WotC D&D Gets A New Division At Hasbro

Hasbro is reorganizing and giving tabletop gaming -- Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering -- a higher priority.

According to the Wall Street Journal, WotC's revenue last year was $816 million (a 24% increase on 2019). Brian Goldner, Hasbro's Chief Executive, says WotC is predicted to double revenue from 2019 to 2023.

Hasbro is dividing into three 'units' -- Consumer Products (toys, classic board games); Entertainment (film, TV, licensing); and Wizards & Digital (WotC plus digital licensing).

Hasbro bought WotC in 1999 for about $325M.

WSJ News Exclusive | Dungeons & Dragons Gets a Bigger Role at Hasbro

Toy maker Hasbro is reorganizing to capitalize on a pandemic-fueled boom in old-school tabletop games, creating a separate division around the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.

www.wsj.com

 

[Mistwell]

A movie with an A-List actor will bring in a floor-level of revenue regardless of the rest of the aspects of the movie. Now that floor might be lower than the cost to make the movie, but it will still be a huge amount of money. A Tom Hanks movie will make over $100M, regardless.

Chris Pine is an A-List actor. He's around top 25-30 right now. His movies make money.

 

[Zardnaar]

A movie with an A-List actor will bring in a floor-level of revenue regardless of the rest of the aspects of the movie. Now that floor might be lower than the cost to make the movie, but it will still be a huge amount of money. A Tom Hanks movie will make over $100M, regardless.

Chris Pine is an A-List actor. He's around top 25-30 right now. His movies make money.

Kind of an example though. Around half his money is from one movie WW.
A good chunk of the rest is Star Trek.

Neither example it's debateable if you went and say then because if him. Gal Gadot is the star of WW, Star Trek established franchise.

So his two biggest movies......

My original comment was excluding MCU/superheros and their established franchises a lit of A listers cant really carry a movie by themselves any more.

I'll see if I can find the article.

Similar one anyway.
Is the era of the movie star over?

Diminished star power I think is the main point.

Movie Stars Are Dead and They’re Never Coming Back

What happened to Hollywood?

www.google.com

 

[Mistwell]

Kind of an example though. Around half his money is from one movie WW.
A good chunk of the rest is Star Trek.

Neither example it's debateable if you went and say then because if him. Gal Gadot is the star of WW, Star Trek established franchise.

So his two biggest movies......

My original comment was excluding MCU/superheros and their established franchises a lit of A listers cant really carry a movie by themselves any more.

I'll see if I can find the article.

Similar one anyway.
Is the era of the movie star over?

Diminished star power I think is the main point.

Movie Stars Are Dead and They’re Never Coming Back

What happened to Hollywood?

www.google.com

You're citing counter-examples which are even more niche than those movies though. Star Wars is based on the name of Star Wars and the directors attached, and you tried to cite that as an example that the actors don't matter. Which is silly.

A-List actors absolutely still exist, and they do still set a floor amount that a movie will make. A Tom Hanks movie WILL make over $100M. People will see the movie just because he's the star. Same with Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugh Jackman, Brad Pitt, etc.. Now that's not enough, alone, to make the movie profitable. But it is enough alone to get a certain number of viewers in the seats to see it on opening night.

 

[Zardnaar]

You're citing counter-examples which are even more niche than those movies though. Star Wars is based on the name of Star Wars and the directors attached, and you tried to cite that as an example that the actors don't matter. Which is silly.

A-List actors absolutely still exist, and they do still set a floor amount that a movie will make. A Tom Hanks movie WILL make over $100M. People will see the movie just because he's the star. Same with Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugh Jackman, Brad Pitt, etc.. Now that's not enough, alone, to make the movie profitable. But it is enough alone to get a certain number of viewers in the seats to see it on opening night.

100 million doesn't cover the production and marketing costs.

$300-400 million can flop these days if the budget is large enough. One of the links covers that as well.

 

[Mistwell]

100 million doesn't cover the production and marketing costs.

$300-400 million can flop these days if the budget is large enough. One of the links covers that as well.

"Now that's not enough, alone, to make the movie profitable. But it is enough alone to get a certain number of viewers in the seats to see it on opening night."

 

[Zardnaar]

"Now that's not enough, alone, to make the movie profitable. But it is enough alone to get a certain number of viewers in the seats to see it on opening night."

So if movie flops no more franchise.

How Exactly Do Movies Make Money?

While there is a lot of money to be made in the movie business, ticket sales alone are not enough. Learn the economics of movie making.

www.investopedia.com

Tldr a movie has to make around double it's production cost+ marketing to make money.

So D&D with $150 million budget, 75 in marketing has to make around $450. Million to break even.

It's not going to be as easy as what a lot of people here think. It's going to be hard it's not impossible by any means.

 

[Mistwell]

So if movie flops no more franchise.

How Exactly Do Movies Make Money?

While there is a lot of money to be made in the movie business, ticket sales alone are not enough. Learn the economics of movie making.

www.investopedia.com

Tldr a movie has to make around double it's production cost+ marketing to make money.

So D&D with $150 million budget, 75 in marketing has to make around $450. Million to break even.

Zard, I am not an expert in most fields.

But I do know what I am talking about with this topic.

You don't need to link to any more articles to "educate" me on this topic. Please stop with the mansplaining.

 

[Zardnaar]

Zard, I am not an expert in most fields.

But I do know what I am talking about with this topic.

You don't need to link to any more articles to "educate" me on this topic. Please stop with the mansplaining.

You seemed big on the $100 million number, that's pocket change for a movie these days.

 

[Mistwell]

You seemed big on the $100 million number, that's pocket change for a movie these days.

I was explaining why A-List actors are not meaningless to a movie. They set a certain floor which doesn't prevent a flop but does allow for a basic level of knowledge about the worst case scenario for a movie. And that is meaningful. It's a number which gets plugged into an algorithm with a bunch of other data which helps the studio set a budget for the movie. Without an A-list actor attached, you need other factors which make up for that lack in the algorithm.

Tom Hanks movies have a 95% chance of outperforming the benchmark for example, and that is a very meaningful data point for a movies budget and chances of success. Chris Pine isn't anything close to Tom Hanks, but he does increase the odds of success quite a bit relative to using an unknown actor.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

AAA has nothing to do with how many people play them - it's solely a matter of budget and the aims of the developers. In the '00s and early '10s quite a number of AAA games basically "sank without a trace", having had a huge amount spent on them and yet being bought by very few people - that didn't make them "not AAA", it made them unsuccessful. Developers and publishers have got a lot better at mitigating that though, especially with the move to digital delivery as basically the primary way people get games meaning that if a game is sinking, a bit of advertising and a massive price cut can often get a decent amount of sales in and when the price goes back up it's quite likely people will keep buying it because now it's on people's radar.

Call of Duty is complicated by the fact that it's more of a GaaS than an actual game, so one game bleeds into the next, and players are supposed to constantly spend on DLC, season passes, subscriptions of various kinds and so on - this has been referred to as AAA+ - AAA (video game industry) - Wikipedia

BG3 is looking pretty good at the moment, but still has Larian's recurrent issue - an inability to make an NPC/companion who isn't, on some level, a massive jerk. Even if they make someone who seems nice, they always seem to have contrive a way to ruin it. This stands in stark contrast to people like Bioware and Obsidian, who can write flawed and difficult characters but not make them obnoxious (or at least not make most/all of them obnoxious). To be fair, Larian do seem to be aware of this, and have been trying to both tone it down and saying that these are the jerkier characters, and less jerky ones will be added, but I remain skeptical.

Seriously those guys need to steal some people from EA’s Dragon Age team or something. Every DA game absolutely knocks it out of the park with flawed but deeply appealing and likeable NPCs.