I've had a long, very stressful, and very sad day.
You've all seen the news by now I'm sure, that Wizards has gone through a
downsizing, and that some very important people have left the company,
including Peter Adkison. Today's departures included people from every
department, and were from every level of the company.
I had a long converation with Keith Strohm last night, during which we both
laughed ruefully about the fact that we knew that certain people would take
word of the layoffs at Wizards as proof that the OGL/D20 project would be
killed or cancelled. Unfortunately, sometime in the middle of the night,
the hard drive that the OGF server uses for temp storage space filled up,
and the mail server spool froze. So of course, while I was spending time in
the office, the rest of you have been waiting around in the silence for some
sort of reaction. It probably helped matters not at all that some of you
heard that Wizards severed it's internet connection for the day. While an
amazing conincidence, the downtime for the OGF and the issues at Wizards are
unconnected.
As of tonight, the status of the OGL/D20 project remains unchanged. In
fact, everyone involved at Wizards has signed off on the final D20 Trademark
license and Guide, and Keith is just waiting for someone in the legal
department to send him confirmation that the licenses are approved so we can
do a press release. As you will probably understand, that department (which
has been busier than I have ever seen them the past few months) has been
even more occupied in the past few weeks. R&D is reviewing the first seven
sections of the srd for typoes, mistakes, and other issues related to the
rules hygine, and once things settle down in their area, I expect that we'll
have our first batch of "Open Game Content" to release as well.
I want to give you all a little heads up in advance of some of the press
releases coming tomorrow, since I don't know when I'll be back at my
keyboard.
Some of the d20 projects planned for 2001 are being either killed or pushed
forward into 2002. Primarily, those decisions are being made on the basis
of bandwidth throughout the company; not just in R&D. Wizards is taking
some very hard looks at how much time it spends producing, marketing,
selling, storing and shipping everything it makes, and some RPG products
have been sacrificed on the altar of improved efficiencies. I can't say
anything more than that, because the PR on this issue is delicate, and is
being handled by the team at Wizards with my full support. You'll get the
details with the rest of the public sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Those changes >DO NOT RELFLECT< Wizards' committment to Open Gaming or to
the D20 system, and hopefully, after a period of restructuring, some of the
projects which look questionable tonight will go forward.
In any event, >NOTHING< on the D&D or Star Wars schedule is being affected
by these changes. Delays (if any) in those lines will be the result of
normal schedule slippages and not a strategic shift. Hasbro is very, very
happy at the performance of the RPG business this year, and nobody either
locally at Wizards or back in Rhode Island has any interest or intent in
killing or harming the D&D/Star Wars businesses in any way.
On a personal note, I would like to say how sorry I am to see these times
come to Wizards of the Coast. Wizards is a company that acts like a family,
and there is not one single person at the company tonight that is not
feeling a sense of regret and sadness.
Thank you for listening,
Ryan S. Dancey
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Info on Open Gaming: www.opengamingfoundation.org
RPGA - the network for tabletop RPG players: www.rpga.org
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
