As part of a corporate restructuring at Hasbro, DnD publisher Wizards of the Coast has made Creator Relations Associate Dixon Dubow and three other staff members redundant. Dubow played a major role in repairing content creators’ trust in the Dungeons and Dragons brand after the Open Gaming License debacle in early 2023.
Dubow reported on social media on Wednesday that his role in the Dungeons and Dragons team “has been impacted as part of a corporate re-organization”, stating “I have been laid off”, and adding “For now I am just heartbroken.”
An article published on industry site Toybook, also on Wednesday, quotes Hasbro as saying “fewer than 100 employees will be affected by a workforce reduction”. And a Wizards spokesperson confirms to Wargamer that “these changes impacted four people at Wizards of the Coast” – but does not mention Dubow by name.
In his role at Wizards, Dubow acted as a liaison with the many content creators producing DnD actual plays, podcasts, videos, and other similar content online. The relationship between Wizards, content creators, and third-party product developers became extremely strained from December 2022 into the spring of 2023, as a proposed revision to the Open Gaming License seemed poised to greatly reduce the freedom of these creators, as well as potentially introducing licensing fees payable to Hasbro.
Community backlash was so great that Wizards of the Coast performed a series of walkbacks, ultimately abandoning all revisions to the OGL and even releasing core DnD documents into the public domain.
On April 3 2023 WotC hosted the DnD Creators summit, a seminar intended to re-open dialogue with content creators and third party publishers and re-establish trust. Ennie award-winning game designer Daniel Kwan wrote in a post-session report on the summit that “Dixon Dubow proved to be the breakout star” of the DnD team, calling him “a true advocate for positive change” who “may have attained folk hero status to the creator community with the honesty and conviction he displayed”.
Kwan was one among dozens of content creators who shared messages of sympathy, commiseration, and sadness in response to Dubow’s post about his reported dismissal. We have contacted Dubow for a statement and will update this article if we receive one.
Wargamer’s own DnD coverage includes guides to the DnD classes, DnD races, and the new (and more important than ever) DnD backgrounds. If you don’t feel like playing a Wizards of the Coast game right now, we have a guide to the best tabletop RPGs on the market.
Source: Wargamer
