WotC WotC Removes Digital Content Team Credits From D&D Beyond

According to Faith Elisabeth Lilley, who was on the digital content team at Wizards of the Coast, the contributor credits for the team have been removed from DDB.

The team was responsible for content feedback and the implementation of book content on the online platform. While it had been indicated to them that they would not be included in the credits of the physical books for space reasons, WotC apparently agreed to include them in the online credits.

It appears that those credits have now been removed.

I just discovered that I have been removed from book credits on D&D Beyond for books I worked on while at Wizards of the Coast.

Background:

While at Wizards (so after D&D Beyond was purchased) - with numerous books, my digital content team and I worked directly with the book team on the content, reading through rules drafts, suggesting changes, giving ideas, and catching issues. We had a full database of the content and understood exactly how it interacted.

Given that we were contributing to the content in the books, I felt it reasonable to request that team be added to the credits, but was informed the credits section was already too crowded with the number of people involved and many of the marketing team had already been dropped from credits. I felt strongly that anyone actually contributing to what is in the printed book should be credited though, so we agreed a compromise, that the team would be added to the credits page on D&D Beyond only, as there is no issue with "not enough space" on a web page.

I've added screenshots here that I had for some of the books.

At some point recently, those credits pages have been edited to remove the credits for me and the content team. Nobody reached out to let me know - it just happened at some point, and I only just noticed.

We've even been removed from the digital-only releases, that only released on D&D Beyond, such as the Spelljammer Academy drops.

I'm not angry or upset, just yet again, really disappointed, as somehow I expected better.

EDIT TO ADD MORE CONTEXT

It's not just getting the books online. I worked with Kyle & Dan to improve the overall book process from ideation to delivery across all mediums (you should have seen the huge process charts I built out...)

The lead designers would send over the rules for each new rulebook and we'd go through it, give feedback, highlight potential balance issues, look at new rules/design that was difficult to implement digitally and suggest tweaks to improve it etc etc. We even had ideas for new content that was then included in the book.

We'd go through the whole book in detail, catching inconsistencies and miscalculations, and I'm proud to say that we dramatically reduced the need for clarifications or errata on those books.

I'm not saying anyone on the design or book team was careless - far from it, they're consummate professionals - I am just illustrating the role my team and I had in contributing to the content, quality & success of the physical books, let alone the digital versions.

We should have been in the credits section of the physical printed book. We were part of the creative process. That was something we were actively discussing when I was informed I was being laid off.

Adding the team to the credits pages just on D&D Beyond was, as I mentioned above, a compromise while we figured things out.

My team were fully credited on the Cortex: Prime and Tales of Xadia books when D&D Beyond was still part of Fandom, before the Wizards acquisition.

In fact for those books we made sure to credit the entire digital development team, including developers, community managers and so forth - everyone who helped make the book successful.

I know that Wizards has hundreds of people involved and previously hit issues with the number of people in credits for D&D books, so pulled back from crediting some roles.

Would it be so bad to have to dedicate extra space in a book to the people whose contributions made the book successful?

I really don't think it would.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not to mention that these threads always focus on the negative and omit the positive things the company has done and continues to do.

It's a news thread.

You don't have an article titled 'Man bites dog (but man was nice to cat that one unrelated time)'.

 

[jerryrice4949]

This is why I went to project black flag… I want companies to, quiet bluntly, steal wotc’s talent, eat their profit margin, and hopefully make an example to stop other companies, such as the management morons at unity, from copying this kind of… I don't know what to call it anymore. Comic book villainy isn't right, because the comic villains GAIN something with their actions.

I grew up with the concept of enlightened self-interest. Take care of the unit, and the unit protects you. I also grew up with MAD. Mutually assured destruction. That also kinda works. I don't like it, but it has a cruel logic to it. Now… its just “will the cost to me for screwing over the other guy be low enough I can still enjoy the pyhric victory?”

I don't want to see the baseline creatives out of jobs. I want the megalomaniac who are kicking them in the heads gone.

Wow. Pretty big leap for this thread.

 

[Clint_L]

The OGL is already stricken from your memory? And Pinkertons?

WotC very generously sponsors our school D&D Club, and a lot of other ones, too. Where does that weigh in? Is this like utilitarianism, where to see if it is ethical to purchase from a company we have to add up the overall good and bad they do in the world? Who is doing the adding? Is there a neutral referee?

 

[TiQuinn]

Things are complicated and rarely black/white or all good or bad.

Also oftentimes, things are just done stupidly, not maliciously. This smacks of a bureaucratic move rather than someone out to get the digital content team in particular. Not saying it’s impossible someone is being a complete wanker but it’s a corporation, and people sometimes make unthinking decisions in corporations.

 

[Reynard]

Also oftentimes, things are just done stupidly, not maliciously. This smacks of a bureaucratic move rather than someone out to get the digital content team in particular. Not saying it’s impossible someone is being a complete wanker but it’s a corporation, and people sometimes make unthinking decisions in corporations.

I keep going back to the fact that they specifically went through the effort to erase 2 lines of text along with the contributions of the people involved. The more I think about it, the less likely it feels that it was unintentional.

 

[Clint_L]

Also oftentimes, things are just done stupidly, not maliciously. This smacks of a bureaucratic move rather than someone out to get the digital content team in particular. Not saying it’s impossible someone is being a complete wanker but it’s a corporation, and people sometimes make unthinking decisions in corporations.

It also strikes me as more stupid than malicious. Mostly because it's kind of hard to see what the malicious motive would be - like, what's the upside? Either way, though, it seems like a move that WotC should correct.

 

[TiQuinn]

I keep going back to the fact that they specifically went through the effort to erase 2 lines of text along with the contributions of the people involved. The more I think about it, the less likely it feels that it was unintentional.

I’m not saying it’s unintentional. But even intended changes can be made without thinking of the ramifications rather than someone evilly rubbing their hands together and cackling — and believe me, I think there are certain people out there doing the latter at times. I’m not certain this is one of those times.

 

[TiQuinn]

It also strikes me as more stupid than malicious. Mostly because it's kind of hard to see what the malicious motive would be - like, what's the upside? Either way, though, it seems like a move that WotC should correct.

Yeah, I can’t think of someone specifically being out to get the digital content team. I can think of someone reading a policy and parsing it in a way that excludes the digital content team without thinking of the work they do, calling it a day and heading home for a beer.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, I can’t think of someone specifically being out to get the digital content team. I can think of someone reading a policy and parsing it in a way that excludes the digital content team without thinking of the work they do, calling it a day and heading home for a beer.

On the other hand, office politics can get weird.

 

[Staffan]

The AL/OP team didn’t cause this to happen and deserve their credit as well.

Sure, I didn't mean that they should be removed. I just thought it was odd that they kept one group of people which, to an outside observer, don't appear to have any direct input into a book but removed another one (which actually did have input).