Nerd Newz Eps 1: Special coverage - D&D's 50th Anniversary, WoTC Layoffs, USPS D&D Stamps, and More! 

Thank you!

Miss ya Michael. Hope you are doing well!

That's right, they are not going away, at least not until the AI robots kill the internet.

I work in the Italian ttrpg scene (which is, basically, the stress test for how small a team you can have and still put out full books xD) and I can tell you it takes a bit more than one would think. Most of the teams (by "team" I mean the group of people physically working on the same project) I've worked for and with were 5 to 8 people, with folks to write, proof-read, layout, a variable number of illustrators (to my experience, one or 2 core ones and then a plethora of free-lancers), at least one producers and then the social media stuff is usually relegated to the authors (who are the "faces" of the project, usually). This is for one book by one team every 5 to 7 months. On top of the teams that write the books, WotC has the sensitivity readers, the department leads (lead mechanics designers, lead narrative designers, lead graphic designers, the artist wranglers, etc), then all the social media, streaming, RU-vid, marketing and sales people, then the people who interface with the physical production pipeline (those who talk to the printers, those who keep tabs on the warehouses, etc, with a sidenote that WotC is probably the only ttrpg company I know of to have their own warehouses that aren't one of the authors' basement xD), then all the people who interface with the various companies who hold/would like to hold IPs and licensing rights, then the Big Council Of Stinking Rich Ragamuffins, then the people who interface with the contractors, the lawyer team, etc. It did surprise me, too, that they had 1.100 people to lay off, but if you think about it doesn't take much for a company who has enjoyed (relatively) uncontested monopoly in a sector to bloat its rosters.

It is up now!