New Round of Layoffs at WotC

[Pitlord]

Most of these things come from Enworld.org since they've already collected most of the 'rumours and facts' ...

Read the followup posts to find out more.

Source: Enworld.org

[Pitlord]

Posted 05/09/02

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There's been another round of layoffs at WotC. I don't have any figures yet, but I have had the layoffs confirms by a couple of people at WotC and by a couple of people who know some of the employees laid off. I do know that it incuded some R&D staff. As soon as I hear more details (names, figures etc.) I'll let you know.
More info -- WotC's JD Wiker posted the following on the official Star Wars messageboards (thanks to Greg Davis for spotting it):
Folks, it's time to say goodbye. The rumors--some of them, at least--are true. Wizards is today cutting staff, and RPG R&D lost several people.

I'm one of them.

I'll stick around on these boards, using my home account, but as of today, I no longer speak for the company. Nor can I particulary get my head together with the rules team to come up with answers to difficult questions.

What I can do, at this point, is offer you some information that these boards have demonstrated, time and time again, that you don't all have.

Wizards--even Hasbro--is just like any other company. They have good people and bad people, good policies and bad policies. They both do what they think they need to do to survive and make a profit. I don't always agree with those decisions, and neither should you.

But don't hate *any* company for what looks to you like a bad decision. As with everything, there are two sides to every corporate story, and you have to try to see it from the other guy's perspective.

In the next few days, I'll be able to tell you more of what I know about the future of the Star Wars game at Wizards, and what I can guess about the future of Wizards with Hasbro.

But right now, I have a lot of books to pack up. So as Obi-Wan said to Luke: "Remember ... the Force will be with you ... always."

He also mentions in the same thread that WotC's Star Wars line will probably be almost entirely freelance from now on. I've heard some rumours that Skip Williams and Jeff Grub are amongst those laid off. No confirmation of that yet, though. I've also heard some rumours that Hasbro intends to move WotC to their main offices early next year, but others have told me that this is not the case. There are a few other unlikely sounding rumours, but I won't mention them unless I get them them at least semi-confirmed.


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[Pitlord]

1st update ...

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This is an update to the WotC layoff news (below). Confirmed layoffs so far include: Skip Williams, Penny Williams, Stan! Brown, Jeff Grubb, JD Wiker, Rich Redman. Bill Slavicsek has also apparently been demoted. Approximately 100 people have been laid off in total. Nicole Lindroos posted the following on Enworlds messageboards:


As of last night, friends of mine in R&D were remaining optimistic that cuts were going to be in areas of the company that Hasbro's infrastructure could take over: sales, marketing, accounting. Perhaps those areas were cut as well, but it certainly seems to me that they've gone deep into the creative areas as well. The list of confirmed laid-off "creatives" includes some of the most talented, hard-working people I've ever had the pleasure to know in my 15 years in the industry. A dozen people in the graphic design group came to work today only to be told they had no job as of tomorrow, including the people who worked on card games, Star Wars, minis, and D&D, including Art Directors and supervisors, people in design and editing, people who have been there and been work horses for the properties the company owns (Jeff Grubb, Skip and Penny, Stan!--who is one of the nicest people I've ever EVER known) and who have *people skills* (unlike certain of the remaining managers I could name). If the creative slack is expected to be picked up by the people who were moved up to management positions, I shudder to think what's likely to come out from the company; many of those creatives-turned-managers became managers because they weren't very good designers to begin with.


They've retained a handful of talent on the creative side, but just a handful, no more. I sincerely believe that Hasbro will not be satisfied with how the company is performing unless they can recapture the heady days of Pokemon and selling multiple hundreds of thousands of "core books"--something that will NEVER happen. Hasbro itself is creatively bankrupt (witness its inability to spawn a hit toy and how it continues to go back to the well by "reinventing" GI Joe or "new and different" Furby creations). Not only do these layoffs cut the creative talent of WotC down to the bone, they also weaken the company's ability to have those new "break out" hits that are seemingly required for the company to be perceived (on the stock market at least) as a success.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Skip Williams and Jeff Grubb are some of the only people to have worked on 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D.

[Pitlord]

Monte Cook clarified some rumours and misconceptions over on his messageboards; much of this is in reponsse to posts on various messageboards:

- Jonathan Tweet still works at WotC, but has little to nothing to do with rpgs.
- Plenty of good people are still at WotC. Chris Perkins, Bruce Cordell, Dave Noonan, Andy Collins, Ed Stark, Rich Baker, Charles Ryan, Michele Carter, Gwen Kestrel, Kim Mohan and James Wyatt. It's not many, but they're good people.
- I was not laid off from WotC, but I do not work there. I left of my own accord a year and a half ago.
- I do not write freelance for WotC anymore, either (I haven't, actually, since last November, except for the occasional bit for their website or an article in Dragon).
- Ryan Dancey does not work at WotC anymore.
- Anthony Valterra is a business manager, not a designer or editor.
- Ed Greenwood has never been an employee of WotC or TSR, he has always been a freelance writer.
- The OGL cannot be taken away by Hasbro or anyone else.
- D&D sells very well (by D&D's own standards) and far outsells all d20 products combined.
- There simply is no one person or one thing that you can point your finger at and say "he's/that's to blame." It's a long complicated story.
- An internet-sponsored boycott of WotC would never be large enough for them to notice. And even if it did get big enough for them to notice, all they would do is interpret that as a downturn for rpgs and layoff more people.

[Pitlord]

Other bits and pieces:

- Kevin "Piratecat" Kulp mentioned that Stan! Brown had just been tasked with reinvigorating the playtesting program.
- Right now, the company is down to about 250 people; at its height WotC employed about 750 people.
- The "spine design team" (the team who are responsible for graphics, making sure the products look pretty etc.) was, as one ex-WotC staffer puts it, "gutted like a fish".
- There's a lot of restructuring going on, with people changing positions, moving departments etc.

- Gaming Report have one or two bits and pieces about yesterday's layoffs:
* Initial news item (http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=5244&mode=thread&order=0)
* A few more names
* WotC's press release (http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=5248&mode=thread&order=0)