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Wizards Of The Coast President Cynthia Williams Steps Down
(dungeonsanddragonsfan.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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I'm not particularly clued into the industry but I'm not shocked. From what I've seen, Cynthia Williams believed the most profitable direction for D&D was to monetise game game at a very granular level like microtransactions, as we saw in the OGL debacle, plus her focus on the VTT was likely going to manifest in a similar way.
I'd say the explosive success of Baldur's Gate and the surge in WotC talking to practically all games companies possible, it's clear they've set their sights on a hopeful path to continued revenue growth that does not offend any fans.
My assumption is that Cynthia simply centered her leadership on a path that is no longer the direction the company has deviated from.
I'm guessing she got the job because Hasbro approved of those plans for profitability, though. It all seemed standard corporate affair. Hopefully they learned from their mistake, but I think this means they'll just find a CEO to squeeze money out of pumping bad video games or some shit. Companies always learn the wrong lessons from their success.
In fact, they already learned the OGL lesson before, so it's dumb they had to learn it again. They'll probably have to repeat another one of these lessons in 10 years or so. Hopefully until then, the company is slightly better, but we'll see who steps up.
2-3 years of pumping shit video games is 2-3 years that they aren't fucking with the core product, which is the only part I don't want ruined. The can make bad games, bad merch, bad brand tie-ins or anything else for all I care as long as they don't harm the game.
Lol that's true enough