More lay-offs at WOTC! [Merged]

[Cougar]

Now don't get me wrong, I feel as though a company, or in this case a corporation, should do what it has to do to keep it's profits up and costs down. All I am saying is I would have prefered to keep D&D out of Hasbro's hands. I would guess they bought WotC for Magic and Pokemon anyway. Like I said before, I hope they sell it. They are selling everything else.

 

[Leopold]

I understand that Stan! Brown is on the list as well. I understand that he had just been tasked with reinvigorating the playtesting program.

It will be interesting to see who inherits it.

Skip Williams has been with TSR and then WotC since... well, since forever. He's the only person to have worked on 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition. I'm really surprised that he was amongst the layoffs. His wife Penny was laid off, too.

what a bummer. Any idea on their future or the future of any of these folks? Do any of them plan to open up their own company or are they part of the WOTC outsourcing plan that I saw on the gamingreport page.

 

[JDragon]

Well, along with most everyone here I think this sucks (at least in the short term) for D&D/Star Wars. What will come out of it, we will just have to wait and see.

I think to me the worst part on a personal level is they laid of Skip & Penny Williams, talk about trying to screw people now both of them are out of work at the same time.

I know that if the same had happened to my wife and I when I got laid off in November we would have been out on the street or filling bankruptcy with in a month.

Its one thing if you are at different companies and they both happen to do lay-offs, but dropping both people from the same company at the same time is just wrong.


I wish the best to all that were let go and will do my best to support any products they put out in the future.

JDragon

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Like I said before, I hope they sell it.

It will most likely happen in the long run- d&d may make money, but it also takes a lot of money to put out a product.

That is not a great combination in eyes of a lot decision makers.

But, if they do or don't, d&d will be healthy in for the short term due to great communities like this one.

FD

 

[Cougar]

I am sorry, but the general gaming public isn't going to care who the author is. Yes, they do good work, but that only makes an impact with the people that actually know and recognize the names.

I don't think people are worried about sales dropping due to name recognition so much as they are a serious problem with WotC as a subsidiary of Hasbro. Losing key people at a company is a bad sign.

 

[Nikchick]

Well, I knew it was coming, and I'm still completely bummed out.

As of last night, friends of mine in R&D were remaining optimistic that cuts were going to be in areas of the company that Hasbro's infrastructure could take over: sales, marketing, accounting. Perhaps those areas were cut as well, but it certainly seems to me that they've gone deep into the creative areas as well. The list of confirmed laid-off "creatives" includes some of the most talented, hard-working people I've ever had the pleasure to know in my 15 years in the industry. A dozen people in the graphic design group came to work today only to be told they had no job as of tomorrow, including the people who worked on card games, Star Wars, minis, and D&D, including Art Directors and supervisors, people in design and editing, people who have been there and been work horses for the properties the company owns (Jeff Grubb, Skip and Penny, Stan!--who is one of the nicest people I've ever EVER known) and who have *people skills* (unlike certain of the remaining managers I could name). If the creative slack is expected to be picked up by the people who were moved up to management positions, I shudder to think what's likely to come out from the company; many of those creatives-turned-managers became managers because they weren't very good designers to begin with.

They've retained a handful of talent on the creative side, but just a handful, no more. I sincerely believe that Hasbro will not be satisfied with how the company is performing unless they can recapture the heady days of Pokemon and selling multiple hundreds of thousands of "core books"--something that will NEVER happen. Hasbro itself is creatively bankrupt (witness its inability to spawn a hit toy and how it continues to go back to the well by "reinventing" GI Joe or "new and different" Furby creations). Not only do these layoffs cut the creative talent of WotC down to the bone, they also weaken the company's ability to have those new "break out" hits that are seemingly required for the company to be perceived (on the stock market at least) as a success.

I'm sad for all my friends who got the axe today, but I'm sure in the long term they're better off without the Hasbro shackles. In the short term, though, my thoughts will be with them and I hope they all land on their feet and come out swinging.

Nicole

 

[James Heard]

I am not sure if that is true beyond fans like us- people who participate in our hobby through this website and others like it.

I have some doubts the casual player even notices- last night I had to explain to the two casual players in my group who Gary Gygax is and what he did for d&d.

Respectfully submitted
FD

That may be true, but the authors they're letting go have enough pull to garner their own name recognition on their merits beyond the brand recognition. I mean, Gygax already has his name blazing on the top of a few products and that means people start looking for his name again when they like his products just like they do for WOTC labels and such even if they don't have any sense of history about what he actually has done for the hobby. If Salvatore started making d20 products, he'd sell them on the merits of his name alone just like Ed Greenwood does for products. Even though Monte Cook goes under the Malhavoc label, he's got a pretty sturdy brand recognition and so does Bastion Press. If Hasbro lets enough people go until "D&D" doesn't automatically mean "WOTC", but instead is associated with some other companies then it's going to be pretty rough for them.

I mean, if you change Coca-Cola by diluting it's consistency and quality and another cola company comes out there with your old employees and starts making Coca-Cola like everyone likes it then you've effectively shot your brand name in it's foot in the interest of checking your bottom line. This wouldn't be a big problem for WOTC except they put out the OGL in the interests of supporting their line without having to pay for it themselves.

I don't think all of this will have much impact in the short term, WOTC already has a pretty lazy schedule when you compare them to each and every other d20 publisher out there (and you really have to lump "everyone else" into the same bag when you're talking about things I think). On the long term I hope Hasbro realizes they're going to have to play damage control in the future and try to re-absorb their former employee's competing companies at some point to strengthen their own market share I think.

Personally, I think if I were Hasbro I woud have just dropped a big chunk of WOTC on someone else that wanted to assume the risks rather than worry about the whole thing. Pokemon is probably never coming back until it makes it's revival fad period 5 or 10 years down the road. MtG seems to be on the decline, though I suppose some really nice widget or promotion could revive it again. D&D is probably a slow and steady market for Hasbro though, you really have to screw up a product to not get the numbers you're expecting (if anyone can correct me if I'm wrong?) because barring a sudden influx of gamers we're all a pretty outlined market. That means little growth in some ways, but it's fine cash flow (excepting to all the companies out there that seem to be either bleeding money or dripping in $$$)

If you managed to actually read this far without falling asleep I'll now sign off with an apology for talking too much.

JMH

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

With all these lay-offs every few months, I have to say....

Who is left?

Honestly, we all know D&D will never die, but one has to wonder how long Hasbro will keep it.

Wonder what it is worth.

Who can compete? White Wolf?

I wouldn't be surprised at all if 4th Edition had White Wolf's paw print on it in a few years.

Note: All of this is just my baseless speculation with no real thought given to hard facts.

 

[Wormwood]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if 4th Edition had White Wolf's paw print on it in a few years.

Don't forget:

5th Edition
Race Books
Class Books
Alignment Books
6th Edition
6th Edition Revised
Race Books (Rev)
Class Books (Rev)
Alignment Books (Rev)

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

haha... yea.. 4th edition (Revised)

WW actually does really good work, but their books fall apart easy...... and smell funny too.