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On the bright side, though, we'll still have all the work he's done for it so far.
Not exactly. While he said he had "differences" with the company, the only folks he specifically said were not involved were "my fellow designers, Rob Schwalb and Bruce Cordell." There's a whole lot of vagueness and possibility in between. And if Schwalb, Cordell, and some of the other folks working on D&D Next remain involved in the project, I'll likely remain interested in seeing what they come up with. Cordell, for instance, can do no wrong in my book and is the God of D&D Psionics.alhoon wrote:He cited trouble with the company, not fellow creators.
He did a second blog where he name dropped the rest of the Dev team, specifically because of speculation after he only mentioned the two by name.Ken of Ghastria wrote:Not exactly. While he said he had "differences" with the company, the only folks he specifically said were not involved were "my fellow designers, Rob Schwalb and Bruce Cordell." There's a whole lot of vagueness and possibility in between. And if Schwalb, Cordell, and some of the other folks working on D&D Next remain involved in the project, I'll likely remain interested in seeing what they come up with. Cordell, for instance, can do no wrong in my book and is the God of D&D Psionics.alhoon wrote:He cited trouble with the company, not fellow creators.
Excellent! It's good to let people know there are other choices out there - and while DnD has nice guidance paths for quick or introductory play, there are other systems that allow a LOT more structured support for user customization.Dion of the Fraternity wrote:Legend of the Five Rings: Consulting with players for more than fifteen years now.
I just googled "Greg Leeds ICv2" and read the two part interview from 2008. I didn't get that feeling at all. I mean, yeah, he's a business guy, and it shows, and he's talking business, where the business happens to be games. But he knows a lot more details about the products than I'd expect a CEO to know. It's kinda dry business-speak, but he's a CEO. That's the nature of the beast. Or is it another interview you meant?Jester of the FoS wrote:Check out some of the interviews CEO Greg Leeds has done with ICv2. He has no passion for the game.
It read very much like straight marketing hype, with the standard, tired buisness terms. "Evolution" and "strong sales" and many others that don't really mean much. He sticks to his talking points and doesn't say much else of note. When asked something unexpected he replies with the most bland uninformative answers possible.Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:I just googled "Greg Leeds ICv2" and read the two part interview from 2008. I didn't get that feeling at all. I mean, yeah, he's a business guy, and it shows, and he's talking business, where the business happens to be games. But he knows a lot more details about the products than I'd expect a CEO to know. It's kinda dry business-speak, but he's a CEO. That's the nature of the beast. Or is it another interview you meant?Jester of the FoS wrote:Check out some of the interviews CEO Greg Leeds has done with ICv2. He has no passion for the game.
I dunno, maybe I'm biased, because I work for a very large corporation and I'm used to such speak from CEO's. But I have NEVER heard a CEO admit stuff like "product X is not doing well" unless they'd already cancelled it.Jester of the FoS wrote:He paints this very rosy, optimistic picture despite numerous store closures and Paizo hurting D&D sales, emphasising how well D&D was doing at a time when they would just have been gearing up for 5th edition. So, clearly, 4th Edition and D&D was NOT doing well.
Yeah, that's somewhat disingenuous. But I still don't read it as "no passion for the game." He might have the passion, he might not. But I guarantee he doesn't have passion for every product Hasbro sells. Nor would I expect him to. If he loves D&D, Elefun, My Little Pony, Battleship, Dora, Lite-Brite, and Risk all equally, he's an odd person indeed.My favourite part is when he talks about how stable D&D and the staff was, after four years of lay-offs (including the brand manager) and three-months before laying off a couple more long term staff including someone who'd been with D&D since 1st Edition. No, D&D does not had the same amount of staff, you let a twenty of them go, almost 10% of the company.
It's one thing to say a product is doing poorly, it's another to say it's doing well when it's not. He could have remained silent or phrased it differently. Especially when there's already rumours sales are not strong.Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:I dunno, maybe I'm biased, because I work for a very large corporation and I'm used to such speak from CEO's. But I have NEVER heard a CEO admit stuff like "product X is not doing well" unless they'd already cancelled it.Jester of the FoS wrote:He paints this very rosy, optimistic picture despite numerous store closures and Paizo hurting D&D sales, emphasising how well D&D was doing at a time when they would just have been gearing up for 5th edition. So, clearly, 4th Edition and D&D was NOT doing well.
But he's not the CEO of Hasbro, he's the CEO of WotC which is just an affliate of Hasbro. Hasbro has it's own toys and products to manage. He's the CEO of WotC and all of the related games, but when you google his name you see reference after reference associate with MtG. D&D seems secondary. Which is the thing, Magic seems to be his baby. D&D just seems like the brand his former boss aquired and now he has to manage.Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Yeah, that's somewhat disingenuous. But I still don't read it as "no passion for the game." He might have the passion, he might not. But I guarantee he doesn't have passion for every product Hasbro sells. Nor would I expect him to. If he loves D&D, Elefun, My Little Pony, Battleship, Dora, Lite-Brite, and Risk all equally, he's an odd person indeed.My favourite part is when he talks about how stable D&D and the staff was, after four years of lay-offs (including the brand manager) and three-months before laying off a couple more long term staff including someone who'd been with D&D since 1st Edition. No, D&D does not had the same amount of staff, you let a twenty of them go, almost 10% of the company.But as CEO he should be hyping all of them, all the time.