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At its largest, White Wolf was around 75 people. In the heyday, we were always second-place in the RPG market, which had a power-law distribution of revenues. We overtook D&D exactly once, which overlapped with one of those huge TSR returns months the histories mention.
Over the years, the White Wolf portfolio became fairly diverse, but not uncharacteristically so. Fiction was a separate imprint from games. Licensing obviously occurred. “White Wolf Entertainment” held the bar as its sole asset.
We had two big rounds of layoffs, as I recall, both of which were results of releases into volatile cards markets. Cards and fiction had returnability, core games business didn’t. There might have been a third layoff, but I can’t recall exactly.
Overall, it was a lot of hustle. We licensed in for some things and licensed out for others. When D&D 3E launched, we beat its Monster Manual to market with our own (Sword & Sorcery) Creature Collection. Second place publisher had to be quick on the draw.
It still astounds me that we were able to sustain 75 people as long as we did, in such a cottage industry. I hired on at $15K in 1995 and I took home ~$62K in our best year (not counting freelance). Booms and busts in a niche market.
Okay, maybe operating a bar is weird business for a TTRPG publisher.
Freelance is a whole separate ball game. My freelance royalty on Ravenloft 3E bought me a car. My freelance royalty on Prince’s Gambit wouldn’t settle tonight’s bar tab.
I just thought of the jaw-dropping negotiations we had at the WWE offices when we, uh, retroactively licensed Gangrel to them. I saw Gangrel last summer and I’m glad he gets to do his thing.
