WOTC trouble? -- Adilbrand Noblesword's Hall of Warriors

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Date Posted: 16:34:55 09/19/02 Thu
Author: theefool
Subject: WOTC trouble?

This is an update to the WotC layoff news (below). Confirmed layoffs so far include: Skip Williams, Penny Williams, Stan! Brown, Jeff Grubb, JD Wiker, Rich Redman. Bill Slavicsek has also apparently been demoted. Approximately 100 people have been laid off in total. Nicole Lindroos posted the following on my messageboards:

As of last night, friends of mine in R&D were remaining optimistic that cuts were going to be in areas of the company that Hasbro's infrastructure could take over: sales, marketing, accounting. Perhaps those areas were cut as well, but it certainly seems to me that they've gone deep into the creative areas as well. The list of confirmed laid-off "creatives" includes some of the most talented, hard-working people I've ever had the pleasure to know in my 15 years in the industry. A dozen people in the graphic design group came to work today only to be told they had no job as of tomorrow, including the people who worked on card games, Star Wars, minis, and D&D, including Art Directors and supervisors, people in design and editing, people who have been there and been work horses for the properties the company owns (Jeff Grubb, Skip and Penny, Stan!--who is one of the nicest people I've ever EVER known) and who have *people skills* (unlike certain of the remaining managers I could name). If the creative slack is expected to be picked up by the people who were moved up to management positions, I shudder to think what's likely to come out from the company; many of those creatives-turned-managers became managers because they weren't very good designers to begin with.

They've retained a handful of talent on the creative side, but just a handful, no more. I sincerely believe that Hasbro will not be satisfied with how the company is performing unless they can recapture the heady days of Pokemon and selling multiple hundreds of thousands of "core books"--something that will NEVER happen. Hasbro itself is creatively bankrupt (witness its inability to spawn a hit toy and how it continues to go back to the well by "reinventing" GI Joe or "new and different" Furby creations). Not only do these layoffs cut the creative talent of WotC down to the bone, they also weaken the company's ability to have those new "break out" hits that are seemingly required for the company to be perceived (on the stock market at least) as a success.

Skip Williams and Jeff Grubb are some of the only people to have worked on 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D.

I'm told that another round of layoffs is due at WotC today (yesterday was the first wave of a 2-day process - see yesterday's news for more details). If/when I hear any details about today's layoffs, I'll let you know.

Some other bits and pieces::

Discussion is rampant on my messageboards. Beware speculation!
Kevin "Piratecat" Kulp mentioned that Stan! Brown had just been tasked with reinvigorating the playtesting program.
Right now, the company is down to about 250 people; at its height WotC employed about 750 people.
The "spine design team" (the team who are responsible for graphics, making sure the products look pretty etc.) was, as one ex-WotC staffer puts it, "gutted like a fish".
There's a lot of restructuring going on, with people changing positions, moving departments etc.

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Replies:

Re: WOTC trouble? -- Adilbrand, 19:27:51 09/19/02 Thu