Hasbro Hit With Layoffs, Wizards of the Coast Impacted

Hasbro has announced they had laid off "less than 100" employees, with Wizards of the Coast and the Dungeons & Dragons team impacted as a result. Hasbro announced the "operational streamlining" of their team ahead of their third quarter earnings report, along with several organizational changes impacting oversight of different business lines. as part of these business realignments, Chief Marketing Officer Jason Bunge will now oversee Wizards of the Coast and digital marketing moving forward.

EN World has learned that at least four people at Wizards of the Coast were laid off as part of these changes. One of the four is Dixon Dubow, who publicly announced that he was laid off on Twitter yesterday. Dubow was the creator relations manager for Dungeons & Dragons and was a critical part of helping to repair D&D's image after the 2023 OGL scandal. Dubow was a primary point of contact for content creators who worked with the D&D brand.

Hasbro previously laid off a number of Wizards of the Coast employees as part of a wider employee reduction line last year. Numerous employees from various Wizards teams were either laid off or retired as part of a 20% reduction in the overall Hasbro workforce.

Hasbro also announced year to date operating profits of $630 million during their quarterly earnings report, with a $98 million dividend payout to shareholders.

 

[Parmandur]

Which would you rather have though, layoffs before Christmas so hopefully you know that you are going to have less money, or layoffs right after Christmas after you've spent all that holiday money?

I do recall hearing on a YouTuve interview with one of the laid off people last year that the Q4 timing was actually preferable for them as the one being laid off for their personal tax and benefits reasons.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Which would you rather have though, layoffs before Christmas so hopefully you know that you are going to have less money, or layoffs right after Christmas after you've spent all that holiday money?

A responsible corporate and shareholder class that don't make that an annual choice due to swingshift emotions, a belief that infinite growth is possible, and no foresight?

 

[FoolishFrost]

My condolences to those that lost their jobs. I hope they find a safe harbor soon.

 

[Vincent55]

Hasbro gonna Hasbro. Happy to support smaller, more deserving companies. Hopefully one day I can feel good about buying a D&D product again.

I agree someday

 

[Cergorach]

At this point I honestly don't care. If you went to work for WotC in the last 20+ years, you know they're doing these on the regular, you knew what you were getting into. If not, then this is a good learning experience. I'm a (semi) fan of D&D, not a fan of WotC/Hasbro and don't know the people working there and I don't expect that the people that worked on the products I liked in the last 35 years, still work there.

And people here are a tad bit unreasonable. Do you expect that people keep working at the company when they don't get fired? If they leave, are they suddenly bad people and are traitors? Especially if they leave for another better paying job? No, that's 'normal', so why the different standards?

I did some local research (I live in the Netherlands):

• About 6.5% of the working population leave their current company every quarter.
• Of that about 2/3rds do that voluntary, 1/6th are fired by the company, and 1/6th is unknown.

If we use these stats for the US...
- The actual working population in the US is almost 170 million, that would translate to ~30 million people being fired every quarter.

Hasbro fired another 100 people... Whoopie! It might be annoying for the people being fired, but in my experience, being let go has generally been beneficial, getting better jobs in return (usually getting better pay).

And the reactions towards the owners (investors) of the company. Sure they are rich enough to invest/own a big company, this is pure jealousy! Just about everyone wants to be 'rich' (what that means is different for different people), but most people aren't and see that as a license to hate on people who are. If you hire a gardener to do the garden, do you have to keep paying your gardener if you pave your garden and don't need a gardener anymore? You have a contract with your employer, where you can leave with X amount of notice and they can fire you with Y amount of notice. Why are companies => people 'evil' when they follow the contract both parties agreed to?

 

[TiQuinn]

At this point I honestly don't care. If you went to work for WotC in the last 20+ years, you know they're doing these on the regular, you knew what you were getting into. If not, then this is a good learning experience. I'm a (semi) fan of D&D, not a fan of WotC/Hasbro and don't know the people working there and I don't expect that the people that worked on the products I liked in the last 35 years, still work there.

And people here are a tad bit unreasonable. Do you expect that people keep working at the company when they don't get fired? If they leave, are they suddenly bad people and are traitors? Especially if they leave for another better paying job? No, that's 'normal', so why the different standards?

I did some local research (I live in the Netherlands):

• About 6.5% of the working population leave their current company every quarter.
• Of that about 2/3rds do that voluntary, 1/6th are fired by the company, and 1/6th is unknown.

If we use these stats for the US...
- The actual working population in the US is almost 170 million, that would translate to ~30 million people being fired every quarter.

Hasbro fired another 100 people... Whoopie! It might be annoying for the people being fired, but in my experience, being let go has generally been beneficial, getting better jobs in return (usually getting better pay).

And the reactions towards the owners (investors) of the company. Sure they are rich enough to invest/own a big company, this is pure jealousy! Just about everyone wants to be 'rich' (what that means is different for different people), but most people aren't and see that as a license to hate on people who are. If you hire a gardener to do the garden, do you have to keep paying your gardener if you pave your garden and don't need a gardener anymore? You have a contract with your employer, where you can leave with X amount of notice and they can fire you with Y amount of notice. Why are companies => people 'evil' when they follow the contract both parties agreed to?

For me, it’s not about people leaving or being fired but that the December layoffs appear to be a now regular occurrence, reminding me somewhat of Jack Welch’s annual “Fire the bottom 10% of employees” mandate and that is an unfortunate cycle. Further, I wish the industry was larger on the whole to support people finding careers in the gaming industry without having to go to a place like Hasbro. But even back in the days of old TSR, there were only so many jobs in the industry and the people running the company knew they had steady demand for those jobs. I find that to be unhealthy overall.

 

[mamba]

If we use these stats for the US...
- The actual working population in the US is almost 170 million, that would translate to ~30 million people being fired every quarter.

um, no, … what happened to the 6.5%…

 

[Queer Venger]

hope they got good severances or hopefully unemployment benefits.

 

[Hamilburg]

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jolts.pdf

There are US numbers available. 5 million separations in August, about half of those are firings.

 

[wicked cool]

This time of year that companies do this. It’s not a good economy for a lot of companies. Not seeing major companies hiring