this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
570 points (99.0% liked)

Games

39848 readers
1183 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 170 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Good. WotC is wretched hive of scum and villainy.

[–] Crankenstein@lemmy.world 91 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Good, ~~WotC~~ HASBRO is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

FIFY

[–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 45 points 5 days ago (1 children)

WotC did some shady shit before, too. Certainly right improve since the acquisition though.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago

Either way, the money grab is why I didn't get back into MtG recently.

I considered sticking my toe in and was told "oh yeah, just buy a $90 commander precon and hop right in."

Yeah, no thanks.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 33 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Aren't Hasbro the villain moreso than WotC?

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 55 points 5 days ago (1 children)

People have been complaining about WotC's executive meddling in D&D and MTG for as long as I can remember, since before the 1999 Hasbro purchase. D&D 3e, mostly written after WotC acquired TSR but published shortly after Hasbro acquired WotC, was panned so badly that they dropped 3.5 just a couple years later. And 4e (including the first OGL fiasco) happened when Hasbro didn't care about WotC because they were all-in on the Michael Bay Transformers movie. In fact, up until Stranger Things and Critical Role, Hasbro seems to have considered WotC the "Magic: The Gathering Money Printer" and done most of their meddling on that side of the house.

I organized pen and paper RPG conventions back when D&D 4 came out. We banned D20 based games even then as a boycott of WotC.

[–] mos@lemmy.world 35 points 5 days ago (2 children)

From what I’ve read WOTC has been a bad employer for a long time.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 11 points 5 days ago

From my understanding, they used to basically be the same as Games Workshop is today: If you talk to people who work there "off the record" (or they are pushing the equivalent of a youtube channel... shout out to Rogue Hobbies) you'll either get outright condemnation or LOTS of vague posting of a culture of theft and abuse.

But recent years have seen people get annoyed enough at the products that they now care about labor and we start to see a LOT more complaints.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Depends on who you talk to. I always thought the atmo was pretty chill. When I was there around 2010 as a contractor for a couple years they had a strange work schedule: 9-hr days Mon-Thurs and half day Friday - which was almost universally regarded as a screw-around day, along with at least half of Thursday.

[–] mos@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

Thanks for providing your view! I had only read the mostly negative reviews on job sites when I was thinking of applying around 2015ish.

[–] L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works 15 points 5 days ago

WotC+D&D is like ~30-40% of Hasbro. The only other brand they have that's worth a similar amount is (ironically enough lmao) Monopoly.

[–] Sunschein@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

I mean, sure, but it's like pulling the WotC mask off a Scooby Doo villain.

[–] Aielman15@lemmy.world 27 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And Crawford is an incompetent smartass. I honestly don't know what any TTRPG would have to gain from including him in the team.

If they hope to chase 5e's success by following in its footsteps - piss poor adventure modules, nonexistent DM support, unbalanced player options, and a game designer that contradicts himself on Twitter every other post while attempting to explain why he isn't wrong - then good luck to them, I guess.

I very much doubt that 5e became the juggernaut that it's now because of Crawford. If anything, it's despite of him - mostly because of the free publicity granted by things like Critical Role and Stranger Things, and DnD being the default option for anyone who develops an interest in roleplaying for the first time.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago (2 children)

How much do we actually know about what Crawford is like outside of the WotC machine? He might be perfectly competent but held back by executive mismanagement.

[–] Crankenstein@lemmy.world 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I would put money on the downfall of WotC being exclusively due to being owned by Hasbro and their executives forcing their greedy practices onto the team.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

WotC was already pretty awful before the Hasbro acquisition, as I recall.

[–] Crankenstein@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Internally, yea, but I was speaking more towards the decline of their products, not the treatment of staff, that was being discussed in the top comment.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Yeah, I guess that's pretty subjective overall. In any case, they're not so great now.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Crawford worked on Blue Rose, Warhammer Fantasy, and Mutants & Masterminds outside of WotC.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Ok, I'm not familiar enough with any of those to know what that means in this context. But in any case, weren't his contributions to those games all ages ago? M&M in particular came out almost 30 years ago, right?

[–] chrischryse@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)
[–] RhondaSandTits@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 4 days ago

Sending The Pinkerton's off to intimidate a YouTube reviewer

[–] Tuxman@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

Everybody who was passionate about games have left and been replaced by money-grabbing opportunists who only want to inflate the stock value, bail out and get their severance pay.

I don’t have links to it at the moment (I’m prepping dinner.. so excuse the laziness 😅) but if you search “D&D controversy” or “OGL” you’ll find plenty of discussions and analysis.

In short: they tried (but are still attempting to) bring micro-transactions and loot box mechanics to tabletop games.