D&D General WotC Founder Peter Adkison On Hasbro's Layoffs

Peter Adkison, who owned Wizards of the Coast until it was sold to Hasbro in 1999, oversaw the relaunch of Dungeons & Dragons with D&D 3rd Edition. Today, he commented on this week's round of Hasbro layoffs, which have ripped through WotC. Adkison left WotC in 2000 and currently runs a production company called Hostile Work Environment.

Like many of you, I'm saddened to learn about the layoffs at Hasbro.

Caveat: I have no idea of what’s happening behind the scenes at WotC. If you’re asking who’s at fault, or to what extent it was or was not justified, that’s outside the scope of my knowledge. This post is about my own reflections.

When I read about the layoffs at Hasbro my immediate feeling was shame. Shame for when I did the same thing, at the same company (WotC, before we sold it to Hasbro).

I have made lots of mistakes, tons of them, more than I can even remember. And while I regret those mistakes, and I’m sad for those hurt, I realize it’s part of learning and it’s part of being human.

But layoffs, when handed poorly, or when they are unnecessary, aren’t just mistakes. They are failings of character. Those times when I had a failure of character, those are the moments that haunt me.

 

[mamba]

I'm sorry, in response to "actually succeeding is hard", you cite ... trying? Trying to launch an IT project is easy, it just takes money, a match and a willingness to combine the two. They can try to create any IT project they want.

I really do not care about your rant. They have not succeeded yet because it is their first try, yes (4e does not count, far too long ago). Guess what, that is how it always is with first tries.

A VTT is much more complex than DDB, so they could clearly have tried that in-house as well. Instead they bought it, because that is faster and gets you market share, and yes, you pay for both of those. Building your own DDB would be much cheaper than 150M. You suggesting that this is what building DDB would cost is laughable

 

[nevin]

I'm sorry, in response to "actually succeeding is hard", you cite ... trying? Trying to launch an IT project is easy, it just takes money, a match and a willingness to combine the two. They can try to create any IT project they want.

But, success? I give them a well under 50% chance of successfully launching a VTT that isn't a complete mess. Which is an easy thing to bet, because their current record is currently 0%, and they have tried at least once and failed, the effort almost collapsing WotC.

If they do launch a VTT, regardless of it being a complete mess or not, I'll bet dollars to donuts that it's initial budget was blown by at least a factor of 2. (This is usually hard to find out, because companies don't like advertising how they failed).

The thing about computers is trying to do something or planning to do something is easy. It is hard to make even a bad car, but easy to make a bad software program. But making a good car or a good program is extremely hard. So you get a lot of software that sort of barely works, and way more that don't even pass that bar.

Same thing building the infrastructure that the program runs on. build it wrong and it won't scale right, or it will be slow, or too expensive and cut into your profits. There is a reason large companies and Govt agencies don't usually build these things themselves. And because most of them are constantly squeezing to cut corners and make it cheaper there is a reason most things fail. Then you add that far too many Gen X, millenials, and Gen Z'rs all think they understand IT so well they can argue with the developers and save money. Most companies destroy thier own IT projects before the first cable is plugged in and don't know they've done so till about 2 year's past the deadline to be done.

 

[mamba]

Then you add that far too many Gen X, millenials, and Gen Z'rs

so basically anyone who isn’t retired yet?

all think they understand IT so well they can argue with the developers and save money.

people argue with everyone about everything, that is not limited to software development, the world is full of people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect

 

[nevin]

so basically anyone who isn’t retired yet?


people argue with everyone about everything, that is not limited to software development, the world is full of people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect

yes and yes but Baby boomer a lot of whom are still working generally don't assume they can make system and architech level design changes. I've had salesmen attempt to hijack meetings and explain why they knew better how to architect something. Everybody is a Google Expert these days.

 

[Parmandur]

But, success? I give them a well under 50% chance of successfully launching a VTT that isn't a complete mess. Which is an easy thing to bet, because their current record is currently 0%, and they have tried at least once and failed, the effort almost collapsing WotC.

The VTT is about to launch in a public Beta, and is by all reports excellent.

Keep in mind yhst "WotC is bad at tech" is way outdated: the team making hmthe VTT also made Magic Arenaz which is a money printing machine.

 

[nevin]

Let's hope they are being allowed to do thier thing and it works as good as you say. <fingers crossed>

 

[NotAYakk]

I really do not care about your rant. They have not succeeded yet because it is their first try, yes (4e does not count, far too long ago). Guess what, that is how it always is with first tries.

How in the world does 4e failed VTT not count? It is the same company trying to solve the same problem. A problem that takes years to complete. If you rule out anything that is more than a few years ago, of course there isn't a record of failure, because there hasn't been enough time to fail and recover from any possible failure. You just defined away the possibility of failure, except in the sense of "iterative design" or "currently ongoing failure".



Yes, if you define away all problems, there are no problems, everything is trivial. Any evidence to the contrary is just not a true scottsman.

The general rule is that IT projects fail. That has to be baked into every IT project plan.

If your IT project nearly exactly matches an existing line of IT projects that where just completed, it is reasonable to assume this new project will take within a factor of 2 of the last project's effort and be roughly as successful.

It is like a new restaurant. Most will fail within a few years. Sure, "this one is special" in a myriad of ways, but most restaurants fail. So you have to arrange financing and make plans based on the possibility it will fail.

Buying an existing company with a working IT system, you can do due diligence and know what you are getting, and get it right now.

Reinventing that product, you don't know all of the complications because that is what an IT project is, it is finding the unknown complications and fixing them. If you knew the complications, you'd already have a completed project.

 

[nevin]

to be fair most failures generate information that can be used to improve the next attempt. Then the big thing is does the company want to accept reality and adjust to meet it or are they going to keep trying to force the square pegs in the star shaped holes. So the 4e failed VTT may have actually made things better. Or it may not have moved the needle at all if executives just want what they want.

the other thing that happens but usually on systems the company itself uses is they screw up the project and then go 5 to 10 years out patching and fixing the project till it mostly works the way they wanted.

What will determine success or failure is if they are working with enough of the right resources and a willingness to accept reality, including what their customer's will accept and will not accept. I'd say the average companies second try says more about them and whether they are capable of doing a large IT project successfully than that first goldylocks disaster.

 

[Willie the Duck]

eye roll

You have a solid point. This did not add to it.

 

[rooneg]

to be fair most failures generate information that can be used to improve the next attempt. Then the big thing is does the company want to accept reality and adjust to meet it or are they going to keep trying to force the square pegs in the star shaped holes. So the 4e failed VTT may have actually made things better. Or it may not have moved the needle at all if executives just want what they want.

I'd be more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this if it wasn't for the amount of time that had passed between the failure of the 4e VTT and the likely point where they decided to buy in to the idea of a new VTT. There had probably been so much turnover in that time period that any institutional memory of what went wrong and how to fix it was out the door. Especially at WotC/Hasbro, where tech jobs have historically been of the "take the low pay because you get to work on the games you loved as a kid" sort, which have a LOT of turnover when people burn out and realize they can go make actual money with those same skills.