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.

 

[Cergorach]

One thing I have to frequently explain to Europeans is that the vast majority of Americans do not have employment contracts. In my 31 years of working as an American, I have never had a contract with my employer. The only state in the United States that doesn't have at will employment is Montana.

Wait... What? There is no written/signed agreement at all? If that's the case how is your salary upheld?

I'm a freelancer (so a business to business relationship with my client) and don't have any of the normal employee protections. But I still have a contract that lay out my responsibilities to the client and the clients responsibilities to me.

Even IF there's no written/signed agreement (which imho is a contract), you know what you're getting into. Just the same situation by another name.

Having the rug pulled out from under you from a position you enjoyed and did well at is never heartening. I have seen many family and friends have their life ruined - not made better - because of a company's bad decisions that are taken out on their employees.

The assumption that you had a rug to stand on is the initial mistake imho. You know you can't depend on the job to be always be there, so why act/be surprised when the job isn't there anymore? This sounds like one of those Roadrunner animations where the coyote runs off a cliff and only later notices that he's walking on air and falls.

It's their 'bad mistakes' to make, if you go high up enough, they own the company or they are hired by the owners of the company to run the company. It's like traffic accidents, either you f-ed up or someone else f-ed up, but when you participate in traffic, you know this can happen. And as long as all participants followed the rules, it's nothing more then an accident.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hopefully we don't see the cycle of WotC finding more rakes to step on beginning again once the core books are out the door.

You really think the Sideshow Bob of TT RPG companies is going to avoid the rakes? More likely WotC is looking for a field of rakes to actively run into!

 

[TiQuinn]

Wait... What? There is no written/signed agreement at all? If that's the case how is your salary upheld?

I'm a freelancer (so a business to business relationship with my client) and don't have any of the normal employee protections. But I still have a contract that lay out my responsibilities to the client and the clients responsibilities to me.

Even IF there's no written/signed agreement (which imho is a contract), you know what you're getting into. Just the same situation by another name.


The assumption that you had a rug to stand on is the initial mistake imho. You know you can't depend on the job to be always be there, so why act/be surprised when the job isn't there anymore? This sounds like one of those Roadrunner animations where the coyote runs off a cliff and only later notices that he's walking on air and falls.

It's their 'bad mistakes' to make, if you go high up enough, they own the company or they are hired by the owners of the company to run the company. It's like traffic accidents, either you f-ed up or someone else f-ed up, but when you participate in traffic, you know this can happen. And as long as all participants followed the rules, it's nothing more then an accident.

What unemployment benefits do citizens of the Netherlands have?

 

[Moonmover]

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.

I don't disagree with what you're trying to say, in a broad sense. But this is a terrible example. The Netherlands and the USA have different economic situations and very different labor laws. It's naïve to think these statistics would be relevant to American workers.

 

[MGibster]

Wait... What? There is no written/signed agreement at all? If that's the case how is your salary upheld?

None. Zero. We get an offer letter, which typically includes salary, start date, and job title, but that isn't a contract. There's no promise of raises or even an end date on the offer letter. In the United States, my employer is free to change my salary at any time. They can't just short me on a check one week, but they could tell me, "At the beginning of the new pay period, your salary is dropping by 10%." Practically speaking, employers really don't lower pay like this on a regular basis because it's a good way to lose employees. But here in the U.S., an employer can change your work hours, your work location, your hours work, they can change your job duties, or they can end employment at any time. This might not apply to the 10% of American workers who are unionized depending on what agreement the union made with the company.

I'm a freelancer (so a business to business relationship with my client) and don't have any of the normal employee protections. But I still have a contract that lay out my responsibilities to the client and the clients responsibilities to me.

In US employment terms, we'd call you an independent contractor. I used to handle contracts with contractors for my employer, and we lay out our responsibilities, their responsibilities, pay rate, and most importantly slap an end date on that contract. As an independent contractor, you have more control over how you do the work than an employee does.

 

[TiQuinn]

None. Zero. We get an offer letter, which typically includes salary, start date, and job title, but that isn't a contract. There's no promise of raises or even an end date on the offer letter. In the United States, my employer is free to change my salary at any time. They can't just short me on a check one week, but they could tell me, "At the beginning of the new pay period, your salary is dropping by 10%." Practically speaking, employers really don't lower pay like this on a regular basis because it's a good way to lose employees. But here in the U.S., an employer can change your work hours, your work location, your hours work, they can change your job duties, or they can end employment at any time. This might not apply to the 10% of American workers who are unionized depending on what agreement the union made with the company.

That’s not exactly true. Every offer letter I’ve ever received, I had to sign. If my salary was ever lowered, I’d receive another letter to that effect, that I would have to sign. That constitutes a contract.

 

[JEB]

I mean, they just boasted that they released the biggest product in the history of D&D. Clearly, money isn't the issue.
What it seems to me is retribution for "Blurgate" since they took out the guy responsible for interactions with streamers.

Likely the people responsible for blue gate were WOTC lawyers or lawyer adjacent.

It wouldn't have been so bad had they just had you color the stream blue. I think they should save blue gate for their next product release mishap.

What are you all referring to?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

What are you all referring to?

WotC made a bunch of content creators blur images of the PHB in their videos. But didnt mention it ahead of time, leading to a bunch of extra work for people like Sly Flourish. WotC eventually backtracked and let the videos not be blurred.

Sly Flourish just typo'd and wrote blue gate, I was naughty posting about that typo.

 

[Parmandur]

WotC made a bunch of content creators blur images of the PHB in their videos. But didnt mention it ahead of time, leading to a bunch of extra work for people like Sly Flourish. WotC eventually backtracked and let the videos not be blurred.

Sly Flourish just typo'd and wrote blue gate, I was naughty posting about that typo.

Yeah, dollars to donuts that Dixon was the one who was internally responsible for that program, and for it exploding.

 

[MGibster]

That’s not exactly true. Every offer letter I’ve ever received, I had to sign. If my salary was ever lowered, I’d receive another letter to that effect, that I would have to sign. That constitutes a contract.

I've signed every offer letter I've received but that doesn't make it a contract. But I'm not really interested in arguing the point. Feel free to Google it.