D&D General No, Hasbro Is Not Selling D&D

I wasn't going to comment on this rumour in article form--despite a 20-page-and-counting thread about it--but it seems some clarification is needed as it's all over social media and the usual click-bait YouTube channels.

First off, Dungeons & Dragons is not being sold. That's the short version.

WotC, including D&D, is Hasbro's most profitable division and, as many put it, it's 'golden goose'. Despite an article on Pandaily being entitled "Hasbro Seeks to Sell IP “DND” and Has Had Preliminary Contact with Tencent"--and much of which is a close copy of a recent YouTube video rumour--buried halfway down the article is the important paragraph:

A Tencent IEG (Interactive Entertainment Group) insider revealed that Tencent, represented by its overseas business department IEG Global, is in negotiations with the aim of acquiring a series of rights including the adaptation rights for electronic games such as DND.

That means they wish to license the D&D IP to make video games. WotC licenses the D&D IP all the time--that's why you see all those D&D lunchboxes and plushies and t-shirts and miniatures and foam dragon heads and, indeed, movies and video games. Licensing an IP is not buying an IP. Modiphius is licensing the Star Trek IP for their TTRPG; Modiphius hasn't bought Star Trek. I published the Judge Dredd TTRPG for a couple of years, but I didn't own the Judge Dredd IP.

Tencent, incidentally, owns 30% of Larian Studios, who made the recent Baldur's Gate 3 video game--under license, of course (Larian didn't buy D&D either). Tencent is a massive Chinese company known for venture capital, social media, mobile games, internet services, and more, and is one of the world's largest companies. Tencent Games is a division of the company. It has stakes in a lot of companies.

So what does WotC have to say? "We are not looking to sell our D&D IP". The following statement was sent to outlets who reached out for clarification:

We regularly talk to Tencent and enjoy multiple partnerships with them across a number of our IPs. We don't make a habit of commenting on internet rumors, but to be clear: we are not looking to sell our D&D IP. We will keep talking to partners about how we bring the best digital experiences to our fans. We won't comment any further on speculation or rumors about potential M&A or licensing deals."

So, to be clear, Hasbro is not selling D&D to a Chinese company. They are in--as always--talks to license their IP to various companies for various purposes, including electronic games, movies, and lunchboxes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But the history of D&D is filled with improbable events, I suppose.

 

[Autumnal]

This is…not something I’ve heard before. Could you point me at any further discussion somewhere? He’s been right on where I’ve been able to check him, and anything else is a genuine surprise.

I spent a solid two hours on the question this afternoon, since I was curious. It remained the case that the only criticisms I could find of Anton Petrov’s work came from threads on the subreddit for electric universe hypotheses. Rational Wiki summarizes them well:

Electric Universe

Electric Universe (EU) is an umbrella term that covers various pseudo-scientific cosmological ideas built around the claim that the formation and existence of various features of the Universe can be better explained by electricity and magnetism than by gravity alone. As a rule, EU is usually...

rationalwiki.org

Nobody else seems to have a problem with him that left a footprint I could find: not CSICOP or contributors to its magazine the Skeptical Inquirer, not actual astronomers or cosmologists who comment on good and bad science reporting online, not actual science journalists and editors, not scientific and educational journals (who do regularly review best sources for the general public, and include him in lists of excellent non-professional sources), or anyone else. So either @Sorcerers Apprentice is onto something that the whole world of astronomers, cosmologists, and the fans of their work, or they’re bringing to bear an extremely non-standard kind of perspective.

Note that the second is not a fancy way of saying “necessarily wrong”. There’s a time for each idea now generally thought to be correct when it existed inside precisely one mind. Ditto for non-scientific ideas, like artistic innovations. Sometimes ideas surface and get submerged again - how long was it until anyone noticed Mendel’s work on inheritance of characteristics? And Wegener had correct observations and interpretation, but no model for how continental drift could be powered, and it took decades for study, experiments, and modeling to have room for it to fit with what had by then become known. J.S.Bach went dismissed and ignored for most of a century before Mendelssohn revived interest in and appreciation of his work. And so on.

But ”not necessarily wrong” isn’t “likely right”, either. In the absence of a argument with evidence for Petrov’s wrongness and an explanation of why nobody else but a small group of cranks noticed, I’m going to continue using him as excellence in laying out brand-new info about technical subjects by a careful lay observer.

And now, back to Hasbro not selling D&D IPs.

 

[Mistwell]

Last estimate I heard for BG3 sales was 6 million copies. At $60 or $70 per copy, that would be ... far less than 1bn in US Dollars. I hear lifetime total sales for OS 2 was about the same. Lifetime they may have $1Bn overall all their titles.

Does anyone have data contradicting that?

It had sold over 22 million copies in November, BEFORE releasing on Xbox. Steam alone had 21.22 million copies sold by October.

 

[Zardnaar]

View attachment 345134

It had sold over 22 million copies in November, BEFORE releasing on Xbox. Steam alone had 21.22 million copies sold by October.

Basically my numbers as well.

Plus unknown amount of console sales.

So its outsold 5E roughly 4-1 steam sales alone apparently.

 

[Mistwell]

Hellos an American thing. Here we call it jelly.

What you call jelly we call jam.

Jelly is made with strained fruit juice. There are no pieces of fruit in jelly. Jam is made with mashed fruit.

 

[Zardnaar]

Jelly is made with strained fruit juice. There are no pieces of fruit in jelly. Jam is made with mashed fruit.

Jams your fruit spread for bread; Jelly is your gelatin based wobbly dessert.

Good thing about NZ is generally we get all the idioms from our cousins. Except maybe Canada.

Try translating from Yankee to Aussie to kiwi.

Flip flops become jandel's here. In Aussie they're thongs but here thongs are underwear.

You say cookie, we say biscuit. A biscuit for you lot is more like a scone here. A donut is a fried round thing dipped in cinnamon and suger served hot. Your donuts are American donuts. They have icing.

A hot dog is a battered safely on a stick with tomato sauce. Ketchup more an American thing. Your hot dogs here are called American hotdogs (notice a trend?), while your corn dogs are closer to our hot dogs. One can get corn dogs here as well different batter.

Confused yet?



Cupcakes? Meh try this.

 

[jayoungr]

Jams your fruit spread for bread; Jelly is your gelatin based wobbly dessert.

Point is, in the US we have three terms rather than two:

Jam for a thick fruit spread with chunks in it.
Jelly for a clear fruit spread with no chunks.
Jello for a gelatin-based dessert.

 

[Deset Gled]

Point is, in the US we have three terms rather than two:

Jam for a thick fruit spread with chunks in it.
Jelly for a clear fruit spread with no chunks.
Jello for a gelatin-based dessert.

Jem for truly outrageous music and fashion.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No, it wasn't. WotC bought TSR for $25 million in 1997, which a basic inflation calculator tells me is about $45 million today.

Meanwhile, today, WotC represents an operating profit - not revenue, but profit - of about $203 million each year today.

So no, not the same at all. Back in 1997, TSR was cheap, because the company was failing, and WotC bought while the value of the company was low. Today, WotC is making a lot of cash, and the value of the company would be high.

That's not what I was saying - I was there saying there were few potential buyers. And that's true both now and then.

 

[CapnZapp]

There are plenty of entities interested in purchasing D&D.

The problem is, none of them is willing to pay even close to what Hasbro would need to even consider selling.

In conclusion: the only way a sale is going to happen is if either of these things come to pass:

• D&D fades back into obscurity to such an extent Hasbro becomes convinced the IP is worthless (bringing the price back down into the realm of what ttrpg companies could possibly pay). This is the "D&D is brought back into the care of loving hobbyists" like Green Ronin (or Paizo, or EN Publishing, or...) scenario. This probably won't happen and certainly not within 5 years.
• D&D strikes it big with a mega success that overshadows the success of 5E by at least one order of magnitude, so that the IP appears on the radar of actually big business (not minor players like Hasbro). This is the Microsoft or Ubisoft scenario.
• Hasbro fails and bankrupts though not because of D&D, and there is a fire sale of its IPs. That is, there is a sale, but not because anyone wanted it. God knows where D&D ends up in this scenario. An investment bank perhaps?