D&D General WotC Founder Peter Adkison On Hasbro's Layoffs

Peter Adkison, who owned Wizards of the Coast until it was sold to Hasbro in 1999, oversaw the relaunch of Dungeons & Dragons with D&D 3rd Edition. Today, he commented on this week's round of Hasbro layoffs, which have ripped through WotC. Adkison left WotC in 2000 and currently runs a production company called Hostile Work Environment.

Like many of you, I'm saddened to learn about the layoffs at Hasbro.

Caveat: I have no idea of what’s happening behind the scenes at WotC. If you’re asking who’s at fault, or to what extent it was or was not justified, that’s outside the scope of my knowledge. This post is about my own reflections.

When I read about the layoffs at Hasbro my immediate feeling was shame. Shame for when I did the same thing, at the same company (WotC, before we sold it to Hasbro).

I have made lots of mistakes, tons of them, more than I can even remember. And while I regret those mistakes, and I’m sad for those hurt, I realize it’s part of learning and it’s part of being human.

But layoffs, when handed poorly, or when they are unnecessary, aren’t just mistakes. They are failings of character. Those times when I had a failure of character, those are the moments that haunt me.

 

[Sacrosanct]

One thing we need to be aware of with companies is that the organization overall, and the people you work with, are not the same thing. As in, your manager may entirely desire and intend to convert you from a contracting to permanent role, but if the division head doesn't allocate the funds to the FTE bucket, they can't.

Not that this happened to me at one of the better jobs I've had. No, not at all. :/

I'm dealing with this right now with several members of my team. It's very frustrating.

 

[Umbran]

Another problem we have is the funds for contractors and employees come from different buckets. Even when they're spending more money on a contractor than they would an employee, because they're dipping into a different bucket everything looks fine on their end.

Yeah, this last was the matter I alluded to above. I'd worked there for a year. My team liked me. My manager liked me. While the business the company was in wasn't all that motivating, my department and day-to-day work was. We would all have been happy.

But, the company was based in California, which has rules for how long someone can be working as a contractor. Theoretically, this is so you can't string contractors on forever. However, it means that if they don't change which bucket your funding sat in, you got let go when the time limit was reached.

It's taken about five years for this behavior to change. It's really, really hard to change company culture.

The general observation I have come to see is that much of corporate culture is top-down - changing corporate culture, then is changing what behavior leadership actively supports. And those in leadership roles are often not great at working to improve their own approaches to work.

 

[MGibster]

The general observation I have come to see is that much of corporate culture is top-down - changing corporate culture, then is changing what behavior leadership actively supports. And those in leadership roles are often not great at working to improve their own approaches to work.

This has been my general observation as well. We've only been able to change IT's behavior as senior leadership retired and most of their replacements have come from outside the company.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

The top 0.1 percent of taxpayers pay 1.1 percent in payroll taxes, 4.6 percent in corporate taxes, 0.4 percent in estate taxes, and 0.2 percent in excise taxes, so the taxes not included in this analysis total 6.3 percent for them. --Forbes, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/forbes-400-pay-lower-tax-rates-many-ordinary-americans/#:~:text=The top 0.1 percent of,total 6.3 percent for them.

Also,
Hasbro Numbers
Deborah Tomas (CFO) $6,052,840
Darren Thorp (Former CEO) $10,804,916
Cynthia Williams (COO) $6,551,294
Chris R. Cocks (CEO) $9,441,926
Eric Nyman (COO) $6,360,942
Duncan Billing (CSO) $2,500,000
Brian Goldner (Chairman of the Board) $17,960,900
C-Suite Total: $53,311,876

Median Hasbro Salary: $99,150
Layoffs: 1900 (1100 + previous 800)
Estimated Amount Saved: $188,385,000 (Since Payroll is never mentioned as a reported Asset, I had to calculate it)

Shares of Stock: 138,800,000
Dividends paid out: $8.34 per share
Total: $1,157,592,000
Hasbro Operating Profit: $922.5 million (down 9%)
Full-year Revenue: $5.86 billion

 

[haakon1]

Seems like the Wall Street guy who suggested a while back (heard it here) that Hasbro‘s value was mostly WotC and so they should split may have been right,

What I don’t get is why, with Baldur’s Gate 3 obviously being a critical, fan, and financial success as Game of the Year, D&D: Honor Among Thieves being apparently successful enough to have sequel talk, and the 2024 edition near completion, they thought WotC should be cut.

Hasbro firing Mearls makes no sense at all to me.

 

[haakon1]

Stock options grants employees the right to buy shares of the company at a set price after a certain period of time. Since there is no cost to the employee, it's essentially free money regardless of when it's exercised. How much the employee makes from the purchase depends is the difference between the "set price", and the market price of the stock.

Strike price, but yes on the concept.

Typically, companies establish the "set price" of the issued options well below the current market value at the time of issuance so the employee will always be in a net positive position. (...unless the stock price crashes through the floor)

No, stock options are typically FMV - fair market value.

RSU’s are full value shares (just wait for vesting, no strike price).

ESPP often has 15% discount but it’s a broadbased plan for all employees. Not extra for execs.

 

[Valetudo]

When a company goes public it's prime objective changes. The only thing investors care about is more right now. So integrity immediately goes out the window. There are so many companies(bioware, blizzard, wotc, and ect.) That are not the same beast that made them famous.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Perhaps if WotC hadn't bought DnDBeyond to "monetize" it (for $146m), they might have saved enough money to keep those employees that got laid off.

I think about this a lot. It seemed like a good idea to buy it instead of making their own but that’s a lot of money. Way more than they’re going to spend on the new core books which are probably not a tenth of that. That’s a huge debt rolling around Hasbro they probably can’t earn back anytime soon.

 

[mamba]

I think about this a lot. It seemed like a good idea to buy it instead of making their own but that’s a lot of money.

you should be able to build your own version for less than that, they paid for the customers / market share that came with DDB, not just the technology.

In theory the D&D profits could pay that off in two years…

 

[Stormonu]

you should be able to build your own version for less than that, they paid for the customers / market share that came with DDB, not just the technology.

In theory the D&D profits could pay that off in two years…

In the end, I think the smarter thing to have done was to just take the royalties from them being separate, rather than taking on a bunch of debt when your company isn’t doing so well. However, it seems corporations get too blind about settling for a portion of revenue instead of it all (GW is, in my opinion, the worst gaming company offender in this area).