I suspect the reason WotC pay so absymally is because there are a lot of people willing to take that salary who will deliver product to the level of quality required by WotC.
This is actually a big part of it. There are a lot of lemmings willing to “Starve for their art”… IMHO a big part of the problem with that is the idea within the hobby that RPGs are “art”.
…
Having said all the above, it is funny how soon their leftist politics go out the window when it comes to paying their staff.
I am Shocked! Shocked I say!
I'd split the difference here some. Artistically I'd love it if RPG writers got paid top dollar so the best writers came to write RPG systems and modules. …
It’s not about paying top dollar, my point was that even WOTC with big Hasbro bucks, and Magic money behind it doesn’t even come close to paying what the
average rates are for writers in other industries.
Although one way to look at it would be that if WOTC started to pay something resembling the average freelancer wage for other industries – that would be top dollar for RPG freelancers.
It's not about capitalism, it's about having more to show the sharehoilders this quarter than the last and than the same quarter last year.
Yes. It is the Harvard business school of parasite economics - You squeeze all the profit you can regardless of the long term consequences for that quarterly dividend payment, and if things go tits-up you just sail on your golden parachute to the next job, where you promise all new shareholders that you can increase their dividend payment…
From a business standpoint, hiring the best you can afford is a good practice, since this means the competition can't have him/her.
…
This would be best practice. Unfortunately, the RPG industry has a few quirks that keep this from becoming a reality. The chief one being D&D’s current ridiculous market share dominance, giving WOTC a virtual monopoly position in the hobby.
The RPG industry was more lucrative for others in the late 80's and 90's when D&D was not the overwhelming juggernaut that it is today.
…
But speaking of "race to the bottom', that exactly describes the answer to who is really out of control here, Price or the people she tears into? Why not both? I'm convinced that a big part of why SJW make such outrageous statements about the nastiness of people in general is because in the circles where they spend most of their time, their accusations are largely true. It's merely a short step from there to assume their local hell-hole is representative, especially for the evidence and logic impaired.
It absolutely is both. Price’s screed is a classic case of eating their own.
You are also right in that these people live in self induced bubbles that they won’t get out of. IMHO, SJW’s are some of the most self-segregating people on earth.
Their statements about the world in general are absolutely a projection of the behavior regularly found within their own SJW communities.
Just look how many accusations of improper behavior come out of their own side.