D&D General Hasbro activist begins proxy fight, urges Dungeons & Dragons spinoff

[Mecheon]

Then the designers thought maybe making D&D more like a computer game would attract more players. One model looked at by design was Gauntlet

The designers flat-out said in interviews "We wanted to make the D&D game that was what we thought D&D was when we heard of it"


Anywho as a toy fan, oh BOY they're saying the purchase of Power Rangers was a "Lack of financial discipline". I mean, I'd argue they haven't done well with it and are too focused on making a line that appeals to the action-figure nostalgia driven part of the collector market (As opposed to 'giant fricking robots' or 'Finish the god-damn current Megazord, Hasbro, where's the pachycephalosaurus, or 'Why are these things so hard to find'), but buying one of the most profitable franchises in the world being a lack of financial discipline? Yeah, nah, these guys have no bloody clue what they're doing. If their plan goes ahead this will crash and burn, and if they get their way, I guarantee you they'll absoluitely crash and burn both MtG and D&D in the name of profit

 

[Umbran]

"This D&D thing seems like small potatoes. We like big potatoes. Like Mr. Potato-Head. Can you get D&D to make more money? Because if you don't, we might mothball it because even if it's profitable it doesn't seem worth keeping around."
...
When that didn't work, the initial roll-out of 5e was plan B: Keep D&D around at a low but profitable level and use it as an IP generator

Yeah, I remember that narrative. So, Plan A was because keeping it around at a low but profitable level wasn't acceptable... but then we keep it around at a low but profitable level... and they don't make any real attempt to use it for generating IP until after it becomes a massive success?

The inconsistencies make me wonder at how much of this we really have correct, and how much of it was speculation. Specifically, the implied lean of "we may mothball it". Does anyone have a quote form Mearls or someone at the time saying this was what was going on, or is this just the common guess at what was behind the scenes?

It isn't like there was any secret that 3/3.5 got moribund in supplements. They had sufficient motivation without that implied threat to try something new. They did, and the result didn't sell great, so they tried again, with a whole lot more customer input, and wound up hitting it out of the park. Do we really need to lay the fault on a specter of threat from Hasbro overlords?

 

[éxypnos]

The designers flat-out said in interviews "We wanted to make the D&D game that was what we thought D&D was when we heard of it"

Mike Mears: "As far as I know, 4th edition was the first set of rules to look to video games for inspiration. I wasn’t involved in the initial design meetings for the game, but I believe that MMOs played a role in how the game was shaped. I think there was a feeling that D&D needed to move into the MMO space as quickly as possible and that creating a set of MMO-conversion friendly rules would help hasten that."

 

[Blue Orange]

Thanks for gaming (heh) this out for me, folks. I read the WSJ but didn't quite know what would happen--I haven't been following the ups and downs of D&D's business ventures lately.

 

[jgsugden]

Are we not gamers, here?

If you want to make a big change, you don't announce it early. You hide your intent as long as possible to reduce the time your opponents have to stop you.

If, however, you just want people to react as if you're going to make a move, then you make your 'intentions' known so that people react as you'd like - perhaps by buying stock in a company where you just bought a lot of stock.

I'm not saying that is definitely what is going on here - but the odds of being able to figure out what is going on based upon press releases, news articles and other manipulatable media is pretty slim.

 

[GreyLord]

My thoughts...

1. The "activist shareholders" will need a lot more support than I currently see them possessing to get their measures passed.

2. Their stated goal seems to be that they feel that Hasbro stock is undervalued and by taking certain actions it could be doubled in value. I don't agree with their ideas on this as their evidence doesn't seem to support their statements. I agree that it COULD increase the price, but I think doubling it by doing this is a fairytale dream of theirs to try to garner support of those who don't follow things that much. This would be appealing more to the retail stockholders that have a bunch of different stocks in various items but don't really follow any of them other than a surface layer of glancing to see if the stock is going up or down. These types would be very interested in the stocks doubling, but may not understand how or why that may or may not happen.

3. IF there are enough of these retail broad stockholders that they can garner by proxy or otherwise, they MIGHT be able to force a change. I don't think the actual heavy investers are going to go for this in the way they have put it.

4. Meaning no offense, as I know this board is more focused on D&D, but D&D is not what I see as the driving force of money making at WotC right now. There are other brands that are making WotC FAR bigger money than D&D. At most I'd say D&D is the relegated sidekick to the major money makers from WotC which is the TRUE focus by Hasbro right now.

5. WotC has been increasing and improving profits for the past few years in the direction its been going. I'm not sure if the ideas being pushed by these activists really have merit or they could improve something that previously, though it made money, had not seen this type of year over year gains in the past. I think there are going to be MANY that are doubtful regarding their push for change. That doesn't mean that change could NOT improve the futures, and it is this consideration (especially those who feel MtG or other brands could be utilized more effectively in sales and retail as well as digital) that MIGHT give this push a life of it's own beyond what I imagine it will go right now.

 

[Parmandur]

Are we not gamers, here?

If you want to make a big change, you don't announce it early. You hide your intent as long as possible to reduce the time your opponents have to stop you.

If, however, you just want people to react as if you're going to make a move, then you make your 'intentions' known so that people react as you'd like - perhaps by buying stock in a company where you just bought a lot of stock.

I'm not saying that is definitely what is going on here - but the odds of being able to figure out what is going on based upon press releases, news articles and other manipulatable media is pretty slim.

I mean, if they get a big stock jump and sell, that's profit.

 

[Staffan]

Yeah, I remember that narrative. So, Plan A was because keeping it around at a low but profitable level wasn't acceptable... but then we keep it around at a low but profitable level... and they don't make any real attempt to use it for generating IP until after it becomes a massive success?

The inconsistencies make me wonder at how much of this we really have correct, and how much of it was speculation. Specifically, the implied lean of "we may mothball it". Does anyone have a quote form Mearls or someone at the time saying this was what was going on, or is this just the common guess at what was behind the scenes?

It isn't like there was any secret that 3/3.5 got moribund in supplements. They had sufficient motivation without that implied threat to try something new. They did, and the result didn't sell great, so they tried again, with a whole lot more customer input, and wound up hitting it out of the park. Do we really need to lay the fault on a specter of threat from Hasbro overlords?

This is where Ryan Dancey discussed the thing. In short:

• In 2005, Hasbro decides to split things into Core Brands selling more than $50M and aiming for $100M, and non-Core brands who don't. Core brands get lots of internal support, non-Core don't and may or may not be mothballed.
• Because of reasons dating back to the acquisition, each game line within Wizards gets treated separately. That's a problem because D&D at the time sells $30M at best (and at the time, this did not include computer games).
• In 2006, Wizards presents a plan to Hasbro execs that they think will bring D&D above $50M, which includes ambitious plans for D&D Insider. They get the green light to go ahead with those plans.
• Things do not work out as planned, particularly given how development of DDI crashed and burned and had to be retooled into something significantly less ambitious.
• At the time this gets evaluated, most of the people who planned that at Wizards have left already, so a new team gets to present new plans.

This was in 2012, which I think is when the D&D Next playtest launched. I don't know if Hasbro was still using the core/non-core division at the time. And as far as I know, 4e was never unprofitable, just not as profitable as they wanted it to be. So, new team with new, less ambitious plans. And the original launch of 5e was quite unambitious: you had the production of the first few adventures and sourcebooks outsourced to other game companies (as opposed to individual freelancers), and the release rate was quite slow (IIRC, 2015 saw three hardback releases). There were plenty of accessories for the game, but even those were outsourced to other companies (Wizkids for miniatures, Galeforce9 for things like spell cards and adventure-specific DM screens). It seemed very much like there'd be a small core team at Wizards whose job would mostly be to come up with ideas and then outsource those to third-party writers. D&D wasn't mothballed, but it was pretty darn close to it.

 

[Parmandur]

This is where Ryan Dancey discussed the thing. In short:

• In 2005, Hasbro decides to split things into Core Brands selling more than $50M and aiming for $100M, and non-Core brands who don't. Core brands get lots of internal support, non-Core don't and may or may not be mothballed.
• Because of reasons dating back to the acquisition, each game line within Wizards gets treated separately. That's a problem because D&D at the time sells $30M at best (and at the time, this did not include computer games).
• In 2006, Wizards presents a plan to Hasbro execs that they think will bring D&D above $50M, which includes ambitious plans for D&D Insider. They get the green light to go ahead with those plans.
• Things do not work out as planned, particularly given how development of DDI crashed and burned and had to be retooled into something significantly less ambitious.
• At the time this gets evaluated, most of the people who planned that at Wizards have left already, so a new team gets to present new plans.

This was in 2012, which I think is when the D&D Next playtest launched. I don't know if Hasbro was still using the core/non-core division at the time. And as far as I know, 4e was never unprofitable, just not as profitable as they wanted it to be. So, new team with new, less ambitious plans. And the original launch of 5e was quite unambitious: you had the production of the first few adventures and sourcebooks outsourced to other game companies (as opposed to individual freelancers), and the release rate was quite slow (IIRC, 2015 saw three hardback releases). There were plenty of accessories for the game, but even those were outsourced to other companies (Wizkids for miniatures, Galeforce9 for things like spell cards and adventure-specific DM screens). It seemed very much like there'd be a small core team at Wizards whose job would mostly be to come up with ideas and then outsource those to third-party writers. D&D wasn't mothballed, but it was pretty darn close to it.

Dancey is a slightly problematic source, as he hadn't worked at Wizards for about a decade at that point, and was in leadership at Paizo to boot. Not to say that he was lying, but there's a lot of room for a game of telephone at play there.

 

[AverageMojito]

WotC will publish Fortnite d20

I mean, I play Fortnite d20 every Sunday with my D&D 5e group. It's a pirate-inspired game with a tabaxi bard, a dhampir fighter, a tiefling barbarian, a half-orc monk and a autognome rogue. And they got pistols. If that's not Fortnite d20, I don't what is...

On the topic, @Snarf Zagyg and some others got it right, I guess. A "high risk hedge fund" is all-in for the short term. Make as much noise as possible, cash in, move on to the next opportunity, care little about yesterday. There are hundreds of those, and customers see very little (if any at all) of the results of these maneuvers (except when it goes real badly, I suppose).