WotC Chris Cao has left WotC

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

WotC might be offering packages to longer-term employees in order to get their salaries cleared from their books, and then replace them with lower-salaried newer employees going forward (to save money rather than using their traditional lay-offs.)

This would be my guess.

 

[Parmandur]

For what it's worth, the insider talk was that Cao was behind a lot of the bad decisions WOTC made with the OGL crisis and was one of the driving forces behind the Sigil VTT... so with both those initiatives DOA it's not surprising he's out. Has to find something else he can egregiously monetize.

I mean, Chris Cao had three things wince he got involved in D&D

- Advocating against buying Beyond...which turns out to have been one of the smarter things WotC has done in their tenure of D&D ownership

- Advocating for replacing the OGL...which is probvly one of the dumbest self-owns in gaming history

- Heading Project Sigil...which is now Project Sizzled Out, alas

Soooooooo, not tooooo surprising...

 

[darjr]

I mean, Chris Cao had three things wince he got involved in D&D

- Advocating against buying Beyond...which turns out to have been one of the smarter things WotC has done in their tenure of D&D ownership

- Advocating for replacing the OGL...which is probvly one of the dumbest self-owns in gaming history

- Heading Project Sigil...which is now Project Sizzled Out, alas

Soooooooo, not tooooo surprising...

He did the Magic thing though, didn't he? Super successful for wotc and has it's fans even if it kinda canabalized their fanbase from stores (I think/hear)

 

[Parmandur]

He did the Magic thing though, didn't he? Super successful for wotc and has it's fans even if it kinda canabalized their fanbase from stores (I think/hear)

Yeah, Arena prints money. I somewhat doubt he got "fired" per se, since he seems to have not been part of the 90% of Sigil team members let go, but if Hasbro was offering early retirement packages he may have felt like the writing was on the wall...

 

[MerricB]

He did the Magic thing though, didn't he? Super successful for wotc and has it's fans even if it kinda canabalized their fanbase from stores (I think/hear)

Cannibalized.

I would not be surprised if covid & lockdowns pushed a lot of people towards MTG Arena as well.

I do know that all my MTG play is now on Arena. (Yikes - is it really 31 years since I first played? Now been 5 years since I bought physical cards - and I have a substantial physical collection).

Cheers!

 

[darjr]

Yeah, Arena prints money. I somewhat doubt he got "fired" per se, since he seems to have not been part of the 90% of Sigil team members let go, but if Hasbro was offering early retirement packages he may have felt like the writing was on the wall...

I don’t think there was any indication he was fired?

 

[darjr]

Cannibalized.

I would not be surprised if covid & lockdowns pushed a lot of people towards MTG Arena as well.

I do know that all my MTG play is now on Arena. (Yikes - is it really 31 years since I first played? Now been 5 years since I bought physical cards - and I have a substantial physical collection).

Cheers!

The reference was on porpoise, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t think there was any indication he was fired?

Nope, but he was in charge of the project thst saw 90% of the staff fired, so that had to be...not fun.

Last big layoff I was adjacent to, the Director of the organization I was in volunteered to go as well because he couldn't stomach losing so many people and being asked to continue with the same job.

 

[michaeljpastor]

Ben Riggs shared that Chris Cao has left WotC.


View attachment 401735

Looks like the digital microtransaction on Project Sigil stops there...

 

[Nightfly]

He did the Magic thing though, didn't he? Super successful for wotc and has it's fans even if it kinda canabalized their fanbase from stores (I think/hear)

Supposedly he was behind the proposal to make crafting older cards in Arena cost twice as many wildcards, which was met with absolute fury from the player base (and was thankfully abandoned). If that's true -- and to be fair, underline the word "if" -- this guy has quite the record of doing things to enrage the players of the games he works on.