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Kai Tave posted:A return to the time-honored Hasbro/WotC tradition of layoffs in December. I 'like' that enough people have been laid off (or left on their own) that most staff didn't know about that tradition.
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Dec 12, 2023 22:48
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| # ? May 27, 2024 07:47 |
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There are currently four known people who lost their jobs on the D&D side of WotC. D&D designer Dan Dillon, Dixon Dubow, creator relations, Art director Bree Heiss, and Senior Development Editor Eytan Bernstein. The Magic side has also been hit, but I am currently only aware of Mike Mearls being one of the ones who got laid off. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Dec 13, 2023 |
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Dec 13, 2023 02:42
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I don't know if it's going to be considered tasteless to gravedance during a huge round of layoffs but apparently Mike Mearls was among them. https://twitter.com/MonkipiQuinn/status/1734730803303809529
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Dec 13, 2023 02:48
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MonsterEnvy posted:The Magic side has also been hit, but I am currently only aware of Mike Mearls being one of the ones who got laid off. Well now I’m conflicted.
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Dec 13, 2023 02:48
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RIP DJ Killzalot, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy
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Dec 13, 2023 02:55
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MonsterEnvy posted:There are currently five known people who lost their jobs on the D&D side of WotC. D&D designer Dan Dillon, Graphic designer Trystan Falcone, Dixon Dubow, creator relations, Art director Bree Heiss, and Senior Development Editor Eytan Bernstein. Trystan is still there, unless something has happened since they tweeted this: 
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Dec 13, 2023 03:02
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xK1 posted:Trystan is still there, unless something has happened since they tweeted this: Ahh my mistake. I just saw them being talked about and assumed it was because they were laid off.
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Dec 13, 2023 03:07
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Totally coincidentally, LinkedIn started pushing jobs at WotC at me today (I work in publishing, nothing game-related).
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Dec 13, 2023 06:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:There are currently four known people who lost their jobs on the D&D side of WotC. D&D designer Dan Dillon, Dixon Dubow, creator relations, Art director Bree Heiss, and Senior Development Editor Eytan Bernstein. Amy Dallen was a pretty public facing part of WotC, and apparently she got hit as well. I honestly didn't realize that many people worked there that they could cut 1100 jobs and still be around.
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Dec 13, 2023 06:03
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That's 1100 jobs cut at Hasbro in total, not all at WotC. A ton of the Hasbro jobs are gonna be in the underperforming divisions.
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Dec 13, 2023 06:14
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Yeah WotC is one of the most profitable parts of Hasbro so it’s a bit surprising they were hit at all. Lots of reports were stuff like “Hasbro struggling in many areas, WotC doing great.”
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Dec 13, 2023 07:19
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Kai Tave posted:I don't know if it's going to be considered tasteless to gravedance during a huge round of layoffs but apparently Mike Mearls was among them. “We can’t figure out what this guy does and when asked he just said ‘I’M A PEOPLE PERSON’.”
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Dec 13, 2023 07:55
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MonsterEnvy posted:Yeah WotC is one of the most profitable parts of Hasbro so it’s a bit surprising they were hit at all. Lots of reports were stuff like “Hasbro struggling in many areas, WotC doing great.” Minimize staff, maximize profit!
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Dec 13, 2023 12:52
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Yeah, WotC is probably like the easiest place to cut headcount without notably damaging profits(according to their spreadsheets). Like oh no, you no longer have a face for D&D beyond content and updates. Or oh no you fired a number of designers on the games that like p much sells itself at this point. The Remaining designers on Magic and D&D just have to work harder. Re: Mearls I'm shocked it took this long to fire him. He just kept get put in more and more ceremonial roles over the years, after his attempted reappearances would fail. Dexo fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Dec 13, 2023 |
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Dec 13, 2023 12:58
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Wasn't Mearls the brand liason for BG3? Would probably be awkward to get rid of him before release, but afterwards there's nothing left to do.
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Dec 13, 2023 14:04
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Hel posted:Wasn't Mearls the brand liason for BG3? Would probably be awkward to get rid of him before release, but afterwards there's nothing left to do. He got moved off of that even years ago IIRC I think they made him something on Magic
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Dec 13, 2023 14:28
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I can only assume that there's some brilliant saga of internal politics that will hopefully, in 20 years or so, explain why Mearls ever worked on D&D. I'm not sure what he contributed to the brand besides courting people on forums.
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Dec 13, 2023 15:05
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Dexo posted:Yeah, WotC is probably like the easiest place to cut headcount without notably damaging profits(according to their spreadsheets). Halloween Jack posted:I can only assume that there's some brilliant saga of internal politics that will hopefully, in 20 years or so, explain why Mearls ever worked on D&D. I'm not sure what he contributed to the brand besides courting people on forums. The guy who's too embarrassing to fire because you'd have to explain what he was doing for the last five years before you fired him.
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Dec 13, 2023 15:21
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I read that Mike Mearls lost his job and shouted "WOOOOOOO" at my laptop
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Dec 13, 2023 16:01
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Halloween Jack posted:I can only assume that there's some brilliant saga of internal politics that will hopefully, in 20 years or so, explain why Mearls ever worked on D&D. I'm not sure what he contributed to the brand besides courting people on forums. He was a bit of a D20 darling before he joined WotC officially. It had lots of design and balance issues, but he made Iron Heroes, which was an alt 3.X game that was explicitly about having lots of different martial classes all getting their own power resources and doing cool stuff. Which made his grog affinity during 4e-5e stuff that much more baffling.
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Dec 13, 2023 16:08
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Iron Heroes absolutely sucks rear end, by the way. Like it's exactly what you'd expect from "3.5E except only Fighter variants," complete with a Defender-analogue that has literally no way to compel or even devil's choice enemies into attacking them.
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Dec 13, 2023 16:11
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whydirt posted:He was a bit of a D20 darling before he joined WotC officially. It had lots of design and balance issues, but he made Iron Heroes, which was an alt 3.X game that was explicitly about having lots of different martial classes all getting their own power resources and doing cool stuff. Which made his grog affinity during 4e-5e stuff that much more baffling.
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Dec 13, 2023 16:53
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Dexo posted:Re: Mearls I'm shocked it took this long to fire him. I'm gonna assume that Mearls hung on for the same reason any guy like him hangs on through layoffs and controversies, which is that he was buddies with the right people. Even him being bounced from position to position seemed less like they were embarrassed by what had happened and more like they were finding ways to keep him employed away from the spotlight.
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Dec 13, 2023 17:01
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It's been so long that I forgot all about Iron Heroes, again. I remember it being very well-regarded in its own time, but I also remember a lot of games being feted simply because oh thank God, a game that isn't D20. The main points I remember about Iron Heroes are that it solves the problem of spellcaster balance by just not having spellcasters, and that while all the classes get unique abilities, they're mostly just passive +1s to do stuff, or abilities that earn you Fighty Tokens that you can spend for +1s to do stuff. There are some neat abilities like "Pincushion a giant with arrows so you can climb them" but they're few and far between.
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Dec 13, 2023 17:04
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Mearls was incredibly good at communicating the party line to the public in a way that was palatable and entertaining. All of those fluff books that came out early in 4e's development that described the design ethos and class balance were written by him. It just turns out that when he's the one giving the orders rather than carrying them out he's the groggiest of grogs.
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Dec 13, 2023 17:27
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Halloween Jack posted:I can only assume that there's some brilliant saga of internal politics that will hopefully, in 20 years or so, explain why Mearls ever worked on D&D. I'm not sure what he contributed to the brand besides courting people on forums. i assume its going to be like that matthew macfarland post olivia made here a month or two ago where it turns out he just turned his work in on time and that is apparently a superpower in corporate traditional games-making.
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Dec 13, 2023 17:43
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dwarf74 posted:Yeah - he was Monte Cook's right hand dude during the early Malhavoc days.
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Dec 13, 2023 17:54
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LOL that hasbro/wotc can't stop shooting themselves in the dick. Worked out okay for me, it turns out I like pathfinder better and I never would have tried it if it weren't for wotc being so dumb.
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Dec 13, 2023 18:14
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Moon channel did a video about gaming industry layoffs recently that went into detail about how the point is to maximize market capitalization from investors and has little to do with resources needed to create a good product, as the value from investor perception is higher than any product they could make. Investors love layoffs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-653Z1val8s
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Dec 13, 2023 18:38
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Also we have been in a situation where Labor was "too powerful", and getting "too expensive". Layoffs are used to reduce labor's power and a reset on salaries.
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Dec 13, 2023 18:42
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Hasbro has made the calculation that RPG players have no discernable taste, there is not a single star creator amoung the people they have released, the brand is the draw and new products can be produced by freelancers working for 9 cents a word/150 dollars an art piece. They might be right, might not be. Not a nice time for gaming creatives. I could say something a little biting about the market advising you to retrain as a content creator, but gah, just a cruel business decision you hope they get punished for.
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Dec 13, 2023 19:56
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HidaO-Win posted:
One of the big problems in late-stage-capitalism is how insulated the people making these awful decisions are from consequences; even if they tank the company, as long as they don't outright steal investors' money they'll leave with a golden parachute. Executives have no incentive to build anything that lasts longer than the next quarter and even if the company completely collapses, the people who caused it will be first in line to loot its corpse and will always have other opportunities. It's a great system that is very efficient, we swear!
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Dec 13, 2023 20:24
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Tbh I just don't buy gaming stuff from publicly traded companies anymore. Just buy from indies or make proxies the amount of momentum to swing a friend group off d&d or mtg or 40k is lower than people think since games managed by publically traded companies have all sorts of dumb or hostile decisions that even the most oblivious fans can see
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Dec 13, 2023 20:43
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HidaO-Win posted:Hasbro has made the calculation that RPG players have no discernable taste, there is not a single star creator amoung the people they have released, the brand is the draw and new products can be produced by freelancers working for 9 cents a word/150 dollars an art piece. I mean, yeah, they're completely right. Look at the people who are getting fawned over by D&D twitter right now. "No one, and I mean no one, designs, narrates, and creates the way Dan Dillon does. An absolute legend in the industry and beyond" - Trys, I love you, but really? Dan Dillon is an an incomparable industry legend? gently caress. Actual Industry Legend and almost impossibly good person Meguey Baker could drop dead of her breast cancer in the next 18 months, and maybe a thousand people would know, and few hundred would feel anything other than "huh. rip." Greg Stafford's passing went unremarked outside of incredibly niche circles despite designing what may be the greatest RPG ever written. Jenna Moran lives a life that can only be described as cursed by the gods, and was robbed, abandoned, and stranded in China, and nobody outside of a small discord cares the slightest bit. And jesus, the list just goes on! Hasbro can fire the entire staff of WotC and replace them with anyone they want from the frothing, desperate fanbase who would do anything to work at The D&D Place. None of them matter. None of them are significant to the art form. And that's an incredible loving shame, because D&D deserves to have actual legendary designers.
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Dec 13, 2023 21:04
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I mean people care about people they know. Number of those people have probably worked with or had positive interactions with someone who got fired. So yeah they end up going to superlatives when talking about them. Outside of Mearls it does suck that so many lost their jobs, regardless of if you like the elfgame they worked on or not.
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Dec 13, 2023 21:20
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You can generally expect people in a creative industry to hyberbolically boost people they like and remain silent about people they don't like.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:01
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Kestral posted:Jenna Moran lives a life that can only be described as cursed by the gods, and was robbed, abandoned, and stranded in China, and nobody outside of a small discord cares the slightest bit. And jesus, the list just goes on! I have not heard of this, drat. Got a link handy to the story?
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Dec 13, 2023 22:30
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Facebook Aunt posted:LOL that hasbro/wotc can't stop shooting themselves in the dick. Worked out okay for me, it turns out I like pathfinder better and I never would have tried it if it weren't for wotc being so dumb. Yeah, same. Obviously.
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Dec 13, 2023 23:00
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Lemniscate Blue posted:I have not heard of this, drat. Got a link handy to the story? The super short version is that she had a publishing deal with Eos Press based in China including stuff like Nobilis 3e and Chuubo's. There were plans for Nobilis TTRPG maid cafes! Nobilis 3e got released (but had to massively re-do the art since one highly-used artist plagiarised and traced a lot), but Eos just plain took most of the money and ran with regards to the Chuubo's kickstarter and went dark as a company.
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Dec 13, 2023 23:25
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Jenna wasn't exactly stranded in China because she hung on to enough money to buy herself a plane ticket back to the USA if there was no other option, and I and several other people were on the line to buy her one if necessary, but it is definitely correct to say that Eos took her to China and made themselves responsible for whether she had enough to eat on any given week, and then... didn't see to it that she had enough to eat every week. It is also correct to say that they took all the money from the Chuubo Kickstarter and ran. It is also essentially correct to say that she appears to be cursed by the gods. Have you consider subscribing to her Patreon? Also, she'll be Kickstarting a new game soon about climbing up on the roof and following talking rats into magical adventure!
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Dec 14, 2023 01:16
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