Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="chriton227" data-source="post: 6511901" data-attributes="member: 33263">I've also been in corporate America for a long time (just shy of 17 years at a Fortune 500 company).&nbsp; There are bad decisions made at big companies, especially when you get into decisions by committee or the impact of corporate politics and yes-men. There are also good decision made when the people in influential positions in those companies pay attention to their customers and market trends rather than making decisions based on their own ego.&nbsp; Big companies don't get to be big companies by making nothing but bad decisions.&nbsp; Once they get big, the practices you cite can help them stay there, but even that isn't flawless (look at Sears, Arthur Anderson, and Lehman Brothers).&nbsp; I don't think anyone is saying &quot;they're doing it, so it must be smart&quot;, they are saying &quot;they have more info about it than some random person on the internet, so don't assume the random person knows how WotC's should do business better than WotC&quot;.&nbsp; The D&amp;D team also isn't exactly a big corporate team anymore, the child care center where my wife works has more than twice as many full time employees as the D&amp;D team, so if the team is given the freedom to make decisions with less of the prior influences from the larger Hasbro and WotC structures, I believe their track record can improve. We've already seen substantial changes in the way things are done; the way the 5e development and playtest was handled was radically different than anything we've ever seen from the D&amp;D brand, and while 5e isn't perfect I think it is much better than it would have been without the playtest.&nbsp; We also haven't seen a bunch of untenable promises at launch of digital products like we did with 3e (character builder demo in the PHB) and 4e (DDI features like the virtual table top).&nbsp; If you have completely lost faith in the ability of WotC and the D&amp;D team to make good decisions, then I'm not sure why you haven't just cut bait and moved on to something else that you think won't be driven into the ground by it's owner.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="chriton227, post: 6511901, member: 33263"] I've also been in corporate America for a long time (just shy of 17 years at a Fortune 500 company). There are bad decisions made at big companies, especially when you get into decisions by committee or the impact of corporate politics and yes-men. There are also good decision made when the people in influential positions in those companies pay attention to their customers and market trends rather than making decisions based on their own ego. Big companies don't get to be big companies by making nothing but bad decisions. Once they get big, the practices you cite can help them stay there, but even that isn't flawless (look at Sears, Arthur Anderson, and Lehman Brothers). I don't think anyone is saying "they're doing it, so it must be smart", they are saying "they have more info about it than some random person on the internet, so don't assume the random person knows how WotC's should do business better than WotC". The D&D team also isn't exactly a big corporate team anymore, the child care center where my wife works has more than twice as many full time employees as the D&D team, so if the team is given the freedom to make decisions with less of the prior influences from the larger Hasbro and WotC structures, I believe their track record can improve. We've already seen substantial changes in the way things are done; the way the 5e development and playtest was handled was radically different than anything we've ever seen from the D&D brand, and while 5e isn't perfect I think it is much better than it would have been without the playtest. We also haven't seen a bunch of untenable promises at launch of digital products like we did with 3e (character builder demo in the PHB) and 4e (DDI features like the virtual table top). If you have completely lost faith in the ability of WotC and the D&D team to make good decisions, then I'm not sure why you haven't just cut bait and moved on to something else that you think won't be driven into the ground by it's owner. [/QUOTE]

Verification