WotC Is Mike Mearls still in WotC?

[Ruin Explorer]

Companies (no, I'm not singling out WoTC), can get very crafty in how they push out older workers. They navigate legal pifalls and word things just so, making it difficult to pin it down and prove discrimination.

Yes, and the more senior and leadership-oriented the post, frankly the easier that is to do. But also, at that level if your experience genuinely is useful, they will recognise it! It's not like in more everyday jobs where some people just want you out for being "old". Also people here need to recognise that successfully suing is not always a win for the person who does it, if they're career-oriented.

However, let's be clear, the idea that WotC is "pushing out older workers" is absolutely laughable.

Their leadership is virtually all in their 50s and above, particularly in the D&D brand.

 

[beancounter]

The problem is that the age of the hosts of a Youtube show is being presented as evidence that there is an active goal of making the D&D design team younger, just to make it younger.

I never specified the design team. I repeatedly said the faces/hosts.

 

[bedir than]

So age discrimination. Hope they sue.

There's nothing to sue at.

He still works there. His LinkedIn shows his role and title. While his most recent position is a lateral title, it's with a bigger, more valuable brand. That was after he was promoted to oversee franchise brand for D&D. He was promoted out of the public spotlight.

the ENWorld age-ism mythology has no basis in fact

 

[Umbran]

I repeatedly said the faces/hosts.

It remains to be seen why you think the choice of video hosts (which is largely a marketing function) has anything to do with Mearls, who has never been a marketing guy.

 

[beancounter]

It remains to be seen why you think the choice of video hosts (which is largely a marketing function) has anything to do with Mearls, who has never been a marketing guy.

I guess I went off on a tangent. My apologies.

 

[Blue]

I never specified the design team. I repeatedly said the faces/hosts.

Except you started this explictly talking about Mearls and just "older folks".

Well, it was WoTC intention to replace him and other older folks with younger ones. (Just look at D&D Beyond)

So yes, you called out Mearls by name and also the whole category of "older folks" and are now claiming you didn't.

 

[beancounter]

Except you started this explictly talking about Mearls and just "older folks".

So yes, you called out Mearls by name and also the whole category of "older folks" and are now claiming you didn't.

Yes, and then later, I specified where my perspective was coming from.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Mearls -- I have no idea where he is right now. I think WotC probably didn't think firing him made sense (for reasons I do not know*) at the time of the controversy, and they certainly aren't going to either give him the axe or parade him out in public at this point. Like many things that happen within corporations where internal dealings are internal, we likely will never know all the specifics.
*he could have been valuable, they didn't think they had (lawsuit-proof) cause, they believed he'd done nothing wrong/made only reasonable mistakes, or any number of other potential reasons

The youthening of (D&D-side) WotC -- in 2013-4 the D&D team was a skeleton crew, trying to get this unifying edition out the door as an evergreen product, supposedly mostly with the mindset of it supporting the larger goal of themed merchandizing and D&D-related media. There would have been minimal support staff and creatives who cut their teeth in the late 2e and 3e era. Almost by definition there was a greyward tilt to the demographic, since vaguely 50% of the staff had 'and has many, many, (many) years of experience within the existing TTRPG industry' as a job-qualification. That's where the selective event would have taken place -- the shrinking of the D&D division creating a bottlenecking effect. In the intervening 8-9 years, D&D has wildly expanded, and the requisite staff has done so at the same pace. New creatives are being brought on, and while work experience in the field is part of that job description, they won't all be 'just the cream of the crop of the last few versions.' Likewise, the support staff, marketing and media, youtube presenters and so forth can be any age (with some fields, like said youtube people, having low-ward age demographics in general). This is going to drag the average age of the D&D-WotC employee down closer to the 'average white collar employed individual seeking new employment' age (which itself is lowering, as boomers stick in one spot until retirement and Millenials-GenZers are the new and mobile job-seekers).

Long story short -- it was when D&D went from 4e to proto-5e that the selection event which lead to a specific age range happened, and further activity is a regression towards the mean.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Mearls -- I have no idea where he is right now. I think WotC probably didn't think firing him made sense (for reasons I do not know*) at the time of the controversy, and they certainly aren't going to either give him the axe or parade him out in public at this point. Like many things that happen within corporations where internal dealings are internal, we likely will never know all the specifics.
*he could have been valuable, they didn't think they had (lawsuit-proof) cause, they believed he'd done nothing wrong/made only reasonable mistakes, or any number of other potential reasons

Transitional era re: how bad that sort of thing was seen as and D&D was less important/making less money. Had the same thing happened now they'd have fired him for sure. Lawsuit would have stood no chance even in California because they had cause. They thought a cover-up would work better and it did. They even covered up the fact that Winninger had been working there for what months, maybe more than a year, in Mearls' role!

Also re: cream of the crop, creative/design-wise it's clear WotC with 4E/5E stopped selecting just selecting "good/experienced RPG designers" and went for some more narrow criterion, though exactly what is unclear. Seems like maybe a lack of ambition re: designing your own RPGs or like is now seen as an asset? Never having critiqued D&D? Hard to say.

 

[Maxperson]

Companies (no, I'm not singling out WoTC), can get very crafty in how they push out older workers. They navigate legal pifalls and word things just so, making it difficult to pin it down and prove discrimination.

11 Sneaky Ways Companies Get Rid Of Older Workers

Companies looking to ditch older workers can be creative about how they try to avoid age discrimination claims. An employment lawyer describes some of their nastiest ploys.

www.forbes.com

I spent 5 years with a law office that did employment law. We primarily did wage and class actions, but we also did some age discrimination. Companies think they are being crafty, but if a pattern appears where old workers are laid off, fired, moved elsewhere and young people show up in all of those positions, it was good for us.