And Just Two Weeks Til Christmas
Chris Cocks announced in a company-wide memo that over one thousand employees between Wizards of The Coast and parent company, Hasbro, would be let go, citing tough business climate that’s been slow to recover.
Two weeks before Christmas.
I won’t go into great detail on this because many other youtube channels such as TheDungeonDelver, Bob World Builder, Clownfish TV and many others.
It comes as no surprise. The continued boneheaded moves of pissing off customers, creators and alienating their core fan base over the many years, including the OGL scandal, the constant lecturing, broken promises, weasel language uses, nonsensical language changes in the core rules (If you wanted these books, I hope you got the 2014 version) the crappy toys they’ve released, Hasbro making toys for Disney movies that haven’t moved because Disney’s offerings have been sub-par to say the least and the ever-present and increasing digitization of D&D to the point of microtransactions and subscriptions, people have been looking elsewhere.
Other market forces could be blamed as well. Let me break it down. Prices go up due to inflation. That means an employee needs to command higher prices for their labor which means the cost of a product that is produced by that company passes that cost onto the consumer. If those products don’t sell at pace and the company makes no money, they’re going to begin killing off those positions to fill them with much more cost-effective people to produce that labor and you better believe the prices on the end product aren’t coming down. Any business must profit by at least 25% or better in order to keep the doors open. That’s just fact. Inflation has real consequences, folks.
Now Hasbro itself has some problems in that kids these days are more into what they can do on a touchscreen whether that’s phones, tablets or computerized devices which is what they’re hoping to leverage with D&D Beyond via WoTC. WoTC’s latest offerings in books have been…in terms of content, ranging from absolute shit to disappointing at best. The sad part is, it’s WoTC holding up the entire company right now. Heavy burdens, to be certain.
Mike Mearls was among those let go and he’s been a controversial figure that has deleted many of his tweets and posts on social media. Bill Silvey over at TheDungeonDelver channel did a good job of covering that, I hope you’ll check it out.
After you watch that one, watch this one by Luke Hart over at The DM Lair.
Let’s also not forget that Ollie’s outlets have had a bunch of D&D stuff on their shelves lately. In fact, the Warriors of Krynn boardgame that coincides with WoTC’s Dragonlance: Shadow of The Dragon Queen went for as little as, I’m not even kidding, ten dollars. That’s right, Ten American Dollars. Just about a year ago, the preorders for the book and boardgame were something like $130 and now, if you’re lucky, you can snatch up both for less than $50 if you shop at Ollie’s and on Amazon for the book. Hasbro also dumped a ton of Star Wars, D&D and other assorted Disney figures at Ollie’s who are selling them extremely cheap. MSRP, be damned.
The Financial woes at WoTC are hitting them hard and fast. Just at the first of the year when the OGL debacle hit, they claimed there was nothing at all to worry about. They were on the back foot and they knew it. They quickly backpedaled on the morality clauses and trying to hamstring the OGL, putting much, including Strahd Von Zaravich into the Creative Commons which, they can not touch in any way, shape or form. Many other clones such as Pathfinder, Castles & Crusades, etc. removed all references to the OGL, putting as much distance between themselves and Wizards of The Coast due to the shenanigans they attempted without and even with notification.
They thought they had dodged a bullet but I bring up the OGL thing again to illustrate something.
Make No Mistake: This Company Is A Ball Of Absolute Slime.
The fact that they fired people, especially this many, right before the holiday ensues is not surprising. In fact, many of the ones at the top are so completely mismanaging things that, at the end of the day, they’ll throw anyone and everyone under the bus while calling them “friends” in order to save their own asses.
My heart goes out to the ones that lost their jobs. I know what that’s like. I have been there.
I’ve worked in a company that had alienated it’s core base, sought short-term gains with short-sighted measures, have it all blow up in their faces, poor decision after poor decision and then we were all at a point in the holiday seasons where we were always wondering if today would be out last day at work. It’s truly stressful.
From a business standpoint, I can understand the need to cut jobs but, honestly, I think the “tough market forces” are really coming down to one thing; a real sense of denial in the face of objective reality.
When inflation hits you and me, we have to make certain financial decisions for the household. A new RPG book would be nice, new toys for the kids would be nice but at the end of the day, we have to keep the lights on, the heat running (as of the time of this writing), food on the table, a roof over our heads and clothing on our backs and butts. The RPG books, dice, maps, accessories, etc, those are luxuries.
Not only that but with the OSR in particular, there are games you can play that are essentially D&D in everything but name that you can play absolutely for free. You can make up your own maps and tokens, dungeon tiles, engage in crafting and all that to make a more fun activity for the family as opposed to playing a digital game where you basically rent everything (again, luxury) and the minute you can’t afford that rent, you lose everything. It’s why I recommend games like OSRIC, Basic Fantasy RPG, For Gold & Glory, Crimson Dragon Slayer d20, Swords & Wizardry, White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game, Castles & Crusades and many others. Yes, you can play Castles & Crusades absolutely free.
I can tell you from just watching the trends of the past year, I’m going to make a few bold predictions and that’s why I’ve come to write here today.
I think WoTC and Hasbro are going to make attempts at “quieting the noise” around all this social propaganda for the time being. They need to make a hard turn and fast and, if they truly want customers, they’re going to have to stop doing what’s sent most of us looking for alternatives.
I think that WoTC and Hasbro will start asking their players, fans, etc. what they really want and taking those surveys and implementing them in the coming days, weeks and months ahead
WoTC and Hasbro will allow things to go on as normal for awhile and make some short-term gains and profits.
Once comfortable again, we’ll all be bad people, they’ll finally put the final nail in their brands and Hasbro will eventually file for bankruptcy.
Let’s face it, D&D lovers, we’re gonna be baited and switched. They’ve done it this year already. One step forward, ten steps back.
Both WoTC and Hasbro can make life a lot better by making the next round of layoffs aimed at the activists. Oh there are more layoffs to come in the next six months, make no mistake. In fact, I expect there will be a company restructuring, a realignment of districts, etc. I think the final part of my fourth point is a certainty as they’re attempting to do what Marvel did in the 90s which completely backfired and you’re going to see a complete sell-off of IPs and brands and when you see that, you will know that the company is in serious trouble. Believe one thing, I’ve seen this movie before and then ending isn’t that great for the ones on screen. It’s like a really gory slasher film only there’s no “final girl” here.
Hasbro and WoTC both are the latest in the line of collateral damage that results in the Culture War when a company’s own people labels anyone who disagrees with their direction as “undesirable” and, ironically, becomes undesirable themselves. Hasbro’s stock price is in near freefall at the moment and, keep in mind that both WoTC and Hasbro, respectively, had, allow me to reiterate this three straight years of windfall profits and captive audiences but no exit strategy and now, after pissing that and their core base away, they’re at a loss as to how it all happened. It’s not a mystery to me in the least.
I think it’s high time that Hasbro and WoTC both injected a few ccs of Honesty into this dying patient and hopefully, stabilize it so that perhaps live-saving measures can be employed.
My advice, though I’m not a financial advisor here, would be to tell a company such as Troll Lord Games to purchase majority shares in these companies and become controlling members of the board. If you can’t wrestle control back into sense then at least the IPs could then be snatched up for pennies on the dollar and then rebranding Castles & Crusades into Dungeons & Dragons would be a ready-made cash cow that would become a rocket to the moon but that’s only a theory. I’m not getting into the details on that so I’m almost certain I’d be missing something along the way.
Why mention Troll Lord Games specifically? Well Castle Zagyg: The Yggsburgh Setting re-issue did so well that the Gygax Estate is happy to allow TLG to publish more of Gygax’s final works and finish them. The Hermit, another of Gygax’s works, just wrapped a successful Kickstarter that did over one hundred thousand dollars. The goal was only $1,000. Let that sink in.
Gary Gygax, one of the creators of D&D has a legacy that is being honored by TLG and being all but forgotten by Hasbro & Wizards of The Coast. That does not speak of good stewardship to me by Hasbro/WoTC.
We know one thing, Hasbro and WoTC are desperate and, in that desperation they’ll now overload their current employees, break morale and no victory will ever be good enough. The goals will keep increasing on a fluke here or there alone and soon, you’ll see that the debt just outweighs what they make by a country mile.
So put a pin in this tweet, dear reader. I think we’re all past the point of no return here unless Hasbro and WoTC can pull out a miracle.
The Ravens Nest 
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