WotC Who should own Wizards of the Coast if/when it is sold?

[Luminous]

Hopefully a businessman who also has a family?

 

[DnD Warlord]

Jon Favreau. Seeing what he did with Mandalorian, saving the Star Wars franchise (hyperbole, but just a bit lol), he's the man for the job

But baby elf being 50 years old fits perfectly

 

[MichaelSomething]

If we're talking about who we wish would own WOTC, then I would like to suggest it become fan owned; like a co-op of farmers, a credit union, or how the Green Bay Packers work.

 

[Volund]

Since this post is pure fantasy, here's my buyer: Necrotic Gnome with a massive LBO.

 

[Luminous]

I'll bite. Which half?

That they got most of it wrong - that if they were right, it would not be any of the [companies] in the article. Although I think there is a reasonable chance it may be sold - which is the part I disagree with.

 

[Aaron L]

Whatever happened to Battletech? In the 1990s it was hugely popular and I would have picked it over Warhammer 40k to become even more popular. But it's a shadow of what it once was.

Oh, BattleTech has been undergoing a resurgence over the past few years. Catalyst Game Labs have been doing some good stuff, recovering the setting the best they can after FASA crapped the bed and sold it off to Topps, of all companies, and the awful Dark Ages/ClickyTech of the Wizkids era. Also some good videogames have finally been released again after Microsoft made those two gawdawful MechAssault* games and then just sat on the IP for over a decade and let it rot. I like MechWarrior V: Mercenaries, and the 2018 Battletech videogame is just spectacular (in fact, I have been playing it almost ever day for the past two weeks since I got a new computer capable of running it well.)

Plus there has been a lot of activity in fan circles, building up a new wave of BattleTech fandom; the Tex Talks BattleTech series on YouTube, among others, has been attracting a lot of new fans (you should check it out!)

*(An Elemental hacking into an active 'Mech and taking it over from the neurohelmet of the MechWarrior inside, riding around on top of it like a horse? Ugh!)

 

[MGibster]

Plus there has been a lot of activity in fan circles, building up a new wave of BattleTech fandom; the Tex Talks BattleTech series on YouTube, among others, has been attracting a lot of new fans (you should check it out!)

I've watched some Tex Talks videos and they were very entertaining. I see BT books at my FLGS but I've only seen people actually playing the game once and that was when I played it last December. I have some fond memories of the game, but after playing in in '19 for the first time in over twenty years I've decided those particular rules aren't for me. I do hope BT gains some prominence again as it's a pretty good setting.

 

[humble minion]

I'll add that I really enjoyed the speculation in the second article. It covers a possibility not much discussed on gaming message boards, that a traditional book publisher might be interested in purchasing D&D. And with the discussion of TSR's history publishing novels, it makes perfect sense to me.

I totally buy the idea that a major book publisher would love to get their hands on the D&D back catalog of novels AND a chance to revitalize a top-selling novel franchise. I can see Random House, or some other publisher, focusing on revitalizing the novel line, but also deciding to jump into RPG publishing, especially considering how popular and visible the D&D game has become in recent years. Or, focusing on the novels and licensing out the game to a smaller RPG publisher.

Thorne is right on the money that the D&D novel line(s) were BIG in the 90s. Hundreds of books taking up lots of real estate in book stores, with a good number of reliable NYT best-sellers from certain authors. Heck, even today D&D novels take a up a good deal of shelf space in your local Barnes & Noble. Mine has the complete "Legend of Drizzt" series and the Dragonlance Chronicles, which alone is a pretty long list of titles. They are also carrying a good selection of the game books, the newer Endless Quest books, and D&D collectibles.

I'm not sure why WotC has mostly abandoned novel publishing, although I'm sure they have their reasons (lack of profit isn't one of them) . . . but it's something the right publisher could potentially make a lot of money on.

I’m not so sure.

The novel line was a huge double-edged sword for TSR. On one hand, the wild popularity of some of their novel lines - Drizzt, certain of the Dragonlance books, some others here and there (I believe the elminster books and the Elaine Cunningham realms books did very well, and Erebus Cale) - literally kept the lights on at TSR for quite a while when they were producing far too much gaming material at far too low profit margins and selling far too little of it. If anyone’s glad that TSR survived long enough for WotC to buy it out, then perhaps a quiet ‘thank you’ to RA Salvatore is in order.

But the novels also precipitated TSRs downfall. The company was so reliant on the fiction line that they were churning titles out at a ridiculous rate, and quality inevitably suffered and the market got saturated. Which was a real problem as the publishing deal they had meant that TSR copped the bill for any novels that were printed but which never sold. Drizzt always did fine, sure, but the 20 other novels being released every year were a millstone around the company’s neck. Which strongly suggests that 25 years later, there’s maybe not much money-making potential in the rights to those books, to be honest. If you haven’t already, check out the thread where @Goonalan reads every FR novel, I suggest you do. It’s good perspective.

Im sure there a bit of money to be made in making the old d&d novels available again - probably in Ebook format where the printing overheads aren’t a thing (are wotc already doing this? I have no idea), but it’s not remotely enough to be a significant commercial consideration when compared to the value of the rest of d&d or wotc itself.

 

[Aaron L]

I've watched some Tex Talks videos and they were very entertaining. I see BT books at my FLGS but I've only seen people actually playing the game once and that was when I played it last December. I have some fond memories of the game, but after playing in in '19 for the first time in over twenty years I've decided those particular rules aren't for me. I do hope BT gains some prominence again as it's a pretty good setting.

If you like the setting and history of BattleTech but the tabletop game isn't quite your cup of tea, then I highly, highly, highly recommend the BattleTech videogame from 2018! It is absolutely excellent; set in 3025, you play a mercenary company (well... a merc lance, actually, not a full company) and the single-player story follows your unit playing through a full military campaign aiding a deposed Periphery noble to reclaim her rightful throne that was usurped by her tyrannical uncle. It's in a Periphery realm called the Aurigan Coalition that was newly created for the game (and was even added to the official BattleTech canon, seeing as how it was created by Jordan Weisman, through an official sourcebook that ties into the game) located on the edges bordering the Federated Suns, Capellan Confederation, Taurian Concordant, and the Magistracy of Canopus. Your merc lance can jump around the starmap of that smallish section of the Inner Sphere... early on in the game, with the aid of your noble ally, you recover your own special, highly advanced Star League era DropShip, a huge beast that is sort of like an experimental intermediary between a DropShip and a JumpShip, so big it can carry other DropShips and dock with JumpShips with them attached for all of them to jump together (you also own a Leopard 'Mech carrier as 'Mech transport) taking all of your attached DropShips along on the jump with you!

You can take contracts from whomever you want, with the extremely lucrative contracts of the Aurigan Civil War campaign popping up fairly often for you to help the noble (an old friend of yours) take back her throne and heal the ravages of the usurper and advance the storyline. You can also take contracts from whatever other factions you want to get more cash, 'Mechs, and combat experience for your crew of MechWarriors, earning reputation and infamy with them, and if your rep gets high enough with a faction you can even form alliances with them, gaining your merc outfit preferential treatment and even access to House stockpiles.

The game is seriously rad, and there are tons of awesome mods out there that expand the game up through the Clan Invasion, FedCom Civil War, and even through the Word of Blake Jihad and Dark Ages, adding more crunchy detailed game options, lots and lots and lots more 'Mechs, weapons, equipment, and other technology as appropriate for the year. The videogame rules aren't a direct one-to-one translation of the tabletop version, but they absolutely follow the spirit of the TT game.

I have been playing this videogame every day for the past two weeks now ever since I got my new HP Omen gaming laptop rig (which I saved up for over a long time since my old laptop just wasn't capable of running it (but now I can actually run it with all settings at Ultra and still get 60 fps! RTX 2060 video card, bebbe!) and it is just so goddamn rad I don't see myself stopping anytime soon (I am actually currently paused in the middle of a game as I type this!)

It is currently for sale through both Steam and Good Old Games. I highly recommend checking it out!

Sorry for the thread derail!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Book publishers notice about the power of a brand as a reason to try licenced titles, but today the most of companies would rather to start from zero with total creative freedom, or buying IPs by little fishes, for example indie videogame studios. But those companies know about publishing novels, but not TTRPGs and these need not only an interesting lore but a right gamplay and this is a lot of work for the game designers.

Hasbro is not going to reject any old IP because it notices these would make money in the future. Let's imagine for example a forgotten line, "Inhumanoids", something like "Doom Eternal" for children. Hasbro talks with Netflix for an action-live serie for teens and young-adults, a mixture of X-Files and Rampage (2018 movie with the Rock based in a videogame). The project works and then there are toys and a kid-friendly cartoon. If an "old glory" can return, why not to keep them for the future?

When anytime has Hasbro sold any subsudiary or potentially valuable IP? I guess most likely will be more licenced titles and buying other company what couldn't survive the economic crisis.

I love this type of speculations, but sometime we have to start to being down-to-earth/hard-headed/realistic. Hasbro wants to create a "Hasbroverse" where all IPs can find a space. And D&D is too good because it allows a lot of different styles.

 

[TheSword]

Click bait. With about the same evidence as the last article... nada!