They own their actions, and this is hardly the first goblin they have killed. I agree if you look at any of the fumbles of the last 18 months individually an argument could be made that it isn't anything huge, but taken together it points to poor management.
I don't think you'll find many people here disagreeing with the idea that WotC and especially Hasbro have poor management (and/or PR.) But extrapolating from those missteps to prognosticating about things like the inevitability of a deluge of AI art and cramming lootboxes into their VTT reality be damned is where you lose people.
They own their actions, and this is hardly the first goblin they have killed. I agree if you look at any of the fumbles of the last 18 months individually an argument could be made that it isn't anything huge, but taken together it points to poor management.
Poor management has been a hallmark of D&D since 1974. This is quite literally the whole existence of the game, lol. It fits the requirement for "goes without saying".
I can look back on the fumbles over the last 40 years -- the last year and a half is nothing...
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Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Sure, but in the long run we're all dead, yeah? The current iteration of Chat-GPT cost over $100 million to train and has a trillion parameters floating around, and it isn't even close to viable as a DM. The cost to train something that could be viable as a DM in terms of cash and computational power would be potentially orders of magnitude more.
Yeah, why should we bother planting trees or doing reseach? It's not like we'll live to see the results. And it's not like a hobby can last for decades or anything, let's all only care about the short term!
Are you arguing with me or a straw man? My point is that GPT-4 is monstrously expensive in monetary terms and in computational terms, and that in the near future we're not likely to see the kind of advances that make it less computationally intensive, or more feasible to use for, frankly, as petty a purpose as AI DMing. I'm in no way arguing for short-termism.
P.S. I've noticed that you seem to be a bit belligerent and employ a lot of sarcasm in your responses. Would you kindly tone it down?
Are you arguing with me or a straw man? My point is that GPT-4 is monstrously expensive in monetary terms and in computational terms, and that in the near future we're not likely to see the kind of advances that make it less computationally intensive, or more feasible to use for, frankly, as petty a purpose as AI DMing. I'm in no way arguing for short-termism.
"In the long run we're all dead" reads like a short-termism stance to me, and a dismissive one to boot. Like attracts like.
Are you arguing with me or a straw man? My point is that GPT-4 is monstrously expensive in monetary terms and in computational terms, and that in the near future we're not likely to see the kind of advances that make it less computationally intensive, or more feasible to use for, frankly, as petty a purpose as AI DMing. I'm in no way arguing for short-termism.
"In the long run we're all dead" reads like a short-termism stance to me, and a dismissive one to boot. Like attracts like.
It's a well-known quote by a famous economist. In no way is it dismissive or sarcastic.
Since WotC has used "AI" in products, it is an easy argument that it could have played a role in the layoffs, but a new thread may be a good idea.
As I recall it, WotC was duped by an artist who used AI in their work. Not that WotC used it directly. Which is a huge distinction. Unless you’re talking about something other that that art in Bigby’s
I understand many will not feel the way I do, but they published it so they own it. Even if you do give them a pass, how is reducing staff going to help with preventing this in new books? Did WotC only fire the people that allowed that to happen?
As far as preventing it. It’s important to remember that art is a revenue maker for them. They sell prints of the art pieces in their books, or at least license them and allow the artist to sell them. People won’t buy AI art, they can just “make” that themselves, and as aedorsay says, they can’t copyright it. At which point, they can’t really sell it. So WotC has a very clear motive to not have AI art in their books. Even people who might not trust WotC must surely trust the company wants to make money. But even still it’s all but impossible for staff to prevent it, or at least it will be. As it becomes higher and higher quality, it will be harder and harder to stop. At some point, they just need to trust the people they work with not to misrepresent themselves.
As a note, it is a bad faith argument to imply or assert, without tangible evidence, that WotC may have incorporated AI art intentionally when they have explicitly stated that they did not.
A good faith argumentaccepts the premise that they did it by without knowing, were shocked, and apologized for it, and then publicly reaffirmed their commitment to not using AI art.
This is important to note because a bad faith argument is neither reasoned nor logical. It also means that a conversation has "jumped the rails", so to speak, because people arer esorting to something they have made up.
There is another reason this matters: hasbro is a big company with much money (however great their debt is). Things like this have an impact on the amount of money they make. Things that are unprovable or untrue in a court of law means that those making such assertions or implying such things are gonna lose. Stating those things in a location that is the property of WotC is basically giving them evidence should they opt to (for whatever reason) take a dump on some nobody.
This is, as I noted earlier, part of the reason that the recent youtubers who started to say that recent art was AI made explicit apologies. They may not be a typical player in a forum, but the law doesn't make a distinction there.
Even if you hate the guts of everyone at WotC, saying things that you cannot prove to be true on the property of WotC (essentially akin to standing in their door and saying it, metaphorically) about WotC that are potentially detrimental to the well being of the company is an unwise action.
Getting back to the topic of Layoffs, it is fairly apparent that the layoffs were done because as a corporation, Hasbro -- and WotC in particular -- were "top heavy" in terms of middle managers and supervisory roles; there were people whose sole job was to supervise themselves. Along with such actions there is a consideration of salary costs and the benefits involved.
laying people off just before Christmas is a Dick Move no matter who does it; personally, I am of the general opinion that layoffs shouldn't be a thing, fckin deal, but that's an emotional reactive thought, not one balanced in reason and practical reality.
However, it happened. piss poor management of the D&D portfolio has been a thing forever -- no one has ever successfully run the company without either screwing up the thing internally or pissing off the fans and players of the game. It started long before Arneson. This is why when I first popped in I talked about them firing the folks who bought the company from the folks who fired the folks who created the game.
That folks would expect different is a shock. Did anyone recall why it was Hasbro bought Wizards? Does anyone recall the stuff said about how terrible it was that a bunch of folks who created a card game from their D&D game and palled around with the folks at that weird ass White Wolf company were the ones that bought the beloved game -- and then released a version called 3.0? 3.5 is looked back on with fondness today, but people did not like 3.5 at first.
Hell, people didn't like 2e at first -- and 2e saved the freaking company until the folks that took over the same year drove it back into the ground before selling it to Wizards.
monte Cook was supposed to be lead designer of 5e, but left over differences of opinion with the company (WotC or Hasbro). The list of stuff that pisses off fans is long, ugly, and this isn't even the first time that D&D has had folks laid off.
Not even the first time during the holiday season.
Pardon me if I take more than a few large grains of salt with the panic over AI art being used, distrust of the people who own the rights and make the game (when those same people are the ones beign laid off, wtf people?), some ludicrous idea of turning it into a video game (newsflash: most of the videogames are inspired by D&D's systems), or whatever the lastest "but you can't do that' is.
They can, they will, they do not have the same priorities as you think they do or should.
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As a note, it is a bad faith argument to imply or assert, without tangible evidence, that WotC may have incorporated AI art intentionally when they have explicitly stated that they did not.
A good faith argumentaccepts the premise that they did it by without knowing, were shocked, and apologized for it, and then publicly reaffirmed their commitment to not using AI art.
But was Wizards shocked by it? I think they were surprised, but I highly doubt it was shocking to see a company that hires countless artists have one that utilized AI?
Also. I don't recall them apologizing.. Merely explaining they didn't know of this and that generative AI in their books was disallowed in future.
And I think it's baseless and dumb to assume Wizards knew about this and is lying and was testing the waters and blah blah blah blah. But your version of events is false and people can make arguments in good faith that are baseless or without tangible evidence.
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I think the layoffs - especially during Hanukkah and right before Christmas - is a pretty heartless move.
Maybe Wizards was dealing with corporate bloat.. That seems like something you can reasonably speculate, though it is speculation as there is no "firm evidence" for it. SO it's speculation, just like me speculating that this will be a change that harms the quality of Wotzy's books, Youtube vids, and general products and that it'll likely be a negative change over all.
I dunno why Cocks, Williams, and others make millions yet they're firing these people. Seems cruel.
It might turn out to be a good change.
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Maybe Wizards was dealing with corporate bloat.. That seems like something you can reasonably speculate, though it is speculation as there is no "firm evidence" for it. SO it's speculation, just like me speculating that this will be a change that harms the quality of Wotzy's books, Youtube vids, and general products and that it'll likely be a negative change over all.
Glassdoor reviews are full of complaints about how overly-top-heavy Wizards is, and how those in supervisory positions are mired in their ways. Jeremy Crawford has said in interviews that some of their mistakes in D&D design stemmed from having too many entrenched individuals like him, and not enough fresh blood and perspectives.
I think there is plenty of tangible evidence from plenty of different sources to conclude Wizards had a middle and upper management problem. Might that conclusion be wrong? Perhaps—but what sets a conclusion apart from speculation is not whether something is correct or not; it is about whether something is based on tangible evidence which supports the position, without requiring hypothetical leaps or assumptions.
Maybe Wizards was dealing with corporate bloat.. That seems like something you can reasonably speculate, though it is speculation as there is no "firm evidence" for it. SO it's speculation, just like me speculating that this will be a change that harms the quality of Wotzy's books, Youtube vids, and general products and that it'll likely be a negative change over all.
Glassdoor reviews are full of complaints about how overly-top-heavy Wizards is, and how those in supervisory positions are mired in their ways. Jeremy Crawford has said in interviews that some of their mistakes in D&D design stemmed from having too many entrenched individuals like him, and not enough fresh blood and perspectives.
I think there is plenty of tangible evidence from plenty of different sources to conclude Wizards had a middle and upper management problem. Might that conclusion be wrong? Perhaps—but what sets a conclusion apart from speculation is not whether something is correct or not; it is about whether something is based on tangible evidence which supports the position, without requiring hypothetical leaps or assumptions.
And I think there's tangible evidence that it'll be a negative change. Yet tangible and firm evidence are different in my eyes.
Are these Glassdoor reviews from verified employees and how trustworthy is the site's system for that? Random untrustworthy reviewers aren't really solid evidence in my eyes, though I don't really understand how the site works. Additionally, this was a massive move by Hasbro and Wizards seemed to just be one division that was potentially required to cut people. I dunno if Wizards having a corporate bloat problem would cause them to partake in this company wide movement, which doesn't seem to be strictly tied to them having this issue.
Fundamentally though, the thing that isn't concrete for me is that while there's an argument to be made on Wotzy's "corporate bloat", I see zero evidence that it inspired this change - not something else - other than the fact that it's one of many potential issues Wizards (the important subdivision of Hasbro here lol) may have. So yeah, I don't think this is wild speculation, but I don't view firm evidence to support this other than the fact that it makes some sense as an explanation here but maybe I'm just a doofus lol.
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In WotC's view, I think it's pretty much a given that's what they're doing. They think they don't need them and they're not providing value for money (which is to say they're not providing enough profit to justify their wages versus other methods of investment, or payoffs). The question is whether they're clipping the cat's claws to a reasonable level...or cutting and damaging the claw itself. No one here knows which way it's going and it's all speculation. Even WotC isn't 100% sure and is gambling (albeit they're in a better position than us to judge...but it's still gambling to an extent).
We'll only know in a few years when there's a track record showing how those cuts have affected the products...and ironically, we'll almost certainly have forgotten about this episode and so will never connect the dots.
I dunno why Cocks, Williams, and others make millions yet they're firing these people. Seems cruel.
To be blunt, WotC exists to make money. Not just money in general, but money for a specific group of people. People who are a lot closer to CEOs etc than the people actually creating the product. Contrary to the reactionary claims of some, that doesn't make them evil, it's just how things are and it informs their motivations and goals.
People generally don't fire themselves or their near peers to save money...they look further down the line to trim the fat. Usually, it's from the bottom up - if they don't get enough fat to trim from the bottom, they move up, until they find it.
They could look at the massive salaries at the top. Generally though, for multiple reasons (good and bad), they'll look lower down first.
It might turn out to be a good change.
Indeed it could.
I've seen enough decision making to realise that many decisions aren't made from a logical, rational and thought out place. They're driven by motives and agendas (no, I'm not implying nefarious intents there - it's a fact that we all have these agendas and motives that drive our decisions, often more than we realise), and so often the wrong decisions are made and to the detriment of others - and in cases of large companies, a lot of others.
In the other hand, we don't see even a fraction of the information necessary to see why these cuts were made (there's been a ton of speculation on this thread, but speculation is cheap). I could easily see this being a positive step forward that could even be moving to fix some of the problems that have made some of the people on these boards so cynical towards WotC.
We'll see. I'm hoping for the best, that this turns a corner and the company improves. The cynic in me says that's not certain and that this could easily head south. The realist in me says that no one knows and we'll find out over the next few years.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
As a note, it is a bad faith argument to imply or assert, without tangible evidence, that WotC may have incorporated AI art intentionally when they have explicitly stated that they did not.
A good faith argumentaccepts the premise that they did it by without knowing, were shocked, and apologized for it, and then publicly reaffirmed their commitment to not using AI art.
But was Wizards shocked by it? I think they were surprised, but I highly doubt it was shocking to see a company that hires countless artists have one that utilized AI?
Also. I don't recall them apologizing.. Merely explaining they didn't know of this and that generative AI in their books was disallowed in future.
And I think it's baseless and dumb to assume Wizards knew about this and is lying and was testing the waters and blah blah blah blah. But your version of events is false and people can make arguments in good faith that are baseless or without tangible evidence.
They did indeed apologize. they even noted that they were unaware the artist in question had used AI as a basis and then came up with guidelines for it (ergo, shocked).
Nor did I say that people could not make arguments in good faith without evidence -- I was very specific in my explanation.
Thus, my version of events was not false, and I did not say what you accused me of saying.
But we do both agree that it is silly to think that wizards did this on purpose, lol.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I think the layoffs - especially during Hanukkah and right before Christmas - is a pretty heartless move.
If they are getting rid of big names, the timing is less important than the fact that they are getting rid of people who can signficantly impact business. These people can take care of themselves, and I highly doubt they do not have some kind of severance package that will keep them comfortable for a while.
For employees lower down the rung though, then yeah, it does suck.
I dunno why Cocks, Williams, and others make millions yet they're firing these people. Seems cruel.
Probably cheaper to pay executives more and lay more people off than to pay executives less and lay less people off.
If you lay off 3,000 workers who makes $50,000 per year each while still maintaining similar levels of revenue, that is saving $150,000,000 per year. Throwing five executives an extra $10,000,000 each in bonus will still save you $100,000,000 per year.
They are letting a lot of important people go though, so I really hope Hasbro knows what it is doing. I mean, Beyond is still doing fine right now under Wizards/Hasbro, so I am not worried about the Wizards failing or anything like that. However, there is a clear difference in atmosphere and tone at Beyond between when Beyond's founders were still at the helm, when there was period of leadership limbo, and when Hasbro finally fully took over. There are clear improvements to Beyond over time (inventory, physical-digital bundles, third party content, maps/VTT), so changing leadership/ownership is not going to stop that, on the other hand, there are some stuff that clearly went down hill (communication and transparency). So yeah, while I am not worried about Beyond being shut down, I am a little concerned about the operations of the business and the level or service it can provide.
A lot of us are still waiting for RAW stuff like spell points, epic boons, and temporary effects. Other than RAW, off the top of my mind, we also want more granular control over content available in each campaign, more expansive and easier to use homebrew tools, implement character folders, and AL compatibility. And more than just Beyond, we also want Wizards to improve their shipping/handling on their physical-digital bundles, more translations to other languages and support in other countries, better quality/quantity of content in books, and so on. For me, I cannot say I am optimistic on these issues when I hear Wizards is letting so many big names go.
Are you arguing with me or a straw man? My point is that GPT-4 is monstrously expensive in monetary terms and in computational terms, and that in the near future we're not likely to see the kind of advances that make it less computationally intensive, or more feasible to use for, frankly, as petty a purpose as AI DMing. I'm in no way arguing for short-termism.
"In the long run we're all dead" reads like a short-termism stance to me, and a dismissive one to boot. Like attracts like.
It's a well-known quote by a famous economist. In no way is it dismissive or sarcastic.
I know where the quote originally came from. That doesn't mean I have to agree with its use in this (or any) context.
To wit: the intersection between AI and not just gaming, but *all* creative endeavors, is exactly the kind of invention where we should be prizing long-term thinking and steady development. Recognizing that is not a personal attack against you.
I think the layoffs - especially during Hanukkah and right before Christmas - is a pretty heartless move.
Maybe Wizards was dealing with corporate bloat.. That seems like something you can reasonably speculate, though it is speculation as there is no "firm evidence" for it. SO it's speculation, just like me speculating that this will be a change that harms the quality of Wotzy's books, Youtube vids, and general products and that it'll likely be a negative change over all.
I dunno why Cocks, Williams, and others make millions yet they're firing these people. Seems cruel.
It might turn out to be a good change.
I'm a bit conflicted on the timing. If you're going to terminate a bunch of people, perhaps waiting until after the holiday is less cruel... or maybe it's more cruel since they would have gone traveling or made lavish purchases or even filed their taxes not realizing what was about to happen. Knowing what they know now, they have more time to plan their next move, can declare a life event on their upcoming returns etc.
I would of course have preferred no layoffs at all (ESPECIALLY no WotC layoffs) - but assuming that wasn't an option, this might have been the lesser evil. (But as any alignment scholar will tell you, a lesser evil is still evil).
Fully agreed. What do you think about AI-DM's? If the growth of the game is no longer bottle-necked by the number of available DM's, that could potentially do wonders for the number of users. I wonder if their recent statement completely excludes all forms of AI, not limited just art and writing for final products, and they're nipping it in the bud early.
<SNIPPED> The main thing to really consider is why do people choose to play D&D rather than a digital RPG? To me it comes down to two things: 1) the human connection - D&D is a community, you play it with your friends and may make new friends by playing it. 2) the creative freedom - there are no invisible walls in D&D, no pre-programmed move set that are the only things your character can do.
AI DMs destroy #1 to a large extent, and would either have to limit #2 or would be easily broken / driven insane. But I fully acknowledge other people want other things out of the game, but IMO most of those people are the combat-focused power-gamers - who just want to make that character that can do 10,000 damage on turn 1, because big numbers make them happy. For those people, I'd be happy for them to have an AI to beat up with their OP builds.
Something like a "D&D Arena" where you can pit your character (or a party of character you design) against a random set of monsters on a random map, where the enemies are controlled by AI would be doable and I suspect relatively viable financially. The quality of the AI will be limited and I'm certain players would find ways to exploit it, but the kind of player it would appeal to are the kind that would find figuring out how to exploit it fun and empowering.
I fully agree that human DMs will be better than AI DMs for the foreseeable future. The market that an A.I. DM would appeal to would be people who find person-to-person interaction bothersome, inconvenient (scheduling is certainly a major headache for live games), and/or are for more concerned with the player-to-player experience even if it means there is no human DM.
People are already testing robot boyfriends and robot girlfriends, with many others already working on the VR equivalent. There is already a market for people who want A.I. romantic relationships. Yes, we can argue that the roles played by robotic companions is far more limited than that played by a human lover, but a similar argument can be made for an AI DM vs. a human DM.
If Hasbro (or whoever buys out Hasbro in the next 10 years) can streamline RPG gaming functions enough to strip away the more difficult-to-program options that players might take but preserve enough to provide some semblance to a human-DMed D&D game, that will be enough for many people. So what I dread is not that AI will replace the most bothersome, time-consuming aspects of DMing, but that the market for AI-DMing grows large enough that game developers will strip away the more creative aspects of current RPGs (such as illusion magic, wild-shaping, unconventional uses for common items, unconventional magic items) to streamline the hobby such that game becomes far less interesting for people like me, who mostly plays live face-to-face games because there is so much more room for improvising situations and solutions. If the Polymorph spell can be simplified so that the player only gets 3 options, that makes it so much easier to program but also forces every player who uses that set of game rules into a smaller creative box. In the long run, this aspect of geek culture becomes more homogenized, with unpleasant implications for larger society as well.
They did indeed apologize. they even noted that they were unaware the artist in question had used AI as a basis and then came up with guidelines for it (ergo, shocked).
Nor did I say that people could not make arguments in good faith without evidence -- I was very specific in my explanation.
Thus, my version of events was not false, and I did not say what you accused me of saying.
Huh I searched for an apology when I made that post and couldn't find one. It's possible Wargamer is wrong but I probably just missed it tbh.
As for the good faith/bad faith arguments, I thought you were talking about whether or not an argument meant someone was arguing in good/bad faith and opposed that because I don't think you can easily tell whether or not someone's being disingenuous just because they have an idiotic or accurate stance. But it seems I misunderstood you lol so I dunno what you were saying.
And to be clear, I do think Wizards was surprised by this I just thought saying they were shocked given that artists using AI art is something it seems obvious to expect... But maybe they were shocked I just doubt it was too unexpected for them or for anyone with knowledge of all this AI and the sheer amount of art in D&D books.
--
Glad I was able to clarify all this lol. I honestly think my stance is rather similar to most people here and definitely not the polar opposite of Caerwyn's. But I just suck at communicating and have a different interpretation and view on what I call relatively informed speculation (the word disconnect makes sense to me here). But maybe that's the wrong word for it lol. Anyways, good night all and I'm glad I finallymanaged to help steer this conversation away from a goofy aaa debate on the future of AI and stuff. ::
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I'm not against AI art, or AI being part of a creative process. Covid dovetailed into my retirement, so I've had the time to plough into learning AI and actual "old-school" image editing (GIMP/photoshop). I cannot draw, it's a super tool and a super combo. If I could draw, I'd be using all 3 - but I'm very clear where I do (but, I'm just some dude). Will it mean WOTC... do stuff... stuff that we may/may not like? Probably. I'm not optimistic there, but... meh.
On paper the layoffs - without knowing the terms of severance, it's really hard to judge. However, it'd be nice to bisect AI from Layoffs in another thread. However, just to chip another point into the AI argument, this might be leaning into the new (and probably more thereof) Third Party content - where realisticly, the onus will be on the Third Party and not WOTC. I'd guess hope that's with some foresight on WOTC part to stop the inevitable PR disaster, so maybe the statement's a "good thing"?
I don't think you'll find many people here disagreeing with the idea that WotC and especially Hasbro have poor management (and/or PR.) But extrapolating from those missteps to prognosticating about things like the inevitability of a deluge of AI art and cramming lootboxes into their VTT reality be damned is where you lose people.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1642-updated-statement-on-ai
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HERE.Poor management has been a hallmark of D&D since 1974. This is quite literally the whole existence of the game, lol. It fits the requirement for "goes without saying".
I can look back on the fumbles over the last 40 years -- the last year and a half is nothing...
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Are you arguing with me or a straw man? My point is that GPT-4 is monstrously expensive in monetary terms and in computational terms, and that in the near future we're not likely to see the kind of advances that make it less computationally intensive, or more feasible to use for, frankly, as petty a purpose as AI DMing. I'm in no way arguing for short-termism.
P.S. I've noticed that you seem to be a bit belligerent and employ a lot of sarcasm in your responses. Would you kindly tone it down?
"In the long run we're all dead" reads like a short-termism stance to me, and a dismissive one to boot. Like attracts like.
It's a well-known quote by a famous economist. In no way is it dismissive or sarcastic.
Someone please just start a new thread for this. And by the way @JustaFarmer, there are already AI DMs. ChatGPT is one and people have played with it.
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HERE.As far as preventing it. It’s important to remember that art is a revenue maker for them. They sell prints of the art pieces in their books, or at least license them and allow the artist to sell them. People won’t buy AI art, they can just “make” that themselves, and as aedorsay says, they can’t copyright it. At which point, they can’t really sell it. So WotC has a very clear motive to not have AI art in their books. Even people who might not trust WotC must surely trust the company wants to make money.
But even still it’s all but impossible for staff to prevent it, or at least it will be. As it becomes higher and higher quality, it will be harder and harder to stop. At some point, they just need to trust the people they work with not to misrepresent themselves.
As a note, it is a bad faith argument to imply or assert, without tangible evidence, that WotC may have incorporated AI art intentionally when they have explicitly stated that they did not.
A good faith argument accepts the premise that they did it by without knowing, were shocked, and apologized for it, and then publicly reaffirmed their commitment to not using AI art.
This is important to note because a bad faith argument is neither reasoned nor logical. It also means that a conversation has "jumped the rails", so to speak, because people arer esorting to something they have made up.
There is another reason this matters: hasbro is a big company with much money (however great their debt is). Things like this have an impact on the amount of money they make. Things that are unprovable or untrue in a court of law means that those making such assertions or implying such things are gonna lose. Stating those things in a location that is the property of WotC is basically giving them evidence should they opt to (for whatever reason) take a dump on some nobody.
This is, as I noted earlier, part of the reason that the recent youtubers who started to say that recent art was AI made explicit apologies. They may not be a typical player in a forum, but the law doesn't make a distinction there.
Even if you hate the guts of everyone at WotC, saying things that you cannot prove to be true on the property of WotC (essentially akin to standing in their door and saying it, metaphorically) about WotC that are potentially detrimental to the well being of the company is an unwise action.
Getting back to the topic of Layoffs, it is fairly apparent that the layoffs were done because as a corporation, Hasbro -- and WotC in particular -- were "top heavy" in terms of middle managers and supervisory roles; there were people whose sole job was to supervise themselves. Along with such actions there is a consideration of salary costs and the benefits involved.
laying people off just before Christmas is a Dick Move no matter who does it; personally, I am of the general opinion that layoffs shouldn't be a thing, fckin deal, but that's an emotional reactive thought, not one balanced in reason and practical reality.
However, it happened. piss poor management of the D&D portfolio has been a thing forever -- no one has ever successfully run the company without either screwing up the thing internally or pissing off the fans and players of the game. It started long before Arneson. This is why when I first popped in I talked about them firing the folks who bought the company from the folks who fired the folks who created the game.
That folks would expect different is a shock. Did anyone recall why it was Hasbro bought Wizards? Does anyone recall the stuff said about how terrible it was that a bunch of folks who created a card game from their D&D game and palled around with the folks at that weird ass White Wolf company were the ones that bought the beloved game -- and then released a version called 3.0? 3.5 is looked back on with fondness today, but people did not like 3.5 at first.
Hell, people didn't like 2e at first -- and 2e saved the freaking company until the folks that took over the same year drove it back into the ground before selling it to Wizards.
monte Cook was supposed to be lead designer of 5e, but left over differences of opinion with the company (WotC or Hasbro). The list of stuff that pisses off fans is long, ugly, and this isn't even the first time that D&D has had folks laid off.
Not even the first time during the holiday season.
Pardon me if I take more than a few large grains of salt with the panic over AI art being used, distrust of the people who own the rights and make the game (when those same people are the ones beign laid off, wtf people?), some ludicrous idea of turning it into a video game (newsflash: most of the videogames are inspired by D&D's systems), or whatever the lastest "but you can't do that' is.
They can, they will, they do not have the same priorities as you think they do or should.
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But was Wizards shocked by it? I think they were surprised, but I highly doubt it was shocking to see a company that hires countless artists have one that utilized AI?
Also. I don't recall them apologizing.. Merely explaining they didn't know of this and that generative AI in their books was disallowed in future.
And I think it's baseless and dumb to assume Wizards knew about this and is lying and was testing the waters and blah blah blah blah. But your version of events is false and people can make arguments in good faith that are baseless or without tangible evidence.
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HERE.TO BRING THINGS BACK ON TOPIC:
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HERE.Glassdoor reviews are full of complaints about how overly-top-heavy Wizards is, and how those in supervisory positions are mired in their ways. Jeremy Crawford has said in interviews that some of their mistakes in D&D design stemmed from having too many entrenched individuals like him, and not enough fresh blood and perspectives.
I think there is plenty of tangible evidence from plenty of different sources to conclude Wizards had a middle and upper management problem. Might that conclusion be wrong? Perhaps—but what sets a conclusion apart from speculation is not whether something is correct or not; it is about whether something is based on tangible evidence which supports the position, without requiring hypothetical leaps or assumptions.
And I think there's tangible evidence that it'll be a negative change. Yet tangible and firm evidence are different in my eyes.
Are these Glassdoor reviews from verified employees and how trustworthy is the site's system for that? Random untrustworthy reviewers aren't really solid evidence in my eyes, though I don't really understand how the site works. Additionally, this was a massive move by Hasbro and Wizards seemed to just be one division that was potentially required to cut people. I dunno if Wizards having a corporate bloat problem would cause them to partake in this company wide movement, which doesn't seem to be strictly tied to them having this issue.
Fundamentally though, the thing that isn't concrete for me is that while there's an argument to be made on Wotzy's "corporate bloat", I see zero evidence that it inspired this change - not something else - other than the fact that it's one of many potential issues Wizards (the important subdivision of Hasbro here lol) may have. So yeah, I don't think this is wild speculation, but I don't view firm evidence to support this other than the fact that it makes some sense as an explanation here but maybe I'm just a doofus lol.
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HERE.In WotC's view, I think it's pretty much a given that's what they're doing. They think they don't need them and they're not providing value for money (which is to say they're not providing enough profit to justify their wages versus other methods of investment, or payoffs). The question is whether they're clipping the cat's claws to a reasonable level...or cutting and damaging the claw itself. No one here knows which way it's going and it's all speculation. Even WotC isn't 100% sure and is gambling (albeit they're in a better position than us to judge...but it's still gambling to an extent).
We'll only know in a few years when there's a track record showing how those cuts have affected the products...and ironically, we'll almost certainly have forgotten about this episode and so will never connect the dots.
To be blunt, WotC exists to make money. Not just money in general, but money for a specific group of people. People who are a lot closer to CEOs etc than the people actually creating the product. Contrary to the reactionary claims of some, that doesn't make them evil, it's just how things are and it informs their motivations and goals.
People generally don't fire themselves or their near peers to save money...they look further down the line to trim the fat. Usually, it's from the bottom up - if they don't get enough fat to trim from the bottom, they move up, until they find it.
They could look at the massive salaries at the top. Generally though, for multiple reasons (good and bad), they'll look lower down first.
Indeed it could.
I've seen enough decision making to realise that many decisions aren't made from a logical, rational and thought out place. They're driven by motives and agendas (no, I'm not implying nefarious intents there - it's a fact that we all have these agendas and motives that drive our decisions, often more than we realise), and so often the wrong decisions are made and to the detriment of others - and in cases of large companies, a lot of others.
In the other hand, we don't see even a fraction of the information necessary to see why these cuts were made (there's been a ton of speculation on this thread, but speculation is cheap). I could easily see this being a positive step forward that could even be moving to fix some of the problems that have made some of the people on these boards so cynical towards WotC.
We'll see. I'm hoping for the best, that this turns a corner and the company improves. The cynic in me says that's not certain and that this could easily head south. The realist in me says that no one knows and we'll find out over the next few years.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
They did indeed apologize. they even noted that they were unaware the artist in question had used AI as a basis and then came up with guidelines for it (ergo, shocked).
Nor did I say that people could not make arguments in good faith without evidence -- I was very specific in my explanation.
Thus, my version of events was not false, and I did not say what you accused me of saying.
But we do both agree that it is silly to think that wizards did this on purpose, lol.
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If they are getting rid of big names, the timing is less important than the fact that they are getting rid of people who can signficantly impact business. These people can take care of themselves, and I highly doubt they do not have some kind of severance package that will keep them comfortable for a while.
For employees lower down the rung though, then yeah, it does suck.
Probably cheaper to pay executives more and lay more people off than to pay executives less and lay less people off.
If you lay off 3,000 workers who makes $50,000 per year each while still maintaining similar levels of revenue, that is saving $150,000,000 per year. Throwing five executives an extra $10,000,000 each in bonus will still save you $100,000,000 per year.
They are letting a lot of important people go though, so I really hope Hasbro knows what it is doing. I mean, Beyond is still doing fine right now under Wizards/Hasbro, so I am not worried about the Wizards failing or anything like that. However, there is a clear difference in atmosphere and tone at Beyond between when Beyond's founders were still at the helm, when there was period of leadership limbo, and when Hasbro finally fully took over. There are clear improvements to Beyond over time (inventory, physical-digital bundles, third party content, maps/VTT), so changing leadership/ownership is not going to stop that, on the other hand, there are some stuff that clearly went down hill (communication and transparency). So yeah, while I am not worried about Beyond being shut down, I am a little concerned about the operations of the business and the level or service it can provide.
A lot of us are still waiting for RAW stuff like spell points, epic boons, and temporary effects. Other than RAW, off the top of my mind, we also want more granular control over content available in each campaign, more expansive and easier to use homebrew tools, implement character folders, and AL compatibility. And more than just Beyond, we also want Wizards to improve their shipping/handling on their physical-digital bundles, more translations to other languages and support in other countries, better quality/quantity of content in books, and so on. For me, I cannot say I am optimistic on these issues when I hear Wizards is letting so many big names go.
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I know where the quote originally came from. That doesn't mean I have to agree with its use in this (or any) context.
To wit: the intersection between AI and not just gaming, but *all* creative endeavors, is exactly the kind of invention where we should be prizing long-term thinking and steady development. Recognizing that is not a personal attack against you.
I'm a bit conflicted on the timing. If you're going to terminate a bunch of people, perhaps waiting until after the holiday is less cruel... or maybe it's more cruel since they would have gone traveling or made lavish purchases or even filed their taxes not realizing what was about to happen. Knowing what they know now, they have more time to plan their next move, can declare a life event on their upcoming returns etc.
I would of course have preferred no layoffs at all (ESPECIALLY no WotC layoffs) - but assuming that wasn't an option, this might have been the lesser evil. (But as any alignment scholar will tell you, a lesser evil is still evil).
I fully agree that human DMs will be better than AI DMs for the foreseeable future. The market that an A.I. DM would appeal to would be people who find person-to-person interaction bothersome, inconvenient (scheduling is certainly a major headache for live games), and/or are for more concerned with the player-to-player experience even if it means there is no human DM.
People are already testing robot boyfriends and robot girlfriends, with many others already working on the VR equivalent. There is already a market for people who want A.I. romantic relationships. Yes, we can argue that the roles played by robotic companions is far more limited than that played by a human lover, but a similar argument can be made for an AI DM vs. a human DM.
If Hasbro (or whoever buys out Hasbro in the next 10 years) can streamline RPG gaming functions enough to strip away the more difficult-to-program options that players might take but preserve enough to provide some semblance to a human-DMed D&D game, that will be enough for many people. So what I dread is not that AI will replace the most bothersome, time-consuming aspects of DMing, but that the market for AI-DMing grows large enough that game developers will strip away the more creative aspects of current RPGs (such as illusion magic, wild-shaping, unconventional uses for common items, unconventional magic items) to streamline the hobby such that game becomes far less interesting for people like me, who mostly plays live face-to-face games because there is so much more room for improvising situations and solutions. If the Polymorph spell can be simplified so that the player only gets 3 options, that makes it so much easier to program but also forces every player who uses that set of game rules into a smaller creative box. In the long run, this aspect of geek culture becomes more homogenized, with unpleasant implications for larger society as well.
"But it's really a conspiracy by Tiamat and evil Giant Spiders to test the reaction to the usage of AI art in this dimension!"
Yeah we can agree on that lol.
Huh I searched for an apology when I made that post and couldn't find one. It's possible Wargamer is wrong but I probably just missed it tbh.
As for the good faith/bad faith arguments, I thought you were talking about whether or not an argument meant someone was arguing in good/bad faith and opposed that because I don't think you can easily tell whether or not someone's being disingenuous just because they have an idiotic or accurate stance. But it seems I misunderstood you lol so I dunno what you were saying.
And to be clear, I do think Wizards was surprised by this I just thought saying they were shocked given that artists using AI art is something it seems obvious to expect... But maybe they were shocked I just doubt it was too unexpected for them or for anyone with knowledge of all this AI and the sheer amount of art in D&D books.
--
Glad I was able to clarify all this lol. I honestly think my stance is rather similar to most people here and definitely not the polar opposite of Caerwyn's. But I just suck at communicating and have a different interpretation and view on what I call relatively informed speculation (the word disconnect makes sense to me here). But maybe that's the wrong word for it lol. Anyways, good night all and I'm glad I finally managed to help steer this conversation away from a goofy aaa debate on the future of AI and stuff. ::
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HERE.I'm not against AI art, or AI being part of a creative process. Covid dovetailed into my retirement, so I've had the time to plough into learning AI and actual "old-school" image editing (GIMP/photoshop). I cannot draw, it's a super tool and a super combo. If I could draw, I'd be using all 3 - but I'm very clear where I do (but, I'm just some dude).
Will it mean WOTC... do stuff... stuff that we may/may not like? Probably. I'm not optimistic there, but... meh.
On paper the layoffs - without knowing the terms of severance, it's really hard to judge. However, it'd be nice to bisect AI from Layoffs in another thread. However, just to chip another point into the AI argument, this might be leaning into the new (and probably more thereof) Third Party content - where realisticly, the onus will be on the Third Party and not WOTC. I'd guess hope that's with some foresight on WOTC part to stop the inevitable PR disaster, so maybe the statement's a "good thing"?
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