Hasbro Hit With Layoffs, Wizards of the Coast Impacted

Hasbro has announced they had laid off "less than 100" employees, with Wizards of the Coast and the Dungeons & Dragons team impacted as a result. Hasbro announced the "operational streamlining" of their team ahead of their third quarter earnings report, along with several organizational changes impacting oversight of different business lines. as part of these business realignments, Chief Marketing Officer Jason Bunge will now oversee Wizards of the Coast and digital marketing moving forward.

EN World has learned that at least four people at Wizards of the Coast were laid off as part of these changes. One of the four is Dixon Dubow, who publicly announced that he was laid off on Twitter yesterday. Dubow was the creator relations manager for Dungeons & Dragons and was a critical part of helping to repair D&D's image after the 2023 OGL scandal. Dubow was a primary point of contact for content creators who worked with the D&D brand.

Hasbro previously laid off a number of Wizards of the Coast employees as part of a wider employee reduction line last year. Numerous employees from various Wizards teams were either laid off or retired as part of a 20% reduction in the overall Hasbro workforce.

Hasbro also announced year to date operating profits of $630 million during their quarterly earnings report, with a $98 million dividend payout to shareholders.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah it's still a problem. But it's not surprising.

And it's not going away as long as the TTRPG industry is dependent on WOTC.

I don't think you needed to finish the sentence "And it's not going away."

 

[The Soloist]

My annual purchases of TSR products went from 100% in 1980 to 60% in 1998. The downward trend has continued under WoTC. For 5e, I only bought the core books (6?) and two adventure books. For 5.5, I bought the PHB since I no longer have 5e books. I intend to buy the two other cores and that's it. 95% of my gaming budget is going to non-WoTC companies. In 2026 it will be 0% for WoTC.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It's still a problem; it's just not a surprising one.

Sure. But who said that anyone was surprised?

This happens so often across so many industries, it's become the norm.

Again, "normal" is not the same as "good." I'm not saying layoffs are good. Nobody is saying that.

And no one is saying that they are surprised. They are saying that they don't like it.

Most companies wait until late 4th Quarter to do their layoffs--which means most folks end up getting laid off around Christmas. That seems like it would be even worse.

Hasbro pretty much always does that, and we can expect that they probably still will, come December.

The trouble is, you sound like you're defending them when you say that it's "normal" or "could be worse". Because those things are obvious and therefore don't need saying.

 

[SteveC]

I'm pretty sure WotC gets a cut of all of the sales of their products via Foundry. So you're still ultimately giving WotC money.

Oh sure they would. If it's like most deals, they got half of what I paid. And that's why it was smart because it would have been $0 otherwise. I suspect I'll buy the other core books from them too. I really like what the Foundry Devs have done so far and I want to keep them making products. I'm sure there are Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 players/GMs out there who feel likewise. I have no idea how many people will do this, but I suspect it will be a fair number. Like I said, I have no idea where that places me ethically, but there we are.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Small pox has been killing people for centuries, why bother eradicating it?

Small pox gonna small pox.

And thus we ought to be okay with folks going around administering it for profit.

 

[Mistwell]

So as far as I can tell, WOTC hired 350 more people, and laid off 4 (possibly more).

Is it a layoff?

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think you needed to finish the sentence "And it's not going away."

I'm an optimist.

I don't see it going away and not getting worse under the current environment.

 

[Parmandur]

So as far as I can tell, WOTC hired 350 more people, and laid off 4 (possibly more).

Is it a layoff?

It seems that they consolidated their marketing teams across divisions, so WotC marketing will now come out of Hasbro HW instead of Renton.

 

[SlyFlourish]

If you want to play 5E Dungeons & Dragons, but you don't want to give a single red cent to Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, there are ways you can do it:

1. Buy used books. (Bonus points for buying them from a local brick-and-mortar store). WotC/Hasbro will not see a dollar of your purchase.
2. Download and use the SRD_5.0. It's a lot more work, but WotC/Hasbro won't get a dollar from you.
3. Use the free version of Roll20, or FantasyGrounds, or Foundry VTT, etc. These virtual tabletops have libraries that have only the SRD-compliant rules and elements in them. You'll have to create (or live without) anything that isn't in the SRD, but again: WotC/Hasbro won't see a dollar from you.

I'm sure there are other ways; these are just the first that came to mind.

I'm not saying it'll be easy. I'm not saying it'll be seamless, I'm not even saying it's worth the extra effort. All I'm saying is, it can be done.

You can also switch to A5e or Tales of the Valiant.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'll share my Dixon story.

At the community summit a year and a half ago, Dixon was the guy who put a lot of it together. He was fantastic. He truly wanted to hear from the community, learn what we were thinking, and try to find a path to bring people together.

His bosses did not.

Instead, they put on presentations about the 3d VTT. They put on presentations about D&D Beyond. They talked about the core books.

At one point an audience member asked a question – I don't remember what it was – but Dan Rawson, the VP of whatever (who has now moved to a new position of whatever + digital whatever) tried to answer and it was super clear he had no idea what the person was asking.

Dixon put his hand up at the guy and took Dan's microphone from him and directly answered the question. It was such a clear sign of the giant gap existing between the people at WOTC who knew their audience and the executive team who knew, as far as I can tell, jack.

I know things shifted around in WOTC's management chain now. Kyle, the guy who went out in front of the hail of arrows during the OGL crisis, was laid off too a few months back.

This doesn't look like a great sign to me. We'll see.

I have my books. I have the 5.1 SRD. I have A5e's SRD. And WOTC says repeatedly they're going to release the 5.2 SRD. Beyond that, I don't need them to enjoy this game.