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she sensed this was a good time to get
out I love this place well how are you
all doing today hope you’re having a
great day uh yesterday April 17th 2024
as I record this U Cynthia Williams
resigned her position as president of
Wizards of the Coast there’s been a lot
of speculation about what could have
happened and honestly right now nobody
knows except for Cynthia and the higher
ups at Hasbro I talked a little bit
about this in a recent live stream and
actually RPG pundit slightly disagreed
with my analysis and uh made a video on
his insights and while pundit knows
quite a bit about the creative side of
RPGs I think I can glean certain things
based on my experience in Corporate
America as well as being a CPA I’m not
an expert on Hasbro or their financial
situation full disclosure uh but I think
I can offer an opinion in the absence of
evidence as valid as anyone’s as to what
went on let’s look at the wording of the
press release which was timed with their
first quarter filing to the
SEC she is resigning not getting fired
as far as we know and her last day is
going to be April 26th they say we’re
excited for Cynthia to take the next
step in her career and grateful for the
contributions she’s made in her more
than 2 years at Wizards to the coast in
Hasbro we wish her the absolute best in
her next Endeavor we started the search
for our next president of watsi and hope
to have a successor in place soon all
right so being in Corporate America for
almost 25 years I can tell you that this
does not appear to be an acrimonious
parting on first glance I’ve seen
acrimonious partings and they’re worded
much turer and would not usually include
that first sentence especially about
them being excited about her taking her
next step it would usually be an
announcement of the separation followed
by a dispassionate thank you and good
luck in the future now one of the things
pundit mentioned in his video and I’ll
link to it by the way in the description
to this one is what he calls a 30%
decline in sales under her watch which
would be of course catastrophic and it
certainly sounds catastrophic I know uh
but I believe this actually refers to a
30% decline
in their entertainment division
specifically uh which is mostly a result
of the underperformance of Honor among
Thieves the D and D movie that 30%
decline was projected to eat up 3 to 6%
of the revenues last year this all
actually happened last year and I would
anticipate maybe a minor spillover
effect for 2024 so if this is what uh
pet was referring to this is sort of old
news uh now you can lay the failure of
honor among Thieves at the feet of
Williams if you want and that depends on
your point of view some believe that the
buck stops with the CEO regardless so
you get the blame when things go wrong
regardless of when it was conceived but
you also get the credit when they go
right regardless of when something was
conceived her tenure certainly had its
share of negatives uh which we all know
about the ogl Fiasco uh was a complete
disaster the Optics of sending Pinkerton
detectives to recover magic cards that
were sent out too early to a YouTuber
sales of recent DND releases have been
very soft and there was a botching of
the release of the book and deck of many
things which I believe was supposed to
take place over the holiday and they had
trouble cutting the cards another kind
of disaster and honestly that does not
bode well for Cynthia because that was
probably entirely conceived on her watch
and as I said um earlier the D and D
movie really did underperform however
she did have some successes under her
belt too balers Gate 3 was a huge
success even though this was well
underway before her Reign it was rolled
out right in the middle of it I know
it’s not always fair but like
politicians taking credit for an
economic recovery that was started under
their
predecessor so too do CEOs take credit
for projects that come out on their
watch it ain’t fair but that’s just the
way it is if you’re going to strip her
of the credit for balers Gate 3 you also
have to strip her of the blame for Honor
among Thieves which was also being
developed before she took over and
honestly there’s also Monopoly go which
is technically under the Wizards of the
Coast umbrella and that has been a
massive hit and Money Maker for Hasbro
this little game could actually end up
as the biggest feather in her cap now
Cynthia also oversaw the purposeful
digitization of
DnD many of us old school fans who were
purposely pushed away in droves don’t
really understand this but from a
dollars and cents perspective it might
be the right call for the type of
audience Wizards of the Coast wants for
their Flagship game Printing and
shipping books is expensive and Hasbro
is not as beholden to history or
Nostalgia as we may be if they can
reduce costs and increase their profits
by pushing their virtual tabletop
subscriptions and PDFs of the upcoming
Rule books they’ll do it now pundit did
have a good point in that it appears the
VT won’t be ready for the new addition
launch uh which will certainly hurt I’m
sure they’re figuring out ways to lure
people to them uh when it does come
online still this is honestly probably a
black mark for her now I did hear some
people speculate that the first quarter
was disastrous and that’s why she’s
being pushed out that does not usually
happen uh quarterly results can be
skewed and unless it shows a massive
bungling of something that is
unrecoverable a board of directors is
probably not going to act on a first
quarter financial statement if you look
at last year’s results they were
slightly disappointing but not the
disaster you may think revenues were
actually up despite the impairment in
their entertainment division but profit
was flat when compared to the prior year
this is something that they had
projected back in August of last year
and pretty much ended up coming true
while not great those results do not get
a female CEO or president fired in
Corporate America in 2024 fired or kind
of pushed out the door so to speak they
just don’t uh it might lead to closer
watching more concrete goals directives
to improve the bottom line and guess
what Wizards of the Coast has laid off a
lot of people and that will probably
help their profit for the year end 2024
I also believe Cynthia got some slack
too because DND 5e is at the very end of
its life cycle they can reason that the
softening sales are due to that fact and
not because of the terrible quality of
the products which is the more likely
reason in this case and again she would
have to take some credit for that
because she oversaw Personnel under her
watch and uh the cupboards at Wizards of
the Coast creatively are as empty as
they could possibly be but on the whole
to me this all adds up to someone who is
still leaving on their own terms even if
they were probably going to watch her
closer um and even though her Reign
could only be considered mediocre from a
financial point of view at best and
pretty subpar from a PR perspective um
there is the phrase failing upward in
Corporate America and that could
certainly apply here uh but I don’t know
if she was the disaster relatively
speaking many think she was and actually
the last half of pundit’s video is great
where he kind of goes away from the
technical perspectives which I think is
not his strong point but he kind of
talks about the philosophical makeup of
people like Cynthia and her higher ups
and it really is uh worth a watch you
definitely should watch that part uh the
video closely because he is bang on from
that perspective Cynthia will fail
upwards uh she will end up in another
company and she will probably be
mediocre there at the best maybe not a
complete disaster or who knows may maybe
a complete disaster uh but she will
continue to find employment while
probably better people are passed over
now that does leave a question you know
why did she leave uh my guess as to why
she left is that she either got a better
offer or she sensed this was a good time
to get out let’s face it right now it’s
hard to determine what the final result
of the ogl Quagmire will be on sales of
the new addition perhaps it’s best to
get out before that can be Quantified if
sales are lackluster for one de and D we
already know that there’s now a dir of
talent as I mentioned working on the new
addition it appears it’s going to be so
similar to 5e that people will probably
start to wonder what all the fuss was
about and why they paid so much money
for it and if there are differences
there’s a fair chance they’ll be bungled
by the people that are currently there
you know many of which also have
fanatical political and social leanings
something I’ve documented plenty of
times before on this channel in this
case the adage of follow the money May
apply if she sniffed a stinker that’s
going to bomb financially and cut into
her bonus now actually might be a really
good time to bail out I think some
people are also maybe not looking at the
big
picture not seeing the forest through
the trees as it were I mean are you
saying that if they were kind of pushing
her out the door that Hasbro all of the
sudden has given up the ghost of woke
and they’re now sick and tired of what’s
going on over at Wizards of the Coast
now they’re just going to focus on
what’s best for the bottom line of of
course not Hasbro CEO Chris Cox oversaw
a lot of the leftist rot at Wizards of
the Coast he’s likely fine with many of
the steps she made probably including
the attempted revocation of the
ogl that may have even been something he
wanted to do but wasn’t willing or able
to we’ll probably not know whether that
was completely her call or something
that had been on the table as an option
for a while if it was her superiors at
Hasbro might have understood that it was
just a calculated risk to save future
money but it just simply didn’t work out
again obviously I’m not defending that
horrible decision but there are other
ways to look at it aside from a gamer’s
perspective in the end I don’t think
behind the scenes they were overly
pleased with her performance but I also
don’t think they were anywhere close to
firing her or pushing her out after only
2 years of mixed Financial results I’ll
wager they’re just as mad that she
bailed out after only two years and
didn’t stay for at least a few more
executive searches can be a little
expensive and a bit of a hassle it’s
kind of an Unwritten rule that unless
you have terrifically overperformed and
are on your way up or you’ve miserably
underperformed and a change needs to be
made that you’re going to give your
company at least 5 years in the sea
Suite before moving on now as I
mentioned in the live stream covering
this people in the osr neck of the woods
should be able to look at all of this a
bit
dispassionately whether Chris Cox
Cynthia Williams or Gordon gecko is in
charge we know what they think of D and
D we know what they think of traditional
fans I’ll keep covering them because
it’s interesting and people seem to want
to talk about it but there’s also no
need to get overly emotionally involved
Wizards of the Coast Is the girl friend
that broke up with us years
ago we’re the ones who are going to look
foolish if we still Pine for them and
think any day now that you know they’re
going to come around they will not
they’re gone which means DND D is gone
move on and play earlier editions of the
game or many of the great osr games out
there which are both the spiritual
ancestors and the inheritors of the DND
brand I mean what’s in a name anyway
oh [ __ ]
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n
30 Comments
I think the cafeteria ran out of donuts.
what you say about "moving on" is what ive been desperately trying to get across to people for the last 2 or so years. some people just dont want to give up hope, they want to hope Star Wars comes back to them. but its just misery from here on out
I bet dollars to Donuts they will end up putting Chirs "The DM to the Stars" (he gets mad if you don't call him that… ) Perkins in the seat…god help us all
Excellent points !
BG3 was a success for Larian studios. Their next game, I beleive, will be just as successful. And will not use "D&D".
DD! Great program, man! And the OUTRO MUSIC!!! It BANGS, brother! KEEP DOING THE MUSIC!!!!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
So you and Pundit- Pay per view Rage in the Cage or Ladder Match next week on The Lair (with commentary from Crazymouse and Rogan)? lol
When we talk about D&D now, we talk about corporate structure because D&D is a boring corporate product. That's why I play osr games like whitehack.
Baldur's Gate may have come out under her tenure, but it was also under her tenure that Larian Studios walked away from further Baldur's Gate expansions and D&D games.
Also, the fallout from the OGL debacle is just around the corner and the new version of D&D will have competition from publishers that contributed to D&D before the OGL debacle. While I don't think that the new competitor's for D&D rules itself will make that much of a dent, but their future adventure and sourcebooks will unless WotC steps up their game in that regard. Which I find highly doubtful as they let go quite a few of their people and if they stick to the current agenda.
In that regard the recent comment about feeding their 50 years of back catalogue into an AI to create new books will help the sales either.
Of course this could be bad for the VTR as well.
And that's ignoring everything with MtG.
Not that the OGL debacle helped the movie, nor did the writer's mouthing off about the movie emasculating men or that they sold the movie company before the movie had a chance.
Yes, I think it was a good time to quit before the next edition of D&D comes out and yes, she will find another job. That's normal.
Though I pity the fool who takes the job.
As someone who also worked in corporate space for 25 years I tend to agree with you (though pundit made some good points which you touched on).
No Cynthia Williams was an incompetent do nothing She prevented BaldursGate 3 from getting a sequel by firing the WotC staff who negotiated with Larian. She fired the WotC people who negotiated with Joe Manganiello to make a streaming series based on Dragonlance and when Joe Manganiello publicly stated that he would buy the rights to Dragonlance if he could contact someone at WotC he received silence. I have no idea were you heard about DnD 6th edition because WotC has not announced a 6th edition just reprinting DnD 5th with different artwork. Much of the content announced when Cynthia was in charge was republished content. The truth is Hasbro stock went from $100.00 a share to $50.00 a share in fifteen months. No wonder she was firing people like crazy.
I think there's a factor that people are overlooking. Back when the OGL fiacso erupted, there was some behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt that Hasbro had given Williams an ultimatum: make D&D a Million/Billion dollar brand (forgive me, I don't remember which) which a certain timeframe or face the consequences. We never found out what that timeframe was, but I suspect it ran out, and she was allowed to resign to save face. Shit happens all the time in the entertainment sector.
Bg3's Success had Nothing to do with Wotc ,that was all larian studios and it was even crowd funded through early access
With Williams gone, I’m 10 times as likely to buy future WotC products…
The things happening with Wizards of the Coast over the last several years has been beyond parody. Knights of the Dinner table used to joke about controversy and sensational things happening behind the scenes at Hard Eight with Gary Jackson and the crew, but all of that was nothing compared to Wizards.
I miss the days when game companies weren't factories for drama and ideology. Back when Jolly wasn't a TDS NPC and the gaming hobby was for gamers.
Also, by now we all know that Pundit is a phony. An actor playing at being an agitator in the hobby.
His real name is Axelrod Chungus, and he is an agent of the CIA.
I think the D&D hobby as a general is a lost cause. Its roots are now entirely radical leftist. There's no saving it. There are other TTRPGs. I'll be using those.
The more rosy a corporate statement of goodbye in my experience the worse it was behind the scenes in my work life
The entire reason the movie did badly is because of the ogl thing.
An ideal time would have been April the first!
Gotta disagree with your take Double-D. This is exactly what happens in mega corps when they're picking a "fall guy" or in this car a "fall gal." This is Chris Cocks trying to save his own job… Which he needs to lose.
As for the movie, BG3 and MonopolyGo, she neither deserves credit for nor direct criticism for the success or failure of them. Then again, neither does Cocks. These were all planned under prior leadership, years ago.
I will say, the one thing she could be held accountable for is what led up to the movie being a failure; and that would be all of the negative things that occurred under her watch that took away what should have been a wonderful marketing opportunity and turned it into a major negative.
The movie itself was fairly decent. Sure, it could've been better. However, it was, by far, the best D&D movie ever to come out thus far. Sure, it's not LotR. And it totally could've been, had they done things differently. But it beats anything Disney has done for several years.
What hurt the movie was a pile of dead bards… err… A comedy of errors, topped off with a stupid comment from the director (?)
That comedy of errors being everything WorC did to hose their reputation to the normies. The OGL debacle, the Pinkerton's, the brand being "undermonitized", layoffs at Christmas, etc.
Most of us were already on the way out, others already there. We saw the poor product quality, both physically and published works. We saw the disdain for the core fanbase, opting to be "inclusive" of everyone but us; the actual paying customers. They lost us. They lost the "whales". All they have left now is the 'freaks' that don't actually buy products, unless it's currently the hip thing… And that fad is fading. I pray it's finally on the way out.
I've seen this before in the entertainment industry… When I worked for a theme park. I am certain they politely asked her to resign, in exchange for no "bad blood."
Honor Among Thieves was brilliant. Brilliant.
This is great news. That monster did a really great job helping destroy a once great company. Now they will hire someone much much worse and kill the games out for good.
She should have resigned, before firing critical staff for the D&D design teams. Which, happened before Christmas in the month of December last year. She is a corporate raider, and cannot leave behind anything worth salvaging.
It’s kinda sad that Honor of Thieves is the best D&D movie, yet is still considered a failure. I heard it was OK or even good, but I just didn’t go out to see it, even tho I wanted to compare it to the trash fire that was the 2000 movie.
But I didn’t go to see it. And I don’t feel like I missed anything. I guess that sums up everything about WOTC.
This is best battle of the Dungeon Masters
Deploying the golden parachute before things get bad.
Longing after D&D at this point is not only like longing for a high school sweetheart who is married with kids…”She” is also in “transition” has blue hair, a nose ring, and a beard. She’s nothing like we remember. Move ON people.
I'd rather have Gordon Gecko in charge.
You destroyed your credibility when you tried to claim current economic conditions are due to Trump's administration THREE years ago. You're clearly suffering from TDS. I bet you even put your life's savings in DJT at $60.