approve the pitch for it's own flagship product (Magic: The Gathering) if it were made today. To further damage their ability to innovate, if someone pitches an idea to the company (even during 'Call for Ideas' that occasionally appear), it goes into a black hole with no feedback, positive or negative. After that point, it belongs to the company so you won't be able to develop it yourself without potential for a lawsuit.

Additional notes:
Career pathing is not something the organization is good at so you will want to take that into account.
Some people don't handle feedback very well, watch out for them.
The company is remarkably bad at training. New employees will face a harsh learning curve and, with the aforementioned tight schedules, a job may be taken away from you for completion.
You will be responsible for your own development and if you think there is a better way to do something you will need to seize control of the idea and push very hard against some amazingly apathetic bureaucratic inertia to get it done, and even then there's no guarantee.
There is frequently a dichotomy regarding the yearly goals and reviews. Some goals are stated as being acceptable but by the end of the year the method against which an employee's performance is judged may be harsher than originally indicated. This makes it tough to write your self evaluation at the end of the year since you were proceeding based on one set of standards and being judged against another.

It's not all bad though, for example:
It's an office environment, no heavy lifting for the most part.
It's an air-conditioned building (except when you're working overtime and weekends are even worse)
If you don't have a career in mind you'll be fine.
If you like to play Magic you may be fine if you're a member of the select groups mentioned earlier.
There is periodically free Magic product given to the full time employees.
There are weekly free lunches for some departments (and if your's isn't one of them, you can sometimes get access to the leftovers).
There is usually a company Holiday party (can be fun).
There is a free gym on-site.
There are free sodas in the refrigerators.
There are some good people there and you may be able to learn from them.

Conclusion:
WotC is not the worst job to have but it's not as good as you hope for either.
I understand there has been a reorganization since I left so some of this may no longer be valid.

Watch your back, no one else will.

I worked at Wizards of the Coast for over 10 years, and while I did enjoy my time there thanks to the great people (co-workers) and great products, both management and leadership were consistent weak spots that made day to day life, position growth, and benefits ongoing sources of frustration. 

Working with people who create things or so on the ground work has always been a great collaborative experience. However, leadership does their best to make collaboration difficult. They go out of their way to create silos, they punish people who step outside their lanes, they replace managers with flunkies, ignore the opinion of veteran workers while making horrible decisions, and then pass the blame and pain they cause to workers without supporting them. They are implementing an Amazon style system without understanding the business or audience they are working in.
Leadership doesn't know what they are doing, but think they know better than everyone else. Worst part is they actively gas light and lie to staff about listening to them, but their actions show their true intentions. They ask for trust while, actively mistrusting the people they work with.

Supervisors are very open to communication and work in close proximity to the rest of the Customer Service team. Full-timers are also on hand and happy to help with sticky questions as time allows! The workload itself can vary quite a lot, though a typical day will have 30-40 phone calls over your shift in addition to emails. The most challenging and enjoyable part of the job is the actual customer interaction- you get players of all skill levels calling in about everything under the sun for pretty much every game Wizards makes. Magic: the Gathering is definitely the most called-about, though, so I would highly recommend having a good baseline-understanding of the game and its mechanics.

As a game designer a Wizard of the Coast I created new games and helped other people improve their game designs.Games ranged from online one to card gmes, and board games.

A typical day at work was fairlty self-directed, woking on individual prjojects. We'd show our projects and get opinions from other people. We would also play our new games among each other. 

When a game got close enough to potentially being produced we would to focus groups to see if we had writen the rules right and created an enjoyable game. 

Workplace culture was relaxed and a bit like a bit toy factory. The most enjoyble part of working for Wizards were the creative staff and the flexibiity to work on your project your way. 

The hardest part of the job was keeping up a steady stream of creative projects on a deadline. But Wizards taught me to do this.

Was brought on as a contractor through a 3rd party agency called Tapfin. I applied to numerous positions for permanent work, however it's a very sought after workplace and potential employees are willing to take a pay cut and a demotion to work there. This makes it very difficult for anyone else trying to break into the workplace. Very competitive.
While at Wizards of the Coast, it was a great place to work with loads of awesome people. Can't say enough about how amazing the people are. I enjoyed being there even if some of the work was tedious and mind-numbing at times. While I didn't like the repetition of the work I was doing I loved being there.
As a contractor, it's a great place to work if you want the experience and are looking to get a foot in the door but you should know that chances of you staying there are very VERY slim. Plus pay is not enough to live on in the Greater Seattle area, especially if taking benefits.

typical small successful business syndrome: arrogance and fear in the management culture based on past success and lack of clarity or alignment on inspection of strategy or operations. managers are afraid of looking bad, afraid of failing, and afraid of rocking the boat. This leads to timid strategy and poor follow through on delivering against anything but the smallest vision. 
In spite of this indictment, the people are smart, creative, and fun to work with.

The typical day included answering questions from customers, retailers, and fans through email or phone. I learned a lot about efficiency and developing good work flow and habits. The management was great to work with and great about providing the tools or assistance needed to get the job done right. My coworkers were excellent, sharing similar tastes and work ethics that drove our teams to do some amazing customer service work. The hardest part of the job was only the occasional difficult customer and the most enjoyable part was assisting with game support and rules questions.

There is lots of free product, free food, and good conversation in the building. However, everyone works hard as well. 

There is a good collaborative culture between departments.  The company does a good job pushing inclusivity efforts. 

That said, it's also hard to advance as the tenure here is quite long.  You can get some small pay raises and the bonuses are reasonable, but it's difficult to move up.

Wizards was a great place to work until the management team was replaced about 2 years ago.  Since then, the great culture and environment of togetherness eroded until you get what you have today. Management leads using fear and bullying tactics that have destroyed the morale of the company.
This was a great company that was built by gamers for gamers. It was a great place to work the first 3 or so years I was there.  I wish it had stayed that way.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Producer 3 salaries reported	$106,333 per year
Software engineer 11 salaries reported	$131,439 per year
Video game designer 5 salaries reported	$113,592 per year
Senior producer 3 salaries reported	$122,000 per year
Senior software engineer 4 salaries reported	$158,324 per year

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