The focus seems to be on toy sales in the articles I've read, which WotC doesn't fall under. But until we know exactly which positions they're eliminating, difficult to say more.
EDIT: Per social media, a number of WotC people were indeed affected.
Another article pointed out that Hasbro's WotC and digital gaming division showed immense revenue growth even as Hasbro struggled overall. It would make sense if they're downsizing to preserve what's been working for them if they want to get back to overall growth. But like Psyren said, we just don't know yet.
Welp, starting to see confirmations on social media of WotC team members losing their jobs. Very silly move, IMO. Guess Hasbro's solution to not meeting whatever their expectations were is to cut everything.
I feel for the employees. To make such a monstrously valuable product only to be dumped right before the holidays... Maybe Hasbro will sell WotC. Blessing in disguise?
Welp, starting to see confirmations on social media of WotC team members losing their jobs. Very silly move, IMO. Guess Hasbro's solution to not meeting whatever their expectations were is to cut everything.
It necessarily a silly move from a business stance. Hasbro has spent the last couple of years trying to really expand Wizards. They rebranded it from Wizards of the Coast to Wizards and the Digital Gaming Division, which led to the extremely successful Magic Arena and acquisition of D&D Beyond (good business moves)… but also some more questionable decisions like “what if we hired a bunch of former Mass Effect developers and tried to turn WotC into a AAA game studio? (which sounds rad… but they closed that department last year because making AAA games is expensive and Hasbro is bleeding cash).
With rapid, somewhat overly optimistic, and perhaps, at time, directionless expansion of Wizards, there very likely is some corporate bloat at Wizards which could be cut back without much effect on the actual products.
Could they be making a dumb choice with Wizards staffing? Sure—but they could also be course correcting and trimming elements which probably are not exactly necessary. Without knowing more about the corporate structure within Wizards and who is staying and who is being laid off, it is too soon to determine whether a “silly move” was made.
Welp, starting to see confirmations on social media of WotC team members losing their jobs. Very silly move, IMO. Guess Hasbro's solution to not meeting whatever their expectations were is to cut everything.
It necessarily a silly move from a business stance. Hasbro has spent the last couple of years trying to really expand Wizards. They rebranded it from Wizards of the Coast to Wizards and the Digital Gaming Division, which led to the extremely successful Magic Arena and acquisition of D&D Beyond (good business moves)… but also some more questionable decisions like “what if we hired a bunch of former Mass Effect developers and tried to turn WotC into a AAA game studio? (which sounds rad… but they closed that department last year because making AAA games is expensive and Hasbro is bleeding cash).
With rapid, somewhat overly optimistic, and perhaps, at time, directionless and expansion of Wizards, there very likely is some corporate bloat at Wizards which could be cut back without much effect on the actual products.
Could they be making a dumb choice with Wizards staffing? Sure—but they could also be course correcting and trimming elements which probably are not exactly necessary. Without knowing more about the corporate structure within Wizards and who is staying and who is being laid off, it is too soon to determine whether a “silly move” was made.
Giving a bunch of people jobs in an expanding division of their business, that division doing extremely well despite a downturn everywhere else in the business, and then going "oh whoopsie didn't need you bye enjoy your Christmas" is, I think, rather bad.
Welp, starting to see confirmations on social media of WotC team members losing their jobs. Very silly move, IMO. Guess Hasbro's solution to not meeting whatever their expectations were is to cut everything.
It necessarily a silly move from a business stance. Hasbro has spent the last couple of years trying to really expand Wizards. They rebranded it from Wizards of the Coast to Wizards and the Digital Gaming Division, which led to the extremely successful Magic Arena and acquisition of D&D Beyond (good business moves)… but also some more questionable decisions like “what if we hired a bunch of former Mass Effect developers and tried to turn WotC into a AAA game studio? (which sounds rad… but they closed that department last year because making AAA games is expensive and Hasbro is bleeding cash).
With rapid, somewhat overly optimistic, and perhaps, at time, directionless and expansion of Wizards, there very likely is some corporate bloat at Wizards which could be cut back without much effect on the actual products.
Could they be making a dumb choice with Wizards staffing? Sure—but they could also be course correcting and trimming elements which probably are not exactly necessary. Without knowing more about the corporate structure within Wizards and who is staying and who is being laid off, it is too soon to determine whether a “silly move” was made.
Giving a bunch of people jobs in an expanding division of their business, that division doing extremely well despite a downturn everywhere else in the business, and then going "oh whoopsie didn't need you bye enjoy your Christmas" is, I think, rather bad.
Just because the division as a whole is doing well doesn't mean every segment within that division is, particularly given the degree of diversification they've been attempting. Some segments will inevitably fail, or even just constitute a marginal loss.
Welp, starting to see confirmations on social media of WotC team members losing their jobs. Very silly move, IMO. Guess Hasbro's solution to not meeting whatever their expectations were is to cut everything.
It necessarily a silly move from a business stance. Hasbro has spent the last couple of years trying to really expand Wizards. They rebranded it from Wizards of the Coast to Wizards and the Digital Gaming Division, which led to the extremely successful Magic Arena and acquisition of D&D Beyond (good business moves)… but also some more questionable decisions like “what if we hired a bunch of former Mass Effect developers and tried to turn WotC into a AAA game studio? (which sounds rad… but they closed that department last year because making AAA games is expensive and Hasbro is bleeding cash).
With rapid, somewhat overly optimistic, and perhaps, at time, directionless and expansion of Wizards, there very likely is some corporate bloat at Wizards which could be cut back without much effect on the actual products.
Could they be making a dumb choice with Wizards staffing? Sure—but they could also be course correcting and trimming elements which probably are not exactly necessary. Without knowing more about the corporate structure within Wizards and who is staying and who is being laid off, it is too soon to determine whether a “silly move” was made.
Giving a bunch of people jobs in an expanding division of their business, that division doing extremely well despite a downturn everywhere else in the business, and then going "oh whoopsie didn't need you bye enjoy your Christmas" is, I think, rather bad.
Just because the division as a whole is doing well doesn't mean every segment within that division is, particularly given the degree of diversification they've been attempting. Some segments will inevitably fail, or even just constitute a marginal loss.
If one dives into the numbers, and it gets murky, wotc had a decent quarter. But it sure looks like all the growth was in the MTG side, NOT the D&D side. BG3 royalties have already peaked. None of the last wotc books have set the world on fire.
Fact Checking Time:
Even if you discount BG3 and Honor Among Thieves (which resulted in unsustainable revenues in Q2 and Q3), there is no denying that D&D is consistently growing. D&D posted a 13% growth rate in Q1--only just behind Magic's 14% growth rate in the same quarter. D&D consistently is harped as one of their strongest growth rates in terms of both current growth and long-term growth potential, and has been for years. Perhaps most tellingly in the Q3 results, when they reported their Games division showed a drop in share change, they specifically noted this drop did not include D&D or Magic, being sure to ensure both their cash cows were not lumped in with struggling items.
And, of course, saying the new books are not setting the world on fire is an incredibly silly thing to say. Anyone who has played D&D knows that supplemental books very rarely set the world on fire--sometimes you get a Curse of Strahd, which becomes a juggernaut with staying power, but the real bread and butter of D&D has always been the core books. As long as they continue to add players--and they do continue to add players--they continue to sell core books and continue to add folks who will buy their supplemental books every now and then. That is also before we get to the fact that 2024 will see the release of new core books, which, in all likelihood, will sell extremely well and generate substantial revenue growth.
Now, is it driving growth as much as Magic? Of course not--growth in a brand which is doing over a billion in sales this year is obviously going to be larger than growth in a brand which is doing a fifth of that. But saying "all the growth was in the MTG side" is simply wrong.
Welp, starting to see confirmations on social media of WotC team members losing their jobs. Very silly move, IMO. Guess Hasbro's solution to not meeting whatever their expectations were is to cut everything.
It necessarily a silly move from a business stance. Hasbro has spent the last couple of years trying to really expand Wizards. They rebranded it from Wizards of the Coast to Wizards and the Digital Gaming Division, which led to the extremely successful Magic Arena and acquisition of D&D Beyond (good business moves)… but also some more questionable decisions like “what if we hired a bunch of former Mass Effect developers and tried to turn WotC into a AAA game studio? (which sounds rad… but they closed that department last year because making AAA games is expensive and Hasbro is bleeding cash).
With rapid, somewhat overly optimistic, and perhaps, at time, directionless and expansion of Wizards, there very likely is some corporate bloat at Wizards which could be cut back without much effect on the actual products.
Could they be making a dumb choice with Wizards staffing? Sure—but they could also be course correcting and trimming elements which probably are not exactly necessary. Without knowing more about the corporate structure within Wizards and who is staying and who is being laid off, it is too soon to determine whether a “silly move” was made.
Giving a bunch of people jobs in an expanding division of their business, that division doing extremely well despite a downturn everywhere else in the business, and then going "oh whoopsie didn't need you bye enjoy your Christmas" is, I think, rather bad.
Just because the division as a whole is doing well doesn't mean every segment within that division is, particularly given the degree of diversification they've been attempting. Some segments will inevitably fail, or even just constitute a marginal loss.
If one dives into the numbers, and it gets murky, wotc had a decent quarter. But it sure looks like all the growth was in the MTG side, NOT the D&D side. BG3 royalties have already peaked. None of the last wotc books have set the world on fire.
Fact Checking Time:
Even if you discount BG3 and Honor Among Thieves (which resulted in unsustainable revenues in Q2 and Q3), there is no denying that D&D is consistently growing. D&D posted a 13% growth rate in Q1--only just behind Magic's 14% growth rate in the same quarter. D&D consistently is harped as one of their strongest growth rates in terms of both current growth and long-term growth potential, and has been for years. Perhaps most tellingly in the Q3 results, when they reported their Games division showed a drop in share change, they specifically noted this drop did not include D&D or Magic, being sure to ensure both their cash cows were not lumped in with struggling items.
And, of course, saying the new books are not setting the world on fire is an incredibly silly thing to say. Anyone who has played D&D knows that supplemental books very rarely set the world on fire--sometimes you get a Curse of Strahd, which becomes a juggernaut with staying power, but the real bread and butter of D&D has always been the core books. As long as they continue to add players--and they do continue to add players--they continue to sell core books and continue to add folks who will buy their supplemental books every now and then. That is also before we get to the fact that 2024 will see the release of new core books, which, in all likelihood, will sell extremely well and generate substantial revenue growth.
Now, is it driving growth as much as Magic? Of course not--growth in a brand which is doing over a billion in sales this year is obviously going to be larger than growth in a brand which is doing a fifth of that. But saying "all the growth was in the MTG side" is simply wrong.
Fact checking time:
From hasbro's web site:
Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming Segment
Revenue increase of 40% driven by >100% increase in Digital and Licensed Gaming revenue behind Baldur's Gate III from Larian Studios and to a lesser extent Monopoly Go! from Scopely.
Tabletop revenue increased 18% behind growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING including Wilds of Eldraine and Commander Masters releases and continued strong sales of Universes Beyond including The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth sets.
Operating profit grew 99% and operating profit margin of 48.0% was +14.3 margin points versus last year behind high-margin digital gaming revenue and growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING.
D&D is NOT mentioned by Hasbro as a growth driver.
You are cherrypicking bullet points from a highlight reel that is a single small text box, but ignoring the larger picture of a couple years worth of quarterly reports, including every other report this year.
You’re seeing a banner that says “look at our shiny new car” and pretending that says something about what is not mentioned. You are also ignoring the fact that the entire financial report is very clear to avoid any implication D&D’s core brand is struggling.
This is all stuff I already said, but, looks like you read my post about as well as you read the financial report—perhaps you looked at it, but the comprehension is clearly lacking.
Affecting you is completely up to you to a certain point. While I enjoy collecting and purchasing the Adventure books, they are no way required, and nor incorporated in our sessions.
Amy Dallen's dismissal is particularly shocking. I don't really follow the inner working of WotC, but almost any time I watched a DnDBeyond video, she was the host. To me, she alsmost seemed like the "face" of DnDBeyond.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
Damn, Mike Mearls got laid off. He’s been there since 3e, was one of the leads on 4e and then he was one of the leads in developing 5e. Though he’d moved away from game design in recent years. He’d released his own system under the 3e ogl called Iron Heroes which was really fun. And Dan Dillon, another game designer whose name is in a lot of 5e books.
Some of the more notable D&D staff that have been laid off:
Dan Dillon, amazing game designer since 2019. Worked on rules heavy books like Theros, Eberron, Tasha’s, Fizban’s, Van Richten, Monsters of the Multiverse, and Bigby’s.
Bree Heiss, graphic designer since 2013 and art director since 2017.
Dixon Dubow, associate influencer manager since 2022. In his tweet it sounds like the layoffs in the D&D side is extensive.
Eytan Bernstein, senior development editor since 2022. Knows 4 others that were laid off including art, design, editorial, and product management departments.
Mike Mearls, director of game design, co-designer of 5e, and was with the company since 2005. Although he had nothing to do with D&D since at least 2019, working on MtG instead.
Amy Dallen, DDB host and content producer since 2022.
Others include; Trystan Falcone (Graphic designer), Larry Frum (Senior communications manager), David McDarby (MtG game designer), Chris Lindsay (creator of DMs Guild), Natalie Egan (community manager), Mike Vaillancourt (Art director), Liz Schuh, and Jesse Hill.
So, how do we think Hasbro's recent layoffs (read article here) is going to affect D&D?
(Ack... I did NOT spell "Hasbro" correct in the title.)
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
The focus seems to be on toy sales in the articles I've read, which WotC doesn't fall under. But until we know exactly which positions they're eliminating, difficult to say more.
EDIT: Per social media, a number of WotC people were indeed affected.
Another article pointed out that Hasbro's WotC and digital gaming division showed immense revenue growth even as Hasbro struggled overall. It would make sense if they're downsizing to preserve what's been working for them if they want to get back to overall growth. But like Psyren said, we just don't know yet.
As long as DDB stays up and running nothing will change for me. If DDB goes away it will be back to pencil and paper for me.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Focusing on the profitable parts will always be a good move. Keep in mind that D&D is not Hasbro (even if it is owned by Hasbro)
Welp, starting to see confirmations on social media of WotC team members losing their jobs. Very silly move, IMO. Guess Hasbro's solution to not meeting whatever their expectations were is to cut everything.
Capitalists doing capitalism. Looking through Twitter and LinkedIn, it seems some WotC employees have been a part of these layoff's.
Free Content: [Basic Rules],
[Phandelver],[Frozen Sick],[Acquisitions Inc.],[Vecna Dossier],[Radiant Citadel], [Spelljammer],[Dragonlance], [Prisoner 13],[Minecraft],[Star Forge], [Baldur’s Gate], [Lightning Keep], [Stormwreck Isle], [Pinebrook], [Caverns of Tsojcanth], [The Lost Horn], [Elemental Evil].Free Dice: [Frostmaiden],
[Flourishing], [Sanguine],[Themberchaud], [Baldur's Gate 3], [Lego].I feel for the employees. To make such a monstrously valuable product only to be dumped right before the holidays... Maybe Hasbro will sell WotC. Blessing in disguise?
It necessarily a silly move from a business stance. Hasbro has spent the last couple of years trying to really expand Wizards. They rebranded it from Wizards of the Coast to Wizards and the Digital Gaming Division, which led to the extremely successful Magic Arena and acquisition of D&D Beyond (good business moves)… but also some more questionable decisions like “what if we hired a bunch of former Mass Effect developers and tried to turn WotC into a AAA game studio? (which sounds rad… but they closed that department last year because making AAA games is expensive and Hasbro is bleeding cash).
With rapid, somewhat overly optimistic, and perhaps, at time, directionless expansion of Wizards, there very likely is some corporate bloat at Wizards which could be cut back without much effect on the actual products.
Could they be making a dumb choice with Wizards staffing? Sure—but they could also be course correcting and trimming elements which probably are not exactly necessary. Without knowing more about the corporate structure within Wizards and who is staying and who is being laid off, it is too soon to determine whether a “silly move” was made.
Giving a bunch of people jobs in an expanding division of their business, that division doing extremely well despite a downturn everywhere else in the business, and then going "oh whoopsie didn't need you bye enjoy your Christmas" is, I think, rather bad.
Just because the division as a whole is doing well doesn't mean every segment within that division is, particularly given the degree of diversification they've been attempting. Some segments will inevitably fail, or even just constitute a marginal loss.
Fact Checking Time:
Even if you discount BG3 and Honor Among Thieves (which resulted in unsustainable revenues in Q2 and Q3), there is no denying that D&D is consistently growing. D&D posted a 13% growth rate in Q1--only just behind Magic's 14% growth rate in the same quarter. D&D consistently is harped as one of their strongest growth rates in terms of both current growth and long-term growth potential, and has been for years. Perhaps most tellingly in the Q3 results, when they reported their Games division showed a drop in share change, they specifically noted this drop did not include D&D or Magic, being sure to ensure both their cash cows were not lumped in with struggling items.
And, of course, saying the new books are not setting the world on fire is an incredibly silly thing to say. Anyone who has played D&D knows that supplemental books very rarely set the world on fire--sometimes you get a Curse of Strahd, which becomes a juggernaut with staying power, but the real bread and butter of D&D has always been the core books. As long as they continue to add players--and they do continue to add players--they continue to sell core books and continue to add folks who will buy their supplemental books every now and then. That is also before we get to the fact that 2024 will see the release of new core books, which, in all likelihood, will sell extremely well and generate substantial revenue growth.
Now, is it driving growth as much as Magic? Of course not--growth in a brand which is doing over a billion in sales this year is obviously going to be larger than growth in a brand which is doing a fifth of that. But saying "all the growth was in the MTG side" is simply wrong.
Perhaps, this article may be useful for further discussion. Names and numbers are included.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-hasbro-laying-off-1-100-employees.701567/
You are cherrypicking bullet points from a highlight reel that is a single small text box, but ignoring the larger picture of a couple years worth of quarterly reports, including every other report this year.
You’re seeing a banner that says “look at our shiny new car” and pretending that says something about what is not mentioned. You are also ignoring the fact that the entire financial report is very clear to avoid any implication D&D’s core brand is struggling.
This is all stuff I already said, but, looks like you read my post about as well as you read the financial report—perhaps you looked at it, but the comprehension is clearly lacking.
Affecting you is completely up to you to a certain point.
While I enjoy collecting and purchasing the Adventure books, they are no way required, and nor incorporated in our sessions.
Amy Dallen's dismissal is particularly shocking. I don't really follow the inner working of WotC, but almost any time I watched a DnDBeyond video, she was the host. To me, she alsmost seemed like the "face" of DnDBeyond.
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
Damn, Mike Mearls got laid off. He’s been there since 3e, was one of the leads on 4e and then he was one of the leads in developing 5e. Though he’d moved away from game design in recent years.
He’d released his own system under the 3e ogl called Iron Heroes which was really fun.
And Dan Dillon, another game designer whose name is in a lot of 5e books.
Some of the more notable D&D staff that have been laid off:
Dan Dillon, amazing game designer since 2019. Worked on rules heavy books like Theros, Eberron, Tasha’s, Fizban’s, Van Richten, Monsters of the Multiverse, and Bigby’s.
Bree Heiss, graphic designer since 2013 and art director since 2017.
Dixon Dubow, associate influencer manager since 2022. In his tweet it sounds like the layoffs in the D&D side is extensive.
Eytan Bernstein, senior development editor since 2022. Knows 4 others that were laid off including art, design, editorial, and product management departments.
Mike Mearls, director of game design, co-designer of 5e, and was with the company since 2005. Although he had nothing to do with D&D since at least 2019, working on MtG instead.
Amy Dallen, DDB host and content producer since 2022.
Others include; Trystan Falcone (Graphic designer), Larry Frum (Senior communications manager), David McDarby (MtG game designer), Chris Lindsay (creator of DMs Guild), Natalie Egan (community manager), Mike Vaillancourt (Art director), Liz Schuh, and Jesse Hill.
Free Content: [Basic Rules],
[Phandelver],[Frozen Sick],[Acquisitions Inc.],[Vecna Dossier],[Radiant Citadel], [Spelljammer],[Dragonlance], [Prisoner 13],[Minecraft],[Star Forge], [Baldur’s Gate], [Lightning Keep], [Stormwreck Isle], [Pinebrook], [Caverns of Tsojcanth], [The Lost Horn], [Elemental Evil].Free Dice: [Frostmaiden],
[Flourishing], [Sanguine],[Themberchaud], [Baldur's Gate 3], [Lego].Wow, that's really cutting some muscle.