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.

 

[LordEntrails]

So, to answer you question, I'd say at the very least, they needed to have contributed to the written books.

Do you see how this is not a functional answer? How much does one have to "contribute" to a product to be due credit? Or, can not one see that there are contributions that are not worthy of a credit?

I'm not arguing that Faith and her team don't deserve credit. What I would love for one of our industry experts to answer is simple; how much contribution to a RPG product for someone to receive attributed credit?

 

[FoolishFrost]

Okay. I can answer this. I do have enough of a background to have insight, and have a distinct statement on how I deal with such things.

If they worked on it, they get credit. If I buy stock art, they get credit. If a guy reads and offers feedback. they GET CREDIT.

See? It's not hard. The fact that some publishers limit credits is not the issue. It speaks more of them than what should be done, and quite bluntly is dependant on how willing those doing the work are to work for those who will NOT offer proper credit.

As far as Wizards? This behavior is systemic in their culture. If someone's name is a deal-breaker in the book, then i have to ask if it's the cost, or the wish to find a way to control creatives and developers.

That said... Wow. That is some serious fire I'm reading behind such a cut and dried change. This feels like a culture war that's left the subject matter behind. As such, I'm stepping off from this.

Later!

 

[marshray]

As we all know that for many readers/gamers, any names in the Credits or next to the Byline is invisible and the only people who usually care about these things are industry professionals or super fans - who usually become the next generation of creatives. (And I'll raise my hand as being guilty of this myself.)

So for someone to quietly remove them from a digital product seems almost petty or at least weaselly. In an unlikely example: If someone thought keeping all the credits across all the books would eat up too much server bandwidth but they didn't want to face the music of making an announcement.

It's hard to visualize a more mundane cause, but we should also remember qatar visa, that old saying of not attributing to malice what could be negligence.

OTOH: It seems there's a trend these days of suits doing a passive aggressive power move to remove credits or rename every creative as a "content creator."

Totally agree on that.

 

[LordEntrails]

Okay. I can answer this. I do have enough of a background to have insight, and have a distinct statement on how I deal with such things.

If they worked on it, they get credit. If I buy stock art, they get credit. If a guy reads and offers feedback. they GET CREDIT.

See? It's not hard. The fact that some publishers limit credits is not the issue. It speaks more of them than what should be done, and quite bluntly is dependant on how willing those doing the work are to work for those who will NOT offer proper credit.

As far as Wizards? This behavior is systemic in their culture. If someone's name is a deal-breaker in the book, then i have to ask if it's the cost, or the wish to find a way to control creatives and developers.

That said... Wow. That is some serious fire I'm reading behind such a cut and dried change. This feels like a culture war that's left the subject matter behind. As such, I'm stepping off from this.

Later!

Great to know. So you give credit to your friend who contributes an NPC's name. You give credit for someone who works for a sub-contractor and billed 15 minutes towards your 10k hour project.

Excellent to know. Now how in the credits do you distinguish between someone who contributed 15 minutes versus someone who spent 500 hours working on a product?

 

[jasper]

Great to know. So you give credit to your friend who contributes an NPC's name. You give credit for someone who works for a sub-contractor and billed 15 minutes towards your 10k hour project.

Excellent to know. Now how in the credits do you distinguish between someone who contributed 15 minutes versus someone who spent 500 hours working on a product?

try new wotc Monster Manual 2. 150 new monsters.
Buyer why is 300 pages?
each monster in on one page. But we have 150 credit pages.

 

[Hussar]

Great to know. So you give credit to your friend who contributes an NPC's name. You give credit for someone who works for a sub-contractor and billed 15 minutes towards your 10k hour project.

Excellent to know. Now how in the credits do you distinguish between someone who contributed 15 minutes versus someone who spent 500 hours working on a product?

Simple answer you don’t.

It’s not like there’s a law here. Why are you trying to pin down a number?

 

[FoolishFrost]

I organize by work type. Writers, editors, artists, thanks, and any special cases. I don’t mention hours. I’m putting their name in the book for credit, not to divvy up the check.

 

[Umbran]

Great to know. So you give credit to your friend who contributes an NPC's name. You give credit for someone who works for a sub-contractor and billed 15 minutes towards your 10k hour project.

You can always construct a hypothetical that makes a thing seem absurd. But it is still a hypothetical.

Excellent to know. Now how in the credits do you distinguish between someone who contributed 15 minutes versus someone who spent 500 hours working on a product?

This hypothetical has the issue that it seems very far from the case at hand, making it a poor rationalization of what was done in this case.

Remember - the case at hand is not one person who contributed 15 minutes to one project. It is an entire Digital Design team, with credits removed from multiple products. If they had an entire team that wasn't doing work... why was that team still there?

 

[LordEntrails]

Simple answer you don’t.

It’s not like there’s a law here. Why are you trying to pin down a number?

I'm not looking for a number. But a General idea of what is a contribution worthy of being credited and what isn't. My examples are somewhat absurd, but they point out that their is a line, a fuzzy moving debatable line, but a line none the less.

Folks like I quote say things like "any" contribution, but I don't think they really mean that, hence the extremely minimal contribution examples I use. And to continue the line that everyone who contributes anything gets credited just isn't believable. At least not to me. Is it really an acceptable answer to those int he industry? Not to even have a clue as to Hey, this personvis credited, did they do more than create a name that was used?

 

[LordEntrails]

I organize by work type. Writers, editors, artists, thanks, and any special cases. I don’t mention hours. I’m putting their name in the book for credit, not to divvy up the check.

So your partner(s) friends and fellow gamers get credited in every product you release? Because surely they contribute something to your creativity that you use on a regular basis in your products. I don't believe it. Not because I think you are being deceitful, but because to you the line is clear as to who has "contributed" and who has not. But to those outside the industry, the line is not clear. Not at all.

This hypothetical has the issue that it seems very far from the case at hand, making it a poor rationalization of what was done in this case.

Remember - the case at hand is not one person who contributed 15 minutes to one project. It is an entire Digital Design team, with credits removed from multiple products. If they had an entire team that wasn't doing work... why was that team still there?

Why? Why do you ignore my repeated statements that I am not trying to figure out if Faith's team should be credited or not? I have repeatedly and clearly stated that I have no disagreement with her stance.

I am trying to educate myself with opinions from people who claim to have knowledge on a subject. My hypotheticals are purely examples to show that there is, somewhere, a line the industry uses to indicate who should be credited and who should not. I understand it is usually not a number. Not a number of hours, or words, etc. (Though a single piece of artwork I think is safely assumed to always need to be credited). IT's a fuzzy, wide and probably moving line. But there is a line or criteria used to put 'contributions' in or out. What is that line/criteria?