WotC's Annual Xmas Layoffs

Logan_Bonner said:

Also still there (AFAIK))

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Pramas said:

Not quite accurate.

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Thanks for your feedback, I've now incorporated it above. In light of Morrus' XP comment I also inserted an entry for the brand team - out of 5 names I recognise 2 as fired and the other 3 as uncertain.

But by all means, this would make for an interesting news column, Morrus, especially when conjoined to Greg Leeds' statement (quoted earlier in this thread) that WotC stands for constancy!

Noumenon said:

Great post, the link did not lead to a Windjammer comment for me though.

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Sorry, Enworld links to other posts only work if users have the same display choices on how many posts are portrayed per page. On my display choice, that post appears on page 2, on yours probably only much later. In any case, it's post #70. I simply state that if we look at how much talent was let go (referencing the PHB 1 credits), I wonder if WotC is ready for a new edition, and still has the manpower it used to have previously. It's not clear from the data we have how many of these positions were filled later on by equally qualified people, if they were filled at all.

Nemesis Destiny said:

Still, you would need 40 grand to buy up even 1000 shares, and honestly, they aren't going to give a rat's tail about some clowns with 1000 shares whining about the poor workers at the company. This is a corporation. They exist to crush the needs of the many under the desire for profits by the few.

If I'm not mistaken, it's actually unlawful for them to proceed in any way which runs contrary to the best interests of the shareholders as a whole, i.e. maximizing profit.

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While you are not allowed to act direclty against the shareholder's interest, you are not forced to maximize your profits for only their sake. The clause basically exists to make people deal responsible with their shareholder's investment. It is often used as an excuse to maximize profits, but that is just a misinterpretation - maybe one that has become very convenient for managers (and certainly for short-term investors that want to see quick money and don't require long, stable investments as they will be long gone when all the long-term effects of earlier decisions hit them).


Edit: Oh, well, OnlineDM said it much better than me.
If the stock market "rules"/laws/regulations would provide less incentives for short term investments and more for long-term investments, we could actually see a change in the practicies and priorities. (Primarily because at some point, shareholder interest will line up with employee and customer interest) But in times of High Frequency Trading... not so likely.

While this isn't quite the same as actual WotC employees being laid off, it looks like Stephen Radney-MacFarland has also lost his freelance gig writing the Save My Game column.

I remember listening to a recent episode of The Tome Show where SRM was interviewed, and I remember thinking, "Wow, this is cool. Someone who works for Paizo still has a gig writing for WotC. I like the anti-edition war vibe."

Sigh.

OpsKT said:

I also want to point out, that there is a lot of people out there, every day, fighting their little battles in the edition wars, clamoring for WotC to fail. Then they have the nerve to act upset when WotC lays people off. That's like people feeling bad for the Michigan Auto Industry that have spent the last 20 years telling people to buy Toyota! And it's either hypocritical, or the result of a huge intellectual disconnect.

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I forgot to answer to that earlier. Thanks for the reply to my post, and for a lot of food for thought. I agree with nearly all of it, except for the bit I quoted here (though I don't personally see myself in the camp of 'wanting WotC to fail').

The people fired this year have a long history with D&D, one that goes way back even before WotC took over D&D or Hasbro took over WotC.

As others have pointed out, Steve has written for early Greyhawk material, and Rich was very active in 2nd edition - indeed, without him, things like Birthright would not exist. These are people who've shaped our game for the better part of 20 years.

It's fair to say that both authors have garnered support and fandom above and beyond whatever happens to be the currently favoured design directive at the company they're working at. This also explains why people with little brand loyalty left for D&D feel sad Steve and Rich are leaving. There's no disconnect at all.

People with Rich and Steve's historical perspective and design talent could have helped to make (what's left of) 4E and (what's yet to come of) 5E a better game. Only time will tell.

OnlineDM said:

While this isn't quite the same as actual WotC employees being laid off, it looks like Stephen Radney-MacFarland has also lost his freelance gig writing the Save My Game column.

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Interesting development. While I'm sorry SRM will lose some extra income on the side, I always thought his blog (NeoGrognard) to contain much better content on 4E than what he wrote in 'Save my Game'. For instance, check out this column and his one on rituals and item creatino - these helped my game more than anything on rituals I ever chanced across in DDI. And they're free!

So letting his gig go comes across to me as...
a great loss to WotC,
a small loss to Stephen, and
hardly any loss at all to his faithful readers.

WoTC's decision makes perfect sense; in the mad-as-a-hatter, through-the-looking-glass world that is modern business practice. Remember, this is the same genius mentality that has brought us climate change and the credit crunch, and it is all summed up in one phrase;

False accounting!

It is false accounting to pretend that laying off Rich Baker will only result in
his salary and benefits being recovered; yet that is all the balance sheet will show. It will not show that debacles like 4E are a direct result of pushing everyone out of the door who really understood the 'soul' of D&D. But 'talent' and 'wisdom' cannot be measured and therefore cannot be real can they?

It is also false accounting to say that burning fossils fuels is cheaper than alternative energy sources; this ignores that damage that will be done to the economy of the world by climate change; damage that is now estimated to be 100s of trillions of dollars at the very least. And this is without even considering the harm done to animals and plants.

The sad fact is that we live in a world that allows the greedy to ignore or destroy anything real that cannot easily be measured just so they can get rich. We also allow these crooks to move around so much that they are never around when payback time comes; that's why we have the current financial meltdown because bankers realised they could sell loans they KNEW would go bad but which made them so much money that they knew they would be on their yacht in the Bahamas before the smelly stuff hit the fan.

That is the 'logic' of our world; it is ugly, cruel and mad so don't even try to tell me it makes sense.

OnlineDM said:

One argument I've heard is that it's rare to have long-term (as in decades) shareholders of companies any more, which means that shareholders tend to think in the very short term (since they don't plan to still be shareholders in six months' time). That's bad for the business in the long run, but if the current owners don't care about the long run, well, it's understandable.

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One just has to examine who the largest shareholders of HAS stock are.

HAS Major Holders | Hasbro, Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance

It turns out, it is mostly institutional and mutual funds who are the largest holders of HAS stock. No big surprise that they only care about the value of the stock in the short to medium term.

....

Piratecat said:

That just sucks. I don't ever think I'll understand their criteria for who gets laid off.

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If it is about received payment, I hope Monte Cook is drastically cheaper, or this was a very bad decision IMHO. This is not against the person Monte Cook, but my judgment of their recent work I have seen.

A much criticized column vs an acclaimed one & a good selling board game

Moovanian said:

There were actually 2 big layoffs during TSR era. You mentioned the first, the 2nd happened about 6 months before WotC bought TSR, before X-mas of 1996 (which I was part of).

I do hope Rich and Steve both land on their feet after this sad day.

Michael Huebbe
aka The OGRE
Head Spellfire Geek

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There were multiple rounds of layoffs in 83 and 84 and another big round in 96.

But I don't think those were the only ones. It seems like everyone who is anyone in the RPG biz worked for TSR or WotC at some point.