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New round of layoffs at Hasbro impacts Wizards of the Coast
(www.geekwire.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Hasbro seems to be super short-sighted about this. "How much can we gain for ourselves and shareholders this quarter?", nothing for the longevity of the brands the company owns. Even the internal support structure for the brands they own is toxic. MTG profits can't be used to help D&D, everything is siloed and the only way to get funding is to guarantee growth. The entire point of MTG was to provide a more steady revenue stream between editions of D&D, which has a longer production cycle and relies on one time purchases. The whole Hasbro setup is toxic
Really it's another facet of late-stage capitalism. The C-suite execs burn down a brand while getting paid millions, sell the brand to a zombie hedge fund for millions more, and the hedge fund sells the body parts for pennies on the dollar and brags about it with the former owners at the country club. Meanwhile everyone else gets screwed: the customer with a diminished product, and the worker with layoffs and years of work on something they cared about up in smoke. Once again the greed of a few destroys the work of many
"Just think of how much money we can make if we sell our dairy cow", said the dairy farmer with the one dairy cow.
I completely agree. This is just sad. It's tough having all this excitement around a new format like Timeless, Khans in Arena etc and then have constant news about Hasbro killing WoTC from within. If WoTC is what Hasbro keeps squeezing to keep their dying company alive, I don't how Wizards survives.
At some point Hasbro will be losing so much money that Magic/DnD won't be able to keep them afloat and at that point I don't know what they can do. Selling WoTC would only help in the short term and ultimately be better for the game/players, but it would be corporate suicide. Continuing to squeeze Wizards further and further seems to be their only plan. And continuing to squeeze it will bring further cuts to departments that don't bring "immediate revenue" but are necessary for the longevity of the game and player experience. Like the card and set design teams, support teams, player/pro/streamer outreach teams, etc. We'll probably continue to see a doubling down on product releases and Universes Beyond set releases, a steady increase in the price of booster packs and sealed product, and a worsening and worsening of the cards we see printed.
In the (distant) future it may even hit a point where the new cards as so powerful and power creep is so large that it turns players away entirely. They could be in a position where they have to keep pushing further and further with no way or no desire to go back. I swear, I think they're one alternative new CCG/TCG away from total failure.