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Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

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Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#31

Post by rqtwteye »

kderbyma wrote: post #19

A bit of a hot take, but video games need a change. they have stagnated as their profit have soared but like most things....profits are a lagging indicator and like Disney marvel.....were on the slide down. this doesn't mean video game industry is dead....just that it needs to shed it's skin and remove the profit hungry leeches.... the big names will lose lots of money and will do all they can to consolidate anything…

" they have stagnated as their profit have soared but like most things"

That's the preferred mode for a lot of managers. There are only a few company leaders who can push a company forward and keep it innovative. You could argue Apple is at that stage. Profits are strong but their innovation output is pretty low compared to the resources they have.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#34

Post by ProAm »

jmcgough wrote: post #8

A layoff gives managers the opportunity to fire people who they've wanted to fire for a while. The firings within WotC were likely opportunistic and not about trying to change the direction or strength of the company. Doing it as part of larger layoffs gives an excuse for it and in theory mitigates drama.

Do you have any evidence this is what is happening? Why didnt it occur with the first round?

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#35

Post by refulgentis »

el-dude-arino wrote: post #14
jmcgough wrote: post #8

A layoff gives managers the opportunity to fire people who they've wanted to fire for a while. The firings within WotC were likely opportunistic and not about trying to change the direction or strength of the company. Doing it as part of larger layoffs gives an excuse for it and in theory mitigates drama.

Ah you beat me to it. Layoffs like this mitigate the drama for sure, but also mitigates legal liability, which just goes to show you; you're a fool to remain loyal to the company. A lot of the people fired were rated highly in their performance reviews, I'm sure. But if you're too ambitious or criticized the boss for making a mistake or just looked at him wrong... you're gone. My advice: - Always be interviewing - Ne…

This is a little too jaded, but in all seriousness younger me, everything except the 2+ remote jobs is true.

Always ask yourself _does my manager want this, or do I think my manager will want this when I'm done with it?_.

Also, you never take a stand on anything in the sense that _you never want to be the only person in the room advocating for something longer than a couple sentences_.

Adults are just as nasty as middle schoolers, but to your face, they won't say a thing. They are old enough to have learned its easy and feels good to shit on other people, and it is hard and feels bad to have a Discussion(tm).

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#37

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

id00 wrote: post #18
el-dude-arino wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah you beat me to it. Layoffs like this mitigate the drama for sure, but also mitigates legal liability, which just goes to show you; you're a fool to remain loyal to the company. A lot of the people fired were rated highly in their performance reviews, I'm sure. But if you're too ambitious or criticized the boss for making a mistake or just looked at him wrong... you're gone. My advice: - Always be interviewing - Ne…

> Never take a stand on anything "If you stand for nothing, Burr, what'll you fall for?" (c)

agree, I'd rather be a professional with a shorter lifespan than a henchman/goon that can survive anything

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#38

Post by [deleted] »

jmcgough wrote: post #8

A layoff gives managers the opportunity to fire people who they've wanted to fire for a while. The firings within WotC were likely opportunistic and not about trying to change the direction or strength of the company. Doing it as part of larger layoffs gives an excuse for it and in theory mitigates drama.

[deleted]

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#39

Post by snagglemouth »

As someone who's played these games, it's disheartening to see the layoffs at Wizards of the Coast. Their contributions to the gaming world are immense, and the potential brain drain to competitors is concerning. These games hold a special place in many hearts, and the recent controversies have cast a shadow. Hoping for a brighter future for the gaming community.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#40

Post by speeder »

getwiththeprog wrote: post #7

As a long term Wizards player / purchaser, I think their product quality has been dropping over the last few years. In D&D, take the Planescape box set - it was a really empty world lacking in the imagination that the original second ed Planescape had. All the D&D content just seems like filler to me. In MTG, they are releasing so many sets that it would cost a fortune to keep up, and the cards are all like 'meh'. Th…

I saw someone pointing out they are doing exact same things comic companies did leading to their crash.

The comic companies started to sell a ton of variants, foils, collector editions.

They also started to do attention grabbing but bad quality storylines.

And also they started to try to cut middlemen and sell more directly to the consumer.

The end result was that readers eventually noticed quality was crap, with comics being poor products as story medium. And collectors noticed that they had a problem of no readers to buy their stuff, and that x-men #1 os worthless since it had millions of copies, unlike for example action comics #1. This led to stores losing losing money and then going belly up, then suddenly the comics companies themselves were losing money.

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