Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Is Now the Time to Send WOTC a Real Message?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 351416" data-attributes="member: 151"><p>Speaking as someone who's been unemployed for 9 months after his company (a division of a 50,000 employee company) laid off the entire 550 person staff, I can certainly understand how layoffs work (especially since it isn't the first time). Hasbro isn't a company based on creativity...they see the writers as just literary engineers, and one game designer is as good as another, whether or not this makes any sense. Why was one designer let go, while another wasn't? Budgetary reasons, most likely. Someone like Jeff Grubb, who's been with TSR since 1e days (and is one of the best writers around), has probably acrued more vacation, pay grades and benefits than someone like the author of Sword and Fist. I don't necessarily like it, but I understand it. I don't like it when anyone looses their job due to economic reasons, Period. Especially when WOTC was the Golden Child for a while, and seemed like they could do no wrong (Magic, Pokemon, reviving D&D). Now, they're just like everybody else. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue :P" data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /></p><p></p><p></p><p>Hasbro most likely has no idea who Malhavoc is, for a start. And let's be clear, Malhavoc isn't a competitor...all the print materials they've released has come from S&SS, and they barely register in sales. More importantly, Hasbro is rating against their own perceptions and profitability margin. Making D&D unprofitable will result in no new materials, but Hasbro won't likely sell the D&D name, it's worth too much in name-recognition. Everyone knows the D&D name, and that's worth a great deal, even if they don't utilize it except for licensing.</p><p></p><p>I'll still purchase the WOTC books that interest me. This is the third or fourth layoff WOTC's had in the last two years. Things are tough all over, as they say. Am I unhappy that Skip and Jeff are on the street? Sure. But I'm more unhappy that <strong>I'm</strong> on the street. Hurting WOTC more doesn't really accomplish much than put more folks out of work, which I'm not terribly fond of. They were paid for the work when they did it, and most of these works have been done for over a year, waiting for a space in the publishing schedule and budget. I don't know if they recieve royalties, though.</p><p></p><p>A petition might accomplish something, though I'm not sure what. But making Hasbro aware of the WOTC client base's feelings probably wouldn't be a bad idea.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="WizarDru, post: 351416, member: 151"] Speaking as someone who's been unemployed for 9 months after his company (a division of a 50,000 employee company) laid off the entire 550 person staff, I can certainly understand how layoffs work (especially since it isn't the first time). Hasbro isn't a company based on creativity...they see the writers as just literary engineers, and one game designer is as good as another, whether or not this makes any sense. Why was one designer let go, while another wasn't? Budgetary reasons, most likely. Someone like Jeff Grubb, who's been with TSR since 1e days (and is one of the best writers around), has probably acrued more vacation, pay grades and benefits than someone like the author of Sword and Fist. I don't necessarily like it, but I understand it. I don't like it when anyone looses their job due to economic reasons, Period. Especially when WOTC was the Golden Child for a while, and seemed like they could do no wrong (Magic, Pokemon, reviving D&D). Now, they're just like everybody else. :P Hasbro most likely has no idea who Malhavoc is, for a start. And let's be clear, Malhavoc isn't a competitor...all the print materials they've released has come from S&SS, and they barely register in sales. More importantly, Hasbro is rating against their own perceptions and profitability margin. Making D&D unprofitable will result in no new materials, but Hasbro won't likely sell the D&D name, it's worth too much in name-recognition. Everyone knows the D&D name, and that's worth a great deal, even if they don't utilize it except for licensing. I'll still purchase the WOTC books that interest me. This is the third or fourth layoff WOTC's had in the last two years. Things are tough all over, as they say. Am I unhappy that Skip and Jeff are on the street? Sure. But I'm more unhappy that [b]I'm[/b] on the street. Hurting WOTC more doesn't really accomplish much than put more folks out of work, which I'm not terribly fond of. They were paid for the work when they did it, and most of these works have been done for over a year, waiting for a space in the publishing schedule and budget. I don't know if they recieve royalties, though. A petition might accomplish something, though I'm not sure what. But making Hasbro aware of the WOTC client base's feelings probably wouldn't be a bad idea. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Is Now the Time to Send WOTC a Real Message?
Top