Magic: The Gathering Year 1: Epilogue

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When I decided to write about the first year of Magic: The Gathering, it was driven both by a desire to do something for the game’s 20th anniversary, and the fact that I was witness to so much of what happened in the early days. It was also an exercise to see if I could write such a series on short notice and make my deadlines. The process has been eye opening for me, and I’ve learned a lot from it. So much went into it, in fact, that I wanted to do this epilogue to wrap everything up. So, forgive me if this rambles a bit.

First, I want to make the offer I do every time I write about incidents from the past: if you are someone I knew from that time and you either disagree with something I have written, or have your own take that you would like to add, I invite you to write up your position and I will publish here unedited and uncensored. I want to stress that I am only going to accept those from someone I know.

If you are someone unknown to me, and still want to write up something about this period and have it posted here, contact me and we can discuss it, but I will reserve the right to edit those.

Next, I have a lot of people I want to thank. First off are Matt Hamer and Stax Blackmoore who were my Beta Readers/Editors. Their ability to get columns back to me, in time for publishing, is appreciated and invaluable.

I also want to thank the people who were there at the time I was, who were willing to answer questions I had to fill in memory gaps or provide details I was unaware of previously. So thank you to Beverly Marshal Saling, Rick Marshal, Ron Richardson, Kyle Namvar, Matthew Burke, Cathleen Adkison, Pete Venters, Jillian Venters, and Alex.

I also utilized the book Designers and Dragons by Shannon Applecline to fill in other knowledge gaps. This book is a comprehensive history of the gaming industry. Applecline cites her sources in this work so it is the most trustworthy source you are likely to find about the industry. If you are in to the history of the hobby game industry, this is a book I would recommend checking out.

If you are interested in another take on the history of Wizards of the Coast I recommend checking out Rick Marshal’s blog Oaths and Fate where he has been detailing the rise of WotC from a more philosophical perspective. Rick witnessed the very beginnings of the company and has a much different perspective.

One question I have gotten a couple of times, while working on this series, is if I am considering writing a book about the early days of Magic: The Gathering; I find the concept interesting, but do not think my stories alone would be enough to support an entire book. I do think that if I could round up some other old timers, we might be able to put together a nice oral history style book that covers several perspectives. I’m not saying that this is going to happen for sure, just that it is being considered. Is this something people would be interested in, if it were to happen? Let me know.

So with that, I put this project to bed. I am sure that in the future I will cover other tales of WotC’s history, but now it is time to move on to other subjects.

I will be doing a theme month again in October, which will be all about reviewing horror movies.

Until then, I am going to cover other areas which have caught my interest. And I am always willing to take suggestions so feel free to write me at caliban@fanboynewsnetwork.com .

Thanks for your time.

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