Wizards Of The Coast President Cynthia Williams Steps Down
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According to a recent filing with the SEC, Wizards of the Coast President Cynthia Williams will be stepping down from the company at the end of April 2024. Williams held the position for over two years and was involved in some of the company’s biggest highs and lows, with her tenure seeing the release of the D&D film Honor Among Thieves and the blockbuster video game Baldur’s Gate 3, as well as ushering in a wave of fan backlash following the OGL scandal.
Since the news broke, Hasbro has indicated that they will be looking for a new president, suggesting that the move by Williams may have been sudden. So what does this mean for the future of Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons & Dragons? Below, we break out all the details.
Who is Cynthia Williams?
Cynthia Williams is an experienced executive who was appointed President of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming in February 2022. Prior to that, Williams spent almost 4 years at Microsoft, where she served as General Manager and Vice President for the Xbox division of their Gaming Ecosystem Commercial Team. Many believes that Williams was hired for the role to help usher in a larger digital strategy for the D&D brand, particularly given the fact that Wizards of the Coast had purchased the online platform D&D Beyond for over $146 million around the same time she was brought on board.
Famously, in December 2022 Williams noted that the D&D brand was under-monitized, pointing to recurring digital revenue from video games. She was also involved in overseeing the development of the ongoing D&D Virtual Tabletop, which is currently in testing and was considering a key focus for the brand.
Why is Cynthia Williams Stepping Down?
As of this writing it’s not entirely clear why Williams is stepping down. The story was first reported by the tabletop RPG news site Rascal, who broke the story on Twitter/X after reviewing a recent Hasbro filing with the SEC.
Internal issues within Hasbro may be to blame, with Williams playing a key role in the Wizards of the Coast layoffs that occurred in December 2023 following financial losses for the company. And while WotC was profitable under Williams’ oversight, analysts have noted that much of the brands’ revenue in 2023 came from recurring licensing rights from Baldur’s Gate 3 video game, rather than any innovation or sales growth for Magic: The Gathering or Dungeons & Dragons products.
Final Thoughts
According to Hasbro, Williams last day as president will be on April 26th, 2024 and, as of this writing, no successor has been appointed. In an online statement Hasbro wrote: “We’re excited for Cynthia to take the next step in her career and grateful for the contributions she has made in her more than two years at Wizards and Hasbro. We wish her the absolute best in her next endeavor. We have started the search for our next President of Wizards of the Coast and hope to have a successor in place soon.”
While this may seem like internal politics at Hasbro, the fact is that such a move could have a significant impact on the D&D brand, depending on who is brought in to replace Williams. It also comes at a time when D&D is about to take a major next step, with an updated version of D&D 5e and the company celebrating the 50th anniversary of D&D.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and update this page with new information as it’s made available.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
