Jeff Grubb on WotC and layoffs

[Celebrim]

D&D beat out other games because at first it was the only game, and because when other games came out it still out-competed them.

Ultimately, my point - and arguing for or against it - depends on something subjective. It's not possible to prove that one product or the other has superior quality, unless by 'quality' we only mean something very limited like the number of typos or layout issues that it has.

However, I will argue again as I have argued elsewhere, that the 'standard narrative' about why D&D was successful is incorrect. Going 'first' is by no means a huge advantage. Plenty of things hit the market first only to lose out to some other product. VHS beat Beta. IBM's PC's beat out the Mac. Nobody uses Palm Pilots any more. Ultima Online did not become the standard in fantasy MMORPGs. Id doesn't dominate the first person shooter market. More often than not in fact, first to market is a disadvantage. IMO D&D did not succeed because it was first. It succeeded despite being first.

Part of the standard narrative is that D&D succeeded because of the huge amount of negative press that it recieved. Of course, this is also a bit wierd and hard to believe if you think about it. Negative press doesn't usually help a product succeed. I'm deconstructed this myth at great length elsewhere, so I won't go into it again here, but I believe D&D succeeded not because of the negative press but despite it.

Sixteen years ago, I would have bought into the standard narrative myself. I was frustrated with the lack of realism in D&D and the inelegance (as I percieved it) in the clunky 1e game system (or non-system). It's various shortcomings had come to grate on me too much. So I left the system and went exploring, and that brought me some much needed perspective.

I'm now convinced that D&D succeeded on the basis of its many abundant merits (which I've discussed elsewhere). D&D was a success because it got far more right than it got wrong, and the various "fantasy heartbreakers" (as they've been called) and rival gaming systems that appeared almost immediately failed as I had to properly appraise the game. The secret to D&D's success is that the game system had been created not as the result of some untested theorizing about what would make a good game, but organicly as the result of playing the game intensely for years prior to it being published. Because it wasn't relying on theory, but practice, it was playable and approachable in a way that most of its competitors weren't. There is lots of evidence for this, but for me one of the most convincing is that almost without exception, cRPGs have adopted the D&D model of chargen and combat resolution rather than the alternatives, and seldom depart far from it. I am convinced by my time spent with other systems that this is not merely driven by nostalgia or a lack of imagination, but because disparaged concepts like class, levels, and hit points are actually the best systems available for solving common gaming issues.

And Wizards is making adventures. They are making more adventures than anyone. They don't sell them in stores... they give them out for free through Encounters and through LFR and other organized play.

I can't say this without offending someone, but IMO most of these are crap. It's a good thing that they are free, because most of them aren't even worth that much. You'd have to pay me to run most of these for a group. Maybe its not the fault of the writer, but of the format and the mode in which these are created, but they are typically unimaginative combat oriented slap dash which gives me no reason to care about them.

 

[Mark CMG]

Then why should shareholders be more generous than the fans? If the people who love the game won't sacrifice their earnings for the love of the game, why should a Hasbro executive be expected to show more generosity?

You think that exec packages, corporate-wringing on behalf of the shareholders, and the cyclical gutting of institutional memory are justified because execs shouldn't be expected to put out the best product they can and allow the market to judge it after the fact. I must admit, I have not heard this argument before.

 

[Morrus]

CEO packages and the like are tricky. The company puts a value on the CEO; now, you or I may well disagree with that value [although I dare say few of us are remotely qualified to comment out of an informed position] but the company presumably feels it would fare even worse without that CEO in place; probably drastically worse.

One could demand that he reduce his salary. But he's likely to say "Nah, I'll go work for Mattel instead. See ya!"

So one has to pay the market rate for a CEO - or not have one worth speaking of. Of course it's easy for us armchair analysts to say "Well, he's obviously not good at it. They laid off Rich!" The board, though, might be saying "Thank god we have him to steer us through this recession. Because of him, we only had to lay off Rich, rather than declare bankruptcy and put everyone out of work and stop making D&D".

 

[Mark CMG]

One could demand that he reduce his salary. But he's likely to say "Nah, I'll go work for Mattel instead. See ya!"

Someone already has the overpaid job of laying off Mattel employees at Christmas (after promoting them recently) and deciding the final quarter numbers need inflating. Some say, "Things never change" and some say, "Things never change until they do."

 

[Remus Lupin]

CEO packages and the like are tricky. The company puts a value on the CEO; now, you or I may well disagree with that value [although I dare say few of us are remotely qualified to comment out of an informed position] but the company presumably feels it would fare even worse without that CEO in place; probably drastically worse.

One could demand that he reduce his salary. But he's likely to say "Nah, I'll go work for Mattel instead. See ya!"

So one has to pay the market rate for a CEO - or not have one worth speaking of. Of course it's easy for us armchair analysts to say "Well, he's obviously not good at it. They laid off Rich!" The board, though, might be saying "Thank god we have him to steer us through this recession. Because of him, we only had to lay off Rich, rather than declare bankruptcy and put everyone out of work and stop making D&D".

Yes, I think this is very likely true, but that simply seems to me to be a redescription of the basic problem, which is the breakdown of solidarity and commitment in companies between workers, managers, and owners. It was always a problematic set of arrangements, but was actually pretty successful in ensuring the long periodic postwar stability and prosperity.

 

[Mark CMG]

It's also worthwhile viewing the situation through a Veil of Ignorance.

 

[haakon1]

So one has to pay the market rate for a CEO

CEO is a job (like actor) with a very high standard deviation in its pay. It's not uncommon for a CEO to work for far less than the market rate (sometimes $1/year), particularly if they are a founder or part of the founding family (so they already have a significant percentage of the company), or sometimes if it's a turnaround situation.

I think how much a CEO gets paid isn't really correlated to their quality. To use a simple example of two non-founders, Mark Hurd got paid much more than Meg Whitman as CEO's at HP, and he was not a positive contributor to that company -- fired for fiddling his expense reports to take a "consultant" (his mistress) with him on business trips, while he was running the company into the ground, whereas Meg Whitman might be able to pull them out of their tailspin (too early to say).

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Paizo might be the darling of the moment, like White Wolf was in the 1990's. And maybe they'll supplant Wizards and maybe they won't. But what I do know is that it won't be because they magically found a way to avoid short-term planning. The corporations have to be short-term planners, not merely because their owners are interested in the short-term (or at least the quarter), but because their customers only care about the next release.

I agree that Paizo is the darling of the moment, and inevitably they'll be forced to take some actions that are less than ideal for some customers (perhaps even to please other customers).

HOWEVER, one thing about corporate planning: Paizo is much better than WotC.

I don't know if you mean hiring/firing, business plan, etc type of planning.

I refer to what I as a customer can observe. I know that WotC fails miserably with Dungeon and Dragon planning ahead (why not have a cache of articles done for the month before the month starts?) Whereas Paizo has it's next adventure path laid out well before the current one is fully underway (it varies, I think, but often when adventure #1 of the current path hits, we are already aware of what the next path will be). Whereas WotC is uncomfortable with even having a detailed table of contents because they don't know when they'll have their product, and they cancelled/revised/massively moved even print product dates over the last couple of quarters.

Paizo shows foresight and planning in their publishing schedule that WotC shows they do not have. Another E.G. Paizo's release about their MMO versus WotC's release about insider. If it's tentative SAY it's tentative. If it's already in hand THEN announce that it will be available for release.


Now I'll agree that corporate planning (what will our budget be over the next month/quarter/year and on into the future) is harder to plan for than what a publishing schedule will be. However, I constantly get the impression from WotC that even they are not sure what they'll be publishing next, or when, or if the'll have the article when they think they will/say they will. This (fantastically poor) planning does not inspire confidence regarding the other planning components of the company. See also the "what's to come from me" article the day before the "I'm laid off" article.



To address your "responsible customer" issue. I am one. I subscribe to Paizo's adventure paths, with the intent to "maybe use them in the future" simply because I want to support the company, and have them continue to put out great products. If those started becoming crappy, I might switch gears and buy more world sourcebooks, or rules splats, or whatever. But I want Paizo and Pathfinder to remain a strong competitor in the market.

The thing is, too, that those products aren't crappy, again, in large part, due not just to the talent of their writers and designers (often the adventures are written by a variety of people). It is due to timing and planning, allowing for excellent review and editing, rather than shoving a mostly-finished, sorta-good product out the door because they've run out of time.


So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, yes, Paizo is MUCH better than WotC about planning. Maybe that's due to their size. Maybe it's due to one or two really competent higher-ups. Maybe it's because they ran a (real paper) magazine and HAD to be good about planning, so that people there developed a set of skills that crossover nicely into other areas. I don't know.


Insofar as buying the crappy WotC products to support them (I'm not stating that all WotC products are crappy, btw)....that wouldn't work. The customer can control how much money he shotguns at the company, but cannot control where in the company the money goes. As MARK CMG has stated...and as we've observed in the US when they bailed out the banks, it's entirely possible that CEOs just get even larger bonuses and people STILL get laid off.


So, yes, I agree it's about planning (and also failing to plan).

 

[Alphastream]

Dangers of the cyclical layoff of veterans: Someone mentioned in an earlier post that WotC has the best salaries in the industry: that's because they have to. The calculus of a talented RPG writer has to take into account that they might only have the job for a short time before they get hit in the annual purging; therefore the upfront compensation has to be higher

I doubt they pay higher for any reason other than wanting the best. They pay the most (as far as I know) for freelance work.

I also doubt that knowing about the recurring layoffs is much of a disincentive for many. You can't really be in the RPG industry for long without knowing it is not on very sound financial footing. And, truly, the staff layoffs are very low in number. You can pretty safely work at Wizards without fearing them (statistically) and even if hit you stand a good chance of freelancing or having made a good enough name to be in better shape than you were before (assuming you want to continue in the field).

To me, the bottom line is this: The RPG industry is risky. Most RPG companies don't last long, even the ones that seem like really good ones. Even if you find one that does, it likely has financial issues and will see layoffs. TSR at one point let go some 150 employees. The list of closed RPGs or ones with substantial layoffs is basically a list of all RPG companies. So, you go to work here not for job security but because of passion for the game. If you are good enough to land a job at Wizards, you probably take the job. Yeah, you know about the layoffs, but your chances are still good and even if eventually laid off you could come out ahead. The layoffs seldom seem personal - ex-employees usually remain close friends of employees. Instead, the guesses that this is due to budgets and managers trying to avoid layoffs is probably correct. Could it be done differently? Certainly. Should it be? Now we need a lot more information about how Wizards and Hasbro operates to know the alternatives. None of us know that information.

 

[Alphastream]

I'm now convinced that D&D succeeded on the basis of its many abundant merits (which I've discussed elsewhere). D&D was a success because it got far more right than it got wrong, and the various "fantasy heartbreakers" (as they've been called) and rival gaming systems that appeared almost immediately failed as I had to properly appraise the game. The secret to D&D's success is that the game system had been created not as the result of some untested theorizing about what would make a good game, but organicly as the result of playing the game intensely for years prior to it being published. Because it wasn't relying on theory, but practice, it was playable and approachable in a way that most of its competitors weren't.

I don't agree with your interpretation of going first not being a benefit (tell that to every company seeking competitive advantage) or of negative publicity not being good (tell that to every add agency). But, I do like what you wrote above. I suspect there is a lot of truth there, though I also suspect it is a mix of many elements. I was just reading Designers & Dragons and I was just blown away by the constant threats to TSR as well as their own blunders... there were surely just as many reasons why they succeeded.

I can't say this without offending someone, but IMO most of these are crap. It's a good thing that they are free, because most of them aren't even worth that much. You'd have to pay me to run most of these for a group. Maybe its not the fault of the writer, but of the format and the mode in which these are created, but they are typically unimaginative combat oriented slap dash which gives me no reason to care about them.

I suspect we would say the same about many beloved classic adventures if we saw them for the first time. For some groups, anything they don't write themselves will be wrong/poor in some way. (Just as some DMs only run published adventures, often earlier in their careers).

And sure, out of several hundred adventures there is plenty of crap. But, I also see some excellent adventures amongst these, even without keeping in mind that the LFR ones are written with convention constraints. What ratio of great to average to poor will depend on the individual reader/player/DM, but my main point is that Wizards has not abandoned adventure writing by any stretch of the imagination. They do it themselves for Encounters, through DDI, and through traditional organized play. I don't see it as an imperative that Wizards get back into "store shelf" adventure writing. In fact, I think it has been good for their quality and bottom line to not do so. While some of their store shelf 4E work has been good, their non-shelf stuff is often better. For example, I consider the sole for-sale published Dark Sun adventure to be the weakest of all 4E Dark Sun adventures. It's ok (it gets worse reviews than it deserves), but there are a ton of better 4E DS adventures out there in DDI, from gamedays, from convention specials (such as the Dark Sun Arenas), and hopefully from Ashes of Athas (I'm an admin, so my bias should be obvious). If you want to play 4E Dark Sun you have many of adventure options, but only one on the shelf. While I would like better communication to direct gamers to the available options, I think the model works very well. (For example, from all accounts Encounters really advertised and sold the 4E Dark Sun setting effectively).