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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

#281

Post by gpderetta »

masklinn wrote: post #234
solardev wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It might actually be more accepted in competitive EDH (and pretty much required) as most people can't be expected mortgage their homes to buy a deck full of expensive reserve list cards[1] :D. It helps that cEDH is not a sanctioned format.

[1] cEDH is sometimes called singleton multiplayer vintage for a reason.

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

#282

Post by mcv »

DonHopkins wrote: post #279
mcv wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the browser. Javascript won in the browser, which was indeed Java's original target platform. They lost that, but they won nearly everywhere else.

JavaScript won the war of running the same language on both sides, because it runs in the browser, and you can run any language you want on the server. You can't practically run any language you want on the browser, only one, and it's JavaScript, so it's not possible for Java to run on both sides now. And in case you didn't notice, people run JavaScript on the server all the time, because they can share the same fram…

Nobody is denying the popularity of Javascript. I'm merely pointing out that Java is huge. Java is still incredibly popular in enterprise environments, and so much Java code has been written there that I've called Java the COBOL of the future on several occasions. It's still very easy to find work in Java.

> You can't practically run any language you want on the browser, only one, and it's JavaScript

Everybody knows that, but are you aware of the history of that? Why Javascript is called Javascript, despite not being in any way related to Java?

Java was originally aimed to run in the browser as Aplets. That required a plugin of course, and those have since fallen out of favour for good reason. But Java was originally the language that ran in the browser, and Sun specifically marketed it for that. And then Netscape introduced their own language called Javascript specifically so people would associate it with Java, but it had the advantage that it would run in the browser without the use of plugins. And Netscape was so dominant that they could dictate this sort of thing.

Plenty of Web Aplets have been written at that time, but with browsers abandoning plugins, they've become obsolete. And requiring a plugin before it runs was definitely an obstacle.

Instead Java became the preferred language on the server, and it took a very long time before Javascript got any traction there. It has that traction now, and the advantage of running the same code in browser and server is definitely an advantage, but there's a lot of history before that.

And while Java's popularity is certainly dwindling (and deservedly so, if you ask me), it's coming from an extremely high popularity and has a very long way to go before it's gone. Because it did win almost everywhere outside the browser.

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

#283

Post by gpderetta »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #204
dontlaugh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It would be a better game if they just sold entire expansions where you get all of the cards.

It may not even exist without such a model, on the other hand. Which may cause many other things to cease as well or never expand to mainstream-ish reception.

It might be slowly moving to that model: with precon decks, challenger decks and secret lairs, WotC is selling a lot of non-randomized stuff. They even split for a while draft boosters from collector boosters (and then reversed the decision when nobody was buying the draft boosters and risked killing the format).

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

#284

Post by gpderetta »

Supermancho wrote: post #124
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…

The enshittification already happened. The most recent incorporation of other IPs, like the upcoming Dr Who, is a series of last gasps. While sales have followed along the aging income growth of existing players, the inverse pressure of exiting players is past sustainable levels. Other forms of gamba have eroded the MTG gamba allure. Re: Youtube - Tolarian Community College - which is very good at capturing the state…

I did not care about Dr Who, Godzilla, Walking Dead, Fallout, etc. But I did buy the LotR and Warhammer decks (and I was not disappointed). The reality is that different people like different things, and I don't think Universe Beyond is a bad thing per se.

It is not like the default story is terribly interesting and little more than generic, second rate fantasy.

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

#285

Post by Ensorceled »

seabird wrote: post #177
dragontamer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative systems flourished with DnD 4.0 back in 2008, since that system just wasn't as good as 3.5 or the new 5th edition. Wizards of the Coast did a great job with the balance of customization vs simplicity of 5e and that's why DnD did so well recently. But the alternatives always were there. Its a big community of literal house-rule makers (everyone plays DnD with their own houserules). Its a community used…

Was 4 really worse than 5? Everyone I've heard speak on it is pretty hesitant to say 5 is better, and that a lot of of great design choices (martial classes not being completely outclassed, less frustrating saving throws, rule clarity, better handling of numbers on enemies, better rest mechanics, etc.) were thrown out in 5 because 4 caught so much shit for being "not 3.5".

Yep.

Every character class was practically the same with the same mechanics (at will "spells", per encounter "spells", per long rest "spells") and a massive amount of repetition across abilities. As a DM, I was an over worked CPU; monsters were boring and scripted and every character class had liberal amounts of "force the monster to do x" actions that resulted in monsters having little to no agency.

I ran a few adventures in 4.0 and put the books away forever.

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

#286

Post by consp »

jmcgough wrote: post #278
chaostheory wrote: post #248

Reminds of when Rockstar laid off Red Dead Redemption staff despite great sales figures.

Game dev is pretty different though. There's huge internal shifts in need for headcount since everything is often tied to development of a specific game. It's pretty common to lay off employees after a game gets shipped.

> It's pretty common to lay off employees after a game gets shipped.

While it is common... Why? You can employ people on a limited time or production span duration. I don't see the point in pretending to give someone a permanent job to only lay them off anyways.

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

#287

Post by Ensorceled »

Retric wrote: post #73
rco8786 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to consider a board of directors as people who "work at the company".

I don’t. Further it’s common for all stockholders to be asked to vote on decisions with 1 vote per share. While it’s true most people have only a trivial number of shares and are therefore largely irrelevant they also don’t have access to non public information.

Most Boards of Directors contain a bunch of representatives of the largest institutional holders and some members hand picked by the CEO.

In Hasbro's case, the Chair of the Board is listed as an employee of the company and was their interim CEO. The rest of board follows what you would expect.

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

#288

Post by Ensorceled »

pxeger1 wrote: post #241

How can their board games etc. be losing money? It seems like they shouldn’t cost much to produce.

Lot's of mistakes? They made about a billion Monopoly games for instance. I see Monopoly games for specific cities, other IPs etc. Cheaters Version, Classic, Monopoly Junior.

I regularly see brand new Monopoly games for sale on clearance for $10.

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

#289

Post by consp »

gruez wrote: post #216
johnnyanmac wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like it's easy to get a decently paying job to begin with in the States. Making the interview process less frequent or more annoying falls of deaf ears when it can already be 5-7 interview stages and 2-3 months before you actually get to offer stages. >Or they only hire them for fixed term contracts, so that if the economic winds change they're not stuck with a long term liability. Games industry in a nutshe…

> It's not like it's easy to get a decently paying job to begin with in the States. Making the interview process less frequent or more annoying falls of deaf ears when it can already be 5-7 interview stages and 2-3 months before you actually get to offer stages. What's your argument? That because it's hard to find jobs now, it can't possibly be worse? It certainly can. See US unemployment rate[1] vs spain[2]'s. [1] h…

> and then they bolt after they finished training and get enough experience

There are contract forms to mitigate this. Usually with opt-out payment clauses. Someone can pay those and you lose your investment in the person but not the money invested.

Where I live the defense industry does this for engineering hires, 2 to 4 years training, minimal service period of 4 to 6 years afterwards. Opting out basically costs you your education tuition, but not your salary. The same thing for C(+E) drivers licenses and affiliated stuff (heavy trucks and loading permits).

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