Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 9219486" data-attributes="member: 7023840">I don't buy the thesis.Look, the most important thing in the article is this- WoTC's finances have been really good this year. The layoffs are surprising, in that they affected WoTC more than most people thought they would (it's the toys that are killing Hasbro, not WoTC), but tying this in to the OGL issue doesn't make a lot of sense.I think that Shannon does touch on the issue, albeit in passing. WoTC is still the 800 pound gorilla. It will always be able to attract young new people willing to do the work. And it still pays really well in relation to the industry. If you look through the roster of luminaries that have been cut loose previously, you'll see the same pattern repeat over and over again- great people (designers, artists, etc.) break it big at WoTC, then get cut loose, and then do other things. What they have done isn't good, or nice. They are laying off people before Christmas. These are real people. People that have children. People that have mortgages to pay. People that have put their hearts and souls into their work. But it is what Hasbro (and other corporations) will often do. They are shedding some of the higher costs, knowing that there are always lower costs in the pipeline. A lifetime ago, I worked at a very successful company that was known for this- they were a great company because they took people straight out of college, worked them hard, gave them skills, and then ... well, at that point you had the resume to move on to something else. But if you didn't, you shouldn't expect to stay, because the company wasn't going to keep you at a higher salary. Also, the OGL debacle wasn't a loss of institutional memory. We had the exact same thing happen in 4e as well. It's just the usual internal bickering over IP. Corporations gonna monetize. It's like asking a shark to stop swimming. Thankfully, they reversed course. But we know from further reporting that this was an internal battle at the company, and that people there did raise their objections.</blockquote>

Verification