[HN Gopher] Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baff...
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Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling
Author : webmaven
Score : 194 points
Date : 2023-12-16 23:42 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.geekwire.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.geekwire.com)
| kokken wrote:
| The market seems to disagree with the piece. The stock was in
| free fall from early October and recovered a bit after the layoff
| announcement.
|
| Anyone have an idea why?
| lstamour wrote:
| Literally, and speaking generally, the stock price might go up
| due to short term gains? Layoffs are a form of cost-cutting and
| assuming it doesn't affect the service or product, this leads
| to short term increased profits or offsets expected incurred
| losses? Not everyone playing the stock market is a value
| investor.
|
| As the fine article notes:
|
| > At time of writing, it's unclear why Hasbro's chosen to lay
| off employees at the single strongest company in its portfolio.
| This year, Wizards debuted a critically if not commercially
| successful major motion picture, earned a Game of the Year
| trophy at the 2023 Game Awards, and was consistently
| profitable, but Hasbro's still sacking its employees. It's the
| sort of math that only makes sense if you've got shareholders
| to placate.
| happytiger wrote:
| Because layoffs provide profitability, rough as it is.
|
| However! What Hasbro is doing to WOTC is tremendously short
| term thinking. You do not prune the organizations that are
| providing all of your liquidity in a time of crisis for fear of
| pruning the wrong branch and diminishing the growth by sending
| a message to key people that it's time to go, which is always
| possible and arguably likely when you cut.
|
| I believe that Hasbro shareholders should insist on making
| WOTC's management team responsible for the whole company, as
| they have time and again been the backbone of profitability,
| progressive projects that _actually ship_ and _make actual
| money_ and have been doing a lot of good decision making in
| recent years.
|
| Yes I'm aware of the CEO's criticisms around short term
| decision making, but he's _always had to answer to the parent
| company_ and they are very corporate and MBA-logic oriented.
|
| Now on to the answer to your question, here is the math they
| look at:
|
| https://www.business.com/finance/big-tech-earnings-and-layof...
|
| From the article:
|
| Key Takeaways
|
| Amazon had $2.8 million in earnings (before interest, taxes,
| depreciation, and amortization - or EBITDA) for every staff
| member they laid off in January.
|
| Meta had $3.9 million in earnings for each of the 11,000 staff
| members they laid off in November. In response to Meta's cost-
| cutting strategy, its stock price increased by 19 percent.
|
| Tech giant Microsoft had an EBITDA of $98.8 billion in 2022.
| This means they earned $9.8 million for each person they laid
| off in January 2023.
|
| Other companies' layoffs weren't as difficult to understand:
| WeWork ended 2022 with an EBITDA of -$824 million, and Spotify
| ended its fiscal year with an EBITDA of -$290 million.
| grensley wrote:
| The current CEO, Chris Cocks, was the President of WOTC from
| 2016 to 2022.
| happytiger wrote:
| Ah, then perhaps my opinion is outdated or incorrect. I did
| not know.
| hatenberg wrote:
| Short term thinking also doesn't matter to investors. They
| can drop the stock like a hot potato any time they want.
| There are no incentives built in for long term holding.
| moogly wrote:
| > have been doing a lot of good decision making in recent
| years.
|
| Wait, what? Aren't these the same people who tried to rug-
| pull the D&D license and caused a bunch of MtG drama with new
| cards that almost crashed the card market? Perhaps those
| decrees came from Hasbro, but we outsiders can't really know
| that, can we?
| jcparkyn wrote:
| Earnings per laid off employee seems like an odd metric. It
| makes the decision sound more "rational" the more employees
| are laid off (which is clearly backwards), and would give
| ridiculous numbers for companies with very few or zero
| layoffs.
|
| I only skimmed the linked article, but they don't seem to
| bother justifying why this metric matters.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Fed didn't raise rates in December due to lower than expected
| inflation.
|
| The entire market took off like a rocketship. You need to
| normalize against the market (ie: calculate Alpha) to negate
| the macroeconomic effects.
| jldugger wrote:
| Browsing their most recent 10Q[1], it looks like they took a
| substantial loss on their investment in EntertainmentOne[2].
| Which they did with borrowed money, meaning they don't have
| that much equity to lose. If you look at it from a business
| line perspective, WotC made 2x the profits of the next biggest,
| on half the revenue.
|
| My read: management bet the company on Film&TV in 2019, and
| lost so hard WoTC pays the price.
|
| [1]:https://investor.hasbro.com/static-
| files/69afb88f-126e-4604-...
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_One#Sale_to_Hasb...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| The market is more focused on next quarter's profits than next
| years - if layoffs help the balance sheet next quarter, they
| don't care if game quality suffers and there's less profit in
| the years to come. Well, it's not that the market doesn't care
| about next year's profit, but they'll expect the company to
| figure it out by next year.
| throw0101b wrote:
| _Penny Arcade_ comic on the situation, "Isolator":
|
| * https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2023/12/15/isolator
| getwiththeprog wrote:
| "D&D is, for lack of a better term than I have used previously,
| a culture. Serving that culture is such an honor. Does such a
| culture survive, truly survive, lodged within a pair of
| digital, aggressively monetized parentheses?" (Penny Arcade)
|
| D&D is the ony common RPG available these days is most of
| Australia - it certainly has the largest market share. As
| cultures go, RPG can easily rebuild itself from a fan-base. I
| personally liked 5th Ed core rules, yet I could be very happy
| to see D&D topple itself and reintroduce gamers to a new world
| of freshly minted RPGs.
| Loughla wrote:
| That's interesting. In the states there are an absolute
| abundance of rpg's available. Many rule sets, many settings.
| It's an actual renaissance of the field, I would argue.
| whythre wrote:
| ...what? Dnd is the market leader but we have the internet,
| availability shouldn't be an issue. You can download almost
| anything from drivethru rpg, and I ran a multi year World of
| Darkness game with pdfs and online resources.
|
| You might not be able to wander into a store and play with
| randos, but if you have some open minded friends, just about
| any tabletop game is an option.
| starkparker wrote:
| Pathfinder has an AU distributor (Let's Play Games, and I
| think also Aetherworks still?), so I'm curious how that
| shakes out on the ground.
| ekms wrote:
| woah. it's been years since ive seen a penny arcade comic.
| didnt realize it was still around!
| getwiththeprog wrote:
| As a long term Wizards player / purchaser, I think their product
| quality has been dropping over the last few years. In D&D, take
| the Planescape box set - it was a really empty world lacking in
| the imagination that the original second ed Planescape had. All
| the D&D content just seems like filler to me. In MTG, they are
| releasing so many sets that it would cost a fortune to keep up,
| and the cards are all like 'meh'. They are doing Dr Who and Lord
| of the Rings - so of course they are easy sells, but the quality
| is really average.
|
| I guess the equation is - people keep buying, we have market
| dominance, so who cares about the quality?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I think this hypothesis is a good example of an opinion I'm
| developing that any average executive team can follow the
| spreadsheet. But what makes a team truly exceptional is the
| ability and wisdom to identify and act on the subjective and
| immeasurable qualities of the business.
|
| If quality falls but sales rise, did quality not matter? Will
| it not matter? Maybe we're not measuring the right things.
| Maybe we have the wrong models. Maybe there is no model and you
| just have a general intuition that this is probably important
| regardless.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I actually think measurement is the source of "artificial
| stupidity".
|
| We tend to measure what's readily quantifiable. But these
| tend to be the most basic facts of a situation. And when we
| make decisions solely based on those metrics, we ignore
| significant higher order effects -- which are difficult to
| measure.
|
| So we make reductive decisions.
|
| Which is where humanity had previously evolved tribal
| knowledge, parables, etc -- because generationally, we _can_
| learn those effects. But we threw all of that data out of our
| models, which are based purely on numerics.
|
| However, the effect can be years to decades to manifest --
| much like modeling a farm as only basic inputs and outputs,
| then destroying the soil over years. (To reference another
| article today.)
| AmericanOP wrote:
| It would be like trying to measure the GDP of the
| renaissance, then predict which artists to invest in.
| solatic wrote:
| > any average executive team can follow the spreadsheet. But
| what makes a team truly exceptional is the ability and wisdom
| to identify and act on the subjective and immeasurable
| qualities of the business.
|
| This precisely. The spreadsheet explains your limitations,
| not your potential. No spreadsheet can truly predict demand.
| The best example is in marketing - you can give a marketing
| department $50 million to light on fire, or the right person
| in the right place at the right time can do the right thing
| and set word-of-mouth ablaze without spending a dime. Having
| a $50 million marketing budget doesn't allow you to control
| the outcome, it merely limits you to spending no more than
| $50 million in coming up with your own approach. It's not the
| same thing.
| speeder wrote:
| I saw someone pointing out they are doing exact same things
| comic companies did leading to their crash.
|
| The comic companies started to sell a ton of variants, foils,
| collector editions.
|
| They also started to do attention grabbing but bad quality
| storylines.
|
| And also they started to try to cut middlemen and sell more
| directly to the consumer.
|
| The end result was that readers eventually noticed quality was
| crap, with comics being poor products as story medium. And
| collectors noticed that they had a problem of no readers to buy
| their stuff, and that x-men #1 os worthless since it had
| millions of copies, unlike for example action comics #1. This
| led to stores losing losing money and then going belly up, then
| suddenly the comics companies themselves were losing money.
| busterarm wrote:
| It may not have worked in the comic book industry but the
| same tactic has proved an enormous boon to the sports card
| industry in the last decade and that's absolutely booming.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Is it still booming or is it coming down like many other
| things post pandemic free cash flow and ability to do
| things with people again?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > In D&D, take the Planescape box set - it was a really empty
| world lacking in the imagination that the original second ed
| Planescape had. All the D&D content just seems like filler to
| me.
|
| The other problem is that 5e supplements might be better
| described as pamphlets.
|
| The box set you mention advertises itself as containing three
| sourcebooks:
|
| 1. A campaign setting (96 pages).
|
| 2. A prefab adventure for levels 3-10.
|
| 3. A monster manual (64 pages).
|
| The second edition Planescape supplement lists 224 pages of
| campaign setting + monster manual, of which the monster manual
| is 32 pages.
|
| The 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is 320 pages.
|
| -----
|
| Here's something that bothers me about WotC's modern quest to
| sell their cards at every conceivable price point:
|
| The concept is, obviously, market segmentation. If some people
| have more willingness to pay, you charge them more, and you get
| more money! Instead of having some consumer surplus and some
| producer surplus, you have lots of producer surplus and almost
| zero consumer surplus.
|
| The problem I see with attempting to drive consumer surplus to
| zero is that -- staying entirely within the realm of theory --
| you end up with a customer base consisting mostly of people who
| are _almost completely indifferent_ as to whether they buy your
| product or not.
|
| This is not a good way to build goodwill. And, if you ever even
| slightly misjudge the value of your own product, suddenly you
| see people abandoning it in droves, because the barely-
| noticeable dip in value was still larger than the gap between
| how much everyone liked your stuff vs how much they liked the
| money it was costing them.
|
| Brandon Sanderson has started writing about how much he likes
| WotC's model of selling the cards at every conceivable price
| point, and how it's inspired him to try to sell his books the
| same way.
|
| But I think he's overlooking the fact that, as a millionaire
| many times over, WotC's highest offered price point is still
| insignificant to him. Things look different when you're part of
| the finely-segmented customer base.
| synthos wrote:
| It's a perfect time for Matt Colville's MCDM RPG to be
| announced. It's on backerkit and people are clearly eager for
| something different. The crowdfunding is at 4x funding and
| climbing
| jmcgough wrote:
| A layoff gives managers the opportunity to fire people who
| they've wanted to fire for a while. The firings within WotC were
| likely opportunistic and not about trying to change the direction
| or strength of the company. Doing it as part of larger layoffs
| gives an excuse for it and in theory mitigates drama.
| el-dude-arino wrote:
| Ah you beat me to it. Layoffs like this mitigate the drama for
| sure, but also mitigates legal liability, which just goes to
| show you; you're a fool to remain loyal to the company. A lot
| of the people fired were rated highly in their performance
| reviews, I'm sure. But if you're too ambitious or criticized
| the boss for making a mistake or just looked at him wrong...
| you're gone.
|
| My advice:
|
| - Always be interviewing
|
| - Never stay somewhere longer than 2-4 years
|
| - Don't take on extra work or go above and beyond
|
| - Try to work two or more remote jobs
|
| - Kiss your boss' ass
|
| - Never take a stand on anything
| jen729w wrote:
| > Try to work two or more remote jobs
|
| What, routinely?
|
| No.
| el-dude-arino wrote:
| It's not as hard as you think, especially if you do
| contract work on the side while you have a full time job.
| jen729w wrote:
| So now you have _three_ jobs?
|
| You work too much.
| mock-possum wrote:
| How much money do you need?
| el-dude-arino wrote:
| Enough to tell my boss to get f*cked
| id00 wrote:
| > Never take a stand on anything
|
| "If you stand for nothing, Burr, what'll you fall for?" (c)
| HeWhoLurksLate wrote:
| agree, I'd rather be a professional with a shorter lifespan
| than a henchman/goon that can survive anything
| runnr_az wrote:
| You're likely mistaken about the value they're contributing.
| Corporate America can be a heartless place, for sure, but
| you'd be surprised how hard it is to straight up fire
| underperforming white collar workers.
| Loughla wrote:
| The difficulty in firing is directly related to how risk
| averse (lawsuit averse) HR is.
| refulgentis wrote:
| This is a little too jaded, but in all seriousness younger
| me, everything except the 2+ remote jobs is true.
|
| Always ask yourself _does my manager want this, or do I think
| my manager will want this when I'm done with it?_.
|
| Also, you never take a stand on anything in the sense that
| _you never want to be the only person in the room advocating
| for something longer than a couple sentences_.
|
| Adults are just as nasty as middle schoolers, but to your
| face, they won't say a thing. They are old enough to have
| learned its easy and feels good to shit on other people, and
| it is hard and feels bad to have a Discussion(tm).
| eutropia wrote:
| Nah.
|
| Hold yourself and those around you to high standards and
| you'll develop a keen sense for when people aren't doing the
| same.
|
| That helps you avoid the shitty companies and bosses that
| make these coping mechanisms seem necessary.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| The "48 laws of power" gets a lot of (perhaps well deserved)
| shade, but there are some insights there, if your post is any
| indication.
| nunez wrote:
| Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri did a really interesting
| deep dive into this book and its author in their podcast
| "If Books Could Kill". Recommended listening.
|
| TL;DR: It is theorized that the author (Robert Greene)
| studied classics and wanted to write a book about
| influential leaders throughout history, but the only way to
| get such a book green-lit by a publisher was to wrap the
| history around a "self-help for men" context, which
| naturally gravitates towards building empires and making
| more money. This is why, like many self-help books, the
| advice is dubious, but unlike almost all self-help books,
| the historical anecdotes are extremely correct.
| aardvark179 wrote:
| This feels like a self fulfilling thing. You get laid off, so
| you start following these rules and you are even more likely
| to get laid off.
|
| I can honestly say I not only don't follow these rules, I
| think I follow almost their direct opposite, and despite many
| around me being laid off I never have been even when
| voluntary redundancy was being offered and applying for it, I
| have more than enough money to walk away from a job if I want
| to.
|
| If you find every workplace so hateful that you must follow
| these rules have you considered that the problem might
| actually be you?
| el-dude-arino wrote:
| I'm glad you've found fulfilling places to work, but I
| think you might have a bit of survivorship-bias.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Yeah, your comment above really hit home for me. Had the
| exact experience and younger me could've used that
| advice. Things are good now, but yeah
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "A layoff gives managers the opportunity to fire people who
| they've wanted to fire for a while"
|
| This may be true sometimes but I have seen plenty of layoffs
| where whole projects/departments got axed based on not very
| good information. A lot of C*O people make these decisions
| based on very flimsy information.
| ProAm wrote:
| Do you have any evidence this is what is happening? Why didnt
| it occur with the first round?
| hatenberg wrote:
| That would be true if it was managers actually making the
| decision who to fire. It's increasingly centralized all the way
| to the top.
| internet101010 wrote:
| Yeah it means no requirement to do a PIP.
| kderbyma wrote:
| A bit of a hot take, but video games need a change. they have
| stagnated as their profit have soared but like most
| things....profits are a lagging indicator and like Disney
| marvel.....were on the slide down.
|
| this doesn't mean video game industry is dead....just that it
| needs to shed it's skin and remove the profit hungry leeches....
|
| the big names will lose lots of money and will do all they can to
| consolidate anything left unscathed by their ineptitude and
| attempt acquisitions....it is time for a new dawn....break up the
| corpos....I look forward to a fresh empire of creators...
| fullshark wrote:
| I unironically blame the consumer. I guess also some
| parents/game companies for exploitative practices on children.
| There's a mountain of games out there that aren't garbage but
| they keep shoveling money towards the games that are pretty
| much explicitly anti-user.
| somestag wrote:
| There is no "the consumer."
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Well someone is preordering all these games that are almost
| garunteed to be unfinished, at best. What shod we call
| them?
| chii wrote:
| suckers?
| chii wrote:
| > a fresh empire of creators
|
| there's so many indie games out there that i have not even
| considered buying from a corp made game for many years.
|
| As for mobile games, it's a blight on the landscape, best left
| alone. Dont feed that industry, except to buy indie games that
| you want to support.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| " they have stagnated as their profit have soared but like most
| things"
|
| That's the preferred mode for a lot of managers. There are only
| a few company leaders who can push a company forward and keep
| it innovative. You could argue Apple is at that stage. Profits
| are strong but their innovation output is pretty low compared
| to the resources they have.
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| Your hot take on video games seems unrelated to the topic of
| WOTC, which makes tabletop games.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| If I was one of the excellent artists at Wizards of the Coast, I
| would be worried about Stable Diffusion.
| jldugger wrote:
| AFAIK, MtG art is all gig work. Art is part of the product and
| to the extent that AI gets involved it would be about elevating
| the value rather than cutting costs.
| wincy wrote:
| One of the Dungeons and Dragons artists got in trouble for
| creating an amazing drawing of a giant then using Stable
| Diffusion to make it really pop. A different Ilya than the one
| we all know and love got in a bit of hot water [0].
|
| [0] https://decrypt.co/151515/dungeons-dragons-ai-artificial-
| int...
| apstats wrote:
| I don't think it's possible to determine if a decision like this
| is a good one without working at the company. News articles like
| this are useless.
| jldugger wrote:
| How does the board of directors evaluate management performance
| then?
| rco8786 wrote:
| I think it's fair to consider a board of directors as people
| who "work at the company".
| Retric wrote:
| I don't. Further it's common for all stockholders to be
| asked to vote on decisions with 1 vote per share. While
| it's true most people have only a trivial number of shares
| and are therefore largely irrelevant they also don't have
| access to non public information.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| If history is any guide, "work" might be a stretch but
| "employed by the company", sure. Only half joking.
| bsdpufferfish wrote:
| Have you ever read a news article about something you have
| insider knowledge of?
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Simple. Did the management meet the various internal targets
| outlined by the board.. Those could be anything from
| profitability, to total cost structure, to anything really
| wand3r wrote:
| I'm not so sure. Whether this article is good or not is a moot
| point. Hasbro is publicly traded so there is verifiable
| information about the company available. As others have pointed
| out, we can see them rapidly selling off assets and IP and
| cutting staff. I'm not a professional analyst, but surely one
| could substantiate an argument for or against this decision.
|
| Edit: Also, this decision isn't a single data point. We can
| look at the track record and business trajectory to make an
| informed decision. I am not particularly well informed about
| Hasbro, but based on historical stock price, industry trends
| and comments here, it really seems like they are fucking up
| anuraaga wrote:
| This comes after this year selling the rights to the Transformers
| movie series, an arguably larger hit to their ability to have
| mainstream impact. It seems very unlikely they wouldn't be
| looking for a buyer for WotC as well, and trimming down to just
| the IP may be making it a better sale.
|
| The company is struggling and likely pulling out all the stops
| the avoid bankruptcy, when you need liquidity this could very
| much include cuts to otherwise profitable segments.
| busterarm wrote:
| The quality of the IP that they sold off w/ eOne, both on the
| music side in their 2021 sale and the tv/movie side with this
| recent one, is staggering.
|
| Notably, the entire Death Row Records catalog, Grey's Anatomy,
| Criminal Minds, international distribution for The Walking
| Dead, etc.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Those notable titles are pretty old and past development.
| Same as Transformers.
|
| I guess they don't want to be in the legacy media licensing
| business.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _they don 't want to be in the legacy media licensing
| business._
|
| Isn't that business basically free money? The way I see it,
| no capital investment is needed. You just need to keep a
| few accountants and lawyers around to handle occasional
| licensing paperwork. Am I missing something?
| dageshi wrote:
| It might not be that straightforward when dealing
| internationally?
| gavinray wrote:
| But doesn't that mean that at least nationally, it's
| essentially a money printing machine?
|
| Because this is my layman's conception of how media
| licensing works, at least.
| fweimer wrote:
| Does it matter? Hasbro probably has growth targets. They
| may have concluded that price hikes for legacy content
| matching their growth targets were unlikely to be
| feasible.
| Stasis5001 wrote:
| It may be "free money" as you frame it. But a cash stream
| that provides n dollars per year forever can be valued in
| today's dollars, assuming a discount rate of d, at n /
| (1-d). So it's reasonable to prefer cash now to revenue
| forever, at that exchange rate, depending on your
| corporate interests.
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/present-value-
| annuity.a...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| You have the right idea, but you got the formula wrong.
| That's evidenced in the source you link, but you can also
| reason it from first principles: a higher discount rate
| should make the cash stream _less_ valuable, not _more_.
| The correct formula is n / d.
| Stasis5001 wrote:
| Oops, that's what I get for mathing before coffee-- mixed
| up the formula for \sum (1+r)^n vs. \sum r^n
| rf15 wrote:
| This strikes me as a shortsighted, risky, and frankly
| unsustainable attitude for a company. It's no surprise
| they're struggling.
| jldugger wrote:
| It is very much not free -- they apparently raised a lot
| of debt to buy eOne, and they are going to have find a
| way to pay that off or roll it over into a much, much
| higher interest rate environment than 2019.
| peterstjohn wrote:
| Well, why wouldn't they sell (license) the rights to make
| Transformers films (which as far as I know is just extending
| their existing contract with Paramount)?
|
| They still own the underlying IP[^1], so as long as the
| contract is a decent one, Paramount has to deal with the actual
| making/distributing the film, and Hasbro just gets the money,
| and a toy line off the back of the film. Feels like an easier
| set up than taking the risk on movie-making yourself (which
| they did attempt with eOne for other properties, but seemingly
| have decided that it's probably not a good deal with them)
|
| [1] yes, yes, it's a bit more complicated with Takara in the
| mix too, but you can essentially view it as a Hasbro-owned
| property
| TheCleric wrote:
| I don't see why they would sell WoTC considering it's the
| profit generator that keeps the other businesses afloat.
| THENATHE wrote:
| I really miss 2016 MtG. I remember when full art lands and full
| art promos were RARE and with money for no reason other than
| their collectability. I really liked when cards were rare because
| of the fact that they were good and uncommon and maybe because
| they were the same as the regular card but foil, not because they
| were arbitrarily a different type of shiny, or like when that one
| card from Kamigawa had a different color neon border that made it
| spike to 3k for a while, let alone the new serialized cards.
|
| I wish we could go back to that, because I was so excited about
| collecting cards back then. Nowadays I feel like unless I open a
| pack with a crazy reprint or a REALLY lucky list card, there are
| essentially no cards worth anything. I remember pulling some
| shock lands and even when they were only 8 bucks it felt really
| great, like it was gambling. Now, I only ever get packs of
| remastered sets, and standard sets are wholly uninteresting. I do
| a $40 draft and get $3 worth of cards, and it is to be seen if
| these EVER go up in value.
|
| I still love the game, and I play it more than ever. But there
| are three groups of people: investors, people that realize it is
| a TCG, and people that think all cards should be worthless. The
| first is greedy, the middle is realistic, and the latter is
| idealistic. But I am solidly in the middle, and there is so much
| pushing on both sides that the middle group is demonized for
| wanting to play a game and have cards have relative value too.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| I prefer having cheap cards. You are paying for the experience
| not the cards when you draft.
|
| What I don't like is wotc printing new powerful cards in non-
| standard sets. Modern horizons, commander sets, etc print
| absolutely must play busted cards but the sets are limited
| print quantity and artificially scarce.
|
| If it was up to me all new cards would be printed in standard
| sets and supplemental sets are reprints only.
|
| 2016 magic was nice because you could play reserved list cards
| without having to sell a kidney...
| gymbeaux wrote:
| My theory is that all cards will eventually be under $10,
| because cards like Mana Crypt are opportunities for WoTC to
| make money via reprints. I've only been playing/buying since
| March, but I've seen so many cards dropping dramatically in
| price, much more often than seeing a card shoot up in price.
| Reprints help drive sales and justify the higher prices for
| booster packs.
|
| Cutting staff implies that, perhaps, they anticipate more
| Universes Beyond and reprints, and fewer original sets with
| original mechanics. Universes Beyond is great for Wizards
| because they don't have to really invent cards, and fans will
| pay whatever they ask for cards from their favorite shows and
| movies and games.
|
| This month people are losing their minds over the Princess
| Bride and Dr. Malcolm Secret Lair sets.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > This month people are losing their minds over the Princess
| Bride and Dr. Malcolm Secret Lair sets.
|
| Wonderful art on the Princess Bride set.
|
| I can't help but notice that if Inigo Montoya gets into
| combat with the Man in Black... he'll win.
| Yhippa wrote:
| They're in a tough spot because they have to keep several
| audiences happy: collectors and players. Players generally
| want the cheapest set pieces while collectors want the value
| of their collection to grow. I think WotC has done a decent
| job trying to satisfy both groups and are at least trying
| different things. As an investor, you should be happy about
| that. Whether or not this sea change of releases over the
| pandemic helps or hurts the long-term health of the game is a
| worry of mine.
| solardev wrote:
| I wish playing with third-party "proxy" cards were more
| accepted (like https://mtg-print.com/set/fallout or
| https://proxyking.biz/), where you can get any card custom-
| printed for a dollar or so. Maybe I just have to find a
| group where nobody cares about collecting.
|
| If WotC did that first-party, I'd buy a shit ton from them
| even if they had zero resale value. But I guess that would
| eat into their collectibles and gacha pack market.
| solardev wrote:
| Why don't you buy singles?
|
| (Not trying to be snarky. Just started playing a few months ago
| and that seems to be the best way to make decks without
| gambling. What's the point of buying packs?)
| dragontamer wrote:
| > What's the point of buying packs?
|
| Draft is probably the best MtG style of playing.
|
| A lot of MtG turns into pay-to-win, since the best cards of
| the meta inevitably cost more. Drafting on the other hand,
| ensures that everyone has zero-cards upon the start of the
| draft and have to make due with the booster-cards that come
| in the draft.
|
| In many ways, drafting is cheaper. You don't have to worry
| about making the best deck ever... instead you just have to
| make the best deck given the cards you draft. Then you can
| sell the expensive singles after the draft.
| solardev wrote:
| As a beginner, I think the drafts are a really unfriendly
| format that heavily biases experienced players (who know
| how different mechanics can combo each other, useful
| counters, deck balance, etc. by heart). I tried that with
| friends a few times but it was like trying to learn a new
| game every time, as fast as possible, so you can out-pick
| the cards before someone else grabs them. Personally I felt
| it shifted the gameplay from tactical card playing to race-
| to-viability in drafting.
|
| In non draft games, either self made decks or pre-cons, you
| can spend time studying your deck and optimizing it before
| actual play starts. In drafts, much of the actual gameplay
| IS the drafting and gambling. The actual decks that get
| built are usually uninteresting, just fast aggressive
| combos that play like starter decks.
|
| Thankfully I discovered Commander pre-cons, easily upgraded
| with some cheap singles, and have a lot of fun with that.
| Especially in 2v2 or free for all. It's all the stuff I
| love about card games (the deck building and tactics)
| without gambling. I'd much rather spend $50 on a precon and
| another $20 or so on singles, knowing exactly what I'll
| get, than buy or draft a bunch of random packs that almost
| never give me a useful deck in the end.
|
| Just a matter of taste, I guess. I wish Magic weren't even
| collectible, personally, but a limited card game like the
| Fantasy Flight ones (game of thrones, arkham, etc.)
| dragontamer wrote:
| It sounds like you don't know what to look for in Drafts.
|
| On the 1st cycle, decks are passed to your right.
| Remember which colors are getting passed to you,
| especially on turn 7+ in the Draft. this tells you which
| colors players on your left are _NOT_ going.
|
| On the 2nd cycle, booster-packs are passed to your left.
| Same same, you're getting information from the other side
| of the table, so you know what to hate-draft (a draft-
| pick to hurt someone, rather than help yourself) in the
| 3rd phase.
|
| The drafting phase also tells you which bombs and removal
| cards to look out for. Of course, 1st deck / 1st pick
| bombs are always taken and are fully secret, but 3rd
| round, its unlikely that the rare is going to be in the
| colors of your left-side opponent. So there's a good
| chance that the rare-to-your-left is passed to you,
| giving you information on what that opponent has drafted
| (whether that card matched their deck or not).
|
| There are also incredibly powerful commons (ex: Lightning
| Bolt a few years ago...) that would be 1st-draft 1st-pick
| and better than the rare. So if you're 2nd pick and
| there's a good rare on the passed deck, it means the
| person to your left is likely going red/lightning bolt
| 1st pick.
|
| Or in another set, when Doom Blade was in format, that'd
| be the 1st-pick / 1st draft card as a very powerful
| removal spell despite being a common.
|
| > that almost never give me a useful deck in the end.
|
| But everyone has the same condition in a draft. The card
| pool is closed: everyone had access to the same card pool
| and is therefore nearly fair. Obviously if your 1st pack
| / 1st pick was much better than everyone else's, that's a
| bit of the luck to the draft.
|
| The "goal" of Draft is to pick the color that "the table
| has ignored". If your 7 other opponents are white, red,
| blue, green, red, green, and white... then you can pickup
| all the powerful black-cards. The "winner" of the draft
| will likely be fought between blue vs black (the only two
| "uninterrupted drafters") in the table that set.
|
| There's only so many good cards for any given strategy.
| If *EVERYONE* goes early-aggro / rushdown (IE:
| White/Red/Green), then the one guy who drafted all the
| control cards (Blue/Black) probably just beats everyone
| at the table.
|
| -----------
|
| I'd say the main problem with Draft is the unbalanced
| nature of it all. If you're sitting to the right of a
| newbie who passes you good cards (or is otherwise
| ignorant of the Drafting format), you end up building a
| deck far more powerful than everyone else.
|
| IE: The biggest advantage you can get in a Draft is
| sitting to the right of a newbie (2x rounds where you
| pass to the right). The 2nd biggest advantage is sitting
| to the left of a newbie (1x round where you pass to the
| left).
|
| But if everyone at the table is of roughly the same skill
| level, its a great format. The drafting phase innately
| self-balances, as everyone is picking (and changing their
| picks) in relation to what they've been passed.
|
| ---------
|
| > I'd much rather spend $50 on a precon and another $20
| or so on singles,
|
| Competitive decks "in the meta" are closer to $200 to
| $500 in my experience. 60x cards, and a chunk of them
| cost $20 to $80.
|
| Preparation and Money ruins the game since you're just
| buying up known combos and 4x of the best $50 cards that
| on the last tournament...
| solardev wrote:
| > It sounds like you don't know what to look for in
| Drafts.
|
| [snip]
|
| Yeah, exactly. It's that whole meta-game I have zero
| interest in (competitive card-picking, as opposed to
| competitive card-playing). Just different strokes for
| different folks and all that.
|
| > I'd say the main problem with Draft is the unbalanced
| nature of it all. [...] But if everyone at the table is
| of roughly the same skill level, its a great format.
|
| That makes sense, especially in MTG where there are like
| 20,000 cards to choose from. The P2W can definitely come
| out.
|
| Ironically that's actually one of the reasons I prefer
| another card game, Elder Scrolls: Legends
| (https://bethesda.net/game/legends), a
| Morrowind/Oblivion-themed digital card game that's
| technically "collectible", but they stopped making new
| cards a few years ago. Now it's just the same set of a
| few hundred old cards, but people still keep coming up
| with new metas without spending any more money. It's
| awesome, and there are no new overpowered cards to be
| surprised by, just interesting new uses of them. Despite
| having been technically abandoned, the community is still
| very active (no more than 20-30 seconds to find a match,
| which is sometimes faster than even MTG Arena!)
|
| I feel like MTG suffered the opposite fate, where it
| became a victim of its own runaway success, and draft was
| popularized amongst older players who got sick of trying
| to keep up with the incessant power creep. Is that fair?
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Now it's just the same set of a few hundred cards, but
| keep still come up with new metas without spending more
| money.
|
| That's called a "Cube" in Magic the Gathering.
|
| https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/building-your-
| firs...
|
| https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Cube_Draft
|
| We draft Cubes from our old collections all the time, to
| help recycle our older cards.
|
| > That makes sense, especially in MTG where there are
| like 20,000 cards to choose from. The P2W can definitely
| come out. > Now it's just the same set of a few hundred
| cards, but keep still come up with new metas without
| spending more money.
|
| A typical Draft's card pool is only ~300ish cards or so,
| whatever is in the newest set. Its actually small enough
| to memorize.
|
| You don't draft booster-cards from all of MtG. A Draft is
| innately around the ~300ish cards of some set. Lost
| Caverns of Ixalan only consists of 291 cards.
| solardev wrote:
| > That's called a "Cube" in Magic the Gathering.
|
| It wasn't super clear to me from that article, but does
| this mean everyone drafts from the same cube (like you
| combine cards and then everyone draws from them)? Or does
| everyone make their own cubes?
|
| I think a difference there (vs a limited number of cards
| in the game, period) is being able to realistically know
| all the cards that can be played. There's not this
| surprise of "what, I didn't even know this ridiculous
| card exists" -- everyone's seen all the cards, dozens if
| not hundreds of times -- but it's up to them to create
| new and interesting combinations of those same cards.
| It's more chess-like in that way and less of an arms
| race.
|
| > You don't draft booster-cards from all of MtG. A Draft
| is innately around the ~300ish cards of some set. Lost
| Caverns of Ixalan only consists of 291 cards.
|
| Right, but that only lasts a few months, right? Or is it
| weeks now? Getting 291 unique cards would require many
| cases of cards (and thousands of dollars, probably?)... I
| tried that for one cycle and then stopped after realizing
| how expensive it gets, and how quickly too.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > It wasn't super clear to me from that article, but does
| this mean everyone drafts from the same cube (like you
| combine cards and then everyone draws from them)? Or does
| everyone make their own cubes?
|
| A cube is 360 (total) cards that you tell all your
| friends about. Some of these cards are repeats (ex: 4x
| Elite Vanguards).
|
| You bring those cards, you shuffle them up, deal out
| 15-to-each-person, and then start drafting (pretending
| this random-deal of 15 is "like a booster pack").
|
| > There's not this surprise of "what, I didn't even know
| this ridiculous card exists" -- everyone's seen all the
| cards, dozens if not hundreds of times -- but it's up to
| them to create new and interesting combinations of those
| same cards. It's more chess-like in that way and less of
| an arms race.
|
| Then keep to the same cube. Make everyone in your group
| know what cards are in the cube, ask questions about
| those cards before playing.
|
| -----------
|
| The "owner" of the Cube is responsible for "balance
| patches" (Hmmm... Red is too strong. I'll replace some of
| these powerful Red cards with weaker ones). So its not
| completely static. But the general plan is to build a set
| that your group can "recycle" and grow to become experts
| in.
|
| --------
|
| > Right, but that only lasts a few months, right? Or is
| it weeks now? Getting 291 unique cards would require many
| cases of cards (and thousands of dollars, probably?)... I
| tried that for one cycle and then stopped after realizing
| how expensive it gets, and how quickly too.
|
| You... look at the cards before entering a draft. Ex:
| https://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-set/the-lost-caverns-of-
| ixa...
|
| All of this information is published ahead of time. Some,
| more competitive, players even playtest / draft when the
| spoilers are released long before the Pre-release. Using
| computer software to emulate a draft.
|
| The only money you put down in each draft is the 3x
| Booster Packs per draft (or if you're in an official
| event, the entry fee which also includes a bit extra for
| the prize-packs)
|
| Draft-players don't "collect" the cards. You usually sell
| the cards after the draft.
| solardev wrote:
| > Then keep to the same cube. The "owner" of the Cube is
| responsible for "balance patches" (Hmmm... Red is too
| strong. I'll replace some of these powerful Red cards
| with weaker ones). So its not completely static. But the
| general plan is to build a set that your group can
| "recycle" and grow to become experts in.
|
| Thanks for explaining this! I actually really like this.
| I will suggest it to our Magic group next time :) That
| might just be the kind of experience we're needing.
|
| > All of this information is published ahead of time.
| Some, more competitive, players even playtest / draft
| when the spoilers are released long before the Pre-
| release. Using computer software to emulate a draft.
|
| Wait, really? I didn't know that either. So if I'm
| understanding you right, people basically simulate drafts
| (in software... any recommendations?) before the actual
| release? Does the software include estimated rarity, such
| that if you practice drafting a few times, you're as
| unlikely to get the rares as in the real card version?
|
| > Draft-players don't "collect" the cards. You usually
| sell the cards after the draft.
|
| This probably just goes back to the difference in
| preferences earlier: novelty in cards vs novelty in
| tactical deck-building. I prefer the latter, where you
| work a small pile of "knowns" and rearrange them more
| effectively, vs constantly having new piles of unknowns.
| The "curated Cube" may just be the perfect answer to
| that. Thanks again!
| dragontamer wrote:
| https://dr4ft.info/
|
| https://ponymtg.github.io/cockatrice1.html
|
| > Does the software include estimated rarity, such that
| if you practice drafting a few times, you're as unlikely
| to get the rares as in the real card version?
|
| Yes, of course. Rarity is important to drafting strategy.
|
| -------
|
| You ain't gonna beat a top level player who has practiced
| drafting a set dozens of times before the release, lol.
|
| But grow to the skill level you're comfortable with. A
| bit of practice goes a long way.
| solardev wrote:
| Thanks!
| rtkwe wrote:
| Personally even as a player who's pretty good at piloting
| a deck I dislike draft because it a) requires a good
| knowledge of the set I don't have the time or inclination
| to build to know what strategies are supported well b)
| has a lot of skill in reading 'signals' to have an idea
| of what colors are being heavily pulled from early enough
| to change directions and c) gluing that pile of cards
| into a deck that can be even a little fun to play or have
| a chance of winning.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| There's only two camps, investors and gamers. I think that
| anyone who wants to "have cards that have relative value" are
| investors, whether they realize it or not. Its one thing to
| collect because you like something inherent about the cards
| themselves (I recall a recent Reddit post where the user was
| trying to collect every single Magic card that depicted an owl
| in any way). But if your concern is about the monetary value of
| the cards in your collection, you are an investor, of some
| kind.
|
| I personally think cards should be for playing, and am pretty
| opposed to cards being valuable if that means that playing the
| actual game becomes prohibitively expensive. Standard decks
| costing hundreds of dollars is not a good thing.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > There's only two camps, investors and gamers.
|
| It's not that black and white. I used to _play_ the game in
| the mid nineties. The most expensive card I bought back then
| I paid the equivalent of 5 EUR (the Euro didn 't even exist
| yet) because I needed it for a deck but that card came out
| before I started playing.
|
| I'm not an investor in MtG cards. But my collection went up
| in value. Nothing crazy (I don't have any of the "power
| nines") but with 28 dual lands, the most valuable card from
| Legends (The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale) and the most
| valuable card from Arabian Night (Bazaar of Baghdad) and a
| few others, I'm sitting easily on 20 K EUR atm.
|
| I didn't do it on purpose: I simply never got rid of my
| cards, not paying attention to the price. I just like my old
| cards and they bring me back memories when I look at them.
|
| I'm take it I'm in a third category: nostalgic people who
| simply like their very own (and very old) cards.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| WotC has multiple Marvel sets coming out for Magic over the next
| few years, so who needs a design staff?/s
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Prepare for the enshittification and bedbathandbeyonding of Magic
| the gathering.
|
| If I had to make a guess as to why, given the fact that the
| people they laid off were all senior leaders and the numbers are
| good, it would be preparing for a pump and dump.
|
| if you want to be able to pump and dump a really strong brand
| then you need to be able to have leaders who don't mind burning
| the brands equity in order to make money. My guess is that
| specifically what intending to do here.
|
| Change the leadership, make new "sticky" products, pump revenue
| numbers, then spin out a public offering of the magic brand that
| looks like a great new reboot and refresh.
|
| However the brand is only there to smuggle in the subscription
| model around new products that have strong margin. Everyone* gets
| rich cause they slaughtered their fattest pig and yet another
| cultural staple is killed.
|
| Don't worry, another band of psychopaths will resurrect it in a
| few decades like Mattell is doing with the Barbie brand
| currently.
|
| *Not everyone - very few actually
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Prepare for the enshittification and bedbathandbeyonding of
| Magic the gathering.
|
| That happened during the original design of the game. M:tG was
| one of the first products to sell you a pig in a poke. That was
| the concept!
|
| I've seen people say that it would be nice to regulate loot
| boxes in video games, but they can't figure out how to do it
| without banning Magic's business model. I never understood why
| that would be a problem.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Exactly. It would be a better game if they just sold entire
| expansions where you get all of the cards.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| They did one round, but I think it takes 3 rounds of pump and
| dump before it really dies
| Supermancho wrote:
| The enshittification already happened. The most recent
| incorporation of other IPs, like the upcoming Dr Who, is a
| series of last gasps. While sales have followed along the aging
| income growth of existing players, the inverse pressure of
| exiting players is past sustainable levels. Other forms of
| gamba have eroded the MTG gamba allure.
|
| Re: Youtube - Tolarian Community College - which is very good
| at capturing the state of the ecosystem.
| Yhippa wrote:
| What is inherently wrong with co-branded product? Do you have
| any data to back up "exiting players"? I don't think we
| really have a good read on that. The MagicCons I've been to
| have been increasingly packed with people.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| The concern many MtG players have is that throwing a bunch
| of other IP crossovers into the card game has a variety of
| potentially negative effects:
|
| - established players who enjoyed the theme of Magic in the
| first place might be turned off
|
| - it creates an increasing number of products and therefore
| product fatigue, which is something I've heard _lots_ of
| players mention and was even brought up by Hasbro
| themselves in a financial call
|
| - it adds to the increasingly confusing legality of
| cards/formats. Some crossovers have alternate in-universe
| versions. Many don't. Some are commander legal. Some are
| commander and modern legal. Some have their own draft
| environments. Knowing what cards you can play in a given
| format is getting obnoxious to track.
|
| - They clearly seem to be introducing new players to Magic,
| but they are also clearly driving old Magic players away.
| The question is how persistent are the new players? Do they
| stick around, or does their interest wane when their
| favorite crossover franchise isn't getting new cards
| anymore?
|
| I personally think it's too soon to tell, but a lot of the
| moves strike me as _very_ reminiscent of the types of moves
| that eventually are identified as enshitificafion as
| management tries to extract as much short term juice as
| possible in a way that damages long term health. I'd love
| to be wrong.
| serf wrote:
| >What is inherently wrong with co-branded product?
|
| it points towards brand dilution and financial straw-
| grasping. it indicates that the stewards of the IP no
| longer care about the thing being meaningful and the
| release schedule is now no longer ordered to increase
| impact and brand value, but rather to extract whatever
| value has been accumulated via customer good-will thus-far.
|
| you can see this trend/process occur in just about any
| long-standing fantasy/fiction IP.
|
| Some IPs are built to push product. Evangelion and Gundam
| are designed to shove plastic toys out the door since day
| 1.
|
| Some IPs slowly evolve into that product push once main-
| line income dwindles; those are the ones that tend to upset
| folks with that sort of behavior, and frankly it cheapens
| the brand appeal by reducing exclusivity.
|
| In other words : niche appeal exists, and generally the
| move towards synergistic advertisement partnerships over
| quality generally signals the corporate desire for
| generating mass market appeal at the sake of sacrificing
| the niche crowd.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Can't new MtG sets literally be generated perfectly with AI now?
| Might be behind a lot of this.
|
| Looks like the layoffs were pretty heavy on the art department:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/18ij198/list_of_kn...
|
| Reminds me of the transition from classical animation to CGI. It
| used to take teams of hundreds of animators to make a film simply
| because of the sheer amount of work to be done. Whole career
| paths were made obsolete by the switch.
| dathinab wrote:
| > Can't new MtG sets literally be generated perfectly with AI
| now?
|
| no not quite
|
| you can generate cards sure
|
| but for a set to work you need more then just random generated
| cards
|
| especially if you want it to go well
|
| or if you want to continue to have success with crossovers
| where the choices of mechanics should synagize not just with
| the set in general but with the lore from the cross over,
| something mtg somewhat managed to do quite well for multiple of
| their cross over sets in the recent years
|
| but a lot of the current AI is really bad at getting any of
| this broader context right
|
| and there is the broader balancing both for draft, commander,
| balancing prices, reprints etc.
|
| Similar while there are always examples of AI are being
| extremely well made, most of it has subtle but clear signs it's
| AI art. That's not necessary bad art, but clearly different
| art. And a lot of the mtg players I did now over the years
| cared about the art quite a bit and would probably be very
| unhappy if it becomes AI art.
|
| I think for a lot of magic players AI generated cards (with
| similar price gauging selling structures as the current cards)
| might very well be the last straw causing them to exit the
| game.
|
| EDIT: Additionally AFIK you can't really copyright AI art in
| the US which would be a major problem for them.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Point in general is that the workload is massively reduced no
| matter what. You no longer need teams of people manipulating
| Illustrator files. It's just a single artist fine tuning a
| generated image.
| solardev wrote:
| This is the same Hasbro that tried to retroactively close off the
| D&D Open Game License (and thus the third party ecosystem). It
| was a massive betrayal that caused a ton of pushback:
| https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jan/12/dungeons-and-d...
|
| They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in
| them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par
| instructions ). Or really expensive character toys.
|
| D&D has undoubtedly gotten more popular, but I wish it were under
| the stewardship of someone more deserving, like a geekier board
| game shop than greed-enthralled Hasbro. They've become the Disney
| of board games, all quantity and profit and no real concern for a
| high quality gamer experience. I bet someone like Larian
| (Baldur's Gate 3) would've taken better care of the IP and
| rulesets (and they're working on a Divinity tabletop game!)
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point, it
| is absurdly clear that everyone putting all their eggs in the
| basket with wizards of the coast and it is just a bad idea.
|
| There are plenty of fantastic alternatives, we really don't
| need the DnD universe. I mean, as highly acclaimed as BG3 is,
| people in general seem to feel that the dev's previous game
| Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics... so idk I
| just think it's time to move past wizards of the coast and
| embrace better systems.
| solardev wrote:
| I think Forgotten Realms has a special place in many people's
| hearts (especially the millennials and around them), being a
| formative part of our childhoods: Minsc and Boo, Drizzt,
| beholders, mimics, etc. It's like Star Wars or LOTR, people
| get attached and emotionally invested and it's not so easy to
| let go overnight.
|
| I enjoyed the Original Sin series and played them for many
| hours,but never finished either one. The characters and
| stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda
| cheesy, honestly), but yeah, tactically they played better
| than BG3. That's the downside of trying to accurately
| transfer tabletop mechanics, I guess, and combining it with
| the poor UI of the BG3 series (too many different types of
| actions and reactions to squeeze in the toolbars). Anyway
| that's beside the point.
|
| I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare! It would
| be cool to see an open source fantasy world where high
| quality fanfic could be curated into canon.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The alternative systems flourished with DnD 4.0 back in 2008,
| since that system just wasn't as good as 3.5 or the new 5th
| edition.
|
| Wizards of the Coast did a great job with the balance of
| customization vs simplicity of 5e and that's why DnD did so
| well recently. But the alternatives always were there.
|
| Its a big community of literal house-rule makers (everyone
| plays DnD with their own houserules). Its a community used to
| making rules for themselves, buying 3rd party rules packages
| or discussing balance things online. The community will
| figure something out one way or the other.
| seabird wrote:
| Was 4 really worse than 5? Everyone I've heard speak on it
| is pretty hesitant to say 5 is better, and that a lot of of
| great design choices (martial classes not being completely
| outclassed, less frustrating saving throws, rule clarity,
| better handling of numbers on enemies, better rest
| mechanics, etc.) were thrown out in 5 because 4 caught so
| much shit for being "not 3.5".
| nyssos wrote:
| > Was 4 really worse than 5?
|
| They're just very different. 4 is as much a tactics game
| as an RPG.
| solardev wrote:
| I loved 3.5, but it was really complex and unbalanced. 4E
| was a very different kind of game, more like World of
| Warcraft than 3.5. But I enjoyed it a lot too (the
| classes were much better balanced), and it was far easier
| to teach to new players because they couldn't as easily
| dig themselves into a grave with poor character
| development (anti-munchkinism, or whatever you call it).
|
| I don't mean role playing a flawed character for story
| flavor, but that in 3.5e it's way too easy to
| accidentally make a non viable build that's drastically
| weaker than other party members (and level appropriate
| enemies).
|
| 5e is more similar to a simplified 3.5e with a little
| less complexity. And rather than focusing on the tactical
| turn based combat of the 4e (which was often kind a drag
| to execute without digital DM aids and digital
| tabletops), they shifted the focus more to storytelling
| and player involvement. It was the right move, IMO, for a
| tabletop role playing game.
|
| On the other hand, I don't think the 5e rules translate
| as well to computer RPGs. BG3 shines for its exceptional
| narrative freedom, but its combat is lackluster compared
| to Temple of Elemental Evil or even Nwverwinter Nights or
| KotoR, which all used 3E/3.5E to allow really cool build
| diversity.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| > Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics
|
| While I think the combat in 5E combat in BG3 is fairly simple
| by comparison, DOS2 combat was definitely not better. All
| combat devolved into status effect versions of "the floor is
| lava" and a lot of builds become unviable late game.
| solardev wrote:
| You didn't like the environmental interactions? I thought
| it was awesome how the "floor is lava" could quickly become
| "the air is now noxious gas / steam / full of lava
| elementals", how undead and the living react to elements
| different, etc. But it's really more that the action points
| system gave you a lot more tactical flexibility than the
| D&D "attack/cast + move" limits.
|
| Still, though, I loved the different builds in both games
| :) When Original Sin first came out, I made a wine barrel
| build that just had an insanely strong level 1 character
| with telekinesis and no other skills... he could insta-kill
| any enemy in a single turn just by throwing 600 kg wine
| barrels at them. Or in BG3 how you could have a party of
| shovers that just throw people off cliffs.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| I think the environmental effects were fun, but in longer
| or large battles, too much of the emphasis was placed on
| managing them. One thing I appreciated about BG3 is that
| you can use them to your advantage, but they're not a
| primary focus of combat. I like the scale and variety of
| combat in DOS2 better overall, however. All the BG3
| combat, outside a handful of battles, felt trivial and
| anti-climactic.
| solardev wrote:
| > I think the environmental effects were fun, but in
| longer or large battles, too much of the emphasis became
| on managing them.
|
| Oh, I see what you mean there. Yeah, I agree, the
| environmental effects were SO powerful they often
| occluded the usefulness of other skills. I'm glad they
| toned it down a bit in BG3.
| imbnwa wrote:
| >All the BG3 combat, outside a handful of battles, felt
| trivial and anti-climactic.
|
| The final battle in BG3 was clearly rushed in design IMO.
| You just avoid the fight entirely and you're done. That's
| not what I want in a climatic final battle with an other-
| dimensional entity of immense power that has to be
| controlled by implements of the gods. You straight up
| shouldn't be able to cheese it, almost as a requirement;
| it should be the culmination of all the elements of
| strategy the game has offered, but it doesn't do that to
| me.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| Yeah, you can beat the whole thing in a few turns. The
| enemies in the courtyard and ascent to final boss were a
| bit better, but still akin to any number of fights in
| DOS2 (vs. a climax).
| imbnwa wrote:
| Yeah, just to add on, Orin and Gortash were much more
| interesting fights for me even; Ketheric took a few
| iterations to realize what the pattern was. But the final
| battle is either Sisyphean or cheesed entirely. I haven't
| played either DOS games, I might take a go at em.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| DOS2 holds up pretty well. DOS is kind of clunky.
| csydas wrote:
| > They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on
| in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par
| instructions ). Or really expensive character toys.
|
| For me this is the most telling part that Hasbro doesn't quite
| get what you're actually selling if you have a tabletop
| company; it's not the ruleset, that will be leaked as soon as
| you sell a single copy and people actually play the game. It's
| instead ideas and world building visions from the people who
| were directly involved in creating the world and rules the
| company tries to sell to people. People are creative, but even
| the best story tellers wouldn't turn their nose up at some lore
| to help spark creativity, long as the lore isn't needlessly
| restrictive.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Also their recent move to 3-book + DM screen sets is really
| annoying. They did it first with Spelljammer's rerelease into
| 5e and I think the oceanic thirst for Spelljammer content might
| have sent them the wrong signal about the popularity of the
| actual content which was pretty thin for the amount you paid
| for it with notable missing rules like long range travel... for
| the space setting.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| OMG they rereleased spelljammer? Brb, gotta go buy some DND
| books.
|
| Which is to say, I am clearly part of the problem here.
| SSLy wrote:
| E-mail me at the profile, don't give wotc money.
| sklargh wrote:
| Oh man it was super-disappointing and the end of my
| willingness to buy WoTC 5E. You'd be better off with the
| originals from DriveThru.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| The combat system is pretty piss-poor, too - to the point
| where many people have released their own, better, rulesets
| for combat to address these problems.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Spelljammer combat? You have any links to that my wife is
| running a Spelljammer campaign right now and those might be
| useful to her.
|
| Over all yes the whole thing came across as very weak and
| half hearted but of course it's freaking Spelljamming so it
| still sold very well despite being a weak product.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| It's like Oracle buying Sun. We just need to move on from Java
| to other languages at this point.
| solardev wrote:
| If you ever want another huge, ancient labyrinth of a
| language that also kinda sorta runs everywhere, the
| Javascript world welcomes you with open tentaces! Here we're
| controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and
| Typescript), with upgrades and crossgrades and cross
| compilers that deliver astounding 15% improvements in
| performance in exchange for a mere few animal sacrifices and
| a lifetime of misery. In our delightful world, getting your
| app to run on other platforms is as simple as embedding your
| operating system into WASM and putting it in their browser.
| What could be simpler?
| typon wrote:
| Looking forward to the day Amazon buys Rust
| imbnwa wrote:
| Is Rust deployed internally at Amazon?
| hughesjj wrote:
| Fire cracker (lambda backend vm) uses it
| sublinear wrote:
| > controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft
| and Typescript)
|
| Who still uses typescript? It's not the mid-2010s anymore.
| Plain javascript is everywhere and I'd argue using a
| framework implies an immature project or team.
| kweingar wrote:
| According to StackOverflow's 2023 Developer Survey,
| TypeScript is the fifth most popular language, beating C,
| C++, Java, C#, Rust, Go, etc.
| teg4n_ wrote:
| This is an absolutely baffling take to me. Like, I don't
| know if you are even being serious or not.
| realusername wrote:
| I've never seen a large js codebase without typescript
| and I'm not even sure how you could realistically manage
| one without.
| solardev wrote:
| What? Typescript solves an entirely different problem
| than most frameworks (you mean frontend frameworks?).
|
| Did I miss typings in vanilla Ecma, or...?
| paulddraper wrote:
| > getting your app to run on other platforms is as simple
| as embedding your operating system into WASM and putting it
| in their browser
|
| ???
| solardev wrote:
| I'm kidding, but sometimes it feels like that. Javascript
| is never just Javascript.
|
| It depends on whether you use Typescript (with tsc or tsx
| or esrun?).
|
| It depends whether you use V8 or Node or Deno.
|
| It depends whether you're using AWS Lambda or the
| Serverless framework or a Cloudflare Worker or a Vercel
| or Fastly edge function.
|
| It depends whether you use vanilla or HTMX or React or
| Next or Vue or Nuxt or Svelte or Astro or Remix or
| Angular or or or.
|
| Then if you go native, it depends whether you usr React
| Native and Expo and Electron and Tauri and and and.
|
| Somehow we went from a universal language that can run in
| all web browsers to a hundred mutants that each only work
| in some niche...
|
| I've never seen two Javascript codebases that looked the
| same :/ Every one is like a new archeological dig. Sure,
| you find some identifiable generic pottery fragments and
| such, but they always managed to build an entire
| civilization in a totally different way than the one next
| to them, using technologies that no longer exist a few
| years later.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Sure, but the JavaScript world won, and the Java world
| lost. A long long time ago, last century. The war has been
| over for decades, since the demise of Netscape Javagator in
| 1998. And C# was released 23 years ago, specifically
| designed to do to Java what Java did to C++, and it did.
| It's like you're trying to still fight the Civil War.
|
| https://www.wired.com/1998/02/whither-crawls-netscapes-
| javag...
|
| >WIRED Magazine: FEB 26, 1998 4:26 PM: Whither Crawls
| Netscape's Javagator? Netscape officials deny a report that
| work on Javagator, an all-Java version of the Navigator
| browser, has been suspended.
|
| Oh, and then there's this:
|
| Larry Ellison
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You sir go wherever you want but please leave Java to
| professionals that make companies just work (TM). Yes its not
| ultra fashionate with all new features in some other
| languages (but improving constantly), but TBH I don't care,
| at all, I can work till retirement with Java 8 and be very
| happy, at the end its just a tool to solve problems and darn
| good one.
|
| Proper quality engineering is delivering good robust
| solutions to companies, and Java is great for that in many
| many aspects, moreso than most other platforms. And who
| steers it, that's a question I couldn't care less about, just
| keep it working as expected, completely cross-compatible
| across all platforms and all previous version (looking at ya
| Microsoft, that clusterfuck with 'MS Visual C++
| redistributable' requiring 20+ sometimes conflicting
| installations, often ending up in games not working at all
| even if required version is present - that's just bad
| engineering, they don't even have solid internal registry to
| prevent these FUBARs requiring full clean reinstall of
| Windows).
| DonHopkins wrote:
| All those wonderful technical and business arguments and
| whataboutisms and swag, but there's still:
|
| Larry Ellison
| serf wrote:
| that's a good comparison given how litigious Hasbro has been
| in the past.
| blobbers wrote:
| "now it's a union shop in the same state as Wizards"
|
| - regarding unions is it considered a good thing? I still think
| of it as a crony workplace where only age is promoted and not
| merit. Am I wrong? Only did union job at a grocery store (UFCW)
| dmix wrote:
| I worked at a unionized job as a teenager at an industrial
| plant and I asked how to get hired for real instead of temping
| and he explained how unions worked there and other plants in
| town. He said it's extremely neoptistic, they'd usually hire a
| kid of one of the workers or a friend and the odds of an
| outsider getting in was thin. They dealt out jobs like a mafia
| family.
| rndmwlk wrote:
| I have a few friends in the trades, all part of a union, and
| none of them would echo this sentiment.
|
| It's also funny because this is the exact same sentiment
| people complain about with the corporate world, where it's
| more about who you know than what you know.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Trade unions and Employment unions are very different.
|
| That said, i suspect the parent story was from years ago,
| most likely late 90's or early 00's when that type of thing
| was common
|
| Today most unions are very very very hard up to find anyone
| willing to work everyone that wants a job, and can actually
| follow instructions, and show up on time (harder than it
| sounds it seems) gets a job right now...
| dmix wrote:
| It was early 2000s in Southern Ontario Canada
| rendall wrote:
| I worked at a unionized job. It was not that way for us at
| all. Perhaps a different industry? It was mostly just
| protection from shenanigans. Once, for instance, the owner of
| the company tried not to give us a contracted wage increase -
| a wage increase he agreed to - and he got slammed by the
| civil judge. We were paid 3 times the wages that he had tried
| to steal.
| bsdpufferfish wrote:
| Unions tends to reward credentials and years of experience over
| performance or capability.
|
| For most people it lowers downside risk and lowers upside
| opportunity.
| criddell wrote:
| Unions prioritize whatever it is the members want
| prioritized.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Unions like government prioritize what ever the vocal,
| loudest, and most organized minority of the group wants
| prioritized, this will not align with all members, and
| rarely even aligns with what the majority of members desire
| criddell wrote:
| I don't think that's generally true.
|
| A recent example: the WGA just ended a strike against the
| movie and television studios and from what I've read
| about it, the resolution was not determined by the
| loudest minority. A deal was worked out, the membership
| voted, and 99% voted to accept the agreement. That seems
| like a success.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Lets survey the membership, what is left of them, in a
| year or less and see if they still feel it was a
| "success"...
|
| I have a feeling a large % of them will not be in WGA
| jobs in 18 mos
| starkparker wrote:
| There's only one unionized TTRPG shop and it's Paizo, so it's
| uncharted waters for that industry. That said, several people
| now at Hasbro (F. Wesley Schneider, Amanda Hamon, Judy Bauer)
| jumped ship from Paizo before the unionization effort. I
| haven't seen any of those names in the layoff lists, but the
| company they left is very different now, and I don't know if
| that makes it more or less attractive to them.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Getting laid off has got to be the single highest trigger of
| suicide. Maybe breakups or child loss are higher but it's at
| least top 3. Watching companies perform layoffs on thousands of
| employees just for their stock price to temporarily bump is
| really disgusting. I'd like to see some legislation that
| significantly penalizes companies engaging in layoffs. They
| should be a last resort, not a well-worn tool.
| bsdpufferfish wrote:
| Accept that your job can disappear at anytime and for any
| reason, no matter how loyal you are.
|
| Your sense of security should come from your confidence in
| getting work if needed.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| This is more acceptable as a solution in a situation where
| your and your family's literal access to healthcare is not
| dependent upon your not getting laid off. Healthcare costs on
| the "open" market are enough to drive even families that
| think of themselves as well-off into poverty.
|
| One of the reasons that a single-payer healthcare system
| didn't take off in the 15 years between 2008 and now has been
| that the current system was working well enough. I wonder if
| the widespread layoffs and resulting loss of healthcare
| access will change voters' minds on that issue.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Unemployment is actually at record lows now; it's just the
| tech industry seeing massive layoffs probably due to a ZIRP
| bubble popping.
|
| The indignities of the system are already well-known to the
| majority of people who don't have 6-figure work from home
| jobs. You'd think a single-payer system would be more
| popular, but that is not what people seem to prioritize.
| Instead it seems that they vote ever more to cut social
| safety nets (though I think they really vote for cultural
| reasons and right-wing politicians use their grievances to
| serve the wealthy).
|
| > Even on death's doorstep, Trevor was not angry. In fact,
| he staunchly supported the stance promoted by his elected
| officials. "Ain't no way I would ever support Obamacare or
| sign up for it," he told me. "I would rather die." When I
| asked him why he felt this way even as he faced severe
| illness, he explained: "We don't need any more government
| in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars
| paying for Mexicans or welfare queens."[0]
|
| [0]https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/jonathan-m-metzl-
| dying...
| jimbob45 wrote:
| That's definitely the advice I give to friends and family.
| Waiting around for the government to solve layoffs is not a
| viable strategy to keep you and your family out of the soup
| kitchen.
|
| Publicly, though, I'm happy to advocate for layoffs to end or
| at least for companies to stop treating them like a fun tool.
| gruez wrote:
| >I'd like to see some legislation that significantly penalizes
| companies engaging in layoffs. They should be a last resort,
| not a well-worn tool.
|
| Be careful, such legislation might reduce layoffs, but might
| make other aspects of the labor market worse. For instance, in
| some European countries where layoffs are hard to pull off,
| companies are very adverse to hiring anyone, lest they hire a
| dud that they have to keep on payroll forever. Or they only
| hire them for fixed term contracts, so that if the economic
| winds change they're not stuck with a long term liability. It's
| the opposite in freerer labor markets like in the US. Companies
| are more willing to hire unproven/unconventional candidates
| because they know they can be easily fired if things don't work
| out, and they react faster to demand shocks because each hire
| isn't a long term liability. That's not to say we should accept
| people committing suicide after layoffs as a trade-off for a
| more dynamic labor market. A robust unemployment system and/or
| social safety net mitigates the negative effects of layoffs
| without the affecting dynamism of the labor market, and should
| be the solution rather than making workers harder to fire.
| prakhar897 wrote:
| thinly related but i could really use some advice.
|
| There's a board game called "quoridor" that I've been playing a
| lot lately. I found 2 platforms where u can play this online,
| major one being BGA (boardgamearena). It was kinda sad to see a
| game on par with chess in terms of simplicity and strategy, being
| lumped into the same group as kids games.
|
| So, I started building a platform for it myself in my free time.
| Still a work in progress (https://li-quoridor.vercel.app/).
|
| The issue is that I have no clue if the game mechanics are
| copyrighted or not. The wiki says "By 1997, the five biggest game
| companies in the world (including Gigamic) American bought the
| copyright [clarify] of this game and released it to the world".
| But wiki itself acknowleges that this is a statement has no
| source. So, how do i go about making sure i have the right
| permissions to build this stuff, and will they even give these
| permission or not?
| DylanSp wrote:
| With the disclaimer that I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal
| advice:
|
| - Game mechanics generally can't be copyrighted. If you had a
| platform for playing "Prakhar's Game" that had the exact same
| rules as Quoridor, you'd be in the clear.
|
| - Specific pieces of art related to the game would definitely
| be copyrighted. Copying the exact box art of some commercially-
| released version of Quoridor would be an issue.
|
| - I _think_ the issue to be concerned about would be whether
| you can use the name (which would be trademarked, not
| copyrighted). A quick search turned up a page from the US
| Patent and Trademark Office [1] showing that it 's still held
| by Gigamic. I'd probably look for sources on that 1997 "release
| to the world" to see if you can find more details; looking
| around Gigamic's site might also turn up something.
|
| EDIT: BGA definitely isn't just for kid's games, incidentally.
| Something like Ark Nova or Agricola is a long ways from
| Battleship or Candy Land or what not.
|
| [1]
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75334527&caseSearchType=U...
| morelisp wrote:
| BGA is... not for kids games. I mean, there are kids games
| there, but there's also RftG, TtA, T&E...
|
| Quoridor is nice but I would not even put it in the top 10
| modern abstracts, let alone on par with chess.
|
| Legality aside, it is a bit of a dick move to reimplement a
| modern abstract that people can play for free, or even make
| themselves for a low cost, just because you don't like the
| (free) site it's on.
| prakhar897 wrote:
| The problem isn't free site, it's extensibility.
| Chess/chess.com has 100s of variants, ability to study games,
| and lots of other chess specific features.
|
| Bga has fixed set of features for all its games. And their
| focus is divided.
|
| This game atleast deserves its own home.
| morelisp wrote:
| Look, for all I know Gigamic is just waiting for someone to
| come along and make chess.com for Quoridor, and you're the
| guy to do it.
|
| But I think your ignorance of the hobbyist game market is
| revealed a bit here already (not having full context for
| BGA, not knowing if Gigamic still owns it - they certainly
| do and had a booth at Essen this year like they do every
| year) - and you're _vastly_ overestimating not just
| Quoridor 's popularity but the size of the entire market
| for non-chess/go/tables/poker games. And I don't just mean
| financially - dozens of variants are no good if there are
| barely enough players to match dozens of games to begin
| with.
|
| Did you try contacting BGA to see if you could get the
| Studio files for Quoridor?
| DylanSp wrote:
| Expanding on one point - not just market size, but the
| amount of competition. As you said upthread, there's no
| shortage of reasonably popular [1] modern abstract games,
| there's plenty of other options for people to play. It
| _might_ be possible to try and promote Quoridor more
| broadly, given how simple its rules are, but that 'd be
| tough (and marketing it more yourself, beyond just
| providing an implementation, would probably cause issues
| with Gigamic).
|
| [1] Popular within the modern board game community, at
| least.
| morelisp wrote:
| Not even "competition". BGA is more or less allowed
| because it's assumed it drives sales. A Quoridor-only
| site would probably sell Quoridor fine, but BGA will also
| sell Cuarto, or a dozen other Gigamic games. Or vice
| versa - BGA probably does more to draw e.g. Catan players
| into checking out Quoridor than a dedicated Quoridor site
| would.
| webdoodle wrote:
| MtG saw a huge increase in demand while people were mandated to
| stay at home. Now that the mandates are over, the demand is
| likely about to implode as people return to previous activities.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| Layoffs during periods of strong performance really raise an
| eyebrow to me.
|
| You should have to prove some economic need to make those kind of
| layoffs similarly how you have to prove economic need for work
| visas.
| keep_reading wrote:
| Why do so many people think the economy is in a healthy
| position? Strong performance _now_ means nothing. e.g.,
| Department Store Sales 3-month average was $17B in 2008 and is
| now down to under $11B. It 's a bloodbath. It has been steadily
| trending _down_ since 2008.
|
| "Bill Ackman warns economy will fall off a cliff if the Fed
| doesn't hurry and cut rates"
|
| The Fed isn't going to cut rates for years. They're refusing to
| blink. These are Volcker-sized balls on JPow.
|
| Any rallying now is squeezing blood from the stone. Any massive
| layoffs, sales, mergers, bankruptcies, or consolidations is
| hedging for the unavoidable cliff.
|
| These are just smart, safe moves by corporations -- getting
| their affairs in order, per se.
|
| And now the workers are going to suffer because they didn't
| organize labor when the economy was booming and they weren't
| feeling the pinch. Hopefully they learn this time and don't let
| the unions weaken if they want to avoid being battered and left
| for a cheaper workforce or replaced with automation.
| StableAlkyne wrote:
| > Department Store Sales 3-month average was $17B in 2008 and
| is now down to under $11B. It's a bloodbath. It has been
| steadily trending down since 2008.
|
| No comment on the rest of your post, but I suspect this
| particular metric has more to do with the rise of online
| retailers and less to do with falling purchasing power.
| pushedx wrote:
| Any more details on what Hasbro's "Entertainment" division does,
| and why it's lost more than $800M this year?
| sircastor wrote:
| This might be a stretch (and also is 100% speculative), but
| maybe it's a tax write-off thing. They put money into
| something, decided they wanted the tax breaks more than to sell
| the product, and there's your loss.
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