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Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

polygon.com

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Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#71

Post by JohnFen »

maximilianroos wrote: post #12

Getting laid off in December is tough. But it's better than getting laid off in January after coming back to work from holidays, with plans for the year ahead. At least this way, folks can recuperate with their family, and then hit the job market in January. Or do others disagree?

Getting laid off shortly after Christmas is worse than getting laid off before Christmas for many people, yes. If you know you're being laid off before Christmas, you can pare back on Christmas spending. If you're laid off after it, then you can't.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#73

Post by willsmith72 »

maximilianroos wrote: post #12

Getting laid off in December is tough. But it's better than getting laid off in January after coming back to work from holidays, with plans for the year ahead. At least this way, folks can recuperate with their family, and then hit the job market in January. Or do others disagree?

Depends on the severance. It's rough because you're starting the application process now, and not many companies are going to start the hiring process with someone a few days before a Christmas break.

That means you can essentially only start the process in early January, so you're already a few weeks/a month into your severance

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#74

Post by speeder »

oflannabhra wrote: post #28

Hasbro is essentially upside down, with huge losses across all their brands being subsidized by enormous growth from their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. Even with that growth, they are significantly down. There was a big investor push recently (led by Alta Fox) to get Hasbro to spin WotC out into an independent company [0], which failed. The big concern being that forcing growth on those properties (Magic: the Gat…

I am a MTG player. Also I used to own my own game business.

I am not sure Chris Cocks will preserve wotc.

First an interesting fact: one of the people pushing Alta Fox to meddle with Hasbro is a guy that was MTG player in the 90s.

Now about Chris Cocks: after he became CEO of WotC, the company did grow but making lots of short term focused things, like ditching the Pro scene, spamming Commander and Modern products (and I am a heavy Commander player...) spamming foils and other collectible crap, and reducing good promotional prizes.

Also they ditched some good products to offer complete crap after he became CEO, for example the holiday boxes were wildly useful and today they are crazy expensive because how useful and cool they are, if you find them. But lots and lots of stores has the Chris era gift products stuck on shelves collecting dust.

Then after he became Hasbro CEO things got somehow worse, like the OGL stupidity, 35th anniversary product that is ludicrously expensive, selling pre-sale products on Amazon official WotC store so cheap it undercut stores so badly they lost money.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#75

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

roughly wrote: post #56

Laying off the workers at the toy factory two weeks before Christmas is the thing the villain in an 80s kids movie would do. I don't mean that to be hyperbolic - like, literally, that's the sort of thing that was culturally cast as villainous behavior a generation or two ago.

But the country in the 80s didn't have a generation of brainwashing by Billionaires, Millionaires, and Temporarily-Displaced-Millionaires parroting the myth that the executive board of a publicly-traded company has a "fiduciary duty" to make as much money as possible.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#76

Post by tapoxi »

parl_match wrote: post #54
lotsofpulp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The D&D movie is on Amazon Prime, and is probably the most fun movie I watched this year. I have zero knowledge or interest in D&D.

Call it poor marketing, or a concept that just didn't resonate with cover-judgers, but a common perception of it by those who didn't watch it is that it is a cash-in kid's B-movie. Some pap you get for free on a streaming service. Disappointing that perception exists.

I liked the D&D movie, though it definitely felt budget with some awful CG at times.

For some reason, call it mid-pandemic boredom, my wife and I saw Hasbro's GI Joe film "Snake Eyes" in theaters. That was pretty awful.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#77

Post by happytiger »

oflannabhra wrote: post #28

Hasbro is essentially upside down, with huge losses across all their brands being subsidized by enormous growth from their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. Even with that growth, they are significantly down. There was a big investor push recently (led by Alta Fox) to get Hasbro to spin WotC out into an independent company [0], which failed. The big concern being that forcing growth on those properties (Magic: the Gat…

They just need to innovate to keep up with entertainment changes, and they haven’t. They’ve become crystallized in brand management and focused on very traditional and impotent MBA-lead strategies to “monetize the portfolio” and completely missed the chance at gaming innovation leadership.

They should make WotC’s management in charge of the overall company. I had a chance to work with them extensively on MTG internet properties and they are a cut above most management teams.

Chris is an interesting mix and as long as he makes long-term choices instead of them plethora of short term profit driven choices he’s been criticized for he is capable and thoughtful. I don’t think we’ve seen what he can do as he has always been beholden to the parent corporation’s culture.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#78

Post by slimsag »

oflannabhra wrote: post #28

Hasbro is essentially upside down, with huge losses across all their brands being subsidized by enormous growth from their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. Even with that growth, they are significantly down. There was a big investor push recently (led by Alta Fox) to get Hasbro to spin WotC out into an independent company [0], which failed. The big concern being that forcing growth on those properties (Magic: the Gat…

Hasbro needed to, and failed to (imo), transition into selling higher-end luxury toys for adults with nostalgia - and focus less on kids.

With the exception of DnD, everything else Hasbro-owned has failed to capture such an audience I think.

Their toys are generally priced ~$25 or less. Higher-end variants of their toys are not by Hasbro, but rather by other companies. Want a high-end nerf gun? You're going to Dart Zone, not Hasbro.

On Amazon their toys are competing on the same footing with the cheaper (often better) knock-off brands.

Their board games are dated and haven't really evolved. Monopoly is $15 while Catan is $100, /r/HotWheels collectors want old cars not the cheap new ones, etc.

By comparison, brands like Lego have evolved, are insanely expensive (>$100) and I constantly see adults with disposable income purchasing them en-mass while they're not really affordable as kids toys anymore.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#79

Post by dmurray »

StormChaser_5 wrote: post #30
hamandcheese wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorant question - is severance typically paid lump sum?

Yes. Or at least here in Ireland

If this was in Ireland, the workers wouldn't be laid off as of today - they'd at least have the option of a "consultation period". While that might be just a formality in terms of retaining their jobs, it would give anyone who wanted the option to get their severance payment in January instead.

Re: Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

#80

Post by neilv »

roughly wrote: post #56

Laying off the workers at the toy factory two weeks before Christmas is the thing the villain in an 80s kids movie would do. I don't mean that to be hyperbolic - like, literally, that's the sort of thing that was culturally cast as villainous behavior a generation or two ago.

Christmas for a toy company offers an villainous two-fer:

(1) lay off people right before the biggest American holiday, and

(2) lay off people right after they helped a toy company crunch through the lead-up to Christmas.

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