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?”

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's a very simplistic version. Let's not forget the global downturn in toy sales that have cratered many of Hasbro's toy lines.

But, sure, it's only the movie studio stuff.

This is exactly what flies up my nose. This tendency to look for really simple answers in very complex issues. Hasbro is 100% bad for letting go someone because they had a bad year but, it's all about the movie studios and nothing to do with anything else.

Um, why are you lying and saying he said "only" when your own quote shows he said "mostly"? I mean that's literally a bare-faced lie. At best you didn't bother to read what you were quoting! You aren't allowed to complain about "simplistic" when you do things like change "mostly" into "only".

Anyway, it's the same difference, however you spin it.

They cut people at WotC to show off to shareholders, not because they needed to cut people at WotC.

They even cut the people directly responsible for literally high tens of millions of revenue and very low costs, maybe over a hundred million revenue from Baldur's Gate 3, at a time when we now know Larian actually WERE developing BG4, and only after this event (I can't say it's causal, but I can talk about the timing), did Larian decide not NOT make BG4. Incredible decision-making there guys. Maybe Larian would have made that decision anyway, but the fact is they didn't, and Swen was definitely pissed off by WotC firing the people he worked with, and said so publicly.

 

[TiQuinn]

Sure we do. It was rather widely publicized at the time.

But did you see it happen?? /s

 

[Alzrius]

At what point do you take your complaint with WOTC directly to WOTC and stop posting it in response to so many different threads derailing those reads so you can bludgeon your peers who are just trying to have fun talking about their hobby with your corporate complaints?

This entire thread is about corporate complaints with regard to WotC, so this complaint of yours strikes me as rather bizarre. When a thread can correctly be summarized as "stuff WotC is doing that we don't like," bringing up other instances of malfeasance on their part is entirely in keeping with what's being discussed.

Serious question - how long are we all supposed to tolerate these rants.

Serious answer - I don't care. Catering to your sense of entitlement about not being subject to opinions that you don't agree with isn't my problem. If you don't like it, that's a dilemma you'll need to solve.

I like a lot of what the others who do it have to say as well. I don't like putting people on ignore, and use it as only a last resort.

And I appreciate that, but again, that's your problem. I feel strongly about this issue, and it's germane to the thread topic, and so I felt moved to speak my mind about it. The only bit of advice I can offer, if you don't care for what I said, is to simply scroll past it instead of asking me not to say what I want to say because you find it inconvenient.

But if this is just going to go on indefinitely, if you're planning to just keep finding any justification to bring it up again and again for the foreseeable future, I think it would be polite for you and others to just let people know that here, so they can make an informed decision if they want to deal with this further.

I disagree that it's "polite" to ask other people to let you know if they're going to keep discussing something on a discussion board; that's simply to be expected. If you find that burdensome to the point of not being able to simply overlook it, then it's up to you to figure out how to deal with that.

 

[Hussar]

/edit to remove mistake.

 

[Oofta]

I can think of a few more criteria, anti-consumer, unethical, exploitative, heck even illegal is not on your list…

I don't have enough time to list every possible thing a company could do that I would disagree with. But WotC is pretty middle of the road on this stuff as far as I can tell and a lot better than TSR was in many ways. Are there companies that are better? Sure. I guarantee there are companies that are worse.

There are a lot of companies that make bold claims, and perhaps even initially even mean them, about being ethical and doing the right thing. There are exceptions to every rule, but Google used to have a "Don't be evil" motto. A lot of people would say they went over that line and left it so far behind they don't want people to remember they ever said it.

I think virtually any company of any significant size scrutinized with the intensity these forums scrutinize WotC wouldn't come out much better, especially when every negative assumption and spin is treated as fact. Especially when we throw in things they thought about doing but never implemented.

WotC certainly doesn't deserve wings and a halo. I don't think they deserve horns and a pitchfork either. We don't know what the budget, profit margins and projections were for the D&D team. While it was quite possible that people were laid off just because of a corporate mandate, it's also possible there was another reason. All we do know is they are looking to pay someone a reasonable salary which appears to be over industry standard.

I've been laid off as part of a company restructuring and it sucks. But what was really hilarious? When they realized they cut too many people they called me and asked me if I wanted to come back and work for them again. I don't know anything about Dan or his position, but the fact that they didn't look him up and offer him his old job back could also be an indication of their valuation of his fit for the new position. Or not. We just don't know.

 

[Alzrius]

While it was quite possible that people were laid off just because of a corporate mandate, it's also possible there was another reason.

I suppose it's possible, sure, but the best analysis I've seen suggests that the layoffs happened to make Hasbro look proactive to investors after they (Hasbro) took a major loss on eOne.

 

[Oofta]

I suppose it's possible, sure, but the best analysis I've seen suggests that the layoffs happened to make Hasbro look proactive to investors after they (Hasbro) took a major loss on eOne.

Or they told WotC management "Hey, if you're looking for an excuse to get rid of some underperformers, here you go." We don't know. For that matter if it was a corporate headcount dictate, they likely got rid of the people they thought were underperforming. I've been at companies where they did that (got rid of the "bottom x%") repeatedly until eventually I quit.

Even if it was corporate dictate, it's sadly nothing unusual and something that all sorts of companies do all the time. As I said above, all we do know is that they're going to pay well based on industry averages for a new hire.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't have enough time to list every possible thing a company could do that I would disagree with. But WotC is pretty middle of the road on this stuff as far as I can tell and a lot better than TSR was in many ways. Are there companies that are better? Sure. I guarantee there are companies that are worse.

There are a lot of companies that make bold claims, and perhaps even initially even mean them, about being ethical and doing the right thing. There are exceptions to every rule, but Google used to have a "Don't be evil" motto. A lot of people would say they went over that line and left it so far behind they don't want people to remember they ever said it.

I think virtually any company of any significant size scrutinized with the intensity these forums scrutinize WotC wouldn't come out much better, especially when every negative assumption and spin is treated as fact. Especially when we throw in things they thought about doing but never implemented.

WotC certainly doesn't deserve wings and a halo. I don't think they deserve horns and a pitchfork either. We don't know what the budget, profit margins and projections were for the D&D team. While it was quite possible that people were laid off just because of a corporate mandate, it's also possible there was another reason. All we do know is they are looking to pay someone a reasonable salary which appears to be over industry standard.

I've been laid off as part of a company restructuring and it sucks. But what was really hilarious? When they realized they cut too many people they called me and asked me if I wanted to come back and work for them again. I don't know anything about Dan or his position, but the fact that they didn't look him up and offer him his old job back could also be an indication of their valuation of his fit for the new position. Or not. We just don't know.

I agree that WotC don't need horns and a pitchfork. Their vibe isn't Satan, it's Sideshow Bob.

We all know how constantly they step on rakes and OGL 2.0 is their "You don't get a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry!" (Indeed that was the leading fan defence for OGL 2.0!)

 

[jerryrice4949]

[/QUOTE]

I suppose it's possible, sure, but the best analysis I've seen suggests that the layoffs happened to make Hasbro look proactive to investors after they (Hasbro) took a major loss on eOne.

The best analysis you read is from a poster on this site?

The layoffs started in 2023 with about 800 employees and followed with approximately 1100 in 2024 though some people selected buyouts or early retirement. Hasbro’s toy sales have not been profitable for some time though maybe eOne played a role too.

It is strange WoTC saw as many layoffs as they did being a lone bright spot but with Hasbro cutting 20% of their workforce in two years it is not surprising WoTC saw some of those cuts.

I think we can reasonably expect things at Hasbro to remain unsettled as they undergo a major transformation. Physical toy sales will likely continue to decline for the foreseeable future.

 

[Alzrius]

The best analysis you read is from a poster on this site?

With regards to the layoffs from December of last year, yes; the breakdown by a professional securities analyst who brings the receipts for their analysis is easily the best take on why Hasbro was letting so many people go that I'm aware of. And I say that having previously read the Reuters link you posted.