Re: {Geeknative] President of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming resigns

On Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:28:25 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/18/2024 12:34 AM, Kyonshi wrote:

The article is the usual speculative rubbish that manages to buff up a
resignation notice into something that can fill an whole article, but
well, here it is:
 
Source:
https://www.geeknative.com/165877/near-silence-so-far-from-hasbro-as-cynthia-williams-dd-and-magic-the-gathering-boss-quits/

>
ah, someone on dice.camp did the math: her departure date is one day
before Hasbro's quarterly earnings' call
https://dice.camp/@btravern/112292697751113100
>
also official from Hasbro:
https://investor.hasbro.com/node/36526/html

I'm sure there will be a lot of 'good riddance' and 'Hasbro sucks'
commentary, but honestly, I don't think any of that is deserved.

That Hasbro and D&D are a poor match, I'll agree with completely. I've
commented on this before, on how the needs of Hasbro - a company built
around the idea of mass-producing cheap, disposable toys - has a
philosophy that runs almost counter to what tabletop gaming is about:
artisnally designed games that require a lot of time and effort to
enjoy and aren't really something that will ever capture the attention
of the general audience (at least not for very long). D&D (and
tabletop in general) is a very niche hobby.

But on the other hand, it's very likely that without the investment of
Hasbro, D&D wouldn't exist anymore, except as 'that old game' from the
80s and 90s. Oh, sure, there might be some small publishing firm still
cranking out a few books every decade, but it would probably be
running on extremely narrow margins. Its doubtful that we'd see D&D
carried in stores like Walmart or Target! Hasbro's investment has
helped keep the game in the public's eye far longer than a game of its
type really has any fair reason to be (and, with it, all other
tabletop games). So I can hardly fault them for trying to recoup some
of their money.

In a more perfect world, D&D could stand on its own merits, existing
as a niche game that is just popular enough to support not only its
creators but also a thriving player-base. But we don't live in that
world, so we need companies like Hasbro, even if it does mean they
'dumb down' the game, oversaturate the market, do stupid things like
try to reverse the OGL, and sell D&D-branded sneakers.

And between corporate and player you have people like Cynthia
Williams, trying to walk that delicate line. Now, I'm no fan of
C-levels in general, and there's a lot that happened during Mrs.
Williams tenure that I don't agree with, but I'm not really sure
/anybody/ could have done any better... and I'm absolutely sure a lot
of people could have done much worse.