Is Now the Time to Send WOTC a Real Message?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I don't understand this at all. Why "boycott" a company that has laid off a bunch of people most of us don't know? Sure you like their work but jeez...seems like fanboy stuff. The only way I'll boycott a company is if thier product sucks.

 

[Leopold]

why not do the capitalistic thing and boycott with your pocket book.

If they release crap material don't buy it. Buy someone elses product that is better, superior, and in direct competition. If the product is bad, voice your opinion on it and state so. This is the basis for capitalism as the first one to market with a superior product usually gets the lions share of the reward.


Buying shares is another good way to get heard. IF all of a sudden 5% of the company was snapped up they would take notice, any company would.

I think it's only 5% of the company that you would need before you have to declare your motives for the future.

 

[alsih2o]

imho, if you wanna send a message, buy 3 friends a phb and give them the revenue to develop new talent and keep the old.

removing income from the co. is futile and senseless (again imho) but letting them know good stuff is appreciated and expanding the game, now that is productive!

recruiting in 6 13 year olds will get more done for the positive aspect of wotc than refusing to buy some book on grounds outside of content.

 

[Wicht]

Buying shares is another good way to get heard. IF all of a sudden 5% of the company was snapped up they would take notice, any company would.

And it would only cost us, the fan base, a little over 8 million dollars to do this. A regular steal if you ask me. I can chip in 39$ for the cause. (3 whole shares for me)

 

[Furn_Darkside]

And it would only cost us, the fan base, a little over 8 million dollars to do this. A regular steal if you ask me. I can chip in 39$ for the cause. (3 whole shares for me)

Be sure to buy before November 1st- on November 15th they are giving a 3 cents dividend per share.

FD

 

[jasamcarl]

Oh god

This is hilarious. Internet fanboys waxing philosophic about strategic policies they are not privy to. I see a great vacuum of economic sense on this messageboard, but in case i'm incorrect in that, let me pose this question to those calling for a boycott. Is the going assumption that structural change that might include labor allocation is by neccesity bad? Or the sign of an ailing company? I just want someone to articulate this absurdity in a conscice manner. seriously...

 

[Zulkir]

I posted this on the D&D List and I'll say the same thing here. Exercising power through boycotting will fail. If you want to exercise power in a campital-based economic system, you do so by owning stock. Imagine if all the D&D players out there bought 10 shares of stock each and then all those players let one or two from the group speak as their representative. That person walks into the Hasbro board meetings (which is what stockholders have the right to do) and says "I'm here as a representative of the people who are actually buying all your Wizards products, and we have something to say." They might then listen.

Dave

As a Hasbro employee I can neither endorse nor discourage this idea. However, just as a note of fact, our market research indicates that there are approximately 2 million active D&D players.

AV

 

[Seule]

My theory: the original poster to this thread was trolling. Only someone really stupid could believe that boycotting a company's projects could convince them to refrain from firing staff, or hiring back laid off staff members. If they make less money from books because they are being boycotted, they'll go out of business, not expand.
Of course, this post could be a troll too.

--Seule

 

[Xeriar]

And it would only cost us, the fan base, a little over 8 million dollars to do this. A regular steal if you ask me. I can chip in 39$ for the cause. (3 whole shares for me)

Five or six years ago, Hasbro was worth nearly seven billion dollars. Now it's worth a third of that. Hang on to your cash, really.

I think they've been in panic mode for awhile now, and proceeded to nail their coffin shut when they sold their computer games division to the frogs (Infogrames).

All that's left of Hasbro are the tattered remnants of WotC and Avalon Hill, IMO.

 

[Nathal]

Re: Re: Boycott

Then you will have to stop buying everything. All for-profit corporations are interested in their bottom line, not the well being of their employees. Harsh but true.

That is not true all of the time. I now work for a company where that is not true. It is a smaller company all things considered, but we have been around for nearly 100 years. I've survived two rounds of layoffs after 9-11, but those that remained did so because they worked the hardest. The salaries were not the issue; it was the work ethic in each case. When the company ran into more trouble, they cut our salaries by 2%. Why? Because the president felt he'd rather cut off his own left hand than cut good staff that had been there for 30 years. In fact, the president of the company his own salary by 6% and announced such. In some cases (when people where layed off rather than fired) They gave their ex-employess 6 months of health insurance plus severance pay and a letter of reccomndation written by the president.

Even layoffs can be done ethically. I agree that is very uncommon in large companies. I've often wondered what has caused this shift in attitude toward individual employees as assets? What the heck happened in 50 years?

Every business from grocery stores to banks has the same business ethic.

That is not always true. There was a huge difference between how employees were treated at all of my jobs. It depends on current management and how involved and compassionate the corporate heads are. When layoffs become neccessary then there are many ways to decide how to cut expenses, and if individual talent and ones personal work ethic is second to salary, then those good people are replaced with low-paid corporate monkeys...I expect there will be a drastic change in the quality of the work from that point on in any company.

It isn't reasonable to expect Hasbro to behave any differently. Certainly we can feel compassion for those let go, and wish them well, but making a scene and threatening to boycott is a useless gesture, and one that shows little understanding of how capitalism works.

Well, what everybody says about the boycott sounds reasonable. I admit my response was in anger for those talented guys that dedicated their lives to this game. I agree that trouble was in the cards when WOTC was sold to Hasbro in the first place.

If one wants to see further D&D product from Wizards then boycotting won't help to keep their company alive. Of course, I doubt there stuff will be of any quality in the future. And the point that Hasbro is not likely to sell the rights to the name of D&D, even while crushing the rest of that biz sounds like a reasonable prediction, unfortunately.

So