WotC Hasbro Earnings Call: WotC/BG3 carrying Hasbro

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Heh, it's funny how it's so "obvious" that a game will be a smash hit, AFTER it's become a smash hit. Funny how I don't recall a single whisper about how BG3 was going to be an incredible smash hit in the, what, two year run up of beta testing that it had been doing.

Do you follow videogame news very closely? It was pretty obvious to me. Its long pre-release alpha had been widely played and well-liked.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm going by articles like this: Baldur's Gate 3's Gigantic Success was a Complete Surprise to Larian Studios Head - FandomWire.

“This was not in the books at all. This was way, way beyond what we expected. There’s also no precedent for it, for our type of game to have that many people playing concurrently … everybody here is very happy. You see a lot of smiling faces. At the same time, a lot of focus. We have reports coming in from people having issues, so we’re focused on fixing those issues, that’s very much on everyone’s minds.”

-Swen Vincke

To be fair, this is also what Blizzard thought about how World of Warcraft would do.

Given the crunch-and-layoff cycle of major game studios, they tend to be pretty pessimistic about their chances, even when the evidence suggests they're sitting on a hit. No one wants to walk into the office, expecting champagne and bonus checks and be given a surprise pink slip instead. So it's pretty common to go full Eeyore as your game is released, as a psychological defense mechanism.

 

[bedir than]

The disaster that was the Spelljammer suggests otherwise, and even Planescape was disappointing if basically functional.

When was the last product that wasn't a lore disaster? Radiant Citadel and Witchlight, new territory. Before that Explorer's Guide to Wilmounte.

The general public playing D&D hasn't considered these things "Lore disasters."
Throughout genre there's been a pushback of required labor to enjoy entertainment. Marvel and Star Wars best shows of recent years are the ones that require the least lore-labor.
And that's been generally been true for 5e. It's the people who already own the lore that want that lore repeated ad nauseum. But that doesn't actually get used a table, so it doesn't matter.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Starfield has probably peaked for now. There are a lot of people very unhappy with how the game worked out (forgetting that Bethesda games are best experienced a year into the mod community doing their thing). BG3 remains incredibly popular, both in sales and fan chatter.

I can't imagine either company would have released their games on the same weekend as the other, though.

It Peaks a few weeks after release, BG3 was already back up and beating it.

 

[darjr]

I do find it amusing that BG3 is a target of the same kind of “it’ll crash any moment” talk as D&D 5e.

I mean that generally, not poking anyone here, cause it’s always something to consider.

 

[mamba]

Going off of what Swen said, theybwere not confident there would be a much larger market. They were genuinely surprised internally.

I think this went something like this (all numbers mine… it’s not about the math…)

Larian expected 3-4M sales, experience tells them 10% of that is during EA.

They end up with 2.5M EA sales, so now they wonder

1) is the estimate correct and the long EA phase resulted in many more people picking it up before release
2) does the industry average hold and there is a LOT more demand than they anticipated
3) a mix of the two

They probably concluded 3) and revised estimates to, say, 8-10M for an EA rate of 20-25%, but kept that close to their chest to not look foolish when it turns out to be scenario 1), only to find out it was actually scenario 2)….

 

[bedir than]

Another thing that came up in the call was that the Netflix MtG show is still a go

Plus this nugget

“We are fortunate in that Wizards of the Coast is a very margin-rich business that is highly cash generative,” Cocks said. “Effectively based on Wizards of the Coast and digital licensing revenue, we can self-fund a fairly significant set of long term capital investments, and we’ve diversified that risk pretty effectively, between licensing games, our tabletop business, and our own internal publishing buildout.”

Hasbro CEO Confirms Magic: The Gathering Animated Netflix Series Still In The Works

Financial Report shows WotC And Digital Gaming Still Growth Leader For Hasbro As Q3 Revenue Declines 10 Percent

articles.starcitygames.com

 

[Scribe]

“We are fortunate in that Wizards of the Coast is a very margin-rich business that is highly cash generative,” Cocks said. “Effectively based on Wizards of the Coast and digital licensing revenue, we can self-fund a fairly significant set of long term capital investments, and we’ve diversified that risk pretty effectively, between licensing games, our tabletop business, and our own internal publishing buildout.”

I read this as "WotC made us a lot of cash, we are taking that out of Wizards, and investing into other segments and initiatives to diversify. Thanks BG3."

 

[Parmandur]

I think this went something like this (all numbers mine… it’s not about the math…)

Larian expected 3-4M sales, experience tells them 10% of that is during EA.

They end up with 2.5M EA sales, so now they wonder

1) is the estimate correct and the long EA phase resulted in many more people picking it up before release
2) does the industry average hold and there is a LOT more demand than they anticipated
3) a mix of the two

They probably concluded 3) and revised estimates to, say, 8-10M for an EA rate of 20-25%, but kept that close to their chest to not look foolish when it turns out to be scenario 1), only to find out it was actually scenario 2)….

I doubt they had numbers thst even suggested that.

 

[Hussar]

The disaster that was the Spelljammer suggests otherwise, and even Planescape was disappointing if basically functional.

When was the last product that wasn't a lore disaster? Radiant Citadel and Witchlight, new territory. Before that Explorer's Guide to Wilmounte.

You are presuming that lore matters. A “lore disaster “ to me is a rocking product no longer chained to dead authors. To each his own I guess.