WotC D&D Hiring New Game Designer Months After Firing Many

The job pays from $86-145k and is for an experienced game designer—presumably much like one of those they let go a few months ago!

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Notably, one of those let go in December in Hasbro’s company-wide cost-cutting cull of over 1,000 jobs was D&D designer Dan Dillon. Dillon posted on Twitter—“Well. There it is. D&D is hiring a game designer, 8 months later. Was it worth it, you soulless f*****g cowards? Did you save enough money?”

 

[DarkCrisis]

It’s not just WorC that acts this way. It’s almost any Corp.

Especially American companies that love near unfettered capitalism.


From AI to bad business practices to full blown crimes.

2 steps forward to a full blown dystopia every day.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I know there was a push from an activist investor a couple years ago to have Hasbro spin off WotC into it’s own company, arguing it would increase the overall value of the 2 companies or something. No idea in legal terms what “spin off” means, would WotC have become a publicly traded company in that scenario? That’s my assumption if an investor was arguing for it.

Ugh. I said I didn't want to get involved!

So that plan was not just from an "activist investor." It was a hedge fund. Focused on exceptional returns.

I will leave it up to others to contemplate the details of how the plan would have worked that would allow for those exceptional returns, and what that would mean.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't think this is likely. But is is possible the Hasbro toys assets are sold in an asset purchase agreement to a new company that is also combining the Mattel and MGA Entertainment toy properties. All three toy segments of those three companies are struggling right now, and I can see the synergy of combining them all.

The biggest barrier would be anti-trust claims, but Bandai Namco and Lego are both bigger than any of those three toy units and I think a combo of the three would only rise to being equal to Bandai Namco or Lego (and I am ignoring Spin Master, Tomy, Funko, Fisher-Price, etc.). That's probably an allowable combination of departments into a new company.

Which would leave WOTC, Hasbro Digital and Entertainment, and board games being combined probably under WOTC. Which would probably just be renamed as something like Wizards Entertainment.

 

[Dire Bare]

What about the possibility that all parts of Hasbro except WotC tank so much that they decide to start operating under the WotC name if it becomes more valuable than the HAsbro name? And then Hasbro d.b.a. WotC sells off or shuts down all the unprofitable parts of Hasbro and only does D&D and Pokemon?

It's possible. Sure.

But highly, highly unlikely.

 

[Cergorach]

Paizo recently had a game dev position open for Starfinder. It paid 48k

But that might have a longer term advantage...

I don’t know about the RPG industry specifically but I would say it is true of large corporations in general. Periods of boom and then bust. Look at all the large tech companies that have laid off staff in the past 12 months. Almost all of them. These are the same companies that were hoarding talent two years ago.

The issue with the mentioned tech companies is a different one from WotC/Hasbro. Most of those tech companies ballooned with employee numbers during the pandemic. That's mostly because there were unnatural demands on that tech industry during the pandemic, working from home, communication, entertainment, mass spending on niche products, etc. Alphabet (the Google parent company) went from 119k people in 2019 to 190k at the start of 2023. When that market collapsed because lock downs were over, people went out again, on vacation, not huge amounts of cash anymore, etc. The tech industry growth mostly stopped and they had to shed costs fast! If the pandemic had taken longer the mass amount of personnel would have been useful, but it didn't and hindsight is 20/20. Inflation in the last 5 years is 23%+, that is more then the 10 years previously.

I initially thought something similar happened with WotC/Hasbro, but there are no solid numbers there. There were also a TON of acquisitions, part sales, etc. But from what I gather, Hasbro didn't balloon with personnel during the pandemic. The pandemic just propped up their sales with collectables (toys) + D&D/Magic, with that gone, the are not doing well. Not on the WotC side, but on the traditional Hasbro side. This is the reason why they bought WotC 25 years ago, that bet payed off. The eOne Music bet didn't pay off (also they sold only part of it).

 

[bedir than]

But that might have a longer term advantage...

How is making less than a Starbucks shift supervisor in the same market good in the long term? You'd need to work nearly a full second job for a livable wage in the market and your benefits are worse.

Qualifying for low income housing isn't a good job

 

[Cergorach]

Almost any thread involving WOTC/D&D whether it be a product announcement, game design discussion, UA etc devolves into the same grievance litigation.

I don't see it as grievances, that's Dan Dillon territory... But when some of us see the unbased positivity of fanboyism rearing it's ugly head, that Lemmings (Oh no! Splat!) behavior isn't healthy and many just point out the mess WotC made the past 20 years. It's of course not all a mess, but it's a LOT of mess. There's a pattern in there with some very welcome exceptions. Expecting the exception to the rule with the next release/product is imho just misleading everyone. And don't get me wrong, it's not to convince the Lemmings that they are 'wrong', it's warning the rest of the folks that they should not get their hopes up and that the worst that could happen is that could happen is that they are pleasantly surprised when we're 'wrong'.

The issue many have is that they can't diverge the product from the people making it. I've been a fan of many of the 2e and 3e products, and I've collected the whole three editions (2e/3e/4e). I like some of the products, that doesn't my like/dislike of the people that made them and/or the company that made them. I don't really care about the people that made it, I don't know them. That changes when you have a conversation with them and then I can either like them, just accept them, or not. The faceless corporate entity of WotC/Hasbro I don't really care about, ever. I disliked WotC's practices with the introduction of MTG (Ante), I still loved the D&D 3e introduction and occasionally play Magic: Arena. But after 25 years of the WotC/Hasbro combo, I'm pretty certain what I expect from them is generally not positive, and when it is I'm presently surprised.

And some of us (me included) need to realize, is that we're getting old, and that maybe most of the products WotC is making aren't targeted (solely) at us. But that's also the issue I have with many WotC products they are trying to please everyone, and due to that not pleasing many. shrugs We could just live and let live, collect the positive folks in one thread and the negative ones in another, but that's imho not healthy. 'Healthy' discussion is positive, you might be tired of the negativety, we have our reasons, you have a different view, you have your reasons. Locking yourself up in your own bubble isn't healthy. The 'discussions' here give me insights into someone else's perspective, in many cases that doesn't change mine, but occasionally it does.

 

[Cergorach]

How is making less than a Starbucks shift supervisor in the same market good in the long term? You'd need to work nearly a full second job for a livable wage in the market and your benefits are worse.

Qualifying for low income housing isn't a good job

shrugs That's what they are willing to give someone, it's up to someone else to say yes or no.

What I mean is that if you have a job for longer then next Christmas, it might be better then the job till Christmas. Depending on the situation, you might not even have a Starbucks shift supervisor position you could apply to. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting the most for your skills. But I also think it quite unlikely that WotC is paying out the max, it's more likely that WotC will pay the min. Sometimes companies are just looking for juniors to fill their ranks, instead of hiring 'seniors'. If you're some famous designer, sure, they might pay you $150k, but if you're that famous/good, why not do something on your own?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But when some of us see the unbased positivity of fanboyism rearing it's ugly head, that Lemmings (Oh no! Splat!) behavior isn't healthy and many just point out the mess WotC made the past 20 years.

Mod Note:

It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. But rhetoric like this fails to clear even that low bar. Calling out others as fanboys/fanbois* or “Lemmings” is certain to stir the pot and agitate people.

Don’t direct that kind of language at others again, please.



* to clarify: self-deprecation is fine

 

[Velderan]

How is making less than a Starbucks shift supervisor in the same market good in the long term? You'd need to work nearly a full second job for a livable wage in the market and your benefits are worse.

Qualifying for low income housing isn't a good job

The only real advantage is they offer 100% remote work, while WotC from what I understand still requires at a minimum for designers to come in for everyone to review the final draft before it goes off to print so you have to live in the area to be available for that. But even then the wage gap there doesn’t come close to being made even by allowing workers to live in a lower cost of living area. I know Paizo allows workers to live in Minnesota and living in the Twin Cities metro area, you are not going to have a comfortable life at $48k per year. I don’t think you would qualify for low income housing but you’re definitely gonna struggle when unplanned expenses pop up.