WOTC Sics Pinktertons On Youtuber!?

0:00 Sometimes talking with friends feels like role playing. Sometimes it feels like combat. Join us at the round table and roll an ish too. This is Curmudgeons and Dragons. Hello adventurers, Welcome to Courmudgeons and Dragons. I'm Jason Portizo, and today I'm once again joined by Missus Josie Diaz and Jim Crocker. Hey, everybody, So this is gonna be a little bit of a different episode for us. Usually we like to tell silly stories and have some fun and laugh at your bad games and you cry along with your good games and stuff like that. But we've got some some actual current events in a genre and topic that doesn't usually have a lot of current events. We really wanted to, you know, get this episode out as quickly as we could.

0:56 The last time, Words of the Coast had a huge baccle on their hands and made head lines across the country. Um, we kind of purposely didn't do an episode about it. We're talking about the issue. Um like we we all kind of had our opinions on it, but it was just like it was just something that we didn't really feel like we needed to take a break from our normal you know, scheduling to talk about I don't know enough about bad business to talk shit about bad business. Uh. Well, Jim, I know, absolutely had his opinions on it, and um, and I as a content creator, had my opinions on it. They also backtracked on it. They also backtracked on it pretty quickly. So that was like a story that kind of flared up and they sort of pulled back on it in a way that made it not as relevant. Yeah, and there was a solid month there, um where like it was a huge issue and then like you know, uh, they went just kidding gun, Well here's the thing. So then by by backtracking on the whole thing, they created a lot of good will in the community. And just as we were starting to like Wizards of the Coast again, this happens. Uh. So let's let's just let's just talk about what happened here. So this is the story about the Pinkerton's and and old school mtg UM And if you're if it's the first time you're hearing about this story, we have got a bunch of links in the show notes. You go ahead and read those. Uh, there's a great one on Gizmoto that we're gonna be referencing a lot. Um. But here are the quick the facts, the bullet points. Um. Here is

2:27 the order of advance as I understand them. Um, if you guys know, if you correct, please correct me, Josie and Jim if you if I'm off on anything, but for what I understand. A YouTuber known as old School MTG. His name is Dan Cannon. Sorry, I don't know if you had real name? Uh uh oh I do yeah, okay. So Dan Cannon, who who is known as old School MTG has a YouTube channel uh talking about Match the Gathering and doing some unboxing and stuff like that. So he ordered a box of the most recent Match of the Gathering set and was accidentally sent a box of the upcoming Magic the Gathering set ahead of release date. Um, I've been out of Magic for too long. I forget the names of the sets. I know the sets. I know the set names are extremely similar, which may have been a factor. Um.

3:17 So he gets sent the box of incorrect product and does an unboxing video basically spoiling all the new cards. It's estimated about seventy the set got spoiled. Um, which you know, spoilers and Magic happen all the time. I played for years. Um in response, which is to the coast hired a private investigation and private security firm known as the Pinkerton's to Dan Cannon's house, and uh, well, the facts are they were there. They were sent there to retrieve the product and uh and stop the leaks. That is, I think that those are the most important bullet points that that when you to discuss, Is that about, right, guys? I think so it's my understanding of about how it went down. You okay, Um, there was a little bit just not only did they go to his house, they went and harassed his neighbors as well. Yeah, prior to going and making this man's wife cry. Yeah. So the Pinkerton's have a long history of of intimidation and uh sorry, I've got opinions about you go, you go right ahead, um, but intimidation and particularly in uh uh in union busting.

4:38 Um. And like they they are not the good guys. Um. If you played Red Dead Redemption, you'll know they are literally not the good guys. The organization does go back to the eighteen fifties and h they've not they've never they've never been the good guys. But according to them, they are Um, if you were to go to the Pinkerton website, they've got a brief little two pair graphs about their history, and they say, we have served as guardians and protectors of organizations around the world, defining new industry standards for comprehensive risk management and consistently revolutionizing our industry from our roots serving as intelligence agency during the Civil War, Pinkerton has continued to build an impressive track record, establishing the first criminal database, being the first company to hire a female detective, and being a forerunner for the Secret Service. So the thing is that those things are true, but that's like it's very one dimensional. Yes, that is taking an extremely selective look at their long history. In one hundred seventy five year history, they found four good things they did. Yes, yeah, they allegedly foiled an assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln, but they really screwed the pooch on the next one. Sorry soon, Josie, too soon. So before we get into the implications of was the Coast even hiring a company like this, Um, Josie, you have a you did some

6:13 research on some of the activity that Pinkerton's are have been known for. Yes, so, Um, most people nowadays really know them as being union busters. Um. The biggest thing, Oh my god, what was it? The Homestead hold on? Let me pull it back up. The most notable one was when they were working for Carnegie Steel. Um, you can find it referenced as the Homestead strike or the Homestead massacre or the riot, what have you where they just went and went to fucking town on protesting steel workers and they killed a lot of people. I can't like they are. They are a private they are a goon squad for hire, and that is what they have throughout history. There is a thread of someone was that called again the Homestead Riot or the ninety two Homestead strike When stricting workers took over the Homestead Steel factory, Andrew Carnegie crony Henry Frick tried to sneak in three hundred agents under cover of night to attack the union and break the strike, but the union got wind of the fact that they were on their way, so instead of being able to kind of sneak in and easily take the factory back, it turned into a battle which left a dozen workers dead and scores more injured, and twenty six states subsequently passed laws directly as a result of that

7:43 incident, prohibiting bringing in outside guards during labor disputes as so, in response, the Pinkerton's started opening local satellite offices so that they could skirt those laws and be considered in state forces brought in to you know, continue to conductor union busting activities, and UM. Jeffrey Bezos has recently utilized the Pinkertons and Amazon hiring them to work as spies to to union busts, to find people that were attempting to unionize rightfully Amazon Warehouses and um getting those people fired.

8:24 So they did it a little they're doing it nowadays a little bit more successfully, it seems. Without them, the workers be catching wind of it as well. Yeah, it's worth pointing out, Gym, that not only did uh several states pass those laws, but it's even a federal law of that. Um. On a federal level, the government cannot hire specifically the Pinkertons. Yes, yeah, yeah, well that's a I mean, that's a separate thing that came about. That's the nineteen Uh, there's the nineteen thirty six Lawful Let Committee on Civil Liberties, which divulged a lot of really damning information about I thought that was the same incidents. That's my fault. Um.

9:05 Of course we'll have links to as much of this as we can find, um with sources in the show notes. If Jimmy Fabius so kind um so um so, now we kind of have like an overall view of who they are. Um, I think Josie, you you had this. Uh, this is not the first time Wizards of the Coast has used the Pinkerton's. No, it is not. What are the examples you have? Alrighty, so this comes from an article from the gamer Um and it is just titled Wizards of the Coast has reportedly used Pinkerton's multiple times. And it's you know, the timeline is getting dark when like the fun nerdy websites are using very like hard hitting news headlines. Yeah, it's like, oh, it's so it's it's just hell world, hell world, hell World. Okay, I'm so calm, I'm so I was pretty for like the BuzzFeed style.

10:01 It's like, it's like seven times the Pinkerton's have been deployed too against YouTubers. Number six will shock you. They don't shock me anymore, but they still continue to disappoint. Yeah. So, according to the gamer. This isn't the first time Wizards contracted Pinkerton to send agents to investigate a league. Sources speaking to I O nine noted a twenty seventeen investigation into an uncut sheet of foil. Oh, how do you pronounce I X A L A M. I think even Magic players will debate that. Okay, um um Eichelen cards stolen or excellent cards stolen directly from the manufacturer. The person who took the sheet of uncut cards attempted to sell them at the local card shop where they worked, with Pinkerton agents showing up to both retrieve the sheet and conduct interviews with staff. I can't imagine those interviews were just verbal. Um that's my own edit. That's not in the article. Okay, allegedly now worth pointing out. I we'll get to this um in a second here. But like, um, not that I agree with their methods or with who wants He called a massive difference in that story versus this one, is that that was truly stolen products. Yeah, that was not meant for street release.

11:22 I've seen uncut sheets before. I'm on friends of a lot of Matchic dealers, and uncut sheets do sell for a lot uncut foiled sheets are almost impossible to find. They're almost always stolen um unless there's massive you know, printing issues with them. But um, the well we'll get we'll get into uh what makes it different about the the old school ntg uh issue? But uh yeah, that that was stolen products. Yeah. Well, during those interviews, the Pinkerton agents are the ones that said that the Wizards of the Coast has sent them out quote multiple times to investigate these sorts of problems. And here's the here's a fun little tidbit. The current manager of Global Investigations at Hasbro is a former Pinkerton agent and the current director of Risk Management was previously the director of supply chain Security Practice at Pinkerton. That is the first time I heard that. Yeah, um, that's fantastic. It's just like, oh no, the calls coming from inside the house, Oh my gosh.

12:22 That But like in that case in twenty seventeen, it was a genuine theft. And when this was initially reported, it was the people were reporting on it as that it was a theft, and later on it was discovered it was just a mistake. He was It was not out of malice or anything. I just got something that wasn't meant to be released yet, and he was excited to share it with the world. Yeah that's this story. Yeah. Yes. And then in this same art a call they they interview him.

13:03 Um. Not only was he threatened with fines in jail time, um, but they also all t d yes okay Dan danon okay Dan Cannon. Um. They also allegedly questioned his neighbors, and Dan says, quote, harassing my neighbors is unnecessary. This whole thing is unnecessary. Um. And that was in a follow up video because the original unboxing video was taken down at the request of Wizards of the Coast. But he said, if Wizard had just called me or emailed me, we could have handled this totally civilly. I would have cooperated. They could have sent me a call tag for the product or replaced it with the product I actually ordered, and everything would have been fine. They did not need to send these pinkertons to my house, and they definitely didn't need to go to my neighbors houses and grill them for information. Like he's right now, this could have been so go ahead.

13:56 Sorry, So to be fair, why he claims that they made attempts to contact him before they sent the goon squad to his house. UM, I just I don't understand what is the what is the charge here? What can he be like like if somebody accidentally sent him something that they weren't supposed to send him. It's not I mean, it's not illegal. So that's part of it is so him being in possession of it, had he not made a video, no whatever, No, and it's it's just know that it's a shipping error. Their their claim here. Um. And this is something that is actually debatable, UM. And I and I can I can actually see both sides of this. Is that him doing the leak video uh constituted as either sub sort of copyright infringement um or something along those lines where he's giving out information that was not supposed to be release for another about month or so um and then putting back out, putting that out publicly to his followers. Was was what made them, uh, you know, retaliate like that. I suppose it would. That's exactly what I would call it is a retaliation. That's because that's what it is. That's that's it's grossly violent to send literal goons to someone's house to intimidate them, threaten them, because it's because threatening somebody with with fines in jail time is an issue. I'm

15:33 just in the phone calls that Wizards claims they made to him, it would have come through as an unknown number. Can we all agree that there's no chance I'm ever answering that call? Ye numbers zero percent chance. That's when I get calls here, so like I will, nobody needs to see my phone when I get phone calls from like scam likely or whatever, or like numbers I don't recognize. After if I if I see a number pop up more than once, I will answer the phone and say you are being charged for an international call? What do you want? And nine times out of ten they immediately hang up. I hardly answering most calls from people I know.

16:15 Yeah, you text them and say what do you want? What do you want? If it's important, leave a message. And if I don't recognize a number, I wait till it goes a voicemail because I don't want to. I don't want them to hear me hit the hang up button exactly, wait till it goes a voicemail, and then I google your number to see who you are. Yeah, don't ever call me from an unknown number if you want me to answer. So uh point point Dan Kennon, even if Wizards is telling the truth on that one. Yeah, because you can say that you try it all you want, will we mean at times it's like okay, yeasail for yeah, yeah, so the next step of you didn't answer the phone. So I'm hiring thugs to take this stuff back, right and realistically, like if Dan wanted to, he could have been like, you can't come in my house. You can't have the ship and close the door in their face, and there would They would have no legal reason.

17:07 They can't. They can't break down your door. They're not allowed to. Yeah, you're right, well they would. They would have to. They would have to involve actual police, think an actual warranty, which like serious enough issue, do not have that power. They are just there to scare you. And it worked again. They made this man's wife cry. That's the real crime here. It's like, bro, my wife don't cry, no unnecessary, don't harass my neighbors, don't make my wife cry. Take your shitty little just like I'm sorry that you guys fucked up and now you're making it. My problem is what that feels like. Yep. My question is who did he receive these cards from. Did they come directly from watsy or did they come from a supplier like a retailer or a distributor or like an online card site. My understanding of this, UM, the retailer has not been named from any article that I've seen. UM. And you know uh and you you as a as a game store owner, would be uniquely privy to this information. But Wizards does not give product to players.

18:18 Um. The only time Wizards is ever giving product out is for promotional reasons. So for for uh, for Dan Cannon to receive products as an end user, UH, it first has to come from Wizards distribution to a game distributor. And there's a couple um. And I'm sure there's have been more since I stopped playing the game and I'm still friends a lot of game owners. UM. But there's a couple, like major major distributors that would then go to retailer, like like a dozen authorized distributors in the United States. Yeah, yeah, and some are bigger than others. Um and UH. Then the distributors then goes to the retailers, So it goes from Wizards to distributor, to retailer, and then to the then to the customer. So I had to go through at least two cents of hands before it got into mister Cannon's hands, which, and this is something we're discussing before the episode started. This should have been at worst a contractual issue between Wizards and the retailer or possibly the distributor. Right now, the distributor can get the product into retailer's hands a certain amount of time before release date so that they are ready for release date. This this is not uncommon at all. You'll see this with video games, You'll see this with movies. You'll see this on anything that's time sensitive. Working at I worked at Best Body for a couple of years, and like all the movies that came in, came in sealed boxes saying, you know, do not break the seal before this date.

19:48 Video games was a huge one for that a game could not go out even an hour early. And this seems like it should have been a breach of contract between either Wizards and the retailer, or even Wizards and the distributor if they if they wanted to push it and go extreme with and really throw the book at someone. This should have been a contract of business issue. That is not a story. Yeah, contract business issue and a take whatever, a takedown at YouTube or Twitter, whatever it is wherever that video is up. You just do a takedown and that's what goes down, and you know, contact him to say we took these down. Hang out to the cards for now, but please don't talk about them. And that's it's over.

20:33 And I just want to read a little bit from the Gizmoto article where, in an exchange with Ion nine, Canon confirmed the statements he made on the video and added additional context, stating that as soon as my wife answered the door, they aggressively asked for me by my full name, announced themselves as the Pinkerton Agency, which I am very familiar with their reputation, and said they were there to recover stolen goods. After his wife asked them to outside, Cannon says that they forced themselves at least partially through the door and prevented her from closing the door all the way. When Cannon eventually got to the door, he says that he assertively moved everyone outside and told the agents that they needed to treat the Cannons with more respect. They did eventually dial it back and become more civil after that. UM, Wizards of the co says it strongly refutes this depiction of events, which contradicts both the report from the investigation as well as the conversation between the individual and Wizards of the Coast representative after the interaction in question. The company also stated that under no circumstances would reinstruct any employee or contracted agency to intimidate an individual. Now, on the one hands, you know, uh, I'm going to give this a very generous read, very generous. Okay, I'm on handing out reads here.

21:47 Okay, this now saying that it's a contradicts the the reports and the conversation with with Cannon Um saying that it contradicts the report. Of course, Painton is going to make their own report look better than it did. I'm not worried about that one. Contradicting the conversation with with Kennon. Um. This is gonna making me kind of want to wait for just a little more information before I can agree or disagree with that statement. And then the last part was, of course, I'm not going to instruct anyone to to intimidate. They can just decide that on their own. Yeah, and just given the history of the Pinkerton's, it is sort of implied that they will be like, you're hiring muscle. I'm calling the intimidation guys. I'm not going to instruct them to intimidate and say, listen, just be very nice to the guy. Wink. Yeah, I don't just do what you do best wink.

22:45 Overall, this is incredibly bad optics for Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast with in the eyes of the gaming community, especially like I don't know if they would have the same kind of reaction if it wasn't specifically the Pinkerton's detective agency that they hired. If it was a different security company, maybe this wouldn't have even been a story. But given their history, it just feels it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, but there, yes, but I think it is. It would still be a story even it was wasn't the Pinkerton's. The Pinkerton's give it a particular valance. But if it's a civil matter, you solve it civilly. If it's a criminal matter, you solve it you call the police. And the police come in and take care of that. And this the Pinkerton's is kind of private, corporate security stuff that is kind of in this nebulous gray zone between like having a conversation with somebody and actually involving law enforcement. They're they're not law enforcement, but you can in their face. They show up at your house with guns and they act like law enforcement, and they expect that you will treat them like law enforcement when they have none of the oversight of law enforcement. And that's the genuinely insidious thing here, Yeah, is that you know, uh, Watsy wanted it treated like a criminal matter, but didn't want to actually

24:18 treat it like a criminal matter. M recover stolen property. Fuck you recover stolen property. That's what the police are for. Yeah, And it turned out it wasn't stolen. It was just it was an error and it've sent You've sent thugs to someone's house to intimidate them into giving them giving them something that is rightfully yours. It was protected by consumer law. You know, it's very very but it's like one of the most bedrock basic principles of consumer law for mail order purchases that if somebody accidentally sends you something. If it gets sent to the wrong address, you own it. I have a stack of Lulu Lemon um yoga hats because in yoga because someone whatever, you know, little sun hats. Right, Yeah, but I was like we did in order from Lulu Lemon. But it's clearly like, you know, completely different name, but our address. Somebody put the wrong address in and so you know, we got these Lulu Lemon hats. The real question, jam is do you look good in them? Um? I should, I'll get one. I should go get one and put it up. Hang on just a second, get them, get them YouTube subs. Yes, King, I can't believe you went and got it. Oh that's a cute. It's a bucket hat. It's very nice. Oh my god, your shirt.

25:44 Yeah, our bucket hats yoga hats. No, I don't know this is written for yoga. This is from Lula Lemons. So I don't know. I'm ready for a rave now. I look like, look like I'm in the Stone Roses or something like that. Looks like you're going to a New Radicals concert. Yes, yeah, no, that's sorry. Sorry, Stone Roses is my era. But yes, yeah, it's that kind of thing. Um, I think that ridiculous thing. We'll protect my identity from the from the Pinkerton's. If those hats do you have? Can I have one? Yeah? Sure, I mean it. It'll it'll cost you can have one, like when you come back for jersey, I'll give you one. All right, So um, this with for headphones go back on. Okay, that ladies and gentlemen was a tangent. That's what a tangent looks like.

26:36 No, that's that's what a push for YouTube subs looks like. All right, all right, do you want to see a gym and his and his ridiculous hat, Go ahead and follow us market uh curmug dragons dot com slash YouTube. Um. Anyway, So so back to the very serious topic at hand here here, So, um, I want to talk a little bit about about um, this coming off the tail of the OGL debacle, um, which was like not really like a criminal thing going on. There was no like the word. The most insidious thing about the OGL debacco was capitalism, um, which I'll let you guys talk about that, but don't let me talk about it. Yeah that's a different podcast. Uh, but um, you know that just being a general bad faith issue and then with the very public outcry. Uh, the end of the did end up backtracking on and gave us some semblance of of hope for how much we can trust a company. And then they come out, you know, with with the with the there was the handshake with one hand and the knife behind the back with the other. Um. I think we need to be really clear about one thing here, okay, which is this is the United States of America.

27:52 We all understand what's going on with guns in this country right now. Um, somebody could have ended up dead as dead. Somebody could have been killed as a result of this. No amount of fulmination over the OGL was ever going to result in anybody getting physically hurt. People could have been killed, exactly Innocent people living in these houses could have been killed. Neighbors could have been killed, People could have been killed as a result of this. The Pinkertons are armed, They're not cops. They're they're banging on people's doors, Um, without any proof that they are who they say they are.

28:34 This is the kind of ship where people end up dead. Yeah, and uh, you know, and that's that's just speak for the Cannon family. And then like you know, we've got a We've got a history in this country over the past month or so of people just knocking on the wrong door and getting themselves shot. The the Asians could have been could have been shot by the Cannet family and rightfully so oh no, listen, like so let's let um. Depending depending on where they are and depending on that state's you know, laws against laws regarding castle doctrine and things like that. That's not stand your ground. That is a posi. That is a possibility. But this is this escalates far beyond. But it's also the thing and absolutely is a night and day thing between this and the oganas. I'm just it's just it's just the most recent uh nope, de bacco on the pr debacle on there. It really destroys their credibility as a company. Like you will like okay, like you saw, you fucked up, you rolled it back, and we were starting to be like okay, maybe, and then you've said a goon squad out right. I will not stop using the phrase goon squad.

29:37 You cannot. Also, this is also a reminder of a couple of things, and the first is that all of dungeons and Dragons, two Wizards of the Coast is a rounding air compared to magic, and that they will do what is necessary to protect magic and protect the integrity of magic because that's what their shareholders care about, is what's going on with that's the real moneymaker. Yes, and oiler and um, I you know, maybe I'm maybe I'm just you know, a glass half empty kind of guy, but I can't imagine that this is going to affect magic sales at all appreciative. It won't. It won't. So so you know, we we can yell about it and stuff like that, but shareholders are going to say good job, and magic players are gonna shrug, um or you know, the worst possible outcome, which is and and to some extent, we're doing it right now.

30:33 This turns into another culture war thing, right, you know, where like there are some things that I'm willing to that there are there are some hills I'm willing to die on. Oh yeah, yeah, but there's gonna be. But like, certainly in my feed, there's a whole lot of people that don't play magic that are kind of like, oh those bastards. I can't believe this. Um, you know, and like I could swears in this situation. Um, oh, the Watson in the Pinkerton's Okay, Like I could swear to never play Magic again. That doesn't mean a lot coming from me, because when I when I finally close my game store, I swear to do that anyways, right, just because I was dealing with you know, uh, like buying and selling Magic cards for decade, which is enough to make anybody not want to play Magic again. Yeah, this is yeah, this is serious stuff. Yeah, and as player, as a former Magic player, like, it is extremely difficult to give that game up, and like, um while kicking in actual real drug addition is a very serious matter and I don't want to draw direct parallels to it, but like there's some parallels to it. We're like real quick, just just the quickest tangent. Addiction doesn't have to do with the substance it has to se You're absolutely right. You can be addicted to collecting things. The chemical um, the chemical dependency is dopamine of course, yeah, um, which you wish you do? You get from cracking packs? Um, I go for a pack right now, I'd walk a mile or a camel. I haven't.

32:00 I haven't bought a pack of Magic cards in like twelve years, and I honestly, just it's making me now, um, why plays? Why I play Marvel Snap now? So it's a bit cheaper here, the crinkle of the foil. You smelled new cards? Have you ever smelled new cards? Anyway? Um? That's it. Maybe maybe that can be the defense that he puts up for this was that it was you know, that he couldn't help himself, that he had to he had to crack those the new pack. There's no way that that any reasonable person could expect you to get a you know, a box of magic cards and not open them. So what I wanted to get into is this was like, what would he even take at this point to uh, to give us our trusts back in the company that makes the game we love to play. I would love for them to stop hiring the Pinkerton's just as like a like a quick real quick that one. I promise to not do that anymore. Well, they released a video of the of the CEO deleting the Pickerton's number out of his own.

33:00 Honestly, I think yeah, I'd be cool with that. I think so. So if we're going to set the joking aside, I think we got it out of the way all right, So what what would be To my mind, I think the only thing that would actually do it would be for um them, for Hasbro to sell them to someone in the industry with the money to run the company that was generally trusted by people, you know, by gamers, right yeah, um, like maybe some like video game tech guy with a pile of cash who was you know, widely respected or something like this. But but I think they would need to be spun off from Hasbro because all of this is Hasbro stuff. Yeah. Um, they are just a you know, they're just a little subscular, Yeah, a subsidi or of Bro. And it's Hasbro that's hiring the Pinkerton's, you know.

34:02 And it's Hasbro that hired a couple of ex Pinkerton's to run security at watsy um and you know, and they're the they're the Megacorp, the cyberpunk Megacorp. Uh you know that is that that we're all pointing our fingis at now when you're saying the cyberpunk Megacorp that we should be pointing our wrath at right, when you're saying tell me twice, Jim, I'm ready. I'm raring to go. Jess Josie's wrath points just in all directions. It's it's omnidirectional. Um kind of you, what do you say when you say here, when you say letting go to another company, are you talking about specifically D and D or Wizards as a whole? I mean Wizards as a whole.

34:43 I mean, okay, like I don't. I mean, I guess, you know what. I guess you could spend D and D off as as its own thing, as a separate property. But they're so I mean, yeah, I mean I guess you could. I mean if if you're touched so you said watsy, so I was talking about Watsy. Sure, But if all we're worried about is Dungeons and Dragons, which you know, I guess under the auspices of this show, that is what we're worried about, having the game spun off and bought by um, you know. And the nice thing about that is you need a lot less money to just buy D and D than to buy Lotsy as a whole, because Hasbro is not going to give up magic. Yeah, and I think it would be very difficult to separate D and D and Magic, just because now more than ever, yes, so there's so much several sets recently of all D and D content in well, and I mean, and it's also worth noting that that, uh, they probably made more money from that movie than they have from all of the game shit that they've done in the last however many years. It was a movie. But but but that's the thing, that's where the money.

35:52 The money is in that license and not in selling US players handbooks and dice. Yeah. Even with that, they said the movie numbers were under underwhelming. Um, despite you know what, it really was a great movie that but we'll talk about that another show. Um. But so uh yeah, so a separation from Hasbro is that is that really the line we have to draw, Like that that's the only thing that I could see being anything, Like, you know, that's the only way to kind of guarantee that this specific thing won't happen again. Yeah, Like like when you say one store trust, I mean that's I don't know that there ever was trust there, but sure, I just don't trust corporations in general. Ever, fair, I think step one and this is like I don't know what the rest of the steps are. Um, I don't know what a resolution to this looks like, um, but step one needs to be and it's probably already coming. Um A like full public apology. Um, that's the bare minimum, and they haven't given us that yet. And a correlation and a correlation between wizards and mister Cannon's stories. Yeah. Yeah, we need the actual facts to be agreed upon and then we can kind of go from there.

37:07 And you know, there's no there's not going to be video of this, I suspect unfortunately, this is the kind of thing where I wish someone had been there with a cell phone too. Well, you know, maybe what happened, Maybe they somebody had a ring camera. Yep, maybe let's possible. Maybe more so, maybe we will. I hope we get more information about this, because as as willing as I am to just to just say fuck you to the Pinkerton's, because they're trash human beings in my opinion, just for you know, litigation sake and what have you, like, I'll sell them down the river so fucking fast. But like, if it turns out that it was a little bit more on Dan Cannon, which personally I don't really believe, I would like to know. I want the facts.

37:59 Yeah, and this is very much an ongoing story. This, this whole thing just came out this week. We were recording this episode Thursday, April twenty seventh. We're releasing this episode Friday, April twenty eighth, which is right now for some of you. Yeah, and um, two thousand and three, depending on how far in the future you're listening to this. And then all of this came out like this week. The first the first I heard of this, I believe was was it Monday this started going out? I think, so okay, So so we're like, you know, we're three days Pinkerton's was trending on Twitter. Yeah, my masses on feed was just full of posts that were like the fucking Pinkerton's Are you kidding me?

38:46 Oh man? Please Okay, the memes have been great. Um, at least, let's at least let's at least take away some positive out of this. Yes, I was very confused because I was recently if I to join a Weezler tribute band, and I've there's been you know, so having Pinkerton blow up my feet is not out of the ordinary. However, we are only learning the Blue out. We are only learning the blue album right now. So like it was a little weird. That's a goos, that's all very true. We're called supermanski. Um. I would like to leave with a contemporaneous a nineteenth century quote by a newspaper columnist, specifically in reference to the Pinkerton's and some of their activities, and it goes something like this, no man of refined sensibilities would enter the ranks as a hired hession of plutocracy expecting to shoot down his brothers at the command of capital. That's such a sexy quote. Oh my god, and I agree. People just don't don't talk like that anymore. A language is ever evolving. But boy, I'm so glad I understand no those words and agree with them on So we are going to have a lot of links in the show notes, so please go check all of those out. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm going to have a link in the in the description that I'll bring you to the proper

40:17 show notes you can see the whole thing, So please go check that out lout as well. Um. Again, this is an ongoing story. This is uh, this is all just kind of coming to light now and things are changing and evolving. So if anything major h comes out about this, we'll do a follow up episode or at least if you just want to shoot on the Pinkerton slide into my DMS on Twitter, Goblin scratched this baby, I'd be happy to talk about it for hours. We're going to get to our our normal content again very very soon. Um. We'll pick that up again next week with the with the DM Academy episode Jim and I did. That was going to release tomorrow, but we're gonna push that back now.

40:58 Um So, if you, hey, if you like this kind of content, if you like us chiming in on on things like this, let me more serious episodes, please let us know and we'll make sure we do more of it. Um So that's uh. Commerctions and dragonspot at gmail dot com. Please give us some feedback any information you may have on this story or any other anecdotes about the Pinkerton's um or any corrections about how much I don't know if imagine the gathering anymore. I'm open to all of it. Um Any anything else to add before we wrap this up, guys, I would just like to really quick say thank you to Greg, who is the one that suggested that we cover this. Greg Genovis. We do miss him.

41:42 I miss him all the time. I hope Skimmy is doing okay. I hope your hair is long and luxurious, and I hope you're happy that we got to cover it. And if you're a fix all your fix, all your ship, Greg, we'd love to have you back on. Get a new computer, dollars, get a brand new some future that we will invite you back with open arms. He's not off the show because we don't want him. He's off the show because he's physically technically unable to participate in the show. He needs a new rig. Yeah, so if you guys want to start and go fund me to get Greg a new computer. Um uh, Jimmy feels no. I think that's it. Like we said, we'll have a lot more detail in the show notes about what's going on, definitely, and this may be one where as we learn more, we update the show notes. It's not a thing I usually go back and do, but this one, I think I'm going to do my best to stay on top of them. Uh yeah, we'll see if we'll see if we need to.

42:37 But that's gonna do it for this one. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back with our sillier content very very soon, I promise. But Josie Jim, thank you so much for joining me today, and thank you adventurers. Thank you for listening to com Mudgeons and Jackins. Please share this with your favorite adventures, leave her view on Apple, and follow us on social media. All links can be found at Curmudgeons and Dragons dot com. Practice safe for venturing, my friends,