D&D General Adam Bradford, Lauren Urban, Todd Kenrick Leave D&D Beyond

They join lead writer James Haeck, who left a couple of weeks ago. Adam Bradford is the D&D Beyond co-founder, and VP of Tabletop Gaming at its owner, Fandom. Lauren Urban is DDB's Community Manager. Todd Kenrick is the company's Creative Manager.

D&D Beyond, launched in 2017, is currently owned by Fandom (previously known as Wikia), after it acquired the company in 2018 from previous owner Curse, a Twitch subsidiary.

According to Cam Banks, creator of DDB owner Fandom's Cortex, all three received offers elsewhere which they could not turn down.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

They are? That's weird. Lots of people leaving the site.

 

[jgsugden]

They do? That's weird. Lots of people leaving the site.

Yeah - actions tend to speak louder than words. They were also leaders of the site. This gives me concerns that perhaps we're headed towards a reduction in service. They'll need to be on their game in the next few months to shake the concerns that people may be having about whether D&DBeyond is dying. They've been slower to support elements of the game, stopped supporting Critical Role, etc... not good signs for a company that should be benefiting from the downturn with more people doing more things virtually.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Curious to see where they all land.

 

[Oofta]

It could just be an indication of where the company is in it's lifecycle. I worked at a startup before and at a certain point we had a stable system that had gone into slow enhancement/maintenance mode.

We had been paid our startup bonus and while some people stayed some of us left just because the company was in a different place. Had little to do with the company itself, it just wasn't a growth company anymore. I had enjoyed the challenge of getting them up and running it was just time to look to other pastures.

So this may or may not be an indication of other issues. After all, they may have been hired away by a different startup trying for a similar niche.

 

[Scribe]

After all, they may have been hired away by a different startup trying for a similar niche.

Yep, multiple people at once looks like a poach.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Curious to see where they all land.

Be unsurprised if it's WotC.

If it is, expect 6E sooner rather than later.

It could just be an indication of where the company is in it's lifecycle. I worked at a startup before and at a certain point we had a stable system that had gone into slow enhancement/maintenance mode.

Definitely possible, but I've seen poaches that looked exactly like this.

 

[Waller]

Be unsurprised if it's WotC.

It would be pretty low to undermine your own licensees by poaching their staff.

 

[Oofta]

It would be pretty low to undermine your own licensees by poaching their staff.

Depends on what they're building and for what purpose. We don't really know the internals of what's going on.

That and while I would not be at all surprised if they were all hired by the same company, coincidences do happen.

 

[bedir than]

Only 1 of the four that left (James Haeck left a couple weeks ago) wasn't in a broad marketing role. While losing marketing people is bad. That's not a sign that product development or utility is going downwards.