Wizards of the Coast
American game publisher
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April 2025 | Creative Director Chris Perkins and Game Director Jeremy Crawford announced their departures from Wizards of the Coast after decades of service, following the release of the 2024 revision of Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks. |
March 2025 | Launched the 3D virtual tabletop (VTT) Dungeons & Dragons simulator Sigil as part of D&D Beyond. |
July 2024 | WPN starts a pilot program called 'Avalon Hill Game Nights' at 200 WPN stores in the U.S. and Canada, focusing on evergreen titles like HeroQuest, Betrayal at House on the Hill, The Yawning Portal, and Risk. |
April 2024 | Cynthia Williams resigned from her position, to be replaced by John Hight in the summer. |
March 2024 | Wizards of the Coast stopped localizing Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons for Portuguese. |
January 2023 | Canceled multiple video game projects and reversed changes to the Open Gaming License (OGL) after significant community backlash. |
January 2023 | Canceled at least five video game projects and underwent a significant internal reorganization. |
July 2022 | Skeleton Key studio opened in Austin, Texas. |
May 2022 | D&D Beyond was acquired by Wizards of the Coast. |
April 2022 | Hasbro acquired the digital toolset and game companion D&D Beyond from Fandom. |
2021 | WPN launched the Store Challenger Series tournament for participating stores in the APAC region. |
2021 | Wizards of the Coast required participating stores to transition from Wizards Event Reporter (WER) to the Wizards EventLink system to remain in the WPN network. |
2021 | Avalon Hill was moved back to Hasbro Gaming. |
September 2021 | Atomic Arcade studio opened in Raleigh, North Carolina, led by Ames Kirshen, a former vice-president of production and creative at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. |
July 2021 | Wizards of the Coast resumed metrics counting for WPN stores in the US region after COVID-19 pandemic suspensions, encouraging stores to run events again. |
May 2021 | In-store suspension was lifted in the United States, Japan, and Africa, but remained in place for Latin America and Europe. |
February 2021 | Underwent reorganization within Hasbro, becoming the lead part of a new division called 'Wizards & Digital'. |
2020 | The term 'DCI number' was officially phased out, with player registration numbers fully transitioning to the WPN branding. |
2020 | Planeswalker Points system was retired, marking the end of the tournament points tracking method introduced in 2011. |
2020 | Wizards Play Network transitioned to requiring a Wizards Account for sanctioned events instead of a DCI number. |
December 2020 | Wizards Kids Studio opened in Seattle, Washington. |
October 2020 | Wizards of the Coast announced D&D Virtual Play Weekends, a monthly ticketed series organized by Baldman Games. |
June 1 2020 | WotC released a statement supporting Black fans and employees after George Floyd's murder, leading to significant changes in their product representation. |
March 2020 | Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wizards of the Coast suspended in-store events in North America, Europe, and Latin America, and launched the Friday Night Magic at Home program using Magic: The Gathering Arena. |
October 2019 | Invoke Studios was acquired by Wizards of the Coast. |
April 2019 | Archetype Entertainment studio opened in Austin, Texas, U.S. |
April 2019 | WotC appointed gaming-industry veteran James Ohlen as head of a new studio in Austin, Texas. |
2018 | The New Yorker reports on Friday Night Magic (FNM), highlighting its widespread popularity with approximately six thousand licensed stores worldwide hosting weekly tournaments that help new players enter the Magic: The Gathering community. |
2018 | Reorganization of Magic: The Gathering R&D at Studio X in Renton, Washington. |
2017 | Players were encouraged to create a Wizards Account, which would include their DCI number, marking a transition in player identification. |
2017 | D&D Beyond was founded. |
2016 | Chris Cocks replaced Greg Leeds as president of Wizards of the Coast. |
2014 | From 2014 to 2016, the D&D Adventurers League could only be run at participating WPN locations. |
2014 | 20th Century Fox acquired screen rights to Magic: The Gathering for a potential movie series with Simon Kinberg. |
July 15 2014 | 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons was released with the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. |
2012 | Invoke Studios was founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. |
September 2011 | WPN discontinued its existing rating system for Magic: The Gathering tournaments, replacing it with a points-based Planeswalker Points system administered by Wizards of the Coast. |
2010 | Wizards of the Coast restricted organized play to only those associated with participating stores, and began advertising the D&D Encounters program under the WPN umbrella. |
2010 | Wizards Play Network introduced a new rating category called Total rating, which replaced most of the existing individual ratings for Magic: The Gathering tournament rankings. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Wizards Play Network & Wizards of the Coast, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.