Re: [Dungeons and Dragons Fan] Wizards of the Coast and D&D Team Hit By New Round of Layoffs

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 13:55:49 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

Source: https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/wizards-of-the-coast-new-layoffs/
>
Wizards of the Coast and D&D Team Hit By New Round of Layoffs
October 25, 2024

"Co-operational streamlining." What a horrible term. "Well, the
employees we just fired haven't started torching the offices yet, I
guess they're co-operating." Maybe we need less of this sort of
'co-operating'.

To be fair, D&D has always had a turbulent history with its employees
and contractors. I recall how TSR grew and grew in the early 80s, and
then went through repeated contractions after the initial D&D craze
died down and revenues shrank.

I see similarities to that time here: D&D saw a massive increase in
general popularity during the pandemic years --fueled by various
YouTubers reintroducing the game to players new and old-- that made it
appear that the game was a lot more popular than it really was. But it
doesn't look as if it was sustainable. A lot of the newcomers were
attracted to it by nostalgia, but weren't really that interested in
sticking with the hobby long-term.

Which is fairly predictable; D&D (and tabletop in general) requires
more effort to enjoy than most other hobbies. Given a choice between
D&D, or hiking, or watching TV, or shopping or almost any other way of
goofing off, D&D demands more of the players. Tabletop requires a lot
of dedication that a lot of these newcomers weren't interested in
investing into the game.

   [And I don't mean this disparagingly against these players.
    Many of them probably had other hobbies that already
    occupied their time and money. For many of them, D&D was
    just a lark; an opportunity to try something different
    for a while. I'm happy they had fun with the game and I
    bear them no ill-will if they decided, after a pleasant
    experience with D&D, they wanted to return to their
    primary entertainments.]

But companies like Hasbro don't really think that far ahead; they just
see the immediate profits and assume they'll continue to go up
forever. So they over-hire and over-develop and ultimately end up
having to lay off hundreds.

On the plus side, I think the tabletop market is still fairly strong,
and I'm hoping that many of the people who were laid off can turn
their talents to developing games either for other RPG publishers, or
independently.