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

[Luminous]

Hopefully a businessman who also has a family?

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Objectively FUNNIEST possible result? Paizo.

D&D 6 as a hybrid of 5e and PF2

Next best? Green Ronin takes it over and switches D&D to the AGE system.

Asmodee? FFG?

 

[MGibster]

Objectively FUNNIEST possible result? Paizo.

You win the thread.

 

[see]

5e seems to be going for lower costs and higher returns on each product, but probably has lower annual revenues overall than 4e at it height (albeit much more sustainable over the medium term).

2018 and 2019 were, consecutively, the best-ever years for D&D revenues, so, no, 4e at its height never had better annual revenues than 5e just had.

 

[Eltab]

Good gawd I hope not. D&D would be quickly dissasembled and sold off for parts (Forgotten Realms to one bidder, Greyhawk to another, Dragonlance to another, etc.) and the game itself left to rot, like a poacher who shoots an endangered animal just to cut off its tusks/claws/head and leave the rest. Private equity firms are a bane upon our culture, and have destroyed other beloved things.

Sears Roebuck & Co would agree with you ... but a private equity firm already killed it.

 

[Remathilis]

Objectively FUNNIEST possible result? Paizo.

D&D 6 as a hybrid of 5e and PF2

Next best? Green Ronin takes it over and switches D&D to the AGE system.

Asmodee? FFG?

A local FB game group I was in was salivating at the idea of Paizo getting D&D and using PF2 to make a 6e and incorporate Golarion as a official D&D world.

 

[shadowoflameth]

If it were sold, which personally, I do not think is likely, then Skip Williams.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Paizo doesn't need D&D any more, but I like the idea of a monster compedium for 5Ed with the creatures of Pathfinder.

Hasbro knows today the gold mines, the sources or incomes, are the franchises, the IPs. Today selling a product is easier if this is linked with some famous brand. And WotC isn't only selling collectable cards, but her mission is to create new franchises to be used by the rest of Hasbro team. WotC is creating new "pieces" to be parts of a "fantasy hasbroverse", let's say this would be a "WiztCoverse".

But the old franchises are as double edged weapons, with its pros and cons, the conflict between adding new things, because you can't be always telling the same story without changes, and the coherence with the previous continuity.

And now I think WotC isn't the main project because now Hasbro's priority is Disney/Marvel/Star War licencing. WotC's brands would be the plan B, or maybe the plan C after the cinematic hasbroverse (movies of Transformers, G.I.Joe, Rom spaceknight, M.A.S.K...). Part of this "plan C" would be the videogame adaptations. Let's imagine a Spelljammer/d20 Future version of Mass Effect, or a shooter based in Gamma World.

Hasbro is going to sell nothing, but maybe it wants to acquire some other company, for example a lesser 3PP, an indie videogame studio or even a film production company.

 

[shadowoflameth]

Agree it's not likely, but a 6e in which Pathfinder and D&D (re)unite in the sense of the original sage being at the helm of a new edition could be outstanding.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is before 6Th Ed. we will see something like a d20 Modern 2.0. because this could allow to test the reaction caused by some possible changes, for example a different list of abilities scores (to allow games with more investigations and social interactions). And this d20 Modern will arrived sooner in a (no medieval fantasy) RPG videogame.

WotC is observing what ideas by other parties can work better, for example in Pathfinder 2 class features and racial traits being replaced with optional list of class and race feats, allowing more flexibility to create but not more complicated.

If Pathfinder and D&D mergered..... what about psionic and ocultist/psicraft classes?

 

[shadowoflameth]

If the old sage bought the company, he could pick and choose combined content as he likes.