WotC Greg Tito On Leaving WotC: 'It feels good to do something that doesn't just line the pockets of *****'

We reported earlier that WotC's communications director Greg Tito had left his 9-year stint managing the Dungeons & Dragons brand for a political appointment as Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Washington secretary of state's office.

Greg Tito Leaves Wizards of the Coast

Greg Tito, formerly the communications manager in charge of overseeing messaging for the Dungeons & Dragons brand, is departing Wizards of the Coast for a career in the public sector. Tito announced that he would be joining the Washington secretary of state's office starting this week, ending an...

www.enworld.org

In a surprising turn of events, Tito criticized his former employers, saying "It feels good to do something that doesn't just line the pockets of a**holes." He later went on to clarify "Sorry. I meant "shareholders".

Tito is now Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Washington Secretary of State office in Olympia, WA.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

The challenge is that, for the person who went to college for business administration (and the crazy parties), doing that doesn't feel like "working", micro-managing people and squeezing another 0.1% out of the turnip is working.

It is a damn shame.

This is a super weird post. Someone who went to college for a chosen profession... was into parties... as a result makes them into micro-managers, squeezing something out of a turnip. Which also somehow translates into not respecting the work of those they are managing. What are you talking about? Reading that post was like listening to someone's psychotropic mushroom 'experience'.

I'm guessing what you're saying, in your own special way, is that there were not the best hires at the management positions at WotC? Like some sort of 'financial bros', who are destroying the designers' work... for reasons? Why, because they're nerds? Or because they don't see the potential of the work the designers are doing and the effect of carrying out the work results in some sort of financial black mark against the numbers of said financial bros? I suppose that's possible. What would be the motivation though? Please explain in terms that make sense of both the potential intent of both the designers and the financial bros. When an explanation of a situation only explains the motivations of one side, it's called a 'conspiracy theory'.

 

[Oofta]

This is a super weird post. Someone who went to college for a chosen profession... was into parties... as a result makes them into micro-managers, squeezing something out of a turnip. Which also somehow translates into not respecting the work of those they are managing. What are you talking about? Reading that post was like listening to someone's psychotropic mushroom 'experience'.

I'm guessing what you're saying, in your own special way, is that there were not the best hires at the management positions at WotC? Like some sort of 'financial bros', who are destroying the designers' work... for reasons? Why, because they're nerds? Or because they don't see the potential of the work the designers are doing and the effect of carrying out the work results in some sort of financial black mark against the numbers of said financial bros? I suppose that's possible. What would be the motivation though? Please explain in terms that make sense of both the potential intent of both the designers and the financial bros. When an explanation of a situation only explains the motivations of one side, it's called a 'conspiracy theory'.

But ... but ... it's WotC, the most incompetent organization in existence! Evidence? They considered doing something I didn't care for and then listened to what I and others had to say so they backed down! How dare they! Then they did some stuff I disagree with over the past [checks expiration date, finds there is none] ... well they did stuff that other businesses do all the time I disagree with! What more evidence do you need?

Personally I wouldn't badmouth a previous employer or the way corporations work on a public forum. Complain to my spouse, friends? Sure. But that doesn't really change my opinion of Tito, other than to say that this one thing is something I wouldn't do. The projection of bad behavior on every manager at WotC and practically everything the company does or plans is just baffling to me.

WotC happens to produce a game I still enjoy. If that changes I'll stop buying from them. But there's a lot of unfounded mud slinging around here.

 

[KYRON45]

But ... but ... it's WotC, the most incompetent organization in existence! Evidence? They considered doing something I didn't care for and then listened to what I and others had to say so they backed down! How dare they! Then they did some stuff I disagree with over the past [checks expiration date, finds there is none] ... well they did stuff that other businesses do all the time I disagree with! What more evidence do you need?

Personally I wouldn't badmouth a previous employer or the way corporations work on a public forum. Complain to my spouse, friends? Sure. But that doesn't really change my opinion of Tito, other than to say that this one thing is something I wouldn't do. The projection of bad behavior on every manager at WotC and practically everything the company does or plans is just baffling to me.

WotC happens to produce a game I still enjoy. If that changes I'll stop buying from them. But there's a lot of unfounded mud slinging around here.

Mud is the grease of the internet echo chamber.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

But ... but ... it's WotC, the most incompetent organization in existence! Evidence? They considered doing something I didn't care for and then listened to what I and others had to say so they backed down! How dare they! Then they did some stuff I disagree with over the past [checks expiration date, finds there is none] ... well they did stuff that other businesses do all the time I disagree with! What more evidence do you need?

Personally I wouldn't badmouth a previous employer or the way corporations work on a public forum. Complain to my spouse, friends? Sure. But that doesn't really change my opinion of Tito, other than to say that this one thing is something I wouldn't do. The projection of bad behavior on every manager at WotC and practically everything the company does or plans is just baffling to me.

WotC happens to produce a game I still enjoy. If that changes I'll stop buying from them. But there's a lot of unfounded mud slinging around here.

A person's emotional gut reaction is going to get into the way of a rational look at a situation. All human beings suffer from this, me and you included. The way we are wired, events in our past... all of that contributes to that primal reaction.

I'll listen to that and empathise, and hug you over it. It's blowing off steam, I get it. Once you've got that off your chest, though, if you're still serious about discussing what ails you... put in the work to divorce yourself from the initial emotional reaction and try to understand what is actually happening, and why you are feeling what you're feeling. This is the point where actual reconciliation and 'fixing things' and 'putting the bad folks in their place' begins.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

While I do agree that WotC has many things they could do better, I also want to point out that managing people doing work on a product, and managing a brand overall, are very different activities.

"Just let the people working on the product do what they wanna do," is generally not going to work as a brand management strategy.

I'd agree with this.

The war between creatives and managers/marketing has always been strange to me, as I found myself on both sides of the fence and understand them quite well.

The idea that if you leave creatives alone and let them do the products that they want to do will inevitably lead to a good product and success is moot. It does happen. And when it happens many creatives point it out as a proof. But more often than not, it leads to a bad product, a product that's not within budget or no product at all. And then revenues go down, people lose their job and we point the finger at managers.

My experience is mostly with the video game industry. The number of games being released increases drastically every year. Just on Steam, a few years ago we passed the 7000 games in a year threshold (if I remember right). A vast majority of that are indies or small teams that make passion products, with no thoughts in marketing and just release the product when they feel like it's done, or when they can't afford to keep going. You've never heard of most of these games.

Now, I'm not saying that creatives need to be put in a stranglehold. But experienced and competent creatives learn to work with and embrace certain constraints: budget, target audience, resources available, etc. And it's a manager job to make sure that these constraints are clear, and to let the creatives focus on the product by removing road blocks or bringing an outsider point of view.

When companies get as big as Hasbro and WotC, the numbers after the commas start equating jobs. If your creatives make a great product that's not properly aligned with the marketing, or misses a deadline and a release window and that sales are down 10%. It doesn't seem like much, but in most companies, a decrease of 10% in revenue means jobs cut.

I work in a company that has between 5 and 10 million dollars in operating costs. I worked on the creative side before, and I manage the operations now. Keeping the production (creative), finances and marketing aligned on one goal is a very hard task to do at this scope. I cannot imagine at a bigger scope.

 

[Staffan]

This is a super weird post. Someone who went to college for a chosen profession... was into parties... as a result makes them into micro-managers, squeezing something out of a turnip. Which also somehow translates into not respecting the work of those they are managing. What are you talking about? Reading that post was like listening to someone's psychotropic mushroom 'experience'.

I think what he's getting at is that in most cases, the best thing a manager can do is make sure you have the right workers, make sure those workers have what they need, and then get out of their way until something requires intervention. This, of course, varies somewhat between professions, but in most cases the workers know their stuff better than the manager does.

But you get some managers who don't subscribe to that idea. They're managers, so their job is to manage, goddammit. So they go examine workflows, apply some theories to them that may or may not have any connection to reality, and try to fix things that aren't broken. In some cases, they may get more production out of their ideas based on some metric, but in many jobs such metrics aren't really helpful (lines of code per hour is a classic). So the end result is an "increase" in production that doesn't matter, at the cost of annoying staff and lowering quality.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I think what he's getting at is that in most cases, the best thing a manager can do is make sure you have the right workers, make sure those workers have what they need, and then get out of their way until something requires intervention. This, of course, varies somewhat between professions, but in most cases the workers know their stuff better than the manager does.

But you get some managers who don't subscribe to that idea. They're managers, so their job is to manage, goddammit. So they go examine workflows, apply some theories to them that may or may not have any connection to reality, and try to fix things that aren't broken. In some cases, they may get more production out of their ideas based on some metric, but in many jobs such metrics aren't really helpful (lines of code per hour is a classic). So the end result is an "increase" in production that doesn't matter, at the cost of annoying staff and lowering quality.

I get what you're saying. I think I (generously) allowed that view from that post (I hope that was clear from my response).

Having said that...

I'm sure those sorts of managers are out there. I have worked in many, many (many) work environments. I have run into exactly one of these folks. When you feel a thing and your immediate reaction is to reach for someone to blame... and that someone is an 'Office Space' style manager... I struggle to take you seriously. Unless you have some basis for your position of course. Otherwise, this just looks like 'gut emotional reaction... rage directed at nearest imaginary target'.

 

[Shardstone]

But ... but ... it's WotC, the most incompetent organization in existence! Evidence? They considered doing something I didn't care for and then listened to what I and others had to say so they backed down! How dare they! Then they did some stuff I disagree with over the past [checks expiration date, finds there is none] ... well they did stuff that other businesses do all the time I disagree with! What more evidence do you need?

Personally I wouldn't badmouth a previous employer or the way corporations work on a public forum. Complain to my spouse, friends? Sure. But that doesn't really change my opinion of Tito, other than to say that this one thing is something I wouldn't do. The projection of bad behavior on every manager at WotC and practically everything the company does or plans is just baffling to me.

WotC happens to produce a game I still enjoy. If that changes I'll stop buying from them. But there's a lot of unfounded mud slinging around here.

Dont bad mouth your employer is one thing, but dont bad mouth how corporations work? Please. We let corporations get away with a lot of BS in America and now I see how.

 

[Oofta]

Dont bad mouth your employer is one thing, but dont bad mouth how corporations work? Please. We let corporations get away with a lot of BS in America and now I see how.

Did I ever say or even hint at the fact that I think there are multiple issues with the way things work? That's not a discussion that's appropriate for this forum. It also has little to do with what I was responding to concerning the assumption bad management because "WotC bad".

 

[Scribe]

They considered doing something I didn't care for and then listened to what I and others had to say so they backed down!

The funny part is, the longer you continue to bring up that you think they 'considered' something, the longer people will be reminded of what they had every intent in doing regarding the OGL.

For someone who seemingly doesnt enjoy it being brought up, you seem to bring it up, a lot.