WotC WotC Makes Over $1B In 2021!

According to ICv2, D&D publisher WotC made over $1 billion in total sales in 2021, including $952M in tabletop games.

WotC is the first (and only) billion dollar publisher in tabletop RPGs, although much of this revenue will also be due to Magic the Gathering. It is responsible for a staggering 72% of Hasbro's total operating profit.

Interim CEO Rich Stoddart indicated that tabletop games grew 44% and accounted for 74% of the $1.3B sales for WotC in 2021. The division at Hasbro is 'Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming', so the remained came from the Digital Gaming side of things.

WotC Sold Over $950 Million in Tabletop Games in 2021

As Company Revenues Passed $1 Billion for the First Time

icv2.com

WotC - WotC Has A New President

With outgoing president Chris Cocks being promoted to the top job at Hasbro, WotC has a chief -- Microsoft's Cynthia Williams! Williams is joined by Tim Fields as Senior Vice President. Over at Microsoft, Williams was General Manager and Vice President, Gaming Ecosystem Commercial Team and was...

www.enworld.org

 

[Jer]

so something similar but without the heavy metaplot and updated tastes could once again raise to rival dnd?

No probably not at this point. D&D was in a different place in 1989 as well and honestly I think the vampire craze has died down a bit now from its heights. I don't think that a modern version of Vampire could catch up at this point.

However What We Do In The Shadows is probably the best Vampire LARP that was never actually played so I could be wrong about that

 

[R_J_K75]

For the next Summer Olympics? or do you wait for the 50th anniversary?

Not to get off topic but I was just reading that athletes are less than happy or satisfied with the conditions in the Bejing Olympic Village. I can't understand why they just don't leave.

 

[Mezuka]

Not to get off topic but I was just reading that athletes are less than happy or satisfied with the conditions in the Bejing Olympic Village. I can't understand why they just don't leave.

Sponsors. They signed contracts.

 

[embee]

Wait I shouldn't be buying NFTs?

So what do I do with the shed full of non-functional typewriters I purchased? (Thanks Welcome to Night Vale)

Non-functioning typewriters are more useful and valuable than non-fungible tokens.

A typewriter may not work but it still may be good for parts.

The legal profession does still, in fact, use typewriters in part. For example, writs of execution for California sheriffs are still on carbon paper forms and require a typewriter.

Non fungible tokens, on the other hand, are really only good for money-laundering.

 

[darjr]

Non-functioning typewriters are more useful and valuable than non-fungible tokens.

A typewriter may not work but it still may be good for parts.

The legal profession does still, in fact, use typewriters in part. For example, writs of execution for California sheriffs are still on carbon paper forms and require a typewriter.

Non fungible tokens, on the other hand, are really only good for money-laundering.

Some lawyers, last I knew, still used fax machines and WordPerfect.

Wasn’t there a bit if a breakdown from last year? What would D&D revenue look like using that percentage?

 

[embee]

Some lawyers, last I knew, still used fax machines and WordPerfect.

I still have a fax machine (though it's internet-based). I last worked at an office that used WP in 2013. And several of the proprietary programs I use DOS terminal instances.

 

[BigZebra]

This is the story that folks like to tell, but White Wolf and the World of Darkness had been in decline for a bit by that point. The reboot of their setting was a response to their decline as much as (or more than) the cause of it.

Personally I think that the decline of the WoD has more to do with its rise in the first place. The World of Darkness was a VERY late-80s/early 90s setting and making the transition into the 21st century was hard for it. As the vampires in pop culture shifted from "Interview with the Vampire" to "Twilight" the setting became more and more of a relic even as stories about vampires and other supernatural creatures became more and more popular. And White Wolf couldn't make that transition even with their reboot (in fact IMO their reboot took them FARTHER away from what was popular in the "supernatural romance" genre of the time as "Requiem" was more action/adventure in a lot of ways than "Masquerade" was). They had other game lines, but Vampire was their meat-and-potatoes.

IMO they also fell afoul of changing tastes in gaming books. The 90s were all about metaplot heavy books that you'd buy the next book to find out how the metaplot was progressing. By the end of the 90s people were getting tired of that - but WoD was so metaplot heavy that trying to extricate it from that model would have been incredibly hard.

ETA: I can't believe I forgot this, but they ALSO got into a legal dispute with their biggest fan group/LARPing organization over the trademark for "The Camarilla". That also played into their problems because rule number one of an RPG business is that when other people are doing unpaid labor to promote your game on your behalf you kinda shouldn't alienate them and make them not want to do that anymore. That whole "networking effect". (TSR did the same kind of BS in the 90s so it wasn't unique to WW by any stretch).

Totally agree! As somebody who was young in the beginning of the 90s, Vampire was such a product of its time as a RPG product could ever be. Personal horror and angst.

 

[Morrus]

writs of execution for California sheriffs

Do California sheriffs get executed a lot? Harsh!

 

[Ulfgeir]

Do California sheriffs get executed a lot? Harsh!

But do they shoot the deputies?

 

[darjr]

WotC is certainly failing at going broke.