Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1056: The Landmark

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Today's podcast marks my last Drive to Work where I drive into our offices at The Landmark. In this episode, I talk all about the history of our Wizards of the Coast offices.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay guys, so today is my final drive to work in our current offices. So what is going on is we are leaving our Linde offices and we are going to be going to new offices. Although the new offices aren't going to be ready for a little while, so I'm going to be working from home. So most of my driver works for the next bunch of months will be home edition, because they'll not be driving anywhere. But since today was the final day in our office, I thought I would talk all about the office and share some stories about our office and what it's like to work at Wizards.

What are our offices like? And I'll also tell a little Wizard. What are our offices like? I also tell a little bit of history of our offices. But anyway, today's all about our office. Today's the final day in our office after, I don't know, 17, 18 years, and then 10 years before that across the street. Anyway, so let me begin. Let me tell the story of the history of Wizard of the Ghost Coast offices, for those that are dying to know the history.

So Wizards of the Coast got founded, I think in 1990, but late 80s, early 90s, by five people, one of which was Peter Atkinson, who was the first CEO of Wizards. And originally, it was a very small company, so much so that the people who were working at the company were doing it as a part-time thing. Meaning, for example, when Peter started Wizards of the Coast, he had a job at Boeing, and he still had a job at Boeing during the early years of Wizards of the Coast because Wizards hadn't done well enough to sort of, like, Peter hadn't left it yet to sort of just be dedicated to Wizards.

So the first sort of office, quote-unquote, was in Peter Atkinson's basement. Like I said, early on, you know, it started as, I mean, it was always a business, but it was a little more a part-time business rather than a full-time thing. But eventually, you know, so early on, before Magic happened, they did role-playing games. That's what they were, a company that made role-playing games. And so, they had a little bit of success, enough so that they started hiring a few employees. And I believe the first

employees actually literally worked out of Peter's basement, but it became apparent pretty quickly that they needed an actual office. And so the first office they got was a series of buildings that were sort of like, it was like a little bungalow. Like there were different buildings near each other. So you would walk from building to building. And when I first came to freelance at Wizards, so real quickly, in 93, Richard Garfield comes to Peter Atkinson to pitch RoboRally.

It turns out RoboRally is too expensive to make for such a small company at the time Peter says the game they can make is they can make a game with cards he has the means to get to a printer because they used a printer to make the source materials and stuff for the role playing games that inspires Richard, he comes back with Magic

you guys know the story from there anyway, so in 94 I start freelancing for Wizards 93, Magic comes out. And so I think in 95, not until 95, did I get brought to the offices for the first time. And I get brought a couple times. So the offices I'm talking about,

so our first official offices, I don't even remember where it was. It's not far away. It's like maybe three blocks from where our current office is. So it was in Renton. It was nearby. Renton's a suburb of Seattle. It's about half three blocks from where our current office is. So it was in Renton. It was, you know, nearby. Renton's a suburb of Seattle. It's about half an hour up from downtown Seattle.

So, the first few times that I came to Wizards, that was the building I was in. And the interesting thing about that building was because there were different little tiny buildings, different sections worked in different buildings. And so, you know, and eventually I would get hired by Wizards.

And when I first moved to Wizards in October of 1995, we were still in that building. But they had already made plans to move to a new building. And so when I first got to work there, I didn't get a desk. Because they're like, we're moving any week now, and so just use other people's desks. I was a desk nomad. So when other people weren't using their desk, I could log on to my account from other people's desks.

So at other people's desks, I'd log on. Both William Jockish and I didn't get desks. Bill Rose, who started three weeks before me, Joel Mick had saved him a desk. He actually had a desk. I did not have a desk. But anyway, it got delayed a little bit. So we ended up moving.

I think we ended up moving in December because Black Friday was in December of 1995. It's when Wizards of the Coast decided to get out of the role-playing business at the time and sort of stopped doing all the role-playing games. So Magic obviously continued because Magic was their moneymaker. And there were a few other games they did, but it sort of got over. Anyway, that happened in the new building.

That's how I know we were moved in by December because Black Friday happened in the new building. Anyway, so the new building was on Linde Avenue. It's not our current building. In fact, across the street from our current building. So the first Linde building was a giant square. So basically, imagine four two-story buildings that connected at the corners. And then inside,

there was a fountain. There was like a... In between the buildings, we called it the Manipool. There was fountains and there was like areas you could walk around, benches and things.

So we were at that first office, I want to say 10 years. I believe we had a 10-year lease. Anyway, a lot of interesting things happened there. I mean, I technically started at the building before that. But the first building that I really got to know that I had a desk was in that building, the one across the street from our current building. The 1996 World Championships was held there.

We decided to test out the idea of doing game stores our test game store our tournament center was there that's where Laura, my wife, used to work and real quick the story R&D after hours would come and play in the LAN

the connected computer network they would play World of Warcraft but I really wasn't into World of Warcraft so, I would hang out and talk to the receptionist who was Laura. So anyway, I think I made up for that one. And so anyway, the old building, there's a lot of stuff that went on there. A lot of sort of fun and exciting things. And unlike the previous building

where people were more disconnected, this building, you didn't have to walk outside to get anywhere. I mean, you could walk outside in that there were, I think the way it worked is

upstairs was connected and downstairs you would actually have to walk between the buildings. Or was it connected upstairs? Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe you had to walk between the buildings

but they were covered so it wasn't. Maybe you had to walk between the buildings, but they were covered, so it wasn't so bad. So anyway, we were in that office for 10 years. And then basically what happened was, I don't know the details of it, but the landlord and us couldn't come to agreement, so we ended up moving across the street. So our old building, someone else rented that.

And then we moved across the street. Now, the building across the street was a four-story building. The building we are now. Well, they're both a Linn because they're both Linn Avenue. But the one we are now is a four-story building. And when we first got to that building, I think we were the third floor and the fourth floor. And I don't know if we were on the second floor. The first floor really is an office space. There is a kitchen, not a, not a kitchen, a place to buy food, Julie's it's called.

There was a weight room. There was childcare. So childcare's on the first floor. I think the offices of the people that run the building on the first floor. Now, we would later move in, there's a section on the first floor we would later move in. We weren't there when the building first opened. So I think we were just on the third and fourth floor. And then as we grew, we eventually took over,

not all of the second floor, but the vast, vast majority of the second floor. And then we even took over bits of the first floor. Part of the reason we're moving is just we got so big that we didn't even fit in our building. In fact, there is a second building. Wizards right now is in two buildings, one of which is in Renton,

and the other one is not even technically in Renton. It's in Bellevue, which is north of Renton, what we call the Eastgate building. So we have two buildings. Right now we're in the Landmark building, I guess is the name. It was a Landmark building. That's what the people who own the building, they call it the Landmark building. So we're in the Landmark Building, I guess is the name. It was a Landmark Building. That's what the people who own the building, they call it the Landmark Building. So we were in the Landmark Building, the Eastgate Building.

But the idea was we wanted a place that was big enough to handle us and handle any expansion we might have, which has been growing, and try to get everybody together so that all the offices, you know. Right now, for example, if you want to meet with a certain sector of the company, if they're at the other building, you know, it's a 20-minute drive. It's a ways away. And so the plan was to pull us all together. So that is why we're leaving buildings is because we're all going to join up and be in the same building.

But as with any case of, you know, when you build something, it just takes time. So anyway, let's talk a little bit more about the current, the landmark building. So essentially, Wizards, I'm sorry, R&D was always on the fourth floor of the building. I'm sorry, not the fourth floor, the third floor. We've always been on the third floor. So the area that R&D works, we refer to as the pit. That name came from, oh, so the pit came from the first building we were in.

Sorry, the building across the street. So there's Peter's Basement. That's building number one. Number two was the one that's like three minutes away. Number three was the one across the street. Number four is the landmark. So we've been in, there's four different

wizards places. And then I guess East Number four is the Landmark. So we've been in, there's four different Wizards places. And then, I guess, Eastgate also is maybe number five. So, in the Landmark building, we have always, on the previous building across the street, we were on the first floor. But we ended up on the third floor in the new building.

And the, oh, sorry. I was explaining how the pit came to be. So, there's an area that we work in. When it was across in the number two building, we just made a giant, it was kind of like we wanted areas to play. So they made an area where it was kind of, the cubicles were very low. There were low walls and everybody could see each other. And then there was a space in the middle where you could play. And we started calling that area The Pit. That was the name for the R&D area. And then every time we've moved, there's always been

play area in between us. Because playing magic is an important part of our job. And so we always refer to that area as The Pit. So when we first moved, we were on the third floor, but we were in a different section of the building. And originally, the third floor had lots of, like Dungeon Dragons was on the third floor. IT was on the third floor. But over the years, as R&D and eventually what we would call Studio X grew, we got so big that we took over the entire third floor.

So right now, the third floor is nothing but Studio X. That's all the third floor. Oh, let me explain real quickly. For those that might not understand what Studio X is. So from time to time, we will change sort of the internal structure of how Wizards works. We've had a bunch of different things. Like, for example, at one point, we were grouped by service units, meaning, you know, you were in a group that did the same thing you did. Eventually, they moved to

a model where each product had its own group. So Studio X essentially is the tabletop magic group. I think Studio X also handles, well, technically handles all our tabletop games. Really right now that's mostly Duel Masters, although we had Transformers recently. But anyway, so the VP is Bill Rose, and technically it's tabletop play. Magic is the lion's share of what that is. But we've dual mastered it. There are a few other things. And so Studio X is everybody who makes tabletop magic.

Obviously R&D, all the designers and everything. There's editing. There is the creative team. There is graphic design. There is production that lays out the cards, graphic design, that does all the packaging. Every sort of facet that is directly tabletop is now called Studio X. That's what I mean by Studio X. I tend to use the term R&D now to refer to the designers and developers because way back

when, when the term first got used, that's what R&D now to refer to the designers and developers because way back when when the term first got used that's what R&D was was mostly the designers and developers so I've gone back to using R&D to mean specifically the designers developers and then studio access the larger the larger group but studio access has gotten so big like when I started working at Wizards back in 95, there were four full-time employees working on Magic. It was me, Bill Rose, William Jockish, and then actually, when I first started, there were three of us. Mike Elliott would start in January of 96. But anyway, there were other people there,

Richard, Scafalias, Jim Lynn and stuff, but most of them, their full-time job was not working on Magic. Richard was off making other trading card games, and we were just doing a lot of other stuff. So there was a bunch of people in R&D, and some of those people from time to time would help out with Magic, but only the four of us are full-time. I mean, even we would help with other products.

So I wasn't 100% Magic, but I was, you know, 90% magic. And during that time, when I first started working, Wizards was experimenting a lot with a lot more trading card games. So, you know, we made the Star Wars trading card game, the Harry Potter trading card game, and MLB, and Kids Next Door, and Simpsons and G.I. Joe. And we made Infinita. Maybe one day I can do a podcast on all the different trading card games that Wizards of the Coast has made.

Anyway, so the third floor has sort of grown. Originally, when we opened up, the lobby used to be on the fourth floor has sort of grown. Originally when we opened up, the lobby used to be on the fourth floor. So the fourth floor, by the way, is where Mitzi lives. So when we got into the business of

we opened stores a while back. There was a we had Wizard of the Coast branded game stores. That didn't last super long. It was maybe a couple years. That is like, we had Wizard of the Coast branded game stores. That didn't last super long. That was maybe a couple years. That is like, we're talking back in the late 90s. In fact, here's how I know the timetable. We set up the tournament in the offices to test it out,

and that's when I met Laura. Or when Laura and I, I mean, I guess I knew her before that, but when we were starting to get to know each other. So that is, we're talking 96. So that's pretty early. Anyway, so we opened up a tournament center in the University Village by University of Washington. And for all the stores, we made a lot of different, I don't know what to call them, little statues. Most of which were magic related, not all of them,

but most of them were magic themed. And so if you've ever seen pictures around the office of, you know, the Goblin Rock Sled or Dakin Black Blade or stuff like that, that's all from this. Anyway, for our big tournament center in the University Village, we made a giant Shivan dragon

that we hang on the ceiling. I think as you walked down to the second floor, it made a giant shivan dragon that we hang on the ceiling. I think as you walked down to the second floor, it was like hanging over the stairs. Anyway, when we closed that, they brought the dragon to Wizards. And so it was in our lobby in the third building, the one across the street. It was in that lobby. And then when we moved to the new building, they had to carry it across the street. So we had to stop traffic to carry the dragon across the street.

And we have pictures of that. I believe we did a whole little article on that. Anyway, so that dragon we call Mitzi. She's a Shivan dragon modeled after, I think, the original Shivan dragon in Alpha, I believe. Anyway, we call her Mitzi. And so originally the fourth floor was the lobby. So if you wanted to come visit Wizards, you would go up to the fourth floor. Because remember, we didn't have anything on the first or second floor originally. So you would come up to the fourth floor, and our lobby was on the fourth floor.

And so we put Mitzi there because that was our lobby. Eventually what would happen is, as we got so big, we would end up moving the lobby to the first floor, but Mitzi was already hung, so it used to be you could just walk in and go see Mitzi. Now it's a little harder to go see Mitzi. But she's now on the fourth floor. So basically what happened was, the history of this building is the history of Wizard sort of growing. Like I said, we neatly fit. When we first moved in, we were on the

third and fourth floor. Maybe we had a little teeny tiny bit on the second floor. But as we grew, as we got into other things, especially as Magic, we had Magic Online and Magic Arena. And as we started getting into more digital stuff, the second floor ended up growing and becoming where kind of the digital teams lived. The fourth floor had a bunch of where, I don't know, a lot of stuff has moved, but like legal and customer service and operations and upper management stuff used to be on the top floor.

But with time as we got bigger and bigger, we eventually took over almost all the second floor. Then we ended up taking a whole bunch of the first floor. In fact, there's an area that we call dominaria on the first floor that we used to use for all-hand meetings. We wanted to have giant meetings. dominaria on the first floor that we used to use for all-hand meetings. We wanted to have giant meetings. And then for a while it turned into sort of the employee lounge. There were tables there and there was food and stuff like that. And then eventually it turned into office space because we so badly needed office space. And then we took over another section

of the first floor, which we ended up turning into the lobby and upper management was there for a while. Anyway, then we got so big, we didn't even fit in the building. And so we ended up picking a second building, which is the Eastgate building that is now in Bellevue. So, oh, another fun thing about the building. Let me talk a little bit about the rooms.

So we have a lot of meeting rooms. And so we decided early on that it would be fun to just, I think the way it worked is every section got to name their own meeting rooms. And so early on, you could kind of tell who, who's, what, like what section the room is. Like I remember at one point, like one of the rooms by legal was the People's Court. And there were a lot of geeky names. We had, you know, like Rivendell from Lord of the Rings. And we, the main area that we would, the fancy area was called the Bridge,

based on Star Trek. Now, R&D, the sections near us us we decided that we should name them after magic things and so there's like Cavern of Souls and there is for a while

there was Mishra's Workshop and there was I can't remember all the names basically what happened is the names of the rooms will change over time

eventually some of our old rooms got turned into D&D rooms because when we moved. So now it's like House on the Hill, which is a D&D reference. Then at some point, upper management decided that we shouldn't have other people's IPs in our rooms. A Geometry Wizard thing. It should be cool. Since it's our building, it should be our stuff. And so we renamed a lot of stuff, and so like,

there was a big meeting room on 4 that became Bolas's meditation realm, and so anyway, over time, oh, and the cool thing about all the meeting rooms is they would have some sort of name, and then they would have decoration of art that would go up. And so, you know, it would be called, like, for example, we had Mishra's Workshop. So they had a giant version of the card Mishra's Workshop up in it. Or like Rivendell had this art that was from, I assume from Lord of the Rings,

but this giant art of this mountain. It was very cool. The other thing we did at the office was there was a lot of space on the wall for art. So what they would do is every six months they would redo the art on the wall and it would be giant, full color and it always would be different wizard's things. Most of it magic, but some of it D&D.

A little bit of it would be duel master. And so it would cover all the walls. So there was a point in time where we used to do tours. Never like official public tours, but like kind of in the know you could come get a tour. Now, by the way, the only tours that we do now, we do them for Make-A-Wish. That's the only tours we really do. I guess every once in a blue moon, we've had one or two celebrities show up, I guess we've given tours to. But mostly, Make-A-Wish is the only

thing we do for tours these days. But anyway, we used to walk around and I would show off all the different stuff. You'd see the statues and see all the art. The other thing I will mention about our offices is while individual desks have their tchotchkes and things, it's pretty office-y. I mean, there's a lot of magic art on the walls and there are some remnants of things. There's some giant dice that are upstairs that are D&D dice from an event. There's like a magic surfboard that I'm not even sure where we got it. There's a bunch of things kind of like the figures from the Wizard of the Coast stores.

There's things that we picked up over the years that are just kind of cool, whatnots. And so a lot of that stuff went up. I mean, you could definitely see. The other thing that was really interesting and the thing that one of the reasons we can't do tours is there's a lot of spaces where we like there's a wall we have up by the pit, which is the concept wall. And the idea is whenever we're working on a new world, it's a place we put stuff up so people can see it. And it's really fun. Usually there's like a three week period where they're doing world building

and they're just constantly putting things up as they're trying to work through the world so it's fun to see a set, usually I work on the set before the world concept and so I'm usually pretty familiar with the set at the time of concepting because it happens right after vision design and so it's fun to see the set you've been working on

sort of come to fruition, sort of visually realized. And it is very, very neat. And so the other thing the wall started to get used for is Booster Fun also started using it as we did more neat different kind of layouts and different frames and as we tried different printing processes and stuff. So some of that stuff will be there as well. Oh, the other thing, let me tell you quickly the history of the Danger Room. So in the

building number three, the one across the street, at one point they said to Richard that they gave Richard an office that was right by the pit. But Richard had no interest in it. Richard liked being in the cubicle. He didn't want to be in an office. He didn't want to be so closed away. So he turned it into a meeting room that only R&D could use. So it wasn't scheduleable by anybody. So a lot of times what happens with meeting rooms is anybody can schedule them.

So sometimes the meeting rooms by you are used by people from somewhere else in the building because the stuff by them is busy. So he made a room called the Danger Room. And so the Danger Room was sort of an R&D only room. We did a lot of playtesting in there.

So the Danger Room, by the way, is named after the X-Men. They have a room in which they practice in. And it's high tech and basically it can immerse them in other worlds and stuff so they can practice. You know, they can practice all their powers. So anyway, when we moved across the street, we decided we wanted a danger room because it was sort of like tradition. So we picked a room that was near R&D. And then that room ended up turning into

what was Bill Rose's office at one point. I think it was Aaron's office and I think now it's Kent Troop's office. Anyway, so we ended up, so the current danger room, there's these glass rooms that are on, we were kind of getting low on meeting rooms. So they set up these glass rooms that were on the third floor. They range from being super tiny or being small to being super small. Like some of the smaller ones, maybe two people could have a meeting in there. The bigger one, maybe four people could have a meeting in there.

Anyway, one of those rooms ended up becoming the danger room, which made me sad. So, like, it's a teeny, like a two-person room. So the fate of the danger room still exists. I'm hoping in the new building that we can make a new and improved danger room. I'm trying to think of other things. So, yeah, it's been interesting. Like I said, what's sort of the bittersweetness for me is for almost all my time at Wizards,

I've been building on Linn Avenue, given 10 years in the first building and we crossed the street for the next 17, 18 years. And, you know, there's a lot of... Like, my kids went to daycare in the building. So, like, basically when they were old enough to go to daycare through, you know, there's a lot of, like, my kids went to daycare in the building, so, like, basically, when they were old enough to go to daycare through, you know, preschool, they were there. I've had many a meal, you know, at Julie's downstairs. I, you know, I worked out in the

workout room. In fact, there's this, you know, it's, oh, so let me tell this story. So when we first moved into the building, I wanted to show off the new building. I wanted to talk about it. And I decided to do an article to show it off. So the article is called 80,000 Words. And the reason for that is it's 80 pictures. So basically what I did is I took two little whiteboards and my wife and I went in on the weekend and I just went around the building showing off the building. And so I just showed like, so if you ever want to see what the building looks like, now given this was done shortly after we moved in. So this is many years ago. I mean, we, I'm trying to think we moved in. So it's 23. So I think we moved in. So this is many years ago. I mean, we, I'm trying to think when we moved in. So it's 23,

so I think we moved in 17 or 18 years ago. My kids were like 2, and they're 19 now. So that's, it's like 17 or 18 years ago. So we're talking, when did we move in? So it's 23, so 2007, 2008 is I think when we moved in. So, if you look around that time, like I said, it's called 80,000. It's called, what's it called? I said it. 80,000 words is what it's called.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, there's 80 pictures. But anyway, if you actually want to see what our office, at least our current office looks like, uh, you can see there. Uh, it changed a bit since then. Um, that, that's the pit in its old location, not the new location. Um, and you can see a lot of, uh, young, like you can see a young Aaron Forsyth, stuff like that. So, cause it was a while ago. Um, anyway, so I did that.

Maybe, maybe we're moving the new building. Maybe I'll do a, a new 80,000 words. Um, but anyway, that is, uh, that is our building. So it has definitely been, it's been home for Magic for a long time. Obviously we will make do, uh, and then, you know, the new building I'm sure will come to be home. Um, it's just sort of weird. Uh, I've driven down to this section of Renton.

Uh, I mean, I used to live down in this section of Renton once upon a time. But basically, I either lived here or I've driven down here every day for 28 years. And so it is odd. So most of what's happening is, for the next couple of months, we're going to be working from home. Thanks to the pandemic, we're all set up to be able to do that. And so it is actually, the way right now that we work is that we're working at home

Monday and Fridays and we're in the office Tuesday and Thursdays and some Wednesdays we're in, some we're not. We do playtesting on Wednesdays. So we are set up to be at home and so it won't be a major thing. And then the Eastgate,

the other offices isn't closing right now. We had to move out of this current building right now. So from time to time, I think I'll get to do some playtesting at Eastgate, which is actually much closer to my house. So that won't be a great drive to work because it's a little too short. But anyway, I will continue to do drive to work from home as I did during the pandemic. So what I've learned is while the gimmick of me driving my car is a fun framing mechanism that me recording stuff at home, I mean, the content's the content. So no one seemed quite bugged that I did some drive to work for I literally wasn't driving

to work. But that will have to be. But anyway, guys, hopefully you enjoyed a little tale of the offices and all the things that that entail. It is, like I said, if you want to go, really go look at 80,000 Words. Just search for my name

in 80,000 Words and it should pop up. And you can see for yourselves what everything looks like. But anyway, as I pull into the parking lot for the last time I just want to say

I hope you guys enjoyed this is a little off the cuff today but I hope you enjoyed it but anyway, as I'm in the parking lot we all know what that means it means it's the end of my drive to work so instead of talking magic it's time for me to be making magic

bye bye