Honestly, this year has been particulary concerning for WOTC. They are killing pretty much all lines that isn't Magic and D&D, and even there, there is signs they are cutting stuff. The signs are not great for WOTC.

Many of there business decisions seem to have been made with extreme error without a safety net. They grew fast, making quick decisions without a strategy to downsize if needed. I recall in Seattle when they had their own WotC stores and then the stores started to close. They attempted to catch fire again with the minis. They developed the game Dreamblade, which was an outstanding game. However, they attempted to market it the same as SWM, which was a gross marketing error. They couldn't sell enough product due to this terrible decision and as quick as the game was released it saw an immediate curtailment in support until it was cut completely.

It seemed as though they lined up the dominoes and they are now falling. Can they stay ahead? Doubtful due to the likelihood of Hasbro doing what billiv15 suggested.

holy crap, I forgot about them having their own stores.

We had one in a Mall near me and it went bye bye around 2004 or 2005 If I am not mistaken. I'm not terribly sure as I was living mostly at college at the time.

But one of the comic stores in a nearby mall bought one of their giant display mannequin things. some woman in medieval armor of some sort. hehe

ah yeah good times...

For some reason, I got to thinking about another, much earlier nail in WOTC's business.

Decipher's financial position has become fairly public, because of the multimillion embezzelment case. Decipher had an extremely large amount of cash/credit to throw at LFL. Yet, they chose to go to WOTC. The Hasbro connection helps, no doubt, but I am extremely curious as how much WOTC paid for the license, which ended up as a pretty poor selling game.

Whatever Decipher paid + inflation + $1?

I've been playing lots of Euro games produced by small companies. The more agile and able to move with the gaming market the better. The large whale is too slow to react. Buying up the small fish is a great way to survive. I've worked for Shell Oil and Pfizer. Buying up small companies is the way.

it's the way of the corporate world, the company I work for just bought yet another company and we have earmarked another billion (yes that is with a B) for more companies to acquire. Buying up the small companies is easier then developing all the technolgy in house.

In the latest non-surprising turn of events, WotC laid off Bill Slavicsek, Michele Carter, and Stephen Schubert, and possibly others.

You can read about it here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20420.html

As much as I dont really care for 4e all that much, Im hoping Paizo grabs Bill before he goes someplace else, since he was one of the big names behind D20Modern.

But it is only the ANNUAL layoffs, right?

I wouldn't be surprised if WotC drops everything but Magic in the near future. They certainly don't show anywhere near the support for other games that they continually show for Magic.

Man, Bill Slavicsek is as old a hand as they come. He was the director at WEG when they were printing their D6 Star Wars RPG, he worked with TSR through the '90's, and has been with WOTC ever since they bought out TSR. That's really too bad. Hopefully he can find a position with one of the other printing houses.

Well if I'm not mistaken Michele Carter was the head organizer for Axis and Allies minis events for WotC so tossing her has some additional implications for the company because no one else really wanted to run it from what I had heard.

No doubt. Magic is the goose that lays the golden eggs for them. but Wotc will mostly likely make a new game support for a year or 2 and then drop it cause it does make the $ magic does.

also IMMO it seems to me that Wotc wants to make D&D a kids game.

http://mxyzplk.wordpress.com/2011/06/25 ... t-layoffs/ theres some interesting stuff in the comments section and then there's the good bye message he posted

http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=d ... 3ampersand

Time for WotC to "tap" some of that Mana they've been savin' for all this time -- maybe on some on R&D for some new IP.

How do they do it? *Someone I don't like* runs their marketing division.

EDIT: avoid personal attacks/inflammatory posts please -Ruhk