layoffs?

Darrin Drader · Dec 3, 2008

I owe a great deal to Julia Martin, so I consider this extremely unfortunate.

Shemeska · Dec 3, 2008

If Jennifer Paige aka Solice was fired, that sucks majorly. She did a damn fine job cleaning up the mess that a lot of folks felt that Mike / GamerZer0 had turned the WotC boards into during the Gleemax period. She was nice and she was polite, and too often a punching bag for the problems over there.

I'm A Banana · Dec 3, 2008

Woah.

Those are some pretty big names. Dave Noonan? Jonathan Tweet? Julia Martin? Randy Buehler?

Awful season for it, too.

That sucks. Especially in this career climate.

Herremann the Wise · Dec 3, 2008

PaizoCEO said:
Here are the names I have confirmed as of a few minutes ago:

Randy Buehler (VP of digital gaming)
Andrew Finch (director of digital games)
Stacy Longstreet (senior art director)
Julia Martin (editor)
William Meyers (creative manager, digital design)
Dave Noonan (game designer)
Jennifer Paige (online community manager)
Jennifer Powers (marketing)
Jonathan Tweet (game designer)

-Lisa Stevens
CEO
Paizo Publishing

Is this a typical cleaning out? Does this reflect on the success (or lack of) of DDI, or D&D in general? What should (if anything) be read into this?

Seems an awful lot of talent being cut adrift there. I'm sorry for all the guys there - right before Christmas too - but Dave Noonan in particular - I really like him.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

RefinedBean · Dec 3, 2008

Sweet mercy. Do we have any other confirmation on those names?

(no offense to Lisa, of course)

Best of luck to those who were let go.

Rechan · Dec 3, 2008

More on layoff thoughts:

Could this be indicative of Hasbro? Not saying "The Corporate Suits are killin' our guys!" but more: has Hasbro made cuts in all areas of the company? This could simply be a 'We need to downsize all of our departments, to cover costs and salaries'.

EricNoah · Dec 3, 2008

Herremann the Wise said:
Is this a typical cleaning out? Does this reflect on the success (or lack of) of DDI, or D&D in general? What should (if anything) be read into this?

I wouldn't read a lot into it.

Does anyone remember the rough timeline for how the 3.0 layoffs went? 3E was released in August 2000. Didn't the first big wave come in like Oct/Nov of that same year? And then there was another smaller round the next spring I think. Boy I'm having trouble remembering...

Olgar Shiverstone · Dec 3, 2008

I can see the digital games layoffs, given WOTC's history.

Dave Noonan, given his role in 4E, is quite a surprise (unless it was voluntary).

Nothing like layoffs right before Christmas.

Darrin Drader · Dec 3, 2008

EricNoah said:
I wouldn't read a lot into it.

Does anyone remember the rough timeline for how the 3.0 layoffs went? 3E was released in August 2000. Didn't the first big wave come in like Oct/Nov of that same year? And then there was another smaller round the next spring I think. Boy I'm having trouble remembering...

Yep. There are certain names I would expect to see if D&D was getting the axe, and so far I haven't seen any of those names come up. DDI is taking a massive hit though.