I would note that Hasbro spent all year trying to rebuild trust and goodwill over the debacle at the beginning of the year, and then to do this right before Christmas?
I mean, they could have waited a few weeks and kept a lot of the goodwill and trust they had gained back.
Hasbro likely had very little choice in the timing—the timing is decided based on various requirements for fiscal reporting and tax reporting purposes. They do not get to really choose that the tax and fiscal year are ending right around Christmas—which means that they have very limited options when it comes to how they do severance. If they delayed, they would not be able to write the severance packages off as a financial cost for 2023. That means they cannot claim those losses on their taxes for this year and cannot put it down as a failure in this already bad fiscal year.
For a company doing as badly as Hasbro, they need the extra cash on hand that deducting severance on their taxes will give them—time value of money and all that says that the money is more valuable if you get it in 2023 tax season than if you got the same numerical value in 2024 tax season. For a company that wants to show growth to survive, they want to be able to say “look, we had all sorts of problems, such as a big severance package in 2023, but we don’t have those in our 2024 reporting, so things are looking up!”
All of that is an unfortunate side effect of how reporting is done, and it isn’t really fair to blame Hasbro for how our financial system and tax code kind of force these Christmas layoffs to occur.
"Fiscal year – 12 consecutive months ending on the last day of any month except December. A 52-53-week tax year is a fiscal tax year that varies from 52 to 53 weeks but does not have to end on the last day of a month.
Changing your tax year
Once you have adopted your tax year, you may have to get IRS approval to change it. "
A company that big knows they will inevitably lay people off, choosing when based off fiscal year end is one thing, but they get to choose that fiscal year end date and can change it.
Tax law is complicated, so no need to feel bad that you’re “fact checking” and citation are not the most helpful and miss a number of important realities. I’ve done my fair share of tax law over the course of my legal practice, and I hate it every time I have to deal with it.
The citation you provide is talking about two different accounting methods you can use—fiscal year or calendar year accounting. Hasbro has locked themselves into a tax period that ends on December 31st—that is why they are currently in their Q4 period of the year.
Changing that is possible, but it is really, really hard to do—much harder to do than the little “may have to get IRS approval” bit on the IRS website you cited makes it seem. The IRS is not really fond of “hey, we’re a multi billion dollar company, can you please let us mess with our tax season to better facilitate layoffs so we can pay the government less?” as a reason for changing.
And, even if you do get permission to change, it is a logistical nightmare to get things switched over—suddenly all your books, all your quarters, all your old financial reporting is out of whack not only with your own company’s history, but with the expectations of anyone expecting your fiscal quarters to match the standard Q1-Q4 tracking the calendar year. Suddenly you have issues where your corporate tax period is different from your employees’ salary tax years (not an insurmountable problem, but it is an inconvenience when trying to calculate things like bonuses). And plenty of other issues that come up both from changing your status quo and suddenly being on your own, unique, non-industry-standard schedule.
Either they need more direction and supervision before creating these PR nightmares, or they simply do not care about the fallout from them.
Both. The community can scream until our lungs burst, but as long as they have customers who line up and continue to buy their products, they'll continue not giving a damn. Forget the facts, the bottom line is all the bean counters are checking.
No matter how you feel about WotC's last ~18 months I hope this makes you smile, I know there has to be someone at WotC that feels like the character behind this desk.
I smiled, although somewhat sadly.
That said, I'm fairly certain that I have a nasty BBEG challenge tomorrow afternoon which, no matter the outcome, reminds me of why I play this game.
There are plenty of the "cultist" that are sad about this too.
Yeah, I scroll through their angry little Reddit posts daily. My favorites are, "I now play 'this particular game and I've never looked back.' Then they constantly spam D&D subs. Like, check yourselves, dudes.
Edit to acknowledge that you changed "cultists" (my quote) to "players." Found another PF2e burner account, y'all.
I changed it back lol. You quoted me while I was editing it, so I just put it back origional. No need to jump to conclusions, the reason I changed it is I didn't want to sound snarky as I meant it light hearted but wasn't sure it would be taken that way. No burner account here. You are a little fast and lose with those labels aren't you?
I'd insight check the hell out of this in my game. But okay, whatever.
How would you like my post to read, same as quoted, or as I altered it? You have advantage. I stand by both.
You ultimately decided on "Cultist[s]," my own derisive term for those who relentlessly spam D&D subs and forums with their 'latest, greatest, whatever,' which was my original intent. So I am pleased with your final edit. "Players," at least on this particular forum, means D&D players. These two labels are not interchangeable. They both mean very different things to me.
So, if you're so inclined, where do you actually land?
Something occurred to me after a little thought about why these layoffs are hitting WotC as well as core Hasbro:
Businesses get investment if they can be expected to show "growth". This growth can either come from expanding the market and making more profit by pulling in new money, or by cutting costs on existing practices and making more money that way. This is what ultimately drives 95% of corporate business decisions. (The remaining 5% is the arrogance of execs)
Hasbro overall is not making enough new money - mostly due to the toy arm performing poorly - to drive growth so it has to choose the cost cutting option. They are getting these costs savings from a few things, but laying people is a big part of them.
If they only cut jobs in main Hasbro and not in WotC then they would be basically be admitting that the entire toy-making arm of their business is a lame duck.
That would have a high risk of scaring off investors, and might just be something that a lot of the Hasbro old guard are unwilling to admit regardless.
So, they go ahead and cut jobs in the arm of the business that is still making them money to avoid having to acknowledge just how desperately dependent on it they are. Awful logically, but they are being driven by shareholder and market perceptions, not actual facts.
Hasbro overall is not making enough new money - mostly due to the toy arm performing poorly - to drive growth so it has to choose the cost cutting option. They are getting these costs savings from a few things, but laying people is a big part of them.
If indeed, this information is accurate, the mystery surrounding that whole OGL bull may be the least of Hasbro's financial troubles.
For over a year, a certain retail manager from a notable retail book store has revealed to me for years shoplifting has been a serious problem for their D&D merchandise: particularly miniatures, dice sets, and other small items that can easily be carried out of the brick & mortar building.
Certainly does not help matters much when the D&D section of merchandise is located directly next to the customer's bathroom if you understand my meaning.
This problem is occurring in 1 location here in the Southern region of the U.S.
Can you imagine retail store theft happening in more rural & economicially depressed areas of the U.S.?
This problem also extends to their Magic: The Gathering card sets, especially inside retail outlets such as Wal*Mart.
Would not be surprised if stolen D&D and Magic: The Gathering merchandise is currently sold online, as well.
You stated they had little choice, they have THE choice. That was the fact check.
They can also change it. It might not be easy but it can be done.
I am not pretending to be a tax expert or to know the ins and outs of Hasbro/WotC's business, but I can look up things like this.
I am not against Hasbro/WotC, but after the last 12-18 months I am just over giving them the benefit of doubt, everything they have botched could have been handled way better.
Either they need more direction and supervision before creating these PR nightmares, or they simply do not care about the fallout from them.
One of the biggest accounting principles is consistency. One of the key things that make financial statements useful is their consistency. You want to compare ripe fuji apples to ripe fuji apples, year after year, on the same month and day. You do not really want to compare ripe fuji apples to green fuji apples, let alone granny smith apples, pears, oranges, or bananas. Companies do change their fiscal year occasionally, but those changes are few and far between. Like once or twice over the life of the business type of rare. And once a business hits a certain size, the cost of changing the fiscal year can get really high, while the benefit from doing so is generally low, and that makes it impractical to do so. You also do not want shareholders and investors complaining about frivolous changes and calling their own lawyers and accountants, and then the IRS and SEC might get involved, and all those investigations would just be a pain in the ass to deal with. Keep in mind all those things also cost money to deal with (accountants and lawyers are not cheap), and that money that could have been better spent retaining existing employees, or better severance packages for laid-off employees to make re-attracting talent easier when business is doing well and hiring again.
You do not have to give Hasbro the benefit of the doubt. Be vocal about your displeasure that key employees are being let go. However, changing the fiscal year really is not the way to go about it. Vote for better labor laws and write to your representative about making the tax code easier. Or simply vote with your wallet and do not buy from Hasbro. Support the your favorite creators when they leave Hasbro and make their own products.
Violating consistency without a valid reason is a big no-no in accounting, and firing people until after the holidays unfortunately is not a good enough reason. Due to the sheer cost of doing so, Hasbro will probably need to do an additional round of firing just to secure enough funds, and it makes more sense to spend that money retaining those employees.
It really surprised me at first to hear that some really big name talent got cut from WotC in this layoff. Some of these are core game developers and art/license wranglers that have been with WotC since the early development of 5E or longer. It's sad that so many got the chop right before the Gifting Day.
On the other hand, I guess we shouldn't be surprised given how many people in Tech and in Hollywood have gotten laid off over the past year. Perhaps we should be surprised that this layoff had not happened sooner.
I was watching a YT video the other day about the 2008 Recession, which made it clear that A) business had gotten used to low low interest rates for over a decade and their 5-year development plans had not anticipated the rapid return of pre-2008 interest rates; and B) real wealth growth has stagnated or declined on a global level since the 2008 Recession for most people not involved in finance and real estate. While on the one hand, D&D is a relatively inexpensive hobby for players, it's not actually cheap for DMs, who are the people who buy the most books/DDB subscriptions. So while WotC is getting the benefit of new players, the market for much of their newer product lines like Fizban's, Bigby's, Spelljammer are bottlenecked by the lack of new DMs, which is in turn related, in some ways, to the economic problems plaguing the world economy since 2008.
You stated they had little choice, they have THE choice. That was the fact check.
They can also change it. It might not be easy but it can be done.
I am not pretending to be a tax expert or to know the ins and outs of Hasbro/WotC's business, but I can look up things like this.
I am not against Hasbro/WotC, but after the last 12-18 months I am just over giving them the benefit of doubt, everything they have botched could have been handled way better.
Either they need more direction and supervision before creating these PR nightmares, or they simply do not care about the fallout from them.
One of the biggest accounting principles is consistency. One of the key things that make financial statements useful is their consistency. You want to compare ripe fuji apples to ripe fuji apples, year after year, on the same month and day. You do not really want to compare ripe fuji apples to green fuji apples, let alone granny smith apples, pears, oranges, or bananas. Companies do change their fiscal year occasionally, but those changes are few and far between. Like once or twice over the life of the business type of rare. And once a business hits a certain size, the cost of changing the fiscal year can get really high, while the benefit from doing so is generally low, and that makes it impractical to do so. You also do not want shareholders and investors complaining about frivolous changes and calling their own lawyers and accountants, and then the IRS and SEC might get involved, and all those investigations would just be a pain in the ass to deal with. Keep in mind all those things also cost money to deal with (accountants and lawyers are not cheap), and that money that could have been better spent retaining existing employees, or better severance packages for laid-off employees to make re-attracting talent easier when business is doing well and hiring again.
You do not have to give Hasbro the benefit of the doubt. Be vocal about your displeasure that key employees are being let go. However, changing the fiscal year really is not the way to go about it. Vote for better labor laws and write to your representative about making the tax code easier. Or simply vote with your wallet and do not buy from Hasbro. Support the your favorite creators when they leave Hasbro and make their own products.
Violating consistency without a valid reason is a big no-no in accounting, and firing people until after the holidays unfortunately is not a good enough reason. Due to the sheer cost of doing so, Hasbro will probably need to do an additional round of firing just to secure enough funds, and it makes more sense to spend that money retaining those employees.
I understand how it works, just not sure why we are ok with it.
Because, when it comes down to it, we all benefit from consistency. It ensures companies cannot dodge taxes as easily, bringing in more revenues for our governments. It makes it easier to keep them accountable, not only to their shareholders, but to their customers, employees, and anyone they contract with. It gives everyone--not just the company--a solid foundation on which to build long-term plans, and that is a big benefit. Encouraging consistency is a net win for everyone, and the entire system would start to break down if folks could change it with relative ease.
Which, of course, is why I was very clear to say there was "little" other choice--and thus why your "fact check" was not exactly useful and betrayed a lack of knowledge of that on which you were commenting. There is little other choice than what they have--and their other choices are either so impractical as to be effective impossibilities (changing their accounting to move when folks get downsized) or financially not feasible given their current struggles (simply waiting, incurring major financial challenges on a cash strapped company due to when they could write things off on their taxes).
In times like this, it sucks, to be sure--but it sucks a lot less than what might happen if companies were given carte blanche authority to manipulate their books to try and make their finances too complicated to really patrol.
You stated they had little choice, they have THE choice. That was the fact check.
They can also change it. It might not be easy but it can be done.
I am not pretending to be a tax expert or to know the ins and outs of Hasbro/WotC's business, but I can look up things like this.
I am not against Hasbro/WotC, but after the last 12-18 months I am just over giving them the benefit of doubt, everything they have botched could have been handled way better.
Either they need more direction and supervision before creating these PR nightmares, or they simply do not care about the fallout from them.
One of the biggest accounting principles is consistency. One of the key things that make financial statements useful is their consistency. You want to compare ripe fuji apples to ripe fuji apples, year after year, on the same month and day. You do not really want to compare ripe fuji apples to green fuji apples, let alone granny smith apples, pears, oranges, or bananas. Companies do change their fiscal year occasionally, but those changes are few and far between. Like once or twice over the life of the business type of rare. And once a business hits a certain size, the cost of changing the fiscal year can get really high, while the benefit from doing so is generally low, and that makes it impractical to do so. You also do not want shareholders and investors complaining about frivolous changes and calling their own lawyers and accountants, and then the IRS and SEC might get involved, and all those investigations would just be a pain in the ass to deal with. Keep in mind all those things also cost money to deal with (accountants and lawyers are not cheap), and that money that could have been better spent retaining existing employees, or better severance packages for laid-off employees to make re-attracting talent easier when business is doing well and hiring again.
You do not have to give Hasbro the benefit of the doubt. Be vocal about your displeasure that key employees are being let go. However, changing the fiscal year really is not the way to go about it. Vote for better labor laws and write to your representative about making the tax code easier. Or simply vote with your wallet and do not buy from Hasbro. Support the your favorite creators when they leave Hasbro and make their own products.
Violating consistency without a valid reason is a big no-no in accounting, and firing people until after the holidays unfortunately is not a good enough reason. Due to the sheer cost of doing so, Hasbro will probably need to do an additional round of firing just to secure enough funds, and it makes more sense to spend that money retaining those employees.
I understand how it works, just not sure why we are ok with it.
Because most businesses operate on calendar year fiscal years for a mix of simplicity and general market consistency, and asking that they go through a massive, difficult, and costly process to change it comes across as fairly unreasonable, particularly when the basis for it is a hypothetical soft gain of less ill will from consumers when they have lay offs. This seems particularly dubious because nothing I've seen suggests that it would move the needle of public opinion by any appreciable degree; when good things are happening at a corporation, people take it for granted and generally don't pay much attention, but bad things get a 24/7 spotlight shone on them and people start breaking out the pitchforks and torches.
For someone like me who began with D&D 5e this year (I avoided 4e), this comes as a big surprise. There's a plethora of modules, adventures, and general content created by Dan Dillon, Mike Mearls, and many others, so their essence, rules, and influence still resonate in recent publications.
In my case, I'll hold off on purchasing items from an ecosystem that has been somewhat compromised.
I genuinely hope that those who were let go can soon find a new home. They deserve a good future.
The year 2024 will reveal the final impact on DnD One and its 50th anniversary.
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.
Now that we know that people like Amy Dallen (one of the staples of D&DB's Youtube channel), Mike Mearls (who was one of the architects of 5e and was doing lots of stuff for Magic the Gathering), Bree Heis (the "art director" for D&D) and many more that actually seemed to have relatively crucial roles.
"As has been the case for the last couple of years, Hasbro’s gaming endeavors, led by Wizards of the Coast, have been the only consistently profitable part of the company. In its most recent earnings report, Hasbro wrote that its toy and entertainment segments are both losing money, while its Gaming segment’s revenue grew by 40% in Q3 2023."
Despite that success, reports this week indicate that at least 20 employees of Wizards of the Coast and its own subsidiaries had been laid off."
Those affected, as per a list assembled by ComicBook.com’s Christian Hoffer, include Mike Mearls, Magic: The Gathering director and former Dungeons & Dragons creative director; Amy Dallen, D&D Beyond host and producer; Eytan Bernstein, D&D senior development editor; Larry Frum, senior communications manager; and Bree Heiss, D&D art director. Some employees also opted, according to an internal memo from Cocks, to voluntarily accept early retirement."
So, Caerwyn, I understand all this before the info on who got sacked was publicized. But I'm genuinely curious now to see if you still believe this won't have a major effect on Wizards and was merely removing corporate bloat. Additionally, I think it's pretty clear they aren't just removing unimportant staff here and hope you'll update your original post because now it's outdated and actively misleading as the whole argument in it is literally predicated off the knowledge of who was fired having not been released yet.
EDIT: To be clear, I misunderstood Caerwyn's terminology of corporate bloat and that it's more likely to apply to high-level employees. For further info, see the post right below this one.
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.
Now that we know that people like Amy Dallen (one of the staples of D&DB's Youtube channel), Mike Mearls (who was one of the architects of 5e and was doing lots of stuff for Magic the Gathering), Bree Heis (the "art director" for D&D) and many more that actually seemed to have relatively crucial roles.
"As has been the case for the last couple of years, Hasbro’s gaming endeavors, led by Wizards of the Coast, have been the only consistently profitable part of the company. In its most recent earnings report, Hasbro wrote that its toy and entertainment segments are both losing money, while its Gaming segment’s revenue grew by 40% in Q3 2023."
Despite that success, reports this week indicate that at least 20 employees of Wizards of the Coast and its own subsidiaries had been laid off."
Those affected, as per a list assembled by ComicBook.com’s Christian Hoffer, include Mike Mearls, Magic: The Gathering director and former Dungeons & Dragons creative director; Amy Dallen, D&D Beyond host and producer; Eytan Bernstein, D&D senior development editor; Larry Frum, senior communications manager; and Bree Heiss, D&D art director. Some employees also opted, according to an internal memo from Cocks, to voluntarily accept early retirement."
So, Caerwyn, I understand all this before the info on who got sacked was publicized. But I'm genuinely curious now to see if you still believe this won't have a major effect on Wizards and was merely removing corporate bloat. Additionally, I think it's pretty clear they aren't just removing unimportant staff here and hope you'll update your original post because now it's outdated and actively misleading as the whole argument in it is literally predicated off the knowledge of who was fired having not been released yet.
I stand by my post. Names are not all that useful in determining what might happen long-term, and not all corporate bloat comes from “unimportant staff.” In fact, corporate bloat very often can come at the top—which is exactly what seems to have happened at Wizards.
Here is the reality: Wizards has a bit of a management bloat problem—understandable, they are THE primary name in the business, so, once you have your Wizards job, there’s no reason to really leave. That results in lots of folks staying for long periods of time, their importance growing, their salaries growing, and their titles growing, ultimately leading to something too too heavy, where the salaries of long-term employees are impeding the introduction of new blood
You look at reviews on sites like Glassdoor, and they list a number of folks complaining that the established individuals have become too entrenched and are not really welcoming of new ideas. Back during the Hadozee fiasco, there were even comments by senior members of Wizards’ staff about how their management has become stagnant and they need to bring in fresh eyes so they don’t miss things less entrenched staff might have seen.
And you look at their products, and there are some signs of an aging core group. Magic has made a number of systemic changes in the past few years (like removing the Block system ages ago), but has a number of relics from that block system that result in game design issues when the block system is gone. And you have the 2024 core rules, which probably played things a bit conservatively—they have hints of interesting ideas, but there is a reluctance to change (and I think a lingering fear that things like Feat Trees might remind folks of 4e), which is indicative of stagnation.
In light of the evidence about Wizards’ top-heavy problems, the more names are revealed, the more it looks like Hasbro is aiming to fix one of their major sources of bloat at Wizards. Far from being disproven, my point is more likely accurate today than it was before the names were revealed.
Now, does that mean the game will get better or Wizards is better off? Of course not—though I expect that will be the message folks on this forum try to put in my month. For some reason this forum has a problem of reading “we don’t have any real evidence to support whether this will be good or bad; but there is at least the chance things might not be as bleak as those rushing to judgment on faulty data are trying to say” as “I do not think will not be bad.” This very well could be a bad thing; but it doesn’t have to be—and the reality is that we do not know what is going to happen.
Because, here is the thing folks miss when they see lots of important names—being important does not make you necessary, and there are plenty of important people who are not being laid off. And, in a company that has a cash issue, it is not enough for someone to just be important.
So, for now, I’m not going to extrapolate from data points that are inconclusive, and I’m not going to jump to any conclusion about the future, when there is nothing tangible signalling what direction things might go. These names mean nothing to me—what the rules books look like in a year or so, once products without those laid off’s touch start to matriculate? That is something that actually has use to me.
This isn't a shock when it comes to a large corporation. It's not a shock that members of the Wizards team, a segment of Hasbro that actually creates revenue, saw job loss. I would think some of those people have higher salaries/wages.
But the human element still sucks. Somebody like Amy Dallen, who exudes joy and positivity and likely wasn't paid much, is out of a job. And yet to the best of my knowledge there is no announcement of the CEO (blanking on his name) or any of the higher tiered execs taking pay cuts. They can cut their salary and still make up for it in bonuses and some corporate loophole legal maneuvering. Even if it's just for the aesthetics of saying "hey, we took a salary cut", it's at least something.
It appears that the 50th anniversary of D&D will not be as impactful as either the owners of the IP nor the consumers of the IP wished. This reduction in staff is likely to diminish the amount of product that will be finished during the coming year. It is quite a shame when we knew the anniversary has been coming and some of us were anticipating something special. But with their most recent releases, I wasn't getting my hopes up.
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Tax law is complicated, so no need to feel bad that you’re “fact checking” and citation are not the most helpful and miss a number of important realities. I’ve done my fair share of tax law over the course of my legal practice, and I hate it every time I have to deal with it.
The citation you provide is talking about two different accounting methods you can use—fiscal year or calendar year accounting. Hasbro has locked themselves into a tax period that ends on December 31st—that is why they are currently in their Q4 period of the year.
Changing that is possible, but it is really, really hard to do—much harder to do than the little “may have to get IRS approval” bit on the IRS website you cited makes it seem. The IRS is not really fond of “hey, we’re a multi billion dollar company, can you please let us mess with our tax season to better facilitate layoffs so we can pay the government less?” as a reason for changing.
And, even if you do get permission to change, it is a logistical nightmare to get things switched over—suddenly all your books, all your quarters, all your old financial reporting is out of whack not only with your own company’s history, but with the expectations of anyone expecting your fiscal quarters to match the standard Q1-Q4 tracking the calendar year. Suddenly you have issues where your corporate tax period is different from your employees’ salary tax years (not an insurmountable problem, but it is an inconvenience when trying to calculate things like bonuses). And plenty of other issues that come up both from changing your status quo and suddenly being on your own, unique, non-industry-standard schedule.
Both. The community can scream until our lungs burst, but as long as they have customers who line up and continue to buy their products, they'll continue not giving a damn. Forget the facts, the bottom line is all the bean counters are checking.
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 smiled, although somewhat sadly.
That said, I'm fairly certain that I have a nasty BBEG challenge tomorrow afternoon which, no matter the outcome, reminds me of why I play this game.
Neutral Good
Characters in active campaigns:
Rowan Wood elf, 10 Circle of Stars Druid
Wyll Forest Gnome, 4 Divination Wizard
Yeah, I scroll through their angry little Reddit posts daily. My favorites are, "I now play 'this particular game and I've never looked back.' Then they constantly spam D&D subs. Like, check yourselves, dudes.
Edit to acknowledge that you changed "cultists" (my quote) to "players." Found another PF2e burner account, y'all.
Neutral Good
Characters in active campaigns:
Rowan Wood elf, 10 Circle of Stars Druid
Wyll Forest Gnome, 4 Divination Wizard
I'd insight check the hell out of this in my game. But okay, whatever.
Neutral Good
Characters in active campaigns:
Rowan Wood elf, 10 Circle of Stars Druid
Wyll Forest Gnome, 4 Divination Wizard
You ultimately decided on "Cultist[s]," my own derisive term for those who relentlessly spam D&D subs and forums with their 'latest, greatest, whatever,' which was my original intent. So I am pleased with your final edit. "Players," at least on this particular forum, means D&D players. These two labels are not interchangeable. They both mean very different things to me.
So, if you're so inclined, where do you actually land?
Neutral Good
Characters in active campaigns:
Rowan Wood elf, 10 Circle of Stars Druid
Wyll Forest Gnome, 4 Divination Wizard
Given that wealth of information, I could happily play at your table. I regret the 'burner' comment.
Gonna invest in the new rule books, though, because I think they are a needed improvement.
Neutral Good
Characters in active campaigns:
Rowan Wood elf, 10 Circle of Stars Druid
Wyll Forest Gnome, 4 Divination Wizard
If he did I doubt he'd be posting here. What a silly question.
Something occurred to me after a little thought about why these layoffs are hitting WotC as well as core Hasbro:
Businesses get investment if they can be expected to show "growth". This growth can either come from expanding the market and making more profit by pulling in new money, or by cutting costs on existing practices and making more money that way. This is what ultimately drives 95% of corporate business decisions. (The remaining 5% is the arrogance of execs)
Hasbro overall is not making enough new money - mostly due to the toy arm performing poorly - to drive growth so it has to choose the cost cutting option. They are getting these costs savings from a few things, but laying people is a big part of them.
If they only cut jobs in main Hasbro and not in WotC then they would be basically be admitting that the entire toy-making arm of their business is a lame duck.
That would have a high risk of scaring off investors, and might just be something that a lot of the Hasbro old guard are unwilling to admit regardless.
So, they go ahead and cut jobs in the arm of the business that is still making them money to avoid having to acknowledge just how desperately dependent on it they are. Awful logically, but they are being driven by shareholder and market perceptions, not actual facts.
If indeed, this information is accurate, the mystery surrounding that whole OGL bull may be the least of Hasbro's financial troubles.
For over a year, a certain retail manager from a notable retail book store has revealed to me for years shoplifting has been a serious problem for their D&D merchandise: particularly miniatures, dice sets, and other small items that can easily be carried out of the brick & mortar building.
Certainly does not help matters much when the D&D section of merchandise is located directly next to the customer's bathroom if you understand my meaning.
This problem is occurring in 1 location here in the Southern region of the U.S.
Can you imagine retail store theft happening in more rural & economicially depressed areas of the U.S.?
This problem also extends to their Magic: The Gathering card sets, especially inside retail outlets such as Wal*Mart.
Would not be surprised if stolen D&D and Magic: The Gathering merchandise is currently sold online, as well.
One of the biggest accounting principles is consistency. One of the key things that make financial statements useful is their consistency. You want to compare ripe fuji apples to ripe fuji apples, year after year, on the same month and day. You do not really want to compare ripe fuji apples to green fuji apples, let alone granny smith apples, pears, oranges, or bananas. Companies do change their fiscal year occasionally, but those changes are few and far between. Like once or twice over the life of the business type of rare. And once a business hits a certain size, the cost of changing the fiscal year can get really high, while the benefit from doing so is generally low, and that makes it impractical to do so. You also do not want shareholders and investors complaining about frivolous changes and calling their own lawyers and accountants, and then the IRS and SEC might get involved, and all those investigations would just be a pain in the ass to deal with. Keep in mind all those things also cost money to deal with (accountants and lawyers are not cheap), and that money that could have been better spent retaining existing employees, or better severance packages for laid-off employees to make re-attracting talent easier when business is doing well and hiring again.
You do not have to give Hasbro the benefit of the doubt. Be vocal about your displeasure that key employees are being let go. However, changing the fiscal year really is not the way to go about it. Vote for better labor laws and write to your representative about making the tax code easier. Or simply vote with your wallet and do not buy from Hasbro. Support the your favorite creators when they leave Hasbro and make their own products.
Violating consistency without a valid reason is a big no-no in accounting, and firing people until after the holidays unfortunately is not a good enough reason. Due to the sheer cost of doing so, Hasbro will probably need to do an additional round of firing just to secure enough funds, and it makes more sense to spend that money retaining those employees.
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It really surprised me at first to hear that some really big name talent got cut from WotC in this layoff. Some of these are core game developers and art/license wranglers that have been with WotC since the early development of 5E or longer. It's sad that so many got the chop right before the Gifting Day.
On the other hand, I guess we shouldn't be surprised given how many people in Tech and in Hollywood have gotten laid off over the past year. Perhaps we should be surprised that this layoff had not happened sooner.
I was watching a YT video the other day about the 2008 Recession, which made it clear that A) business had gotten used to low low interest rates for over a decade and their 5-year development plans had not anticipated the rapid return of pre-2008 interest rates; and B) real wealth growth has stagnated or declined on a global level since the 2008 Recession for most people not involved in finance and real estate. While on the one hand, D&D is a relatively inexpensive hobby for players, it's not actually cheap for DMs, who are the people who buy the most books/DDB subscriptions. So while WotC is getting the benefit of new players, the market for much of their newer product lines like Fizban's, Bigby's, Spelljammer are bottlenecked by the lack of new DMs, which is in turn related, in some ways, to the economic problems plaguing the world economy since 2008.
Because, when it comes down to it, we all benefit from consistency. It ensures companies cannot dodge taxes as easily, bringing in more revenues for our governments. It makes it easier to keep them accountable, not only to their shareholders, but to their customers, employees, and anyone they contract with. It gives everyone--not just the company--a solid foundation on which to build long-term plans, and that is a big benefit. Encouraging consistency is a net win for everyone, and the entire system would start to break down if folks could change it with relative ease.
Which, of course, is why I was very clear to say there was "little" other choice--and thus why your "fact check" was not exactly useful and betrayed a lack of knowledge of that on which you were commenting. There is little other choice than what they have--and their other choices are either so impractical as to be effective impossibilities (changing their accounting to move when folks get downsized) or financially not feasible given their current struggles (simply waiting, incurring major financial challenges on a cash strapped company due to when they could write things off on their taxes).
In times like this, it sucks, to be sure--but it sucks a lot less than what might happen if companies were given carte blanche authority to manipulate their books to try and make their finances too complicated to really patrol.
Because most businesses operate on calendar year fiscal years for a mix of simplicity and general market consistency, and asking that they go through a massive, difficult, and costly process to change it comes across as fairly unreasonable, particularly when the basis for it is a hypothetical soft gain of less ill will from consumers when they have lay offs. This seems particularly dubious because nothing I've seen suggests that it would move the needle of public opinion by any appreciable degree; when good things are happening at a corporation, people take it for granted and generally don't pay much attention, but bad things get a 24/7 spotlight shone on them and people start breaking out the pitchforks and torches.
For someone like me who began with D&D 5e this year (I avoided 4e), this comes as a big surprise. There's a plethora of modules, adventures, and general content created by Dan Dillon, Mike Mearls, and many others, so their essence, rules, and influence still resonate in recent publications.
In my case, I'll hold off on purchasing items from an ecosystem that has been somewhat compromised.
I genuinely hope that those who were let go can soon find a new home. They deserve a good future.
The year 2024 will reveal the final impact on DnD One and its 50th anniversary.
Now that we know that people like Amy Dallen (one of the staples of D&DB's Youtube channel), Mike Mearls (who was one of the architects of 5e and was doing lots of stuff for Magic the Gathering), Bree Heis (the "art director" for D&D) and many more that actually seemed to have relatively crucial roles.
So, Caerwyn, I understand all this before the info on who got sacked was publicized. But I'm genuinely curious now to see if you still believe this won't have a major effect on Wizards and was merely removing corporate bloat. Additionally, I think it's pretty clear they aren't just removing unimportant staff here and hope you'll update your original post because now it's outdated and actively misleading as the whole argument in it is literally predicated off the knowledge of who was fired having not been released yet.
EDIT: To be clear, I misunderstood Caerwyn's terminology of corporate bloat and that it's more likely to apply to high-level employees. For further info, see the post right below this one.
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HERE.I stand by my post. Names are not all that useful in determining what might happen long-term, and not all corporate bloat comes from “unimportant staff.” In fact, corporate bloat very often can come at the top—which is exactly what seems to have happened at Wizards.
Here is the reality: Wizards has a bit of a management bloat problem—understandable, they are THE primary name in the business, so, once you have your Wizards job, there’s no reason to really leave. That results in lots of folks staying for long periods of time, their importance growing, their salaries growing, and their titles growing, ultimately leading to something too too heavy, where the salaries of long-term employees are impeding the introduction of new blood
You look at reviews on sites like Glassdoor, and they list a number of folks complaining that the established individuals have become too entrenched and are not really welcoming of new ideas. Back during the Hadozee fiasco, there were even comments by senior members of Wizards’ staff about how their management has become stagnant and they need to bring in fresh eyes so they don’t miss things less entrenched staff might have seen.
And you look at their products, and there are some signs of an aging core group. Magic has made a number of systemic changes in the past few years (like removing the Block system ages ago), but has a number of relics from that block system that result in game design issues when the block system is gone. And you have the 2024 core rules, which probably played things a bit conservatively—they have hints of interesting ideas, but there is a reluctance to change (and I think a lingering fear that things like Feat Trees might remind folks of 4e), which is indicative of stagnation.
In light of the evidence about Wizards’ top-heavy problems, the more names are revealed, the more it looks like Hasbro is aiming to fix one of their major sources of bloat at Wizards. Far from being disproven, my point is more likely accurate today than it was before the names were revealed.
Now, does that mean the game will get better or Wizards is better off? Of course not—though I expect that will be the message folks on this forum try to put in my month. For some reason this forum has a problem of reading “we don’t have any real evidence to support whether this will be good or bad; but there is at least the chance things might not be as bleak as those rushing to judgment on faulty data are trying to say” as “I do not think will not be bad.” This very well could be a bad thing; but it doesn’t have to be—and the reality is that we do not know what is going to happen.
Because, here is the thing folks miss when they see lots of important names—being important does not make you necessary, and there are plenty of important people who are not being laid off. And, in a company that has a cash issue, it is not enough for someone to just be important.
So, for now, I’m not going to extrapolate from data points that are inconclusive, and I’m not going to jump to any conclusion about the future, when there is nothing tangible signalling what direction things might go. These names mean nothing to me—what the rules books look like in a year or so, once products without those laid off’s touch start to matriculate? That is something that actually has use to me.
This isn't a shock when it comes to a large corporation. It's not a shock that members of the Wizards team, a segment of Hasbro that actually creates revenue, saw job loss. I would think some of those people have higher salaries/wages.
But the human element still sucks. Somebody like Amy Dallen, who exudes joy and positivity and likely wasn't paid much, is out of a job. And yet to the best of my knowledge there is no announcement of the CEO (blanking on his name) or any of the higher tiered execs taking pay cuts. They can cut their salary and still make up for it in bonuses and some corporate loophole legal maneuvering. Even if it's just for the aesthetics of saying "hey, we took a salary cut", it's at least something.
Expected I guess ..but still sad
It appears that the 50th anniversary of D&D will not be as impactful as either the owners of the IP nor the consumers of the IP wished. This reduction in staff is likely to diminish the amount of product that will be finished during the coming year. It is quite a shame when we knew the anniversary has been coming and some of us were anticipating something special. But with their most recent releases, I wasn't getting my hopes up.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt