Charles Ryan (and others) out at WotC?

[StupidSmurf]

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...

Hey Warbringer...how many dot-coms were you in? As you can tell, I was in two of 'em....

 

[Warbringer]

removed as OT...

 

[Warbringer]

Hey Warbringer...how many dot-coms were you in? As you can tell, I was in two of 'em....

Three and one linux company Sorry to hijack the thread.

Back to topic.

I'm sorry to see Charles go. It really feels like he is fallout for poor CCG performance as his termination seems coupled with that of Cornelius and Joe.

 

[StupidSmurf]

I walked into the quarterly VC funding meeting with projections for the coming quarter; just like asking dad if we could borrow the car.

Within 2 minutes they stopped the meeting and said if we couldn't merge with our main competitior in two weeks it was over.

It's sad. Most of the poor management at dot.coms was the VC expectations (mainly how quickly can you spend this money so we can raise more!), not bad management by the company.

You are absolutely right on the money. Most of it was inflated and unrealistic VC expectations. The first dot-com I was in had a VC who thought that he'd see millions of dollars' worth of returns on his investement. Every month. Starting with the month after he made his initial investment.

Of course, some of the blame has to rest on the way that some of the dot.coms were run. In that notorious first dot.com I was in, I personally recall lots of flirting, champagne parties every time any sort of an announcement was released, meeting Wierd Al Yankovic, playing MarioKart, playing on our new Dreamcast, or playing Quake II on our LAN.

Yeah, time to bring the thread back around...though perhaps a new thread about zany dot-coms may be in order. My apologies for my role in this.

 

[Monte At Home]

No, I didn't hear about that 1996 layoff. That's horrendous! Was that around the same time as the whole "everything's going to heck and we can't pay anyone to print the stuff?" Because, yeah, towards the end there, things did seem to get pretty bad. All I know is, things seemed like a total mess at the end, but years before that (late 80's to early 90's), things seemed cool.

Well, actually, I'm going to agree with your earlier post about TSR having more humanity than WotC, though I know Sean doesn't. Now normally, far be it from me to defend or say anything good about TSR upper management. But that's not the whole picture of TSR. While TSR was corrupt at the top, everyone from the middle managers on down were good people. There were people there who fought for other people's jobs, and eventually lost their jobs because of it. And even the dreaded upper management didn't do layoffs until they absolutely had to. It was clear to all concerned that things were terrible, and something like that was coming. Not like most of the WotC layoffs, where I'm told that people were apparently quite blindsided. Unlike TSR, WotC has a typical backbiting corporate atmosphere at every level of the company.

I suppose in the end it's just a lesser of two evils thing.

 

[Warbringer]

Unlike TSR, WotC has a typical backbiting corporate atmosphere at every level of the company.

Monte, was WOTC like this pre-Hasbro? I'd heard some horror stories (mainly around retreats).

 

[rgard]

Just to give another side (possibility) to the "bad to be laid off on the holidays" concept:

Sometimes the company does it to be nice. If they are giving a good severance package, instead of making the folks work through the holiday season (not knowing what's coming right after), the company lets them go to be with their families during the season with pay (severance).

Bullgrit

Hi Bullgrit, that would be a way for the decision maker (guy who decided to let them go) to rationalize the situation if he has a conscience.

There is usually no upside to getting wacked just before Christmas. Pretty much screws up the holiday season.

 

[WizarDru]

If it had actually been 15mm it would have given Flames of War a run for its money (the fastest growing WWII game)

What scale is it? The manual states that it IS 15mm.

I also think you've miscategorized it; it's not meant for the same audience as Flames of War. In point of fact, I think the FoW's core audience were pretty far from the people in the demographic they were targetting. A&A minis is to FoW what the Axis&Allies board game is to, say, Squad Leader, I thought.

I don't know that I would look at availability in Waldenbooks as an indicator, though. I mean, they got bought out and made in Border's Express, didn't they? I wouldn't expect them to carry D&D minis, either.

 

[Schwebs]

Compare Notes on WOTC Research Job

Warbringer and Kenobi65 - I would be very interested in comparing notes about the Research position at WOTC. PM or E-mail will both work for me.

Charles - sorry to her about the layoff. Your presence here went a long way to putting a human face on WOTC. Good luck.

 

[Warbringer]

What scale is it? The manual states that it IS 15mm.

I also think you've miscategorized it; it's not meant for the same audience as Flames of War. In point of fact, I think the FoW's core audience were pretty far from the people in the demographic they were targetting. A&A minis is to FoW what the Axis&Allies board game is to, say, Squad Leader, I thought.

The manual states 15mm, the actual scale is closer to 12mm in the tanks. Not to quibble, it just makes crossover impossible.

FOW is very rules light and doesn't appeal to hard core WWII minaturists. A large portion of new players in FOW are 10-16 (right in GWs sweet spot). I think your comparison of A+A to SL is pretty good. The point of my post was really that it being 15mm A+A had a change of reaching a younger audience were PP, FOW and others offer unpainted.

I think A+A was really in response to Mem44 to be honest, but I personally see a future in board games were the pieces are more important than the board game.