Is Now the Time to Send WOTC a Real Message?

[broghammerj]

Why, yes. The best way to convince Hasbro that the roleplaying business can be profitable is to boycott them.

Depends on your perspective I guess. The message I want to send is something like this(all arbritrary numbers): Malhavoc sales up 21%, Sword and Sorcery sales up 17%, Green Ronin sales up 27%. WoTC sales down 35%. That would be a message!

You need to listen to your customer or your business is going to fail. At least thats how I thought is was supposed to work?????

 

[Glyfair]

Depends on your perspective I guess. The message I want to send is something like this(all arbritrary numbers): Malhavoc sales up 21%, Sword and Sorcery sales up 17%, Green Ronin sales up 27%. WoTC sales down 35%. That would be a message!

You need to listen to your customer or your business is going to fail. At least thats how I thought is was supposed to work?????

Hmmm...My impression is that the Hasbro management has very little contact with the customer, especially the RPG oriented customer. I imagine if they saw that WoTC sales were down 35% then they would assume it's being poorly run and decide to cut costs they should layoff more people.

As for the other companies, I'll wager they aren't even a blip on their radar.

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[Glyfair]

Cthulhu is getting no support,

Actually, this was the plan from the beginning. When they announced d20 Cthulhu they said they would be producing the Core Rulebook and then Chaosium would be able to support the product. At the time that was the WotC philosphy on their other d20 products outside of D&D and Star Wars, put out one or two products and then stop.

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[EarthsShadow]

Cthulu

true, and if you go to Fantasy Flight Games website, they are working on a Call of Cthulu campaign setting, so the game isn't dead and other companies besides Chaosium are working on it.

 

[Ranger REG]

I think there's a company that publishes Nocturnum for CoC d20. Also, Pagan Publishing will be publishing a new Delta Green supplement that will include d20 stats.

 

[tburdett]

The news of the recent layoffs has left a real bitter taste in my mouth. Is now the time for the roleplaying community to send a message with their pocket books? I find it difficult to support a gaming company that rids itself of its most productive and dependable talent. I would almost rather see the company fold and sold off to someone else than continue to ride this dead end train to no where.

It's probably best to think of WotC as an appendage. Like a hand. A healthy hand doesn't do anything that the brain (Hasbro) doesn't tell it to do.

You can bet that the order to make these layoffs came from the brain, and the hand just obediantly closed it's fist on those jobs.

If you want to try to punish somebody, at least pick the correct target.

 

[Vaxalon]

I think I'll continue buying WotC stuff, and boycott the REST of Hasbro.

 

[Drawmack]

How many of you out there work in the technology or pharmaseuticals industries? People wake up and smell the coffee we are in a ressecion that was spurned by troubles in these two industries. A year and six months ago I worked for a company that had 600 employees in the office that I worked in and a half a million employees world-wide. Today that company, which I no longer work for, has 10 employees in my old office and 90,000 world-wide. CF recently mass fired 80% of it's employees. Enron has been bust for a year. How many of those people do you think are role-players? How many of those people do you think used to support WotC with their money? Economics are all interlinked when one area takes a hit they all take a hit. It is going to take our economy 10 years to recover from the crash on wall street a year and a half ago.

Now let's talk corporate politics as they relate to job security. (this is a normal scenario for a company the size of hasbro and probably varies slightly from what happened there but not a hell of a lot) When layoffs are going to happen the managers are asked to turn in lists of their employees prioritiezed by their importance to the company and the need to keep them on. Then the accountants go over the books and turn in lists prioritiezed by salary. Then a number monkey works with these two lists to come up with the list of people taht will acctually be let go. The people that were let go were let go either because their bosses didn't like them, they made too much money or both. As was already mentioned none of these people are going to be able to make their old salary free-lancing. Well there Mr. Brainiac, if they can't make their old salary freelancing then how do you expect WotC to be able to continue paying that salary?

 

[Hand of Evil]

The name Dungeons and Dragons will only be a sub-division of some marketing reps job description when Hasbro finishes.

I don't think a boycot at this time would help or even do any good. Hasbro has effectively killed Wizards of the Coast.


My thoughts go to those that have been layed off.

 

[Beckett]

For some reason, the title of this thread gave me images of horse heads in beds. After picturing that, a call for a boycott was a real let-down...