Getting laid off has got to be the single highest trigger of suicide. Maybe breakups or child loss are higher but it’s at least top 3. Watching companies perform layoffs on thousands of employees just for their stock price to temporarily bump is really disgusting. I’d like to see some legislation that significantly penalizes companies engaging in layoffs. They should be a last resort, not a well-worn tool.
Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
91–100 of 387 posts
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#92I really miss 2016 MtG. I remember when full art lands and full art promos were RARE and with money for no reason other than their collectability. I really liked when cards were rare because of the fact that they were good and uncommon and maybe because they were the same as the regular card but foil, not because they were arbitrarily a different type of shiny, or like when that one card from Kamigawa had a different…
Why don't you buy singles? (Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)
> What's the point of buying packs?
Draft is probably the best MtG style of playing.
A lot of MtG turns into pay-to-win, since the best cards of the meta inevitably cost more. Drafting on the other hand, ensures that everyone has zero-cards upon the start of the draft and have to make due with the booster-cards that come in the draft.
In many ways, drafting is cheaper. You don't have to worry about making the best deck ever... instead you just have to make the best deck given the cards you draft. Then you can sell the expensive singles after the draft.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#93This is the same Hasbro that tried to retroactively close off the D&D Open Game License (and thus the third party ecosystem). It was a massive betrayal that caused a ton of pushback: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jan/12/dungeons-and-d... They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toy…
> They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys.
For me this is the most telling part that Hasbro doesn't quite get what you're actually selling if you have a tabletop company; it's not the ruleset, that will be leaked as soon as you sell a single copy and people actually play the game. It's instead ideas and world building visions from the people who were directly involved in creating the world and rules the company tries to sell to people. People are creative, but even the best story tellers wouldn't turn their nose up at some lore to help spark creativity, long as the lore isn't needlessly restrictive.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't you buy singles? (Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago and that seems to be the best way to make decks without gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)
> What's the point of buying packs? Draft is probably the best MtG style of playing. A lot of MtG turns into pay-to-win, since the best cards of the meta inevitably cost more. Drafting on the other hand, ensures that everyone has zero-cards upon the start of the draft and have to make due with the booster-cards that come in the draft. In many ways, drafting is cheaper. You don't have to worry about making the best de…
As a beginner, I think the drafts are a really unfriendly format that heavily biases experienced players (who know how different mechanics can combo each other, useful counters, deck balance, etc. by heart). I tried that with friends a few times but it was like trying to learn a new game every time, as fast as possible, so you can out-pick the cards before someone else grabs them. Personally I felt it shifted the gameplay from tactical card playing to race-to-viability in drafting.
In non draft games, either self made decks or pre-cons, you can spend time studying your deck and optimizing it before actual play starts. In drafts, much of the actual gameplay IS the drafting and gambling. The actual decks that get built are usually uninteresting, just fast aggressive combos that play like starter decks.
Thankfully I discovered Commander pre-cons, easily upgraded with some cheap singles, and have a lot of fun with that. Especially in 2v2 or free for all. It's all the stuff I love about card games (the deck building and tactics) without gambling. I'd much rather spend $50 on a precon and another $20 or so on singles, knowing exactly what I'll get, than buy or draft a bunch of random packs that almost never give me a useful deck in the end.
Just a matter of taste, I guess. I wish Magic weren't even collectible, personally, but a limited card game like the Fantasy Flight ones (game of thrones, arkham, etc.)
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#95This comes after this year selling the rights to the Transformers movie series, an arguably larger hit to their ability to have mainstream impact. It seems very unlikely they wouldn't be looking for a buyer for WotC as well, and trimming down to just the IP may be making it a better sale. The company is struggling and likely pulling out all the stops the avoid bankruptcy, when you need liquidity this could very much…
I don’t see why they would sell WoTC considering it’s the profit generator that keeps the other businesses afloat.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they don't want to be in the legacy media licensing business. Isn't that business basically free money? The way I see it, no capital investment is needed. You just need to keep a few accountants and lawyers around to handle occasional licensing paperwork. Am I missing something?
It may be "free money" as you frame it. But a cash stream that provides n dollars per year forever can be valued in today's dollars, assuming a discount rate of d, at n / (1-d). So it's reasonable to prefer cash now to revenue forever, at that exchange rate, depending on your corporate interests. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/present-value-annuity.a...
You have the right idea, but you got the formula wrong. That's evidenced in the source you link, but you can also reason it from first principles: a higher discount rate should make the cash stream less valuable, not more. The correct formula is n / d.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#97“now it’s a union shop in the same state as Wizards” - regarding unions is it considered a good thing? I still think of it as a crony workplace where only age is promoted and not merit. Am I wrong? Only did union job at a grocery store (UFCW)
I worked at a unionized job as a teenager at an industrial plant and I asked how to get hired for real instead of temping and he explained how unions worked there and other plants in town. He said it's extremely neoptistic, they'd usually hire a kid of one of the workers or a friend and the odds of an outsider getting in was thin. They dealt out jobs like a mafia family.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they don't want to be in the legacy media licensing business. Isn't that business basically free money? The way I see it, no capital investment is needed. You just need to keep a few accountants and lawyers around to handle occasional licensing paperwork. Am I missing something?
It may be "free money" as you frame it. But a cash stream that provides n dollars per year forever can be valued in today's dollars, assuming a discount rate of d, at n / (1-d). So it's reasonable to prefer cash now to revenue forever, at that exchange rate, depending on your corporate interests. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/present-value-annuity.a...
This strikes me as a shortsighted, risky, and frankly unsustainable attitude for a company. It's no surprise they're struggling.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#99“now it’s a union shop in the same state as Wizards” - regarding unions is it considered a good thing? I still think of it as a crony workplace where only age is promoted and not merit. Am I wrong? Only did union job at a grocery store (UFCW)
Unions tends to reward credentials and years of experience over performance or capability.
For most people it lowers downside risk and lowers upside opportunity.
Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
#100This is the same Hasbro that tried to retroactively close off the D&D Open Game License (and thus the third party ecosystem). It was a massive betrayal that caused a ton of pushback: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jan/12/dungeons-and-d... They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toy…
Also their recent move to 3-book + DM screen sets is really annoying. They did it first with Spelljammer's rerelease into 5e and I think the oceanic thirst for Spelljammer content might have sent them the wrong signal about the popularity of the actual content which was pretty thin for the amount you paid for it with notable missing rules like long range travel... for the space setting.