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BREAKING: WoTC Fires Physical Book Team (Extended) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-01-26 00:50:28
Imported:
2026-06
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Videos

Content

Ben ("Slaying the Dragon") Riggs has informed us that WoTC fired their entire book team last month. PDM provides analysis. Watch it today before reading it in the news tomorrow!

Files

Previews only

WoTC Goes Digital

Comments

Bagel-Man

Always great when you upload twice professor! Wish it could be on happy news though.

SJBehindtheScreen

If anyone was holding on to the idea that D&D under hasbro is a ttrpg, wake up.

SpeakingBeast

Maybe it'll become like GamesWorkshop, where they'll sell the physical book online through their store. You'll wait in queue for 20 minutes and then find it is sold out, haha! Good luck on the pole, Micheal - it sounds like decent pay, and that's not even including the tips.

Paul McLaren

As a bookstore owner, this sucks, though we did see it coming.

MrGunn

Meh, shrug…

NØKKEN_WAITS

Best of luck to your son! I had no idea male dancers make that sort of bank with securities! I need re-evaluate some stuff...

Bryan Stephens

I like physical books. But I don't pay D and D.

Justin Watson

Good luck to your son! And good on him for getting out there and applying. Love to see young people getting after it.

samurguybri

Great video. I listen to Plot Points, Ben’s podcast and it’s really fun and informative. He stated that that it is likely that the entire team who worked with Larian on Baldur’s Gate 3 is gone, with the layoffs and that no one from the TSR days is left either. His most recent three podcast cover his “Golden Age is dead” stuff and the layoffs and is very fascinating.

Matthew Crismali

Two videos on the same day! While I'm grateful, I hope you get the rest you need to get back to 100%

Damon Cairns

What sort of apprentice ship is your son starting? My son starts his electrician apprenticeship this year. It may cut down on his gaming time but I'm very excited to see him beginning his career journey.

Cee-Jay

SAS (Software As Service) is the norm for large business applications at this point. Typically pricing is based on the number of individual user licenses purchased, the level of functionality you want, and the level of service from the vendor that you want (if something breaks, do you want a near immediate response or are you okay waiting until tomorrow, for example). People with SAS experience are all over the place.. I would say that the video game experience they want is more of a unique requirement than the SAS experience. I was pretty cold to VTTs and online play. But I've been using OwlBear Rodeo with some old high school friends (who are spread across the country) for a year now and it's pretty good. There are disadvantages, but also advantages to online play... and comradery online has been better than I expected. There is even a (small) part of me opening up to the possibility, that maybe I'd want to invest in Foundry or Fantasy Grounds at some point. Also, toying with the idea of using more technology at the table. Good video and hope you recover well.

Scott Spears

Time are a' changin'. I'm a physical book and mini guy so this does not make me thrilled. Good luck to your son. Sounds like a good opportunity but tell him to watch out for the drunken bachelorette parties. They can be rough. ;)

Jim Racheff

These two things read like they're related to the same "product" - i.e., instead of physical books, WOTC is moving to digital publishing. But this position description reads more like software and game "publishing" than content publishing. This is more evidence that WOTC is headed toward being a computer game publisher and less a TTRPG or TTG company at all. Basically, the mechanics are cooked (and now dropped into a CC license) so this is all about a pivot to developing and leveraging copyright-able IP. (Not saying that's bad - but it looks like WOTC is abandoning the TTRPG space to niche publishers and changing their core business model all together.)

David Ford

Interesting video. I wish WotC all the best. I’ll probably buy the new core books (cause I’m stupid like that), but I’ll stick with OSE and the like for my TTRPG fix. You’ll need to do another emergency upload with your son if he gets the job. Take it easy and get better.

jnlsn family

Your son is a sweet boy. Was he joking about being a dancer or was that real?

Firstspear

It will be a cold day before they get another red cent from me. I have everything I need from 5th, purchased before all this nonsense.

James C

I'm one of those old school book collectors that PDM mentioned. Sadly, I hardly play TTRPGs now but I enjoy reading rulebooks and game settings. I purchased Shadowdark knowing I probably will never be able to play it but reading it fueled my creativity and imagination. The beauty of physical books is: it's yours forever and can't be changed. Digital media can be changed. It's great when it's to fix errors but sometimes it's more devious when the current editors want to make changes due to their personal opinions and agenda. I am all for keeping the original content the same, warts and all. I know WotC is moving to digital because there's more money there but it's also about control. They want to control how you play. I've never liked random people telling me what to do and I definitely don't like a big heartless corporation trying to tell me how to have fun.

Jay

PDM - Shout out to Flint FireForge for reviewing your Deathbringer TTRPG. He is on YouTube. The video is Flint Fireforge - Rules Light RPG Deathbringer should you like to check it out yourself or thank him for the review.

Frank Mitchell

Count me out. l still want physical books for things I might want to run at an actual table. (Or that just look pretty.) I also don't particularly want to *rent* the rules of D&D, even if they promise to make them less buggy. I'm just old-fashioned, I guess. So in March (May?) I may end up buying the new PHB as a dead tree, but I'm not going to subscribe to the rules. I just don't like D&D or Hasbro that much.

Cee-Jay

Tangent... what really is our resistance to a more electronic approach to game play (or at least having that option) and are we really considering the possibilities in an honest and complete way? Personally, my primary fears are: 1) players having the heads buried in their devices, missing out on a richer level of human connection. 2) A loss of creativity, both in visual imagination and in how they interact with the environment...losing the beautiful image they may have generated in their minds and defaulting to pushing buttons instead of creatively interacting with their environment. I'm not even sure 2 should be a big deal (arguably same thing can happen with minis in a strict grid and 5e style skill checks) and there may be easy ways to mitigate 1. Am I pushing myself to really consider the benefits fully? With near instant calculation, I could add in crunch that I had previously chosen to remove to keep the game moving... possibly increasing verisimilitude, immersion and feel. As a simple example... I think initiative each round is great but I only do initiative once a session to keep the game moving... but playing in concert with well designed tech we could do each round with no lost time. Lots of things that drag and slow the game now (even though I run a pretty stripped down game), could perhaps be handled very well by an excellent VTT. I don't do models and minis... VTT maps might really improve game play at my table, esp. for those players that struggle a bit with theater of the mind. Sorry for the ramble... I guess what I'm saying is that I may be letting my fears described above keep from really considering how well this technology can work. Maybe I can enjoy the aesthetic of physical dice, leather bound books and friends around the table in harmony with some new tools for keeping the game moving and fun. Maybe I've been too close minded about some of this stuff. For my online game, I allow my players to use the built-dice roller or their own physical dice. After the first game, everyone started using the online roller... it's exciting having the shared, close up view and the dice sounds are pleasing... actually it gives everybody a better view then when we are at the same table... I don't want to admit it, but in some ways the reveal of the dice roll online is better then when my players roll in real life 6 feet away from me and I can't really see or here it well.

knghtbrd

"Buy" your books online. Ask the people who "bought" Mythbusters on their Playstations how digital "purchases" work. For that matter, ask people who bought books by George Orwell from Amazon prior to about 2003 or so if my memory isn't wrong about the year? Amazon "unsold" those books to people way back then. Back then, they refunded people their money. Sony/WB-Discovery didn't bother.

Charles Fout

VTT means no table. No table means no books. No minis. No need to sell anything through third parties like your friendly local game store.