Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

geekwire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 387 posts

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

#231

Post by giantrobot »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #114
rtkwe wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OMG they rereleased spelljammer? Brb, gotta go buy some DND books. Which is to say, I am clearly part of the problem here.

5E Spelljammer only superficially resembles the 2E Spelljammer. As a fan of the original Spelljammer the 5E version is a massive disappointment.

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

#232

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

bart_spoon wrote: post #149
THENATHE wrote: post #48

I 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…

There’s only two camps, investors and gamers. I think that anyone who wants to “have cards that have relative value” are investors, whether they realize it or not. Its one thing to collect because you like something inherent about the cards themselves (I recall a recent Reddit post where the user was trying to collect every single Magic card that depicted an owl in any way). But if your concern is about the monetary…

https://old.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/13gihbr/today_i_f...

for the owl collector, who at the time of posting seems to have missed a few.

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

#233

Post by numbsafari »

paulddraper wrote: post #164
solardev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever want another huge, ancient labyrinth of a language that also kinda sorta runs everywhere, the Javascript world welcomes you with open tentaces! Here we're controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and Typescript), with upgrades and crossgrades and cross compilers that deliver astounding 15% improvements in performance in exchange for a mere few animal sacrifices and a lifetime of misery. I…

> getting your app to run on other platforms is as simple as embedding your operating system into WASM and putting it in their browser ???

May you descend into the Inferno…

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

#234

Post by masklinn »

solardev wrote: post #141
Yhippa wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're in a tough spot because they have to keep several audiences happy: collectors and players. Players generally want the cheapest set pieces while collectors want the value of their collection to grow. I think WotC has done a decent job trying to satisfy both groups and are at least trying different things. As an investor, you should be happy about that. Whether or not this sea change of releases over the pandem…

I wish playing with third-party "proxy" cards were more accepted (like https://mtg-print.com/set/fallout or https://proxyking.biz/ ), where you can get any card custom-printed for a dollar or so. Maybe I just have to find a group where nobody cares about collecting. If WotC did that first-party, I'd buy a shit ton from them even if they had zero resale value. But I guess that would eat into their collectibles and gac…

At least in commander casual it seems pretty well accepted.

And with how extensive some alters are, their proxy nature may not be distinguishable (although I don’t think you should mislead people, just be upfront and if you don’t mind bring fallback decks).

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

#235

Post by stale2002 »

criddell wrote: post #134
bsdpufferfish wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions tends to reward credentials and years of experience over performance or capability. For most people it lowers downside risk and lowers upside opportunity.

Unions prioritize whatever it is the members want prioritized.

Indeed. And members tend to want to put up barriers to entry and engage in credentialism to prevent competition from new comers.

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

#236

Post by mynameisnoone »

It's not baffling, it's the latest in business lemmings' theater: when profits are at record levels, squeeze out even more money by suppressing wages with a good round or 3 of layoffs. That'll teach those corporate employees to stay hungry and not to earn too much because the CEO and investors needs those profits.

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

#237

Post by vineyardmike »

pushedx wrote: post #175

Any more details on what Hasbro's "Entertainment" division does, and why it's lost more than $800M this year?

> Hasbro Entertainment, a division that will be dedicated to leveraging Hasbro’s most valuable brands to develop and produce premium content across platforms for audiences of all ages, following the close of Hasbro’s sale of eOne’s film & television business. The new division, which unifies Hasbro’s film, television, animation, and digital media expertise under one umbrella, reflects a significant step in the execution of Hasbro’s Blueprint 2.0 strategy, which is defined by increased investment in Hasbro’s priority brands

https://newsroom.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-detai...

Sounds like they're losing money on making media. Maybe it's Capex for a movie(s)? Maybe they're just not popular media? I don't know but that's the team losing money.

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

#238

Post by mynameisnoone »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #64

Prepare for the enshittification and bedbathandbeyonding of Magic the gathering. If I had to make a guess as to why, given the fact that the people they laid off were all senior leaders and the numbers are good, it would be preparing for a pump and dump. if you want to be able to pump and dump a really strong brand then you need to be able to have leaders who don’t mind burning the brands equity in order to make mone…

It seems like we're reliving 1980 all over again but with smartphones, internet, millions of homeless people, and slightly better fashion.

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

#239

Post by edrxty »

I really wish I could sit on one of these decision meetings just so I could understand how the sausage is made. There's an entire class of people out there running the world yet operating in their own universe completely removed from the consensus reality we live in.

"Ok we have this cash cow..."

"Shoot it"

"But..."

"Shoot it, the cow accepted an open license"

"That doesn't make any..."

"I don't care, shoot the cow"

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

#240

Post by mynameisnoone »

runnr_az wrote: post #21
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…

You’re likely mistaken about the value they’re contributing. Corporate America can be a heartless place, for sure, but you’d be surprised how hard it is to straight up fire underperforming white collar workers.

There is no heart or soul, rhyme or reason in it. It's all about who's friends with who, and each particular cult of marketing of apparent utility.
Post reply on HN