HeyJaredAlternate Worlds
Behind-the-scenes stories from Magic the Gathering’s history and conversations with legendary creators.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 30, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Aug 26, 2026
Latest issues
Daddy, Did You Let Mira Win? (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Occasionally I’ll take my kids to a cafe in Sausalito to play games.<img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="417.5" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AdGW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3
Teresa Johns (opens the original)
Read excerpt
I met Teresa Johns at Serious Business, the first gaming startup either of us worked at, in 2009. Serious Business was an incredibly talented & well-curated team, and its members have gone on to become prominent VCs, CEOs, CTOs, COOs, technologists, artists, etc.Six months after we joined the company, we were acquired by Zynga, which had a very different ethos and led to very different types of adventures. I termed Zynga a “work bootcamp” and Teresa termed it “so much fun.”This dissonance makes
Time Spiral (opens the original)
Read excerpt
With great enthusiasm, we begin this story.Time Spiral’s actually the only set I own — my dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday in the mid-to-late 00’s, and I said “I want a Time Spiral set.”When I looked at the cards, I didn’t recognize them at all.Whatever we were going for with the set, or whatever connection I thought I had to it, didn’t persist in memory.This was the second large set I led where the development team really didn’t like the design.This type of situation has come up a lot
Mark Schneider (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Mark Schneider is a chess master who traveled the country to play in chess tournaments as a teen. He went on to parent three boys, all of whom played with him in the first Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour. The youngest, Jeremy, finished 20th in PT-Dallas Juniors. The middle child, Justin, finished 1st in PT-Dallas Juniors, and Top 8 at PT-Chicago ‘98. The oldest, Brian, is writing this to you now, and grew up to become one of the R&D leads for Magic: the Gathering. My dad is well-known as a bit of
What Do You Do With a Sober Card Game Maker? (opens the original)
Read excerpt
In 2007, after I left Wizards, I was referred for a job at Microsoft to become a video games evangelist.This referral was a very nice idea, in theory.If I worked in games, surely I was deep into video games, right?Interviewer: “What video games do you play?”Me: “Ah, I don’t play video games. I read books.”Interviewer: “You know this is a video games evangelism role.”Me: “I bet I would have to know something about video games to do that job, right?”The interviewer game me multiple great video gam
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.