The tabletop role-playing scene was rocked yesterday by news that Wizards of the Coast president Cynthia Williams is stepping down.
Wizards of the Coast president Cynthia Williams is leaving the company at the end of the month. An SEC filing disclosed that Cynthia Williams, the president of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, had informed Hasbro that she was leaving the company as of April 26th. Per the SEC filing, Hasbro is conducting a process to identify her successor, “looking at both internal and external candidates.” ComicBook.com has reached out to Wizards of the Coast for comment. Rascal News was the first to report on the SEC filing.
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In online gaming circles, much is being made of Williams’ rather brief tenure as WotC president.
Williams joined Wizards of the Coast just over two years ago, having joined Hasbro from Microsoft, where she served as the General Manager and Vice President of the Gaming Ecosystem Commercial Team and helped drive the expansion of Xbox Gaming. Williams also worked for Amazon as part of their e-commerce direct-to-consumer business. Williams took over the job vacated by Chris Cocks, who became the overall CEO of Hasbro.
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Williams’ stint as WotC honcho was marked by great successes as well as dismal failures. And these volatile ups and downs are speculated to have prompted her departure.
Under Williams’ leadership, Wizards of the Coast helped grow Hasbro’s most profitable business line, with Wizards earning over $1 billion in 2023. Wizards (and Digital Gaming) saw some massive successes including the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Monopoly Go, but also was the focus of intense scrutiny for a series of corporate missteps involving the Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering brands as well as an attempt by activist investors to spin off Wizards into a separate company, which ultimately failed. Controversies involving Wizards of the Coast in 2023 alone included an attempted change to the Open Game License (which ultimately failed), an incident in which Wizards sent Pinkerton agents to retrieve Magic: The Gathering cards obtained prior to sale date, and a botched release of the Deck of Many Things product, resulting in a rare product delay that missed the holiday window.
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For those not familiar with Wizards’ Open Gaming License debacle, here’s a recap:
Hasbro admitted during an earnings call that its attempt to update the Open Game License that provides a framework for third-party publishers to make Dungeons & Dragons compatible material was a “misfire.” Today, CEO Chris Cocks provided a rocky outlook on Hasbro’s current and future earnings during a quarterly earnings call, with Hasbro reporting a 9% decrease in revenue in 2022 and estimating an additional drop in revenue in 2023 due to recession concerns. During the call, Cocks also addressed the self-inflicted controversy involving the Open Game License, which caused a mass revolt by D&D fans earlier this year. “On D&D, we misfired on updating our Open Game License, a key vehicle for creators to share or commercialize their D&D inspired content,” Cocks said in prepared remarks. “Our best practice is to work collaboratively with our community, gather feedback, and build experiences that inspire players and creators alike – it’s how we make our games among the best in the industry. We have since course corrected and are delivering a strong outcome for the community and game.”
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A sacred cow among D&D players since the Third Edition days, even the rumor of tampering with the OGL proved a land mine that proved costly for WotC to step on.
In early 2023, fans learned that Hasbro planned to “update” the OGL by de-authorizing the current version and instituting a much stricter license with a royalty fee structure and several other onerous causes. While Wizards initially defended leaked versions of the new OGL as a draft, the company later reversed course due to pressure from both fans and publishers who used the OGL to make D&D compatible material and announced that the D&D System Reference Document (which contains the base mechanics for D&D’s current Fifth Edition) would be published under a Creative Commons license, greatly opening up who and how the mechanics could be used.
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While the exact reasons for Williams’ departure remain unknown, what’s certain is that Wizards of the Coast made some profound missteps under her leadership.
Was the outgoing president’s resignation part of WotC’s course correction? Can the industry leader regain its lost market share? Only time will tell.
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