Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 29, 2020, 10:20:51 AM
Personally, I wonder if many of the stories about Williams' tenure at TSR have been exaggerated by either fan demonization or sources with an axe to grind.

This is most certainly the case since the story I heard was that the writers at TSR refused to playtest anything, as they just assumed they knew what they were doing.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 29, 2020, 11:29:04 AM
This is most certainly the case since the story I heard was that the writers at TSR refused to playtest anything, as they just assumed they knew what they were doing.

If the designers of a table top game don't want to play it, that indicates the game isn't good.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 28, 2020, 10:34:10 AMBig corporations are literally not allowed by government regulations to do what's best for their customers or longevity of their product lines unless those things also make the shareholders more money.

Possible but not so black and white. Shareholders are a class of owner, and the board and CEO are responsible to acting in their best interests. You can do a lot so long as you do not lose their support. The perfect example of this was Apple back before Jobs Part II, when they had trouble keeping track of various projects they were spending money on that didn't have any direct or ultimate goal associated with it that could be traced back to a bottom line.

I can see how the book market would be a rough one. For the most part you are 'in' on the costs of manufacturing and logistics, and you are giving about 50% (possibly more) to distribution. Plus, if you have some titles that aren't selling well, your distributor can 'stock balance,' - they can say 'this shit title A isn't selling, so take it back and send us more title B or give us $$$ credit on what we owe you.' They may also have the option of just sending it all back, depending on the agreement.

Quote from: Bren on October 29, 2020, 11:28:18 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on October 28, 2020, 03:48:53 PM
If this was true then you could sue Hasbro for not producing novels and therefore not doing "everything possible to maximise their profits"

You still seem to be missing my point. Sure the novels would generate some revenue. We know the novels sold and would still sell. We don't know how profitable that was. You can't just say, "I'm going to sue you because you're not producing novels that some people would buy" and hope to prevail.

The plaintiff must prove that printing and selling the novels is likely to generate more profit than anything else Hasbro could do with the money required to maintain the IP and to produce the novels. That's not an easy thing to prove. Especially since the plaintiff isn't likely to have access to the revenue and expenses and other inner workings of Hasbro and its companies.

Indeed. That's the whole idea of opportunity costs. Just because something generates profits semi-consistently, doesn't mean that it generates ENOUGH profits to be worthwhile.

As a more digestible (ie: simplistic) example. Say your company has $1m to invest and three potential projects.

Project A will cost $600k and is expected to generate $750k in revenue.

Project B will cost $350k and is expected to generate $450k in revenue.

Project C will cost $950k and generate $1.1m in revenue.

Now obviously, you're going to do Projects A & B and not do Project C (ending up with $1.25m rather than $1.15m). Project C would be profitable, but you only have so many resources, and it's not profitable enough to be worth forgoing A & C.

If publishing is Project C, you're going to dump it to invest in more profitable ventures, which in the case of D&D stuff, A & B might be plushies and t-shirts. *shrug*

Now of course, without the numbers it's all just speculative. But there are many good business reasons to drop product lines which are still profitable, keeping only the most profitable pieces of them. (As OP's quote stated, the most profitable D&D novels would still be worth publishing by HarperCollins. And arguably, the D&D novels were somewhat cannibalizing each-other as there is a finite desire for D&D licensed novels, and keeping the product line tighter would make those that remain sell better - which does seem to be the business model they chose for 5e rulebooks relative to the plethora of 4e & 3.x splat-books.)

Quote from: Torque2100 on October 29, 2020, 06:51:00 AMAs for DnD, the last time I can think of that DnD was under competent management was when Gary Gygax and Don Kayne were running TSR out of Gary's basement in Lake Geneva Wisconsin.  It's a testament to the strength of DnD as a brand that it has managed to survive some truly epically bad management over the years.  Remember Lorraine Williams?

Actually according to many I've talked to. Lorraine actually did manage TSR fairly well. But it was all the side problems that undermined it. She respected her workers even if she did not quite grasp some of the product. She trusted in her staff.

Big question is where did things go wrong? The lawsuits are one. Funnelling money into the death sink of CCGs was another. Spellfire actually sis well. The others less so.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 29, 2020, 08:13:12 AM
The real irony of Williams's tenure was that the Buck Rogers IP wasn't a bad one. We probably could've gotten a decent RPG out of it, but the silly bint didn't want to actually playtest anything.

Which one? There were two.
The first was playable and had several expansions. 2 PC games, a board game, and at least 2 books.
The second was designed by her brother who was by all accounts enthusiastic about gaming. From all Ive seen its playable. Fairly basic. But gets the job done. I think it suffered from coming out near the end of TSRs life span and probably a little ire from fans of the first BR RPG.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 29, 2020, 10:20:51 AM
Personally, I wonder if many of the stories about Williams' tenure at TSR have been exaggerated by either fan demonization or sources with an axe to grind. I expect we'd find out that she was someone who was fairly ignorant about the hobby and never bothered to learn much about it, but was trying to make a go of the business and just made some unwise decisions, especially at the end.

From what I've been told from the people there. Its a little of column A and a little of column B.
On gaining control she promptly gave herself a nice raise.
She funneled funds from TSR into her own pocket via the Buck Rogers IP of which she pulled royalties from it all and on the side put out a Buck Rogers history book which she got more from on the TSR dime.

I think part of that was she was really proud of the family legacy. But also a shrewd businesswoman.

On the flip side she respected writers and bought up and maintained Amazing Stories magazine for a good while it seems. She also treated the staff well. But also had a stated disdain for gamers. But enough sense to let the staff do their jobs. Would not surprise me if she did not think playtesting was necessary. But that sounds more like certain other companies rather than TSR.

Quote from: KingCheops on October 29, 2020, 10:40:23 AM
Surprised that no one seems to have mentioned the usual cause for stuff like this:  bureaucratic turf battles.  Almost as likely there's some VP somewhere who figures on becoming some sort of publishing house mogul in Hasbro and wanted to eliminate or take over publishing from a branch of the company he doesn't control.

Petty shit like this is 99 out of 100 times the cause for any irrational decisions in a company.

If the story of Hasbro axing the book branch is true then that could well be. Or just simple ignorance. Never underestimate a companies ability to self sabotage. And would not surprise me at all if some of WOTCs stupid wore off on Hasbro.

Assuming Hasbro did and its not WOTC covering for yet another of their own screwups.

One day, Hasbro is just going to tell WotC that D&D isn't gay enough. And that will be the end of D&D.

I have it on good authority from my highschool class mates that D&D is super gay.

So is there any corroborating evidence or was the quote from the first post just a bunch of speculation?

And no, I am not looking for responses which begin win, "I wouldn't be surprised if..."

Interestingly enough, I just found the following entry in 1992 "Little Macs" - the prize annually given by Richard Berg to "the most egregious blunders, the most inane remarks, and the biggest wastes of time and energy in the industry."

TWO SEASONS TICKETS IN THE BOB UECKER SECTION AT MILWAUKEE COUNTY STADIUM: To the perpetrators of GenCon '92 - TSR - for shuttling every non-TSR activity into corners of The Mecca that not even bloodhounds could locate, for trying to pre-buy and tie up most of the hotel rooms in the area, and for claiming most of the convention floor was sold out when it wasn't. Condescension, Abrasiveness, Supercili-osity (?) and a general Lack of Intelligence are NOT the four cornerstones of Public Relations, folks ... although they do appear to be so for TSR corporate policy.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll on October 30, 2020, 03:35:46 AM
One day, Hasbro is just going to tell WotC that D&D isn't gay enough. And that will be the end of D&D.

More like one day WOTC will tell Hasbro they arent gay enough and need more black married lesbian pedophiles from the 1930s in their board games like FFG has. Gnay Gnomes was gnot enough!

Quote from: Mistwell on October 30, 2020, 10:44:40 AM
So is there any corroborating evidence or was the quote from the first post just a bunch of speculation?

And no, I am not looking for responses which begin win, "I wouldn't be surprised if..."

Not that I've ever seen. And does not quite mesh with what have heard from writers for WOTC I know. Havent had a chance to ask one I still have contact with.

His last WOTC book was in 2011 seems. Looks like Mel Odoms last book was in 2012. Greenwoods last one seems to be 2013 then nothing till 2016 and then nada. Salvatore seems to have been chugging away up to present day.

2011-12 seems to be the actual cut off point for some. That would coincide with the trailing end of the tighter budget leash Hasbro had placed on WOTC after the screwups of 4e and their ultimatum for 5e to succeed or else.

So by 2012 WOTCs book line was allready gutted looks like so claims of a 2016 axing seems off to me.

Quote from: Omega on October 30, 2020, 03:33:27 PM
So by 2012 WOTCs book line was allready gutted looks like so claims of a 2016 axing seems off to me.

I have a WoTC-published author friend, she was told they were dropping her around end of 2011 as I recall. So yes that fits.