Unconfirmed: More Layoffs at WotC

[Silverblade The Ench]

(sung to the tune of "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones)

"Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a woman of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a gamer's soul and faith

And I was 'round when Gary Gygax
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I stuck around Lake Geneva
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed Gary Gygax and his ministers
Gamers screamed in vain"

Muhaha!!

 

[MoxieFu]

I wonder if the constant stream of layoffs is causing two things I see as problems:

1: Fragmentation of the market, and
2: WotC's inability to publish good adventures

Laying off good, creative, and experienced developers puts expertise outside of the company. It creates competition and even thought the word monopoly has come up a few times, I have read much discussion about the splintering of the player base. If a company keeps creating their own competition this way, how long can they continue to be a monopoly?

Now I know that there are some who would say that WotC DOES publish good adventures, but I have seen a great deal of discussion to the contrary. Paizo has been cited many times as producing superior adventures. Many of the people there are ex-WotC employees. Is it possible that the layoffs at WotC and the hiring of these people at Paizo has led to this?

I am not claiming that my ideas presented here are ironclad. In fact I would appreciate hearing some discussion on this by someone who knows more about it than I do.

 

[Maggan]

Is it possible that the layoffs at WotC and the hiring of these people at Paizo has led to this?

How many people from WotC has Paizo hired?

/M

 

[DaveMage]

I wonder if the constant stream of layoffs is causing two things I see as problems:

1: Fragmentation of the market, and
2: WotC's inability to publish good adventures

Well, they may be fragmenting their own audience soon with the release of the "essentials" line. Nothing like brand confusion to make matters worse...

However, this would seem to be a natural progression of the D&D brand anyway. After 3E was 3 years old, 3.5 came out, invigorating the brand (or at least, invigorating the sale of core rulebooks). If 4E is really going to last the 8-10 years that Scott Rouse said it would when the game was released, it's only natural that they won't need as many people to run it going forward. If D&D survives for 5E (and it really is 8 years between editions), look for them to start hiring again in 2013 - 3 years or so before the new edition would arrive. Until then, they could coast with freelancers or simply repackaging products. (Spell compendium, Adventure bundles, etc.)

 

[Bullgrit]

Don't know about official sources. Only semi-official sources at this point, such as "resignation" blog posts written by the laid-off/resigned individuals in question.

Is it irony that the post immediately before Andy's resignation post is his post announcing he's looking to hire an RPG Editor? "This person reports directly to me...."

Bullgrit

 

[BryonD]

Bean-counters count beans. They don't count soft-assets. They attribute values to those things at year end for tax purposes. But they don't count them - and they certainly don't plan to manage or grow those assets with the short term hiring policy that you describe.

If you are correct, then the December lay-offs looked good on paper, but the bean counters are now seeing less net beans as the true and tangible impact comes along.

I really doubt that is the case.

 

[Fifth Element]

I can say with certainty that I know enough about the effect of such layoffs on workers and their families to make the call that they are not a good thing.

I was speaking from the perspective of the business, of course. They are certainly not a good thing for certain people.

 

[ggroy]

In principle, the bean counters at WotC do have some hard numbers to indirectly estimate the relative value of some "soft assets" (such as game designers).

In the case of rpg game designers, there's the number of books a particular designer contributed to directly (ie. word count) and how many copies each book sold. From these figures, in principle the bean counters can determine an approximate cents per word rate for each particular game designer on staff.

 

[Herschel]

Dreams are good, but they don't pay the bills. Perhaps an offer came by that was too good to pass up from a financial perspective.

Yeah, I'd love to still be doing radio, playing in bands or spinning vinyl at night clubs but like having a good car, disposable income, a nice house and time for gaming.

 

[DaveMage]

Is it irony that the post immediately before Andy's resignation post is his post announcing he's looking to hire an RPG Editor? "This person reports directly to me...."

Bullgrit

Yep.

Sad, isn't it?