More lay-offs at WOTC! [Merged]

[Grazzt]

Yeah, you're right. Y'know, it's almost like WotC would've been better off not releasing errata - in other words, doing the same thing as most game publishers: ignoring it. It's as if people think that just because a company doesn't release errata, there isn't any.

Exactly Colonel...exactly.

 

[James Heard]

Company X has gained rights to publish on the popular, yet nebulous genre of ABC. For this they hire John Doe and his books become wildly successful in the niche market. The brand of ABC is successful and other authors soon are hired to expand upon the brand with some mixed success, on the whole the business is doing fair. In a market downturn Company X looks over it's books and decides that it's brand ABC is doing well but there could be some cost managing on the brand. After all, other smaller companies are making much higher profit margins than X with the same sort of less well embraced authors than John Doe in X's own brand of ABC! Company X decides to let go John Doe, he's obviously an unneeded expense to the brand. Sales fall, but profit margins are up. John Doe goes to work for another company, and his success continues and their profit margins increase. Company X decides that new blood is what drives profitability and starts firing more people, until eventually no one wants to work for them because they can be just as successful writing for brand ABC at another company without worrying constantly about the pressure of constantly worrying about their pension.

 

[Zulkir]

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?

Currently there is no planned change in the schedule. I will be revamping it to make sure we can hit all of our deadlines. I believe we can but I also believe in double checking.

Does it mean that we likely to see LESS freelancing, or more?

More. Some of you might want to see this as an opportunity to get work from WotC. You will want to have some history of publication, even magazine publication, and you will want to send a resume and portfolio to Bill Slaviscek.

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.

SRD is moving forward. Spells should go up soon. We have an intern dedicated to getting it finalized.

AV

 

[kenjib]

There is not and never will be a product released that doesnt need errata (be it mistakes, typos, or whatever).

...except for the Tome of Horrors.

 

[Breakdaddy]

Okay, guys. I know that you're probably upset and worried, but that doesn't excuse insulting other people on the board. Please stop personal attacks as of right now. Please try to maintain a modicum of politeness - and thank you, everyone who is already doing so.

This doesn't surprise me a whole lot. When Adkison made the decision to sell to Hasbro, he chose to get a major payoff for long-term employees as a tradeoff for giving up control. Everyone I spoke to at WotC expected that Hasbro would try to assume more control after a few years. I'm surprised and disappointed at the particular people who they've laid off, but not surprised or worried in the least that layoffs have occurred.

Incidentally, I'd say that there are more than "a handful" of consistent, competent d20 publishers at this point. An insistence that WotC is the only people worth buying from seems laughable to me. Other people certainly wouldn't agree.

Finally, my big concern is that public perception might mean less sales for d20 modern. Third party companies will be less willing to write for it if it seems to be in danger, and I imagine that WotC is banking on it as another source of significant revenue. I hope they aren't disappointed.

Aww man! I was just about to break out the popcorn and sit back to enjoy the rest of the show! Now you've got everyone being polite

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Re: There's a bigger picture here, IMHO...

Fact is, these decisions are NOT good business. If they were, then HASBRO wouldn't be in the slump it's been in for the past decade.

Ok-

1) You don't know enough about the situation to know if it was a good or bad decision. In truth, only time will tell.

2) You are wrong due to the assumption that the long term profit of d&d was a concern of Hasbro.

Complete speculation follows:

As you did say- MTG and Pokemon are not as popular as they used to be, but there are multiple reasons for that. Hasbro's involvement does not look like it is one of them- especially considering from all word from WOTC is that they have been pretty hand's off.

Hasbro has been in the toy market long enough- it knows that some toys will become popular and eventually disintegrate. There are very few toy lines that survive the long term.

I suspect they aquired WOTC with the same mind-frame. They would ride out the popularity of MTG and Pokemon, and when it is no longer popular- they will can it for the time being.

Do they want it to crash? No, of course not, but there is also little they can do to keep those card games going.

How is d&d involved? It is just a side show, and a very small one at that. It does not bring enough profit to merit any attention from Hasbro. Plus, it has possibly given the same disintegration appearance- with the core books being big sellers and subsequent books being not as big.

As WOTC is told to cut operating expenses, then they need to do it with their boss in mind. Does that mean they sink MTG and Pokemon? No, they cut from the cash cow that does not need to eat so much grass.

Is it going to hurt d&d in the long run- possibly, but since Hasbro is not interested in the long term- it is not an issue.

That is why I said in the beginning that d&d is probably never going to do well in a corporate environment.

It is not a matter of the "evil pursuit of profit". It is not a matter of the corporate workers loving it more/less then small business workers.

It is a matter of corporate mechanics.

D&D requires regular R&D and expensive investment to produce regular books, and the market is too small to garner more then a footnote of support from a company such as Hasbro.

/complete speculation done.

So to all of you that say, 'that's business/the real world, so live with it,' I say you are the ones needing to take the blinders off.

Why bother getting into a flame war?

I will say one thing about your final rant on those "greedy, greedy men". The CEO of Hasbro made 1.1 million dollars last year. That is a good chunk of change, but not extravegant when compared to other corporations of the same size.

FD

 

[Tiefling]

Is there any reason why WotC/Hasbro would want to kill the finalization of the SRD? I can't think of anything they would gain, and it would take a day at least to get the stuff off the site, email the dozens of publishers to tell them to stop using it, etc. That means money.

 

[Katerek]

Wow, thanks for the kind reply. I agree that the hobby is more corporate, and sometimes that's a bit jarring. Here we have this fun hobby, but it's also a big business.

-z

No problem. I figured that it is far more resourceful and mature to reply kindly than to call someone a "stupid poo-poo head" or whatever kind of drivel tends to get passed around on MB's. Also, you were absolutely right. Kinda hard to argue with that.

I also think you summed it up best, our hobby is now big business. It's going to be a long interesting ride.

As for other things:

We can all wax poetic and prophetic about the macro and micro economical reasonings for lay-off, downsizing, reductions in force or whatever they call it now for as long as want but it isn't going to change anything.

We may not personallyknow those that were affected, be we still treat this big business as a hobby. Those folks are going to have rough weekends and rougher days ahead until they find that security that they once had.

I don't know about y'all but I see every employee at wotc as a friend. If it wasn't for them and the things they have done over the years, I wouldn't have had all of the terrific experiences I have had with my local friends.

Since I have been gaming now for over two decades, almost every friend I have I have gotten through gaming. I married one, later divorced; I have been to a wedding or two, evn a few funerals. Gaming is my life, and I am not ashamed to admit it. Most of the most enjoyable times of my life can be equated to a handful of dice and a table surround by dear friends.

Gaming has been the one constant that many of us have had throughout our lives. I never mattered where my parents moved me off to, or what city my job drug me to, I could always fine a local band of gamers and therein share a common connection. It helped me adjust and find a since of belonging more than once. This was never done without hard work and effort on some game designers part.

The folks who work in those companies helped me have those times and for that I am eternally grateful. I feel for them, and hope them nothing but the best.

 

[drakhe]

... Because as long as the game is called Dungeons & Dragons, it will continue to sell regardless of how dubious the quality is.

Actualy that's the ONLY thing that worries me at the moment. HASBRO CAN KILL D&D the BRAND. Look what happened to Last Unicorn. They were bought and there product line died. The couple of books that were finished but not yet released were dumped and nothing is heard from them ever again.

If HASBRO was truly evil, they would take over the D&D license from WOTC, drop this dead puppy and sit on the license. That would kill D&D.

People would still buy [ x ]'s product (substitute with any of the names that got laid off). Those that already know and like them. But the new kids, the kid that would have become a gamer because there was this near mythical brand-name: D&D, would now longer be interested in these [ x ] products. They would find another BRAND.

To those people outside the hobby, D&D is like a lighthouse. If there is one term or name that they know in relation to RPG's, it's D&D. And even though the OGL is a great gift to the gaming community, those that are interested in becoming part of said community will loose a beacon, a lighthouse if ever D&D would disappear.

 

[drakhe]

Re: irony

... and if they fired me because I was making money, and not due to my lack of creative talent, ...

I'm shure these people were NOT fired because of lack of creative talent. They were fired because in the current games market (seen through the corporate glassess that have to balance a bookkeeping) these people are TOO EXPENSIVE.

It's happening on all levels all over the world. Economy weakening and corporations need to show the're economicaly viable which means they need to make a profit. And having a staff of very talented BUT VERY EXPENSIVE employees might assure quality, it does not assure PROFIT.

The exact same thing is happening with my current employer. The IT department has to go. Why? Because on average our programmers, analysts and systems DESIGNERS (there IS creative talent even in IT) are over 35 years of age and TOO EXPENSIVE.