Last Year's Firings

[RPGPundit]

By now many of you will know, the big news is the announcement by Hasbro/WoTC that they have immediately and effectively laid off 15 employees, including the D&D brand manager (Charles Ryan), both of the marketing heads, the designer of the "Hecatomb" game, and Peter Archer, the head of publishing.

I didn't know the names at first. I've been a little distracted. I had to go to the doctor's for some routine tests.
In Uruguay, going to the doctor, even if you're in a good mutualist (and mine, La Española, is the best in the city), can be quite a chore.  It usually involves hours of waiting in lineups.
But, like in everything else in this country,  going to the doctor in Uruguay is all about who you know. I have some contacts through my, er, fraternal ties, that led me to a particular doctor, and giving the secret handshake I'd move to the front of the line.
Ok, great! Only problem: His attending hours are from 7 to 10 am.

This one was a thinker. You see, those are the precious few hours in which I sleep. Yes, I do sleep, just not very much. Now, would I be better off going to some regular doctor, or worse, one of the fucking Opus Dei doctors, and have to wait for hours to be attended; or should I go with my "brother" doctor but have to wake up at an hour I rarely know exists?
Finally, I struck upon a solution. I go to bed, usually, sometime between 3 and 5 in the morning. Occasionally I stretch that out and stay up until 6.  Now, 6 is pretty fucking close to 7. You get where I'm going on this?

So yes, as of now, I'm back from the doctor and running strong on coffee and mate and tobacco, having not slept a fucking wink so I could go visit the doc bright and early at 7am!

Anyways, where the fuck was I?

Ah yes! At first, I'd just seen a random post on Animalball that said "They've fired about a dozen people from Wizards of the Coast!".

Instantly, my first thought and first reply was "Ah, but did the fire the right dozen people?"

I'm not entirely sure yet, but let me say initially speaking that "all signs point to yes".

Point number one, they don't appear to have fired the one truly wrong person to fire: Mike Mearls.  Hiring the creator of Iron Heroes was the best move Wizards has done in a long time, and I say that not just because he writes here. In fact, he probably writes here because of the very reasons I say he's a vital choice for Wizards: he truly understands what's important in RPGs. He's not one of the harebrained wankers, which unfortunately accounts for the vast bulk of game designers today. Let's hope Wizards puts him in a position of near absolute power, to rule over the rabble with an iron fist.

Exibit B, let's review those named names again: first of all, the guy who did Hecatomb (mike elliott). That's no fucking surprise. Hecatomb has been pretty well a disaster, borne of a total misreading of the CCG market.

The two vice presidents of marketing: Good. Fuck them. The Marketing in Wizards has been its single weakest characteristic since... well, since ever. Marketing is the single fucking thing I would choose, without needing a second thought, if I could "fix" one thing in Wizards that would radically transform the gaming industry. If Wizards manages by some miracle to get a better marketing department (actually, it'd be pretty fucking hard to get worse ones), that will do more for their bottom line, and for the wellbeing of the roleplaying hobby, than a dozen bestselling sourcebooks. Hell, than a thousand, if "bestselling" only means that the usual suspects are buying books but no one new is coming into the hobby.

So these are essentially good choices, and no brainers.  And they show us a bit about what is going through the Hasbro heads.  These job cuts are NOT a sign that D&D is failing or that Wizards is going under or that Roleplaying is doomed. What it does indicate is that the suits at Hasbro are right fucking pissed with many of the recent business choices over at Wizards of the coast.

Now, I have been told, and have no reason to doubt it, that in many ways what's really hurt Wizards this year was the CCG sales. Between the failure of Hecatomb and the continuing slow descent into fad obscurity of Magic, plus the poker craze, the nails are being put in the coffin of CCG profitability.

I've heard a lot of people talk about that.

Now, what I haven't heard anyone talking about, but what I will make my official RPGPundit prediction, is this: Many of the names on the list of the recently fired have lost their jobs over Eberron. The Eberron line has not been the overwhelming success Wizards was expecting, and a considerable fucking investment on the part of Hasbro all betting on the Eberron name is going down the drain, and heads must fucking roll for this!

There's one thing suits can't bear and that's when their own methods bafflingly fail.  Eberron was a committee-created setting. Its a formula, pre-fab, the "Monkees" or "New Kids on the Block" of the RPG setting world. They tried to pick and choose everything they figured the fanboys would find cool, and include it, and then the two aforementioned mental defectives in the marketing department tried to "market" the shit out of the setting, and while it didn't "bomb", it didn't come anywhere near their (frankly, completely unreasonable) expectations for the setting's success.

Eberron was supposed to be the new sliced bread. It ended up being more like the new coke.

Anyways, that's my prediction: that Eberron and a couple of the other choices in recent releases have not gone over well, and the Hasbro people are looking for a whole new direction, for Wizards and for D&D.  This may also be a prelude to the (initially secret) kickstart of designing a new edition.

Given the reactions of some of the well known "celebrity Swine" on the forums, mostly bemoaning the "good people" fired, I cannot help but feel even more assured that the people fired were exactly the RIGHT people to get rid of, to get Wizards into a radical new direction that remains true to the spirit of energy and fun and solid game design principles that the creation of D&D 3.0 and D20 were born under.

Is my assesment right? Well, Mike could tell me, let's see if he chooses to give RPGPundit the "exclusive" like he did with Spectaculars.

On a final note, I know that Michelle Lyons was one of the people fired, and I know she's a friend of Jong Won Kim's, who's a good friend of mine. I don't know the story behind her firing, but given her job involved mostly editing, I doubt that her firing was due to the same kind of bad managerial decisions I think the others were sacked for.  So I am certainly not including her among the list of the "RIGHT", even though I understand that she apparently dislikes me.  She's also good friends with Eyebeams, so there's no accounting for taste.

RPGPundit Dec 2 2005

[RPGPundit]

Note that now, one year down the line, it would certainly seem that they made the right choices in who they purged.

Also, given how far back Eberron has fallen out of the limelight, it would appear my predictions vis-a-vis Eberron were true.

RPGPundit

[Balbinus]

Eberron always seemed a bit too wierd to me to be a genuinely successful fantasy setting, it's too much it's own thing.

Sometimes that's good, but here not so much.  Had that setting been attached to any other game I think it would have vanished very fast indeed.

[beejazz]

I think Wizards just needs to straight-up design a new RPG. Seriously. DnD has been done to the point where they're going to just repeat themselves (complete mage) or do something that just isn't quite DnD anymore (Eberron). So... I think they should make a scifi game. Besides just Star Wars.

Or put out 4e.

[Zalmoxis]

They desperately need a new setting that can be the basic, generic setting for the D&D line. It won't be easy, because it will inevitably be compared to FR and Greyhawk, but it must be done.

[Spike]

Eberron isn't 'too weird to live'... I will suggest it is 'too kitchen sink' to live, however. It has a lot of great stuff in it, but their insistance on keeping EVERYTHING from D&D proved to be, for me, a fatal flaw.  In other words, a good paring down would tighten it right up and make everything wonderbar...

[James McMurray]

Eberron isn't 'too weird to live'... I will suggest it is 'too kitchen sink' to live, however. It has a lot of great stuff in it, but their insistance on keeping EVERYTHING from D&D proved to be, for me, a fatal flaw.  In other words, a good paring down would tighten it right up and make everything wonderbar...

Eberron never really appealed to me, but if you meant to say wonderbra instead, I might give it a look.

[RedFox]

I dunno, I think Eberron's the only thing that D&D's gotten exactly right in a long time.  But I love mish-mash kitchen sink settings with a passion, as well as pulpy action-adventure, so I may be quite biased.

[Sosthenes]

IIRC, the Eberron MMORPG wasn't exactly a big success...

[jrients]

Despite my initial coolness I fell in love with the Eberron corebook sufficiently that my next campaign with be called Sky Pirates of Eberron, but the rest of the line doesn't interest me.

[RedFox]

Despite my initial coolness I fell in love with the Eberron corebook sufficiently that my next campaign with be called Sky Pirates of Eberron, but the rest of the line doesn't interest me.

All I've got is the corebook.  I'm perfectly happy with that.

[Spike]

Eberron never really appealed to me, but if you meant to say wonderbra instead, I might give it a look.

Honestly?  I was torn about where to put the 'R' in that sentence. By all means, go with Wonderbra. Nothing wrong with a well placed wonderbra...

[Mcrow]

Eberron is the only D&D 3.X setting that I have liked so far besides Dragonlance.

[beejazz]

Play as a robot.

That was what made it cool for me.

[David R]

Play as a robot.

That was what made it cool for me.

Heh, my d20-ish post apocalypse campaign called Factotum is basicaly the players playing the warforged.

What Hasbro or whatever should do IMO, is go back to the basics. Publish stuff like the Elmore (amongst others) illustrated boxed set. Make it like the Old Known World - Bargle was a mean dude :cool:  - and release source books like the old Gazeteers...coolness if you ask me.

Regards,
David R