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?”

 

[Oofta]

One could easily argue that it wouldn’t be kept alive and burning bright for hundreds of pages if not for those who never see a problem with anything WotC does responding to said threads.

I don't know anyone that never sees an issue. I don't trust any corporations to do what's best for me or for their employees. All companies that want to stay in business want to maximize profit and as long as they aren't engaging in anti-competitive areas or deceptive approaches I accept it. But how many people constantly, and I mean constantly on every other thread, talk incessantly about how terrible WotC is because they're evil money-grubbers. But they're pretty average as far as companies go from what I can see. I don't expect any company to do what's best for me, I only care that they aren't egregiously evil and they produce a product I find valuable.

There's a big difference between being pragmatic while accepting the way capitalism works and constantly complaining while spinning absolutely everything in a negative light. Don't like the game? Never play it? Cool. But why are you constantly in effect nagging everyone about how stupid they are to still play it?

 

[Scribe]

What on earth is the investor class? 62% of Americans own stock.

I don’t, but my mother who was a canteen worker and a secretory does.

Investing in companies is a good thing. Don’t demonize it.

Its how I'm going to retire, because you dont get ahead otherwise. Any pension I've looked into, is also operating off the back of the market so I get it.

There are levels to it however.

The hyper wealthy, the people more than happy to see stocks increase in value regardless of the impact to employees, the private equity funds that gut a company to squeeze every last dollar out of it, the C-suite that gets paid out in millions yearly in stock options?

Investment is fine enough in a 'we all live in a capitalist world' but what those folks do? I dont believe its 'fine'.

 

[Oofta]

I feel like I’ve slipped into an alternative dimension here.

How is WotC hiring a new designer a bad thing thing? Because they laid one off eight months ago? How on earth do folks know it isn’t because a different one has left or is approaching retirement, or is intended to work on a completely different project.

Nobody who gets made redundant expects the company never to recruit another person.

The continuous shade is enough to make a person sick.

In addition, we simply don't know all the details. I've worked at companies more than once that, for example, asked for people that wanted early retirement or gave them a good severance package if they wanted to pursue other opportunities. Sometimes it was an excuse to get rid of under-performers. Sometimes it was just a dumb decision by some upper level accountant to make the balance sheet look good.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't know anyone that never sees an issue. I don't trust any corporations to do what's best for me or for their employees. All companies that want to stay in business want to maximize profit and as long as they aren't engaging in anti-competitive areas or deceptive approaches I accept it. But how many people constantly, and I mean constantly on every other thread, talk incessantly about how terrible WotC is because they're evil money-grubbers. But they're pretty average as far as companies go from what I can see. I don't expect any company to do what's best for me, I only care that they aren't egregiously evil and they produce a product I find valuable.

There's a big difference between being pragmatic while accepting the way capitalism works and constantly complaining while spinning absolutely everything in a negative light. Don't like the game? Never play it? Cool. But why are you constantly in effect nagging everyone about how stupid they are to still play it?

I think those are all fair points but people do things for other reasons than to be negative. For example, I don’t think Dan Dillon made his comment because he’s resoundingly negative on D&D. But he is pointing out that the company fired experienced designers less than a year ago and are now rehiring. They didn’t see a need for designers less than year ago? Companies are not perfect creatures making automatically logical choices - decision makers make boneheaded decisions, and people have a right to point that out when they feel it happened.

It just so happens that the company is releasing a new edition of the game which is always a hot topic for fans that brings plenty of positivity and negativity as the changes come out - that’s expected, really. And on top of that, they seem to be pivoting to a digital medium in a time where tech companies are being increasingly criticized. So yeah, they’re gonna be a lightning rod for criticism too.

And while you may be blasé about corporations, and expect the worst so why bother talking about it, surely you cannot expect others to take things as resignedly as you. People gripe on imperfect information all the time, and sometimes it’s overblown - and sometimes it isn’t overblown. Sometimes the defenders of the company’s decisions are underplaying the downsides of whatever topic is at hand.

 

[Von Ether]

I think you've got that backwards.
WotC pays very well.
To earn more you'd have to go to video games (which is what Mearls and Stewart and other did). You don't earn more by going to Paizo or Kobold or Green Ronin, etc

Apologies that I wasn't clear. What I meant was I wondered if WotC lowballs in general because at other ttrpg companies (or even owning a ttrpg company) is so low that we don't demand or negotiate for more.

 

[Scribe]

Apologies that I wasn't clear. What I meant was I wondered if WotC lowballs in general because at other ttrpg companies (or even owning a ttrpg company) is so low that we don't demand or negotiate for more.

Sorry but who/how could they be lowballing? If they are the market leader in wages...isn't everyone else lowballing?

 

[Staffan]

I don't know anyone that never sees an issue. I don't trust any corporations to do what's best for me or for their employees. All companies that want to stay in business want to maximize profit and as long as they aren't engaging in anti-competitive areas or deceptive approaches I accept it.

There's a very big difference between "staying in business" and "maximizing profit". Not being able to see this, or to be satisfied with a reasonable profit is one of the biggest reasons for the world being as effed as it is.

 

[Alzrius]

There's a very big difference between "staying in business" and "maximizing profit". Not being able to see this, or to be satisfied with a reasonable profit is one of the biggest reasons for the world being as effed as it is.

This is, to me, a very salient issue.

I'm not of the opinion that whatever a company does should be accepted so long as it's not "deceptive" or anti-competitive. There are lots of other things companies can do, all of them legal and economically sound, that I still find to be unethical and so heartily disapprove of, and as such strike me as being worth mentioning whenever that company's practices are being discussed.

 

[Von Ether]

Sorry but who/how could they be lowballing? If they are the market leader in wages...isn't everyone else lowballing

Would they offer more if game designers didn't settle or demanded more. Simply because they are paying the most doesn't mean they are paying what people are worth when their work impacts a whole industry.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If people boycotted every company that did this, there would be no internet, or phones, or, well, most anything.

Until they learned.

We spent 5000 years of civilization without this kind of BS.