D&D 5E How badly did Sword Coast Legends damage the brand?

[Shasarak]

I don't necessarily trust what management people say. I mean, they may have intended that, but it doesn't seem to have come out that way in reality.

And the fact that you do not think it is true is totally fine with me.

 

[SteveC]

I think that it hurts the brand a lot. At the moment, there's a struggle to keep D&D active in the Hasbro lineup. We're not seeing traditional splats because they don't sell enough to be profitable in a company the size of Hasbro, and D&D Next was launched with the idea that the strength of the brand would sell in other mediums besides games. It was the same idea that saved Marvel.

Now we have two huge pieces of that brand: the video game and the movie.

We obviously haven't seen the movie yet, but the game is out. People had high hopes for an A-List game that offered some of the game options as Neverwinter Nights. Maybe those hopes were unfounded, but they were there. Several of my gaming crew were following the game and hoped to use it to run games like we did back in the Neverwinter days. None of us are doing that.

The game seems to be a B list or even C list action RPG. There's nothing wrong with that... heck I still boot up Torchlight of Van Helsing every once and a while, but neither of them have a product line or brand to support.

The point is: WotC's D&D crew is tiny at the moment. Failure for this game doesn't give folks up the chain at Hasbro a reason to keep putting out products.

Let's hope that the movie does well.

 

[darjr]

I just look at all the effort in supporting and advertising this game, from all the real estate in Dragon+ and the web site and now Chris Perkins is running games on their video channel with Salvatore and it is uncomfortable to watch. And I keep thinking of wasted opportunity.

Imagine if all this effort was spent pushing the Smiteworks online tools, or the AL, or Encounters in store play.

But I think all these other folks are correct. It didn't really hurt the brand. It didn't hurt the table top game, most of the folks I know that are playing, and new ones this week, just shrugged and kept on playing.

Hurting it internally to WotC and Hasbro? I wish I knew.

 

[gyor]

Its funny, they've pushed the Neverwinter MMO and Sword Coast Legends harder then they did the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

And people wonder why I'm to the point where I want D&D pulled away from WotC/Hasbro.

 

[Jessica]

The point is: WotC's D&D crew is tiny at the moment. Failure for this game doesn't give folks up the chain at Hasbro a reason to keep putting out products.

Let's hope that the movie does well.

Maybe if the movie bombs, then Hasbro will decide the D&D license isn't worth the time/money/effort and sell it to a company that will dedicate more than a skeleton crew to the TTRPG aspect of the game itself. Maybe I'm overly optimistic.

 

[darjr]

Maybe if the movie bombs, then Hasbro will decide the D&D license isn't worth the time/money/effort and sell it to a company that will dedicate more than a skeleton crew to the TTRPG aspect of the game itself. Maybe I'm overly optimistic.

In my opinion that would be terrible for the game. In the hands of WotC they can stay away from the splat treadmill and the power creep.

 

[Jester David]

Maybe if the movie bombs, then Hasbro will decide the D&D license isn't worth the time/money/effort and sell it to a company that will dedicate more than a skeleton crew to the TTRPG aspect of the game itself. Maybe I'm overly optimistic.

Never going to happen. Ever.

Hasbro doesn't sell brands. Look at the giant back catalogue of IP they had in the '80s. Waves of toys trying to be the next Transformers or G.I.Joe. None of them where sold. They get shelved. Maybe, just maybe, Hasbro will pull them out of mothballs and revisit down the line. Or, more likely, they just get ignored.

If the D&D movie bombs and the Tabletop RPG line isn't worth the effort one of two things will happen. They might licence the RPG brand to another company so they can make money without doing the work. (Pretty much already happening if you think about it.) Or they just shut down the game and walk away.
The best case scenario is the game gets licensed. But how many RPG companies can afford what Hasbro can ask? How many official Transformers, MLP, or G.I.Joe RPGs do you see on the market? If they can get a lower price for D&D it will still be a small company that can publish 1-2 books per year and likely has to rely on Kickstarters. So we'll likely see less content.

 

[darjr]

Or even worse. The new company will have a short window for the license before they need to negotiate again, so they'll crank out low quality splats like nobodies business. Or they'll depend entirely on the revenue of selling the D&D books and crank out splats like nobodies business and roll editions again in just a few years because of power creep and splat fatigue.

 

[darjr]

Actually, there is a chance a license could be OK. The Wizkids and Galeforce 9 licenses seem OK. Though half of those releases on a schedule that is slower than I'd think you'd like, one I'd probably be fine with. And those are WotC licenses, not Hasbro ones. And ones from the D&D part of WotC.

 

[seebs]

None of this analysis makes sense to me. The game is clearly profitable. So far as I can tell, the reduced quantity of splatbooks is not a matter of the game being small or unsuccessful, but an attempt to make a game which is less of a nightmare to support and less annoying for new players to get into. My impression is that the game has been doing better than expected, and is continuing to do well. So I don't think the game-or-movie are hugely important things to it, because I don't think it needs other things to succeed to support it in existing.