Unconfirmed: More Layoffs at WotC

[billd91]

It seems to work for H&R Block. So it might work for certain businesses.

I think that's different though. People see H&R Block's swelling and contracting as seasonal changes based on the workload. Regular seasonal changes. The same is true for agricultural work, tourism, Xmas-based retail, and so on.

Working R&D for a game company that publishes year round shouldn't be seen as seasonal. Without WotC's terrible management of this issue, I would think people should be able to expect to work there as long as they're doing good work and there's appropriate work left for them to do. Well, guess what? Having a history of success there seems to make you more likely to be cut for being too expensive.

 

[Fifth Element]

Working R&D for a game company that publishes year round shouldn't be seen as seasonal.

Seasonal isn't the only form of cyclical, though. I'm not necessarily agreeing that layoffs like this are a good idea (I really don't think we know enough about them to make a call like that), but I can accept that it's plausibly a valid strategy.

 

[billd91]

And, as cruel as it is to say, the pool of potential developers for D&D is much, much greater than the number of positions available. It truly is an employers market, not an employees market.

It can certainly put the employee in a terrible bind. If you don't get at least a cost of living raise, you get paid less and less each year in real dollars. But if you get some kind of raise to keep up with the cost of living, your salary looks bigger and bigger until, after you've been there long enough, you look a lot more expensive to keep around than hiring a newb and all you've been doing is treading water.

 

[Fifth Element]

It is not a binary situation, as you seem to be suggestion. It is possible to have immense respect for the devs on staff, but feel that for a lower salary, you can get someone equally as good or better.

And, as cruel as it is to say, the pool of potential developers for D&D is much, much greater than the number of positions available. It truly is an employers market, not an employees market.

That's a good point, I think. From a management perspective, with a surplus of potential employees, holding on to staff and paying higher and higher salaries is difficult. Some companies might do so as part of their corporate culture, but economic realities might make it untenable as well.

 

[Elton Robb]

No, they have freelancers.

Oh. Good thing I am officially in Rebellion. I don't think I could stomach the proposal review process again.

 

[Steel_Wind]

It is not a binary situation, as you seem to be suggestion. It is possible to have immense respect for the devs on staff, but feel that for a lower salary, you can get someone equally as good or better.

And, as cruel as it is to say, the pool of potential developers for D&D is much, much greater than the number of positions available. It truly is an employers market, not an employees market.

I appreciate the thrust of what you are saying, though I think the phrase "immense respect" tends to mean something else -- when we really mean it, that is.

More to the point, your reasoning is quite logical and is, I'm quite sure, exactly the reasoning utilized by WotC/Hasbro in these matters.

The problem is, it's a short-term assessment only and views the creative talent as not having earned any legitimacy or goodwill of their own by reason of their many years of accumulated experience and effort. Because that's what you are paying them for. That's the cost of retention.

Instead, it views the problem of staffing only in terms of the opportunity cost of hiring a replacement at some vague and uncertain date in the future, while ignoring the goodwill and name recognition that attaches to its "immensely respected" creative staff -- as it throws them to the wolves. Or at least - that's where they used to throw them.

Now, its wolves + a potential hire/freelancer for their direct competitor. This is a new development which is an EXTRMEMELY recent phenomenon in the RPG "industry" such as it is.

In fairness, until Pathfinder came along, neither WotC or TSR had to deal with a direct competitor in the marketplace that had its hooks in to both their IP and core business as well as to a competing claim on the goodwill and affection of their fans. Because that development is new.

And that's my point: you pay these people more money because there is legitimacy and goodwill attached to their names. If you don't pay for it -- somebody else gets it at a fire sale price.

Bean-counters count beans. They don't count soft-assets. They attribute values to those things at year end for tax purposes. But they don't count them - and they certainly don't plan to manage or grow those assets with the short term hiring policy that you describe.

The line on your balance sheet that says "goodwill" and the other line that says "depreciation" next to your capital assets where it lists "trade-marks"? Those are notional amounts on a balance sheet which are extremely hard to actually estimate real values for.

You can't count them in inventory; you can't really locate them in a file. You can't directly spend them. It's difficult to pledge or hypothecate them. If you try and pay a dividend based upon their supposed value -- it's almost always a sign of inflated values ascribed to IP coupled with smoke and mirrors accounting.

But that doesn't mean that those values aren't real and that they don't matter. It just means they are very hard to count and harder still to manage.

 

[Mark]

I'm not necessarily agreeing that layoffs like this are a good idea (I really don't think we know enough about them to make a call like that), (. . .)

I can say with certainty that I know enough about the effect of such layoffs on workers and their families to make the call that they are not a good thing.

 

[Banshee16]

I can say with certainty that I know enough about the effect of such layoffs on workers and their families to make the call that they are not a good thing.

I believe it's been pretty well established by business management specialists, industrial/organizational psychologists and other experts that layoffs are not a good thing. I remember tonnes of studies to that effect were available 10 years ago when I was in school.....and those studies had already been around for years.

It's not good for the employees, and it's not good for the companies. But it makes the shareholders happy in the short term, and allows the managers who order the layoffs to justify their bonuses.

Banshee

 

[Shemeska]

I don't recall WOTC ever making a public statement about this or any of the previous rounds of layoffs.

They made a public statement in the wake of the 'Digital Consolidation' following the large purges during the blowback from Gleemax and the missed launch of the DDI. That involved a number of management folks, and the circumstances were rather unique at that point versus any of the semi-annual D&D cutbacks. I wouldn't expect any press release for this most recent round of layoffs, the Xmas one(s) or others for whom the circumstances really don't compare in scope to that one.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Hi, all, sorry for jumping in a little late, but I just didn't have time to plow through the entire thread yesterday.

I just wanted to reiterate a bit of what Scott said. Working at, and leaving, WotC is a real bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, WotC truly provides one of the greatest working environments of any business I've even heard of, let alone worked for. The company attracts brilliant, creative people, and works hard to develop an atmosphere that keeps those people productive and excited about their work. I will always think warmly of my six years there, not just because I enjoyed it, but because of the people I worked with and the tremendous personal and professional growth I got out of it.

The downside is that the axe can fall on anyone at anytime. That alone is stressful, as is the constant realigning of duties and increased workloads that follow. But to add to the contradictions, WotC's severance provisions are among the best I've ever been exposed to. In the grand scheme of things that may be petty consolation, but for someone suddenly looking at a lengthy employment search that can be a huge stress reducer.

My heart goes out to those who have lost their jobs (every time it happens). It always sucks, and it particularly sucks to be kicked out of Eden. But like Scott, I've found it's a time to reevaluate, and to move on and up. Andy and Jesse, in particular, are close friends, and I know that with their skills and genius they'll be able to follow that same path.