The authors of Magic: The Gathering have created a new development studio, Digital Games Studio, which will rethink the company’s digital products, and a digital publishing division.
Wizards of the Coast President Chris Cox announced the transformation of the internal teams involved in the development of digital games, and an increase in their funding.
As part of the restructuring, the company has created a new studio – Digital Games Studio. It included both natives of Valve Corporation, Warner Bros. Activision, BioWare and other companies, as well as the authors of Magic Online from the company’s long-existing internal team. Jeffrey Stifil, executive producer of the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online, took over the studio.
The studio will “rethink the digital versions of Magic and other Wizards of the Coast games,” Cox said.
In addition to launching the studio, the company is forming a publishing team that will establish connections, the result of which will be “the emergence of the Magic and D&D universes within new genres and platforms.” Most likely, we are talking about the fact that the company will engage in the targeted sale of licenses for its titles. The digital publishing division was headed by David Schwartz, former director of business Development at Microsoft (responsible for promoting HoloLens and games from 2012 to 2016) and former director of THQ.
Wizards of the Coast specializes in creating board games. The most popular product of the company, founded in 1990, is the card game Magic: The Gathering. Also, after the purchase of TSR in 1997, the company owns the rights to the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. “Magicians” is the daughter of the toy manufacturer Hasbro.
Sources: Gamasutra, Wizards of the Coast