Massive Entlassungswelle bei den Wizards

[Greifenklaue]

Huiuiui.

Hier im Detail.

[Wormys_Queue]

Man könnte ja viel dazu sagen, aber ich lass lieber Monte Cook und Ryan Dancey zu Wort kommen:

Monte:

Originally Posted by Piratecat  
Major layoffs during the 3e era created some award-winning game companies: Green Ronin, Malhavoc Games, and quite a few more. I can only hope that layoffs during the 4e era do the same.

While I appreciate the good intent, I'm not sure how one might credit layoffs with the creation of Malhavoc Press. Neither Sue nor I were laid off, nor was our first major freelancer (Bruce Cordell). I suppose later on we used the talents of Sean Reynolds and Skip Williams, but we'd been around for a while at that point. I suppose you could say that some of the layoffs were indicative of the kinds of large changes that occurred at WotC which convinced me it was no longer a place I wanted to work at.

Not that I have any illusions about what would have happened had I stayed. I've no doubt that I would have been laid off. From a larger perspective than just yesterday, it's become clear that WotC's become a company that not only doesn't value experience, it avoids it. (And looks at least somewhat disdainfully, rather than fondly, upon its own past.) You have to stretch your definition of "old guard" to even apply to anyone there anymore. (This is likely a bottom line issue, since the longer you stay, the more you get paid.) When I was there, I worked among people like Skip Williams and Jeff Grubb--with that kind of perspective at hand, I was always the new guy. Which was fine by me. I had much to learn and always appreciated the perspective they could provide. Now, most of the people working on D&D weren't even there when I was there. That's how much turnover and change there's been. There's a real danger of losing continuity with these kinds of layoffs. Dangers involving making old mistakes and not remembering what was learned in old lessons.

It's a foolish and shortsighted management that lets people like Jonathan, Julia, and Dave go. Foolish. And a cold-hearted one that does it at Christmas. But this is not new outrage, it's old, tired outrage. This is the company that laid off Skip, and Jeff, and Sean, and other people of extraordinary talent and experience. It's par for the recent course.

Before I end this bitter ramble, let me just add that it's hard not to laugh at the shocking and perhaps pitiable ineptitude of a company that makes role playing games that would lay off Jonathan Tweet, very likely the best rpg designer, well, period.

I wish all of them the best, and have not a shred of doubt that they'll all go on to do bigger and better things.
__________________
Monte Cook
montecook.com[/quote]

Ryan:

They're trapped in a box they can't escape.  The tabletop market is just a shadow of what it once was.  The MMO route is closed to them due to the deals made in 1999 in the shadow of the dot com bubble.  They are too big to tear themselves down and rebuild into something like "American Girl" with their own private distribution channel.  They're keeping the logistics and production people and letting the creative people go that tells me they've realized they're done, and now its just a question of maximizing profits on the downslope.

Pretty soon they're going to be the Magic: The Gathering company.  And maybe that's for the best.  The M:TG company is long term viable, makes a tidy profit, requires a fairly small staff, and could be located anywhere it is convenient for Hasbro to put it.  Carve out WotC's licensing efforts, its seperate sales & marketing, its seperate accounting, and all its overhead devoted to building new businesses, and you have a fairly valuable component that could be attached to the Hasbro games group.

Bin mal gespannt, ob Ryan Dancey wieder recht hat. Dass das Einstampfen der OGL durch WotC das Erstarken der Mitbewerber zur Folge haben würde, hat er jedenfalls schon zu Beginn der 3rd Edition gewusst.

[Argamae]

Okay, das waren ja mal deutliche Worte von Monte. Aber er wird wohl Recht haben - und alle Kritiker an der Wende, die D&D 4 vollzogen hat, ebenfalls. Wie können die denn noch Rollenspiele machen, wenn sie die ganze Kreativabteilung an die Luft setzen? Na? Eben.

[Greifenklaue]

Zwei Entlassungen bei den Wizards, vermeldet IcV2.

"Wizards of the Coast has laid off two long-term editors, Chris Sims and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, who both have worked on the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons."

[Argamae]

Boah, das nenne ich mal "Thread Resurrection"...