Charles Ryan (and others) out at WotC?

[Edena_of_Neith]

(To everyone who is, or was, a publisher and/or writer in this thread)

It's an honor to meet you, everyone. My hats off to your products and your efforts, and to you.
I went out and returned to the Hobby yesterday after 7 years away, spending over $100 to do so. An insignificant amount of money, I fear, from an insignificant single person.

I hope you can maintain the Hobby. The Hobby is beautiful. It's special. You of all people know this, for you put your hearts and souls into it.

I don't know what will happen to the economy. I don't know what will happen to WOTC. But I hope our Hobby can be sustained, and continue to grow (and with every new supplement, every new book, the Hobby grows, in my thinking.)

To all of you, I give my sincere respect and support. I cannot make a difference in things, unfortunately, but I can support you, and always will.

Truly Yours
Edena_of_Neith

 

[Jdvn1]

I just want to say thanks to StupidSmurf, Charles, and Sean. I've been following the thread for the last couple of pages and it's immensely interesting to me to see the POV's of people in the business (past or present).

I don't know whether or not others of you are in the industry, but thanks to all of you.

I wish all of you luck in your future endeavors, and I'm actually pretty a big fan of the three of you (although I'm only about 60% sure who StupidSmurf is ).

 

[Steverooo]

Who Got Fired:

1) Peter Archer (Director of Book Publishing for Wizards of the Coast)
2) Gary Benion
3) Leeds Chamberlain
4) Mike Elliott (Director of Design and Lead designer of Hecatomb for Wizards of the Coast)
5) Joe Hauck (Vice-President of Marketing for Wizards of the Coast)
6) Cornelius Lee (Senior Vice President of Marketing at Wizards of the Coast)
7) Michelle Lyons
8) Jon Rateliff
9) Pat Robinett
10) Katie Roe
11) Charles Ryan (Dungeons & Dragons Brand Manager)
12) Tim Thomas
13) Wendy Wallace
14) Teeuwyn Woodruff
15) ?

 

[johnsemlak]

One thing about these comparisons between TSR in 90s and WotC--One of them is a company that may have seemed to treat employees fairly well but ran itself into the ground; another is a company that is trying to cut costs to keep inself not only afloat but also a healthy viable company.

I am presently working for a company which is shutting down at the end of the year, obviously resulting in everyone loosing their jobs, not just a few layoffs. Until now, the company had been pretty good to its employees.

 

[diaglo]

Yeah, because correcting problems, adding options, and increasing the number of systems to the core game is bad.

you don't want to get me started.



was John Ratliffe (sp?) also one of the ones let go?

 

[Steverooo]

was John Ratliffe (sp?) also one of the ones let go?

If you mean Jon Rateliff, yeah, he was #8 on the list, above...

 

[tylerthehobo]

I can't speak for anyone but myself on this one, but as someone who's had to lay people off for a variety of reasons, and been laid off myself when our branch was sold off and shut down, I don't think that even entered into it.

I imagine most folks would have a much more enjoyable holiday if they were still employed and not worried about whether or not they were going to be able to pay the bills in January. Severance is nice and all, but it is no replacement for a steady paycheck.

Hear hear. I've been at two companies that did massive cuts before the holidays, and the whole thing smacks of Ebeneezer Scrooge. If from a business perspective they're looking for a whole End the Fourth Quarter / start a new year thing, they can do this after Christmas, when folks actually have a better chance of finding jobs - ever job hunted in December, folks? It stinks.

WotC should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[tylerthehobo]

This might be a prelude to the layoffs...WotC Taps Two Agencies. With this, the need for a Marketing arm inhouse, is now moot.

Keep in mind, PR and Marketing are pretty different arms of business. WotC hiring two PR firms may be unrelated. The business 101 explanation is this: PR is the process of announcing your business' accomplishments to the public at large through media channels; Marketing is the process of promoting your product to the people who will buy it through any channels - media, grassroots (e.g. the D&D delegate program), advertising, direct mail. My gut tells me that the hiring of the PR firms and the Marketing/Brand overhauls aren't directly correllated, but are probably two arms of the same effort.

Very concerning...

 

[tylerthehobo]

I'm taking collections to buy the DD property from WoTC. Anyone wish to donate?

I smell a hippie-commune-style business plan. "But, man, I thought it was your turn to create monsters, this week."


Joke aside, so long as D&D remains open-license, can't we all just focus on D20 products while WotC figures out how to market the core game, now that they've let go some very talented people who knew the product back and forth?

 

[tylerthehobo]

Yeah, but at least when that happened it was most of us in the office and the pink slip parties were fun Besides, I doubt Charles got anything like the severence package I recieved when I walked away from my 1st dot.com dump...

What dot.com were you at?!? I have three long gone dot.com's to my name, and the whole notion of pink slip parties and severance packages from companies that never had any viable capital to begin with stinks of myth to me.

Then again we did have that air hockey table... good times...

anyway, back to the subject at hand...