More lay-offs at WOTC! [Merged]

[der_kluge]

*points accusatory finger*

"It's all Anthony's fault!"

Heh, jus' kidding.

But, I have to ask - does Skip post here? Just wondering if he's lurking or not. Would love to hear his thoughts on all this.

I think what we should do is all pool our life savings and buy D&D from Hasbro. If enough of us plunk down some change, we could all own it as a collective. Anything is for sale for the right price.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Excellent point Toberane, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

It is too much of a pipe dream I suppose for DnD to be bought by someone who cares for a change. It is a real shame what has become of our favorite past time.

Yeah, it's a real shame that D&D is more popular than ever, that we have a single OS for games now (d20), that we've got our pick of a dozen extremely talented 3rd-party publishers who put out imaginative products. It's a shame that the rules were constantly updated and streamlined, that we were given pages and pages of official errata and a definitive FAQ. It's a shame that the RPGA became free. It's a shame that Dragon and Dungeon are now free to truly become a journal for the RPG industry, instead of just an outlet/advertisement for WotC products.

Yeah, what a shame. I wish it was like the good old days, when TSR--and *only* T$R--released D&D products and the vast majority of those products sucked. Or when you couldn't easily switch game systems, and a D&D player had to learn a whole new set of mechanics if he wanted to play Call of Cthulhu, and another set of mechanics if he wanted to play Vampire. I wish D&D was run by a bunch of gaming nerds, not business-savvy people. That way, we'd see slipped production schedules, sloppy layout and design, terrible editing, rules-creep, poor retail relations, and terrible public relations. And I wish Skip, Bruce, Stan!, and those other guys were still working for a company that stifled their creativity, instead of being set free to pursue their dreams and release innovative new content.

(end sarcasm)

Good grief, what is the matter with you? How can a rational person not see that D&D is better than ever? That we've got more, better RPG products than ever before? That these layoffs introduce even more talented writers to the freelance/3rd party pool, which means we'll see even MORE interesting new products?

Wake up and make a Spot check for seeing the state of D&D, instead of merely failing your Will save vs. an irrational emotional reaction to the word "layoff".

-z

PS: The above, of course, is zero comfort to those who are now out of a job.

 

[BluWolf]

Yes Mr. TinCan.

In 4 or 5 years we will all look back and realise we all owe a debt of gratitude to those two gentleman.

PS. I am not a Dancey fanboy. I don not agree with everything he says as if from on high. I do appreciate what his idea was and what the two of these gentleman have accomplished.

Quoted from Zar...

Wake up and make a Spot check for seeing the state of D&D, instead of merely failing your Will save vs. an irrational emotional reaction to the word "layoff".

NICE!!! Man I laughed for a good 15 minutes on that one.

 

[The Sigil]

Hey now, remember - when you use the word beancounter you have to use the name Anthony Valterra in the same sentence. We are not faceless. We have families, and are gamers, and are raising kids, go to cons and last week went to burning man. Real people here.

AV

Bean-counter or no, for the love of mud, Anthony, could you please push the rest of the SRD through the "approval" process so that we can end the speculation of "WotC could pull back the stuff in the 'gentlemens' agreement' and screw other d20 publishers?"



--The Sigil

 

[Razz]

Hasbro don't know what they're doing

This is ridiculous. The lay-offs from before were completely uncalled for and now this?!

I am suprised, too, that The Sage was among the lay-offs. Hasbro doesn't deserve to won WotC (or D&D for that matter). I think they need to let them go on their own or let another company buy WotC (a company that knows what they're doing).

The good news seems to be that these people can make d20 products. I never have and never will get d20 products.

Because they're not official.

I keep hearing that there's a long story and explanation about all this. So why don't anyone explain what's up? I mean, if I were fired, I'd be spiteful enough to blurt out the entire reasons why.

The way I see it, it is the end of D&D as we know it Sure it'll still be around, but unfortunately it won't ever be the same.

 

[toberane]

Re: Zaruthustran's Comments

My earlier comments were not directed at the state of D&D, but more at the state of WotC. Unfortunately, 3rd party publishers, even with the rise of numerous d20 companies, don't sell anywhere NEAR as many books as WotC. Many people refuse to play with 3rd party supplements because they are not "core products." So it is a simple matter to see that d20 products written by Skip, Monte, Jeff, Stan!, and all the others who have left in the last couple of years will not get even half the circulation they would get if published by WotC.

I am also a fan of the Forgotten Realms. Jeff Grubb was one of the driving forces behind the Realms, particularly during 2nd edition. Without him and some of the other talented game developers, the new 3E realms products are likely to be of much poorer quality than before. And sure, they could still freelance, and sure, the new designers could be quite talented as well. We won't know until it happens.

I applaud the work that the d20 community has done. I know that there is some very fine work being put out by these companies. However, that doesn't stop me from lamenting over the wreck Hasbro seems to be making of the Dungeons & Dragons game that I have enjoyed for 2/3 of my lifetime. AS I said earlier, I don't worry that D&D is dying. I'm more afraid it's enslaved under a cruel master.

OK, that was a bit melodramatic annd silly. But you get my point.

 

[EarthsShadow]

irony

I would like to see Hasbro make some more bad decisions...okay okay we know they will...and then when they think its bad enough they then sell DnD to SSS/White-Wolf because then we would have our favorite game run by a group of people who truly love games, and even if you don't like the storyteller system, if you read their products they are definately written by gamers, for gamers, and that is what DnD needs. Not some motherly corporation who only cares about the almighty $$$ becuz we all know that once the almighty $$$ is the only thing the company cares about, that's the end of it.

I hope that some, if not all, of the creative talent goes to work for SSS, or Malhovic Press with Monte Cook, and they work together to create products that support the d20 system, but also support the OGL. Personally, if I was one of them, I would go work for a rival company and then do my best to see Hasbro/WotC falter and eventually go down. Why, because I am Lawful (Neutral) Evil like that, and if they fired me because I was making money, and not due to my lack of creative talent, then I would take my creative talent elsewhere and do my best to cause my former employers to suffer by creating the absolute best works I can for the other company, with the hopes of destroying Wizards in the process.

Then I would save every cent I made, and when the time came, buy out DnD from Hasbro/WotC and rerelease it at its original price and also create a d20-rules lite version for younger kids. Heck, if I want to get kids involved in the RPG industry, I would make a Harry Potter rpg, and when the next movie gets released, I would have a commercial for the game before the movie starts. (This is my idea, and if it goes anywhere I want some of the credit and $$$ for it...) I am sure Hasbro can understand that.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Good grief, what is the matter with you? How can a rational person not see that D&D is better than ever? That we've got more, better RPG products than ever before? That these layoffs introduce even more talented writers to the freelance/3rd party pool, which means we'll see even MORE interesting new products?

While I agree with you that people are a bit too worried about the sky falling on their heads, I do have to take issue with the thought that laid off designers will automatically enter the freelance/3rd party pool.

From what I understand, WotC folk make decent money. Not brilliant, but not too shabby either.

The average freelancer doesn't pull down nearly the same scratch.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of the laid off creative types cut their d20/D&D output considerably, if not totally, as they head for greener pastures.

Patrick Y.

 

[Henry]

Hey now, remember - when you use the word beancounter you have to use the name Anthony Valterra in the same sentence.

HEY, EVERYBODY, THE BEANCOUNTER'S BACK! How ya been?

We have families, and are gamers, and are raising kids, go to cons and last week went to burning man. Real people here.

Understood completely, Anthony. My main concern is for those other real people - the game designers and other staff that have no job lined up to go to after this week. I am glad, though, to see the information about the job location and severance packages.

I know you cannot speak for the company on this, but the signs we see from the outside of WotC are VERY disconcerting to us gamers. Does this mean that WotC is gearing down their product schedule to a mere trickle? Does it mean that we likely to see LESS freelancing, or more?

More importantly, what does this mean for the SRD? Depending on what happens to the D&D franchise, it is vitally important to your customer base to see the SRD official completed - at least the core rules. The "gentleman's agreement" has been solid over the past two years, but handshakes only go so far in courts of law.

Can we expect to see increased output on the official SRD chapters?

 

[toberane]

An observation...

One thing I noticed about this particular round of layoffs that is different from the previous rounds of layoffs: There seems to be more negative feedback from inside the industry on this round than there was on the previous rounds. Maybe it's just my perspective, but after all the other layoffs happened, at least one or two of the visible "name" employees who had gotten their pink slips popped up on message boards saying things like "I was planning to leave anyway," and "The restructuring was a necessary thing," and stuff like that.

This time, however, all I've heard sounds a lot darker, no former employees or current employees saying much of anything in WotC's defense. Even Anthony Valterras comments seem to speak more of "I gotta look out for myself and my family" than they do of saying anything remotely Pro-Hasbro/WotC. The question is, what exactly does this mean?

EDIT: Imay have taken AV's comments a little out of context, but upon reviewing his post, he didn't go out of his way to defend the company, only his job and himself.