D&D 5E Hasbro Acquires D&D Beyond For $146M

D&D owner WotC and D&D Beyond have announced that the online tools platform is being acquired by WotC.

DDB’s (former) owner was Fandom, which acquired it in 2018, and which also acquired the Cortex Prime TTRPG system recently. Fandom is producing a range of licensed games using the Cortex Prime system starting with the recent Tales of Xadia: The Dragon Prince RPG. Several DDB core staff members and founders moved on to other projects last year.

D&D General - Adam Bradford, Lauren Urban, Todd Kenrick Leave D&D Beyond

They join lead writer James Haeck, who left a couple of weeks ago. Adam Bradford is the D&D Beyond co-founder, and VP of Tabletop Gaming at its owner, Fandom. Lauren Urban is DDB's Community Manager. Todd Kenrick is the company's Creative Manager. D&D Beyond, launched in 2017, is currently...

www.enworld.org

This move has been widely expected for some time. The purchase figure being circulated is $146 million. By comparison, when WotC purchased then-D&D owner TSR in 1997, it did so for $25M. Hasbro later purchased WotC for $325M.

D&D Beyond was created in 2017 by Curse LLC, a company owned by Twitch. Fandom purchased Curse in 2018. WotC will be the third owner of the platform.

In other news, back in November WotC applied for a trademark for 'Atomic Arcade' for a variety of electronic gaming applications, and earlier in the year, rumours spread regarding WotC’s plans for its own virtual tabletop platform (VTT) following a survey in which they gauged opinions and allegedly showed off graphically rich 3D screenshots.

Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) today announced that it is acquiring D&D Beyond, the leading digital toolset and game companion for the Company’s groundbreaking fantasy franchise, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, from Fandom. Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform, has owned and operated D&D Beyond since 2019 and has grown the direct-to-consumer business to be the leading role-playing game (RPG) digital toolset on the market with close to 10 million registered users. This strategic acquisition, for $146.3 million in cash, will further strengthen Hasbro’s capabilities in the fast-growing digital tabletop category while also adding veteran talents to the Wizards of the Coast team and accelerating efforts to deliver exceptional experiences for fans across all platforms.

Since 2017, D&D Beyond has helped to power DUNGEONS & DRAGONS tabletop play and deliver the brand's eighth consecutive year of growth in 2021. Over the last three years, the royalty paid to Hasbro by D&D Beyond has represented a significant contribution to the fastest growing source of revenue for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. The strategic acquisition of D&D Beyond will deliver a direct relationship with fans, providing valuable, data-driven insights to unlock opportunities for growth in new product development, live services and tools, and regional expansions. As part of Wizards, the brand’s leadership will soon be able to drive a unified, player-centric vision of the world’s greatest role-playing game on all platforms.

“The acquisition of D&D Beyond will accelerate our progress in both gaming and direct to consumer, two priority areas of growth for Hasbro, providing immediate access to a loyal, growing player base,” said Chris Cocks, Hasbro Chief Executive Officer. “Hasbro’s gaming portfolio is among the largest and most profitable in the industry, and we continue to make strategic investments to grow our brands, including in digital.”

“This is the perfect next step for the talented D&D Beyond team, who built a transformative digital product that engaged and delighted millions of D&D fans around the world,” said Perkins Miller, CEO of Fandom. “We can't wait to see what this team will do next as an integral part of the D&D franchise, and I look forward to investing in more brands and products to super serve Fandom’s 300 million+ global fans.”

“D&D Beyond has been one of our most valuable partners in the digital space for the past six years and we’re excited to bring their best-in-class talent onto our team,” said Cynthia Williams, President of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming. “The team at D&D Beyond has built an incredible digital platform, and together we will deliver the best-possible DUNGEONS & DRAGONS experience for players around the world.”

Hasbro’s continued investment in Wizards of the Coast’s digital growth for its two iconic franchises, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and MAGIC: THE GATHERING, is representative of the significant opportunity in PC and mobile gaming, an industry that represented over 3 billion players globally and $129 billion in revenue in 20211. With the launch of Magic: The Gathering Arena on PC in 2019 and on mobile in 2021, Wizards has built a unique ecosystem of best-in-class tabletop and digital play to create deeper player engagement and satisfaction and grow revenue across all expressions and regions. Similarly, with more than 80% of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS fans having already played the game virtually in 2021, aided by online digital platforms such as D&D Beyond, this acquisition accelerates the game’s ability to penetrate new markets, gather valuable consumer insights and provide players with the best DUNGEONS & DRAGONS experience on all platforms.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and the receipt of certain regulatory approvals, and is expected to close during the second or third quarter of 2022. The transaction will be funded out of cash on hand and is expected to be immaterial to revenue and earnings per share in 2022 and accretive to earnings per share in fiscal year 2023 and beyond. The transaction has been approved by both Hasbro’s and Fandom’s Boards of Directors.

Welcome to the Party, D&D Beyond | Dungeons & Dragons

We are excited to welcome everyone at D&D Beyond, bringing together two teams dedicated to making Dungeons & Dragons easy to run and accessible to all!

dnd.wizards.com

 

[doctorbadwolf]

An all-digital format would probably save a bit in printing, shipping, and storage (which are all becoming more expensive and difficult to pull off these days). Plus they could easily incorporate errata or revise content as needed.
Don't be surprised if there is no print D&D in the near future, maybe with the exception of starter sets (which are displayed at retail stores to snag new players).

I would in fact be incredibly surprised. I would say that it’s nearly unthinkable within the next decade or two. The books still sell like crazy.

Just like digital books haven’t actually ended up replacing print books in general, it is wildly unlikely to happen in the TRRPG space.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That wouldn't surprise me, but it wouldn't please me. At that point, how long before it requires cloud access to play the latest rev of D&D? Ugh.

It's just not going to happen in this edition or the next. It's completely unrealistic and completely misunderstands D&D's positioning in the market and value as an IP.

That said, I would be unsurprised if "beta" stuff for D&D - i.e. stuff in testing, goes through Beyond/VTT in future, primarily. So if that's what you mean by "latest rev", maybe.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I will be extremely surprised if that happens, even as someone who only uses digital products for all TTRPGs now.

Why?

Because D&D is a prestige product, and having the books exist is part of that prestige, part of what makes D&D this pop-culture icon. There's realistically no way, whilst D&D is riding this high, or any time near to this, that physical books will disappear, because that would damage the D&D IP, it would lower the prestige of D&D, and it would make less marketable, especially as a lot of more-casual players actually like the books (weird as that might seem).

I could see a time when most D&D players were using digital products in "the near future", and where print books were seen more as a luxury item than a necessity, but is zero prospect of WotC not printing print books of the "big three".

Last I saw any word on it, a few years ago, most gen Z kids preferred to read print books over digital, so I doubt we will even see major supplements become digital only. It won’t happen until they stop making profit on those print books, which ain’t any time soon, IMO.

Edit: fixed autocorrect typo

 

[Stormonu]

I'm hoping they're considering Wizkids integration, at least for miniatures/tokens if they do a VTT. If they could somehow license the STL's or whatever Wizkids is using to carve their minis for port into a 3D VTT (or even 2D VTT), that'd be wonderful. Doubly so if could mesh with importing character models from the likes of Heroforge. "Buy a mini, get the digital copy too" (at least for PC-types) would be great.

Maybe they can entice Wizkids if the VTT can support HeroClix and their other games.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

WotC D&D print sales dwarf everything because it's D&D and D&D dwarfs everything. But aside from them, it's not true that print sales absolutely dwarf digital-only in TTRPGs. Print runs from most TTRPG publishers are pretty small.

For your Level Up campaign you had (before late pledges/Backerkit additions)

5,365 backers for print rewards
670 backers for digital-only

That's what I'm talking about. Sure there are some publishers who only do digital, but if we're talking about high-demand products, I think that's very much the exception. And even when the print runs are very limited, like with a lot of OSR stuff, the demand is still for the cool print stuff.

ETA: My numbers up there don't add up all that well, but at worst they're off by 100 or so in one direction or the other.

 

[Morrus]

For your Level Up campaign you had (before late pledges/Backerkit additions)

5,365 backers for print rewards
670 backers for digital-only

That's what I'm talking about. Sure there are some publishers who only do digital, but if we're talking about high-demand products, I think that's very much the exception. And even when the print runs are very limited, like with a lot of OSR stuff, the demand is still for the cool print stuff.

I can assure you that overall we sell more PDFs than physical books.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Last I saw any word on it, a few years ago, most gen x kids preferred to read print books over digital

Gen Z presumably? But yeah I've heard the same and I often see young 'uns with real books. In fact Kindles and reading books on the phone seems to be more Millennial.

 

[darjr]

Adam is a good bean.

 

[JohnA]

It's challenging offering a discount on the digital version with a purchase of the physical book because people can just remove the coupon or code from a book without purchasing it. So maybe they should do it from the other direction. If you purchase a digital version, they'll send you a discount code on a physical book.

Yep, just like on Kickstarter. There, the PDF version is the default. But pay a bit more, get the PDF +Book at the same time. It's the Mom&Pop, LHS, that are gonna suffer in all of this.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's just not going to happen in this edition or the next. It's completely unrealistic and completely misunderstands D&D's positioning in the market and value as an IP.

That said, I would be unsurprised if "beta" stuff for D&D - i.e. stuff in testing, goes through Beyond/VTT in future, primarily. So if that's what you mean by "latest rev", maybe.

That’s a really good point, actually. They did that in 4e, where they’d put preview and test stuff in the builder when the preview article came out, so it could more easily be tested.