An open letter to Randy Buehler

[The Little Raven]

It is physically impossible that budgets within the same company do not impact each other. The money had to come from somewhere.

When a budget is determined and finalized, it is entirely possible to keep budgets for one project from impacting eachother. It all depends on how the company handles budgeting, whether it requires them to generate revenue from their latest product in order to budget their next product, or whether they have the capital for their second product ready before the release of the first product. Smaller companies need revolving-door revenue to keep products in the pipeline, while larger companies have far more leeway since they can have the entire budget for multiple products ready before a single product releases. Having worked at Sony Online Entertainment and a smaller developer, I have seen both methods of budgeting employed.

 

[Goumindong]

When a budget is determined and finalized, it is entirely possible to keep budgets for one project from impacting eachother. It all depends on how the company handles budgeting, whether it requires them to generate revenue from their latest product in order to budget their next product, or whether they have the capital for their second product ready before the release of the first product. Smaller companies need revolving-door revenue to keep products in the pipeline, while larger companies have far more leeway since they can have the entire budget for multiple products ready before a single product releases. Having worked at Sony Online Entertainment and a smaller developer, I have seen both methods of budgeting employed.

That is great, its still wrong. At the end of the day, you have expenditures and receipts.

Profit is a factor of those receipts minus those expenditures. When investments go bad versus good. Expenditures increase[versus not spending that money] and receipts stay the same[versus not spending that money]. Which means the company makes less money.

The difference between that money they make with the bad investment and the more money that they make with no investment or a good investment effects the operating budgets of all projects within the corporation. It may not be immediately noticeable, but it does.

 

[El Mahdi]

We've seen no evidence that the DDI's delays have impacted the budget or development cycle for D&D, so I don't see what purpose it serves to imply that it has.

What about that latest round of layoffs?

Is there direct news that D&D R&D was affected by it? Is there direct news that the DDI's delay was the cause of those layoffs?

No, there isn't. There's some general news (Foster and Lescault have been laid off), and a whole lot of people jumping to conclusions.

I agree with The Little Raven's response to this. The layoffs have already been torn apart, examined, and multiple conclusions jumped to in many other threads. There is no evidence that the layoffs at D&D are anything but the realignment they said it was. There is absolutely no evidence there are budgetary concerns, not even in the quarterly budget reports that were released. It seems the problems and delays with DDI have only affected the development cycle of DDI. I don't even see evidence that it has affected Dungeon and Dragon. Dungeon and Dragon seem at least as good right now, as they were before they ended printing. The point of most of the customer/fan critiques, emails, and posts on this thread and others is, that level of quality isn't good enough anymore.


On a side note, everytime I see "quote=The Little Raven" in my reply box, for the above quotes, I keep seeing "Quoth the Raven . . .". Freaky and Cool.

 

[Shemeska]

When a budget is determined and finalized, it is entirely possible to keep budgets for one project from impacting eachother.

Unless folks are lying or grossly exaggerating about the state of budget squabbles over at WotC prior to the layoffs, I'm going on what I've heard through the grapevine from said people who worked/did work there (though not in DnD R&D). Gleemax was a massive money sink, and from what I've heard filter down to me through other folks, the whole slew of digital projects was a drain on the system elsewhere.

Eventually we'll find out officially on if I've heard wrong and everything is perfect over there. Post layoffs, there's not much being told about what exactly led to it all and who got fired outside of the two confirmed names. Things are rife for speculation, but don't say it's not grounded speculation.

 

[cangrejoide]

I think those who do not like 4E won't really play the adventures, so won't comment on their quality either.

If they would only listen to you, the 3E/4E world would be a better place.

 

[cangrejoide]

What about that latest round of layoffs?

Is this your opinion or do you actually have evidence that it's directly related?

 

[Qualidar]

Is this your opinion or do you actually have evidence that it's directly related?

It's just my opinion. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that 1) failing to launch a D&D product that was supposed to bring in significant revenue, and 2) continuing development costs to get that project off the ground, and 3) delaying that product launch past the optimal window for sales is going to cause the people in charge of the purse strings over there to think "Hmm, lets give those D&D chaps some more funding".

It's a black mark on the brand, and people in charge look at stuff like that when they are deciding if the actually want to continue funding that brand. D&D's just a product. They could yank it off the shelves tomorrow if they didn't think it was profitable enough.

But yes, that's all just IMO.

 

[AllisterH]

If ANYTHING had been a major money sink for WOTC, it was the Dreamblade bust.

They spent MUCHO dinero on that if you're a follower of the collectible miniatures/wargame market and I honestly think THAT WOTC spent way more on that...

Or how about Hecatomb? They spent a fair chunk of change on that....

 

[Qualidar]

If ANYTHING had been a major money sink for WOTC, it was the Dreamblade bust.

They spent MUCHO dinero on that if you're a follower of the collectible miniatures/wargame market and I honestly think THAT WOTC spent way more on that...

Or how about Hecatomb? They spent a fair chunk of change on that....

Quite possibly, I'm not really familiar with that arena. I would expect computer programers to cost more than game designers or sculptors, but I don't really have a solid basis to judge.

More than the lost production costs, I think the real problem is the potential revenue that's slipping through their fingers. For example: I'm still evaluating, but at this point I think it's fair to say that I'm not a fan of 4e, and it won't become my game of choice. That said, I certainly would have been signed up to the DDI for these past several months while I've been making this evaluation. But, because it wasn't ready in time, I (and many more like me, I'm sure) have had the opportunity to make my mind up to not sign up before they had a chance to charge me for it. Sight unseen I would have gone in for a couple of months, and possibly I would have sprung for a 6-month membership. That's a lot of money gone, if you look at the people that tried 4e but in the end gave it a pass.

 

[Hussar]

So, Qualidar, it's your opinion that they should have gone immedietely to a pay site, sight unseen? That by offering free content for several months, they've actually cost themselves potential revenue.

Am I correct in that?