Wizards of the Coast preparing to level-up to Southport. It’s magical to see the lights on

The office space at Southport was ready for tenants right around the time the pandemic hit, delaying occupancy. Marcie Palmer sent me this beautiful photo showing the lights finally on in the Southport offices, to the left of the Boeing factory. The lit up space will soon be occupied by Renton’s own global trend-setting game designer, Wizards of the Coast.

It’s appropriate for Wizards of the Coast to settle in next to Boeing.  When I was a systems engineer at Boeing, I worked with engineers that had regularly played a pre-production version of “Magic the Gathering” with their colleague Peter Atkison during their 40-minute lunch breaks.  “He would bring new hand-drawn cards for us to evaluate every week” they told me.  Mr. Atkison had started a small side business, “Wizards of the Coast”, which took its name from the adventuring group he and his friends had created when they played “Dungeons and Dragons.”  Mr. Atkison was close friends with a gamer named Richard Garfield,  the creative inventor of Magic the Gathering  (and also a great-great-grandson of US President James Garfield).  Peter Atkison’s small company was working to bring Richard Garfield’s product to the market, and his fellow nerds at Boeing were an outstanding test market.

Mr. Atkison’s company “Wizards of the Coast” became a worldwide success with “Magic the Gathering,” which now sells game cards in at least 11 languages and has game tournaments with competitors from every occupied continent.

With their commercial success, they were able to purchase the TSR company for $25 million, the owners of the sensational “Dungeons and Dragons,” game that both Atkison and Garfield had drawn inspiration from their whole lives.  With their purchase of Dungeons and Dragons, Wizard’s became the uncontested world champions of the fantasy roleplay gaming market.

Wizard’s roleplaying formula became attractive to Hasbro. Hasbro purchased Wizards  for $325 million in 1999, promising fans of Wizard’s games they would allow Wizards of the Coast to operate as an independant, stand-alone division.

When the pandemic hit, Wizards of the Coast was well positioned, with digital versions of their games available to keep players campaigning and casting spells, even while maintaining social distance.  The digital versions have the added benefit of allowing people to play with each other across the oceans, making the world a smaller and more connected place. They have also become Hasbro’s most profitable division, bringing in 72% of Hasbro’s 2022 profits between their traditional games and digital offerings.

They’re now upgrading their headquarters, moving to the beautiful Southport complex on Lake Washington.  They’ll have easier access and a beautiful new gateway when the Park Avenue extension is completed.

Wizards of the Coast is now ubiquitous to gamer-nerds like many members of my family, who play their games and acquire books and miniatures, known as “minis”,  figures of wizards, orcs and dragons that help visualize and inspire game-play.

My wife Cathy has participated in a long-running Dungeon’s and Dragon’s group for almost 20 years, playing digital versions during the pandemic. They are now able to get together again for game-play and painting miniatures.

At the very moment Marcie Palmer sent me the photo above showing the lights on in Wizard’s new Southport headquarters, my wife was hosting a mini-painting party in our game room.  This illustrates how important Wizards of the Coast has become for our city and the world.

Here are a few photos of the mini-painting party:

Freyja, the daughter of one of my wife’s long-time gaming partners, is part of the next generation of D&D players

My wife Cathy working on one of her miniatures

A typical D&D mini-painting party in our gaming area

A detailed look at an art piece that adorns our game room. The dogs are playing Dungeons and Dragons, not poker. (They are our pets, living and passed) Kenny Corman is the artist.