Charles Ryan (and others) out at WotC?

[StupidSmurf]

Just curious, was this before or during the Lorraine Years?

It was actually DURING the Lorraine years....I started writing freelance in 1986, with Roger Moore being a big supporter of mine...Worked with Bruce Heard and Harold Johnson for years, right up until things turned to crap, what, 1998 or so? Whenever TSR went under and they couldn't pay the printers and such.

I know other people have had nightmare stories about working with TSR during that time, but I also know a bunch who had my experience as well.

I did do my best to stay as far away from the politics as possible.

 

[StupidSmurf]

I've seen the ads on WotC's website, but I've never seen it for sale. If it's good, I may have to look into it. Granted, Strat-O-Matic Baseball will likely always be my baseball game of choice. I love Strat!

I love MLB. Even the changes they've made have been good ones. I've bought each year's version starting with the first one (2000). My oldest son and I have been going head-to-head with our teams over the last few years, and it's a total blast. You really do feel like you're managing a team.

In fact, we're enjoying it so much, we're thinking of pulling in a few more people, and actually have a division race in 2006. What's cool is that even though the player cards are obsolete when the new season starts, the Strategy cards are still good, and I'm still using mine from the first edition, augmented of course with newer, nastier cards. Bwahah!

Admittedly, not every game store I've been to carries it. But someone must be buying it, for it to be going on for the past five years.

 

[seankreynolds]

My own experiences with Hasbro/WotC vs TSR have shown me that, although TSR was far from perfect, they seemed to have a greater degree of humanity and loyalty. At least that's how it was for me.

I guess you didn't hear how TSR laid off a bunch of people in December 1996, just a couple of weeks before Xmas. That was great fun. The same day they had the "holiday party," which was taking the remaining employees out to lunch. "Your bonus this year is that you get to keep your job."

:/

In any case, this still sucks.

I've been fuming lately about the fact that I wasn't tapped to contribute even a single lousy paragraph in the upcoming Secrets of the Moonsea, since I wrote the 2nd Ed AD&D Moonsea supplement, and have always been led to believe that it was a solid, decent entry into the FR canon.

MOTM was approved at the last minute and they needed to grab designers in a big hurry (our deadline was only about 5 weeks after it was assigned to us, and Gen Con was smack in the middle of it). Plus, the book isn't a pure sourcebook like your book was (I can't go into details because WotC hasn't really released info about it yet). And you have to admit that you don't exactly have a lot of d20 credits to your name, if the Pen & Paper Database is any indicator. WotC also may not have known if you were available. I don't think your book was bad (though it suffers some of the problems common to most 2E FR products) and we used it as a reference for MOTM. I wouldn't take it personally.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I love MLB. Even the changes they've made have been good ones. I've bought each year's version starting with the first one (2000). My oldest son and I have been going head-to-head with our teams over the last few years, and it's a total blast. You really do feel like you're managing a team.

In fact, we're enjoying it so much, we're thinking of pulling in a few more people, and actually have a division race in 2006. What's cool is that even though the player cards are obsolete when the new season starts, the Strategy cards are still good, and I'm still using mine from the first edition, augmented of course with newer, nastier cards. Bwahah!

Admittedly, not every game store I've been to carries it. But someone must be buying it, for it to be going on for the past five years.

Interesting. I may have to try and track down a set.

Thanks!

 

[Nikchick]

Doesn't WOTC use former employees as freelancers though? Isn't that the same? Just wondering...

They do, but I believe they have to wait something like three months before they can hire someone they laid off to do the same job "freelance".

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hello, everybody.

Just thought I'd stop by and confirm what you've already heard. Today was my last day with Wizards of the Coast. Although I will still be active on these boards and in the D&D community, I am no longer a spokesman for D&D or WotC.

Please don't be too hasty to draw conclusions about the health of D&D from this turn of events. Wizards of the Coast is a large company with a dozen or so brands and major business operations on every continent. The company operates very much as a team, and in that environment, a single brand can be affected by the fortunes of other brands, even when it's doing well.

I'm sad to no longer be involved professionally with D&D. I'm very proud of my accomplishments during my tenure as Brand Manager (and as a member of the R&D team before that). This has been a very exciting two years for the D&D brand, and though I'm sorry not to continue participating in D&D's future, I'm honored to have had the opportunity that I did to lead D&D's fortunes during two very exciting years.

My wife and I are expecting our second child soon, and I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with my family over the next few weeks. I don't yet know where I'll go from there, but I can tell you this: I will always be a diehard gamer and an outspoken fan of D&D!

Thank you for taking the time to reply, I am very sorry about the way the dice have landed.

D&D is the only WotC product line that I have any interest in. However while looking at the D&D stuff at our local Waldenbooks I heard a clerk explain to a customer that they no longer do monthly shipments of Magic cards, but only get one shipment when a new set comes out.

Also at Waldenbooks:
No A&A at all.

Never even heard of Hecatombs, let alone seen it.

No Neopets.

I do suspect that D&D is losing staff because of the failures of other game lines. Which well and truely sucks. I hope that you land on your feet.

The Auld Grump

 

[diaglo]

They do, but I believe they have to wait something like three months before they can hire someone they laid off to do the same job "freelance".

do they have a noncompete clause in their employee contracts upon hire?

 

[Nikchick]

do they have a noncompete clause in their employee contracts upon hire?

Dunno. Maybe someone with more recent (or first-hand) experience could comment, but they did get into a little spat with Pokemon USA (http://www.gamewyrd.com/echoes/others2_15.php) when Pokemon USA hired some of the employees Wizards themselves had laid off.

 

[Truth Seeker]

So, the bloodletting has no borders...sorry to hear that over there. Best Wishes.

well it looks to me as if Hasbro Worldwide is catching up with Hasbro UK and Europe over here we saw them lay off nearly all the staff leaving just 3 wotc employees on the magic brand line and replacing everything else with Hasbro staff. Then they got rid of carl crook as the brand manager leaving 2.
corparate mentality leaves little to be desired from an employee point of view, however best of luck to charles and if he wants to do a little independant work promoting our products on a commision basis in the USA, he is always welcome to write. Although I don't think we pay enough.

Kevin for UKG Publishing

 

[Truth Seeker]

Highly unlikely, maybe...but still possible, no?

Highly unlikely, IMO. Having worked in marketing and advertising for 16 years, in my experience, a PR agency is not, in any way, a substitute for an actual marketing department. PR is only one of about a half-dozen functions that report to marketing. (And, as I noted before, nearly every large company retains an external PR agency.)

All that story really said is that WotC used to only have one PR agency under retainer, for both D&D and M:tG, and now they're going with two different ones.