layoffs?

What really bothers about these layoff is the fact that when business people talk about building a "brand" (an ugly word, but perhaps better than "property") they almost always emphasis a personal connection with the consumer. WotC has been doing this with Magic for years, and over the last three years has really pushed D&D that way: the Design and Development columns by Mearls, the almost unused R&D Blogs, the convention blogs and video coverage, and the podcast. They made Noonan a major face for the "brand" (I think) because he's a very good RP writer with good ability to convey his enthusiasm in an intelligent and respectful manner. So the layoff looks really bad becuase he's one of the few faces that Wizards has presented to us. They damage their image not only by laying people off before the holidays, but also by laying off people they made the representatives of D&D.

Laying off Tweet makes me think of when the Oilers traded Wayne Gretsky...

joethelawyer said:

Exactly. At the end of the day, you still have to worry about putting food on your kids plates, making the house payment, and trying to put away a little bit for the kids college and your retirement.

Whether you got some severance package or not, whether it was due to your performance or not, whether you get a handshake or a kick in the ass, when you walk out the door that last time, it sucks.

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Having been laid off before I can say it does indeed suck. One thing though that offers a slight glimemr of happy in the sea of suck... is that with a layoff at least you can approach the next prospective employer with most likely a positive past experience.

Whereas when you're fired, you pretty much have to start with: Yes, I was fired, but here's why you should still hire me.

Not having to overcome a negative mark is at least something.

Ultimately it still sucks, and my heart goes out to them all.

Dannyalcatraz said:

The enforceability of a NCC hinges on several things, not the least of which is whether it is "unconscionable," the scope of the NCC, and the geographic area it covers.

Whether a NCC is unconscionable is a balance test between the company's valid reasons for having the NCC in the first place and the ability of the person covered by it to find gainful employment.

Given that the RPG industry involves precious few true corporate secrets- things that would be on a par with KFC's secret recipe, for instance- it would be hard for a court to justify barring someone from working in the biz on that rationale.

Ditto the size of the industry- despite the explosion in the number of companies since the dawn of the hobby, the number of professional level game designers probably wouldn't fill a mid-sized auditorium, and most of them probably know each other on sight. This also means that there aren't many vacant slots to be filled at any one time. (Besides, can you imagine what trying to get a job with another RPG company if you were known to be the one who tried to get a NCC enforced?)

Given the nature of publishing these games, the geographic coverage of a NCC would be considered national or international. A court considering enforcing a NCC would presumably ask the party seeking its enforcement to meet a high burden of proof.

Put all together, its unlikely that a court would enforce most NCCs in the RPG industry, assuming a company tried to enforce one.

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You're a lawyer too, right Danny? You analysis is my understanding as well. My concern, however, is that I have heard of situations wherein the company essentially offers two different compensation packages upon termination, one with a strict longer term non-compete, one without. Obviously the one with the better compensation package has the more restrictive non-compete clauses.

That may have some impact on whether or not a person even tries to fight it, especially if the money in the compensation package is doled out over the full time-frame of the non-compete agreement. It also makes it not a pure non-compete agreement fight, under the framework you laid out above. It blurs the line into making it a bargained for contract of another sort, with valid consideration for the non-compete. Do you have any experience with such situations?

Which goes back to my earlier post--does anyone with WOTC experience know how they draft their non-competes and terms of termination agreements? Can these guys be hired by Paizo on Friday?

Another source of information:

Full story at ICv2 - Digital Consolidation at WotC

...
Reached for comment by ICv2, a WotC spokesperson noted, “Wizards of the Coast consolidated its digital game organizations to streamline execution of digital growth strategies for core brands.”



Wizards of the Coast President Greg Leeds also weighed in. “Consolidating internal resources coupled with improved outsourcing allows us to gain efficiencies in executing against our major digital initiatives Magic Online and D&D Insider,” he said. “Wizards of the Coast is well positioned to maximize future opportunities, including further brand development on digital platforms. The result of this consolidation is a more streamlined approach to driving core brands.”
...

joethelawyer said:

Exactly. At the end of the day, you still have to worry about putting food on your kids plates, making the house payment, and trying to put away a little bit for the kids college and your retirement.

Whether you got some severance package or not, whether it was due to your performance or not, whether you get a handshake or a kick in the ass, when you walk out the door that last time, it sucks.

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It most definitely does suck and hurt, more so if the person affected has not had any direct and real lose, such as a loved one passing or such, since we tend to put so much of ourselves into our job, often told as we grew up that if you are good, hard worker that you will always have a job. Yet, suddenly, a good hard worker is laid off through no real fault of their own.

My first lay off happened just before I turned thirty-two, literally the week before my birthday, a handful of weeks after we splurged and bought a new PC, as well as the week I started my GenCon plans (I didn't go) and in the midst of a freelance project.

It came out of no where, so much so that I had narrowly avoided buying a house, due to the inability of my company to answer a simple question, all while saying that our jobs were safe and sound. So, while it was mostly unexpected, there was that one hint, yet I was a hard worker, always putting in extra time when asked, and a team player. I was, literally, the third person to go, right after the two people in the company who were our anchor statements, i.e. So long as So-and-So has a job, we're safe. Thus, the two bad examples got let go and then myself, as well as a few other folk.

I was stunned, I didn't know what to tell my girlfriend (our lil' man just turned one a few months earlier) and it sucked. I went out drinking that night with a friend, who was there for me, as well as his brother, when I was laid off again.

It is an odd hurt, both times, hence those suffering it have all the sympathy and empathy I have, hopefully something, anything, said by us on here helps them a bit, which it seems to so far, and that's a good thing.

First of all, a piece of music, "The Piano [Life is a song]":
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2ljWwIaHs]YouTube - The Piano [Life is a song][/ame]

Secondly, it appears to me that WotC has problem with forming long term plans with regard to media:
- premature switch to digital form of periodical media
- lack of clear and supportive policy for indirect business partners (GSL)
- high degree of staff turnover

Thirdly, latest products contain rehash of 3.0 and 3.5 material adapted to 4E or somewhat problematic reinventions of older stuff (no new settings, somewhat slow and awkward support for already published settings). Examples:
- reinvention of FR, which alienated large portion of fanbase - best business solution would be to build new subset of realms to appeal to new fans while providing support for continuity of campaigns of old time fans
- popular settings of Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Eberron suffer from serious support delay for those who would like to convert their campaigns - digital media should support such switch upon release of 4E to enahnce appeal 4E instead of forcing people to choose or convert by themselves
- there is no promise of continual support, merely 3 books per setting intention - this is good for novices, but may be not sufficient for those who invested into 3.x over the course of several years


In the light of the above, I feel doubly sorry for those who leave. May you find some nice place in this rather fragmented market.

I also feel sorry for those who stay, since it will be their duty now to carry on with supporting rich culture of D&D worlds. I hope you can do this... mind you, I don't like 4E, but I would hate even more to see such large part RPG world to suffer further.

Finally, to all. It's not the end of the world, there is infinity of imagination to live through and put on paper. It's just that I hope that all the talented people will find ways to contribute to gaming community (and prosper, of course).

Regards,
Ruemere

Scribble said:

Having been laid off before I can say it does indeed suck. One thing though that offers a slight glimemr of happy in the sea of suck... is that with a layoff at least you can approach the next prospective employer with most likely a positive past experience.

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I've been laid off once in my career, and I've resigned twice. The resignations were much more pleasant, from my perspective. But you're right about the positive experience. Hopefully, in the case of a negative experience, you're able to resign before being let go (as was the case with my first resignation).

And I want to say that I hope all this discussion doesn't distract from the sympathies being given to these great people who are now out of work. They certainly have mine.

awww

my best wishes to those affected.

very sad

Sanjay

I think I need to defend WotC a little bit here.

First, there's this from Fifth Element that bears repeating:

Fifth Element said:

Developing a new edition requires far more work than a regular publishing schedule. Layoffs are de rigueur shortly after a new edition release, because staff was built up beforehand to develop the new edition.

I just think it's simplistic to suggest that a "well-run business" should not have layoffs. It's more complicated than that.

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The savvy folks who watched the Coasties for the last decade or so probably were expecting this. It happened in 3e, it happened in 3.5, and it'll probably happen again afte 5e. I believe in both 3e and 3.5 it happened during the Christmas season.

Second, while a lot of the emotion of Monte's post resonantes with me, there is a little something at work in the idea of "fire the senior developers."

The idea is that no business likes to lay off people. They do it because they have to, not because they want to.

Getting rid of the senior members of the crew allows them to fire the least amount of people to save the greatest amount of money and with the least amount of regret (because it's easier for experienced management to find jobs than it is for Billy the New Guy). It's something of a balancing act, because they do need to remember what happened in the past (which requires those senior members), but they also need to cut expenses.

I'm not saying it was an entirely genius idea from Wizards. They probably could have spread it out better, hit several different levels, and maybe timed it better (can't you let people enjoy their holidays before you depress them?).

But there is logic behind this axe. They're not being Big Evil Corporate Overlords of Evil. They're running a business.

And, on the bright side....these great editors and designers can still find work through the OGL. I'm sure if they want it, it's there.

....though part of me is now REALLY SAD about the GSL being so FUBAR'd, or they could just go on writing 4e stuff.

It's why you don't see the same thing from the M:TG side of WOTC. (If there are layoffs on that side, then WOTC is in big trouble).

M:TG is basically always producing a new edition every 4 months so there are never mass layoffs from that side....