D&D 5E Hasbro Acquires D&D Beyond For $146M

D&D owner WotC and D&D Beyond have announced that the online tools platform is being acquired by WotC.

DDB’s (former) owner was Fandom, which acquired it in 2018, and which also acquired the Cortex Prime TTRPG system recently. Fandom is producing a range of licensed games using the Cortex Prime system starting with the recent Tales of Xadia: The Dragon Prince RPG. Several DDB core staff members and founders moved on to other projects last year.

D&D General - Adam Bradford, Lauren Urban, Todd Kenrick Leave D&D Beyond

They join lead writer James Haeck, who left a couple of weeks ago. Adam Bradford is the D&D Beyond co-founder, and VP of Tabletop Gaming at its owner, Fandom. Lauren Urban is DDB's Community Manager. Todd Kenrick is the company's Creative Manager. D&D Beyond, launched in 2017, is currently...

www.enworld.org

This move has been widely expected for some time. The purchase figure being circulated is $146 million. By comparison, when WotC purchased then-D&D owner TSR in 1997, it did so for $25M. Hasbro later purchased WotC for $325M.

D&D Beyond was created in 2017 by Curse LLC, a company owned by Twitch. Fandom purchased Curse in 2018. WotC will be the third owner of the platform.

In other news, back in November WotC applied for a trademark for 'Atomic Arcade' for a variety of electronic gaming applications, and earlier in the year, rumours spread regarding WotC’s plans for its own virtual tabletop platform (VTT) following a survey in which they gauged opinions and allegedly showed off graphically rich 3D screenshots.

Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) today announced that it is acquiring D&D Beyond, the leading digital toolset and game companion for the Company’s groundbreaking fantasy franchise, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, from Fandom. Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform, has owned and operated D&D Beyond since 2019 and has grown the direct-to-consumer business to be the leading role-playing game (RPG) digital toolset on the market with close to 10 million registered users. This strategic acquisition, for $146.3 million in cash, will further strengthen Hasbro’s capabilities in the fast-growing digital tabletop category while also adding veteran talents to the Wizards of the Coast team and accelerating efforts to deliver exceptional experiences for fans across all platforms.

Since 2017, D&D Beyond has helped to power DUNGEONS & DRAGONS tabletop play and deliver the brand's eighth consecutive year of growth in 2021. Over the last three years, the royalty paid to Hasbro by D&D Beyond has represented a significant contribution to the fastest growing source of revenue for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. The strategic acquisition of D&D Beyond will deliver a direct relationship with fans, providing valuable, data-driven insights to unlock opportunities for growth in new product development, live services and tools, and regional expansions. As part of Wizards, the brand’s leadership will soon be able to drive a unified, player-centric vision of the world’s greatest role-playing game on all platforms.

“The acquisition of D&D Beyond will accelerate our progress in both gaming and direct to consumer, two priority areas of growth for Hasbro, providing immediate access to a loyal, growing player base,” said Chris Cocks, Hasbro Chief Executive Officer. “Hasbro’s gaming portfolio is among the largest and most profitable in the industry, and we continue to make strategic investments to grow our brands, including in digital.”

“This is the perfect next step for the talented D&D Beyond team, who built a transformative digital product that engaged and delighted millions of D&D fans around the world,” said Perkins Miller, CEO of Fandom. “We can't wait to see what this team will do next as an integral part of the D&D franchise, and I look forward to investing in more brands and products to super serve Fandom’s 300 million+ global fans.”

“D&D Beyond has been one of our most valuable partners in the digital space for the past six years and we’re excited to bring their best-in-class talent onto our team,” said Cynthia Williams, President of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming. “The team at D&D Beyond has built an incredible digital platform, and together we will deliver the best-possible DUNGEONS & DRAGONS experience for players around the world.”

Hasbro’s continued investment in Wizards of the Coast’s digital growth for its two iconic franchises, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and MAGIC: THE GATHERING, is representative of the significant opportunity in PC and mobile gaming, an industry that represented over 3 billion players globally and $129 billion in revenue in 20211. With the launch of Magic: The Gathering Arena on PC in 2019 and on mobile in 2021, Wizards has built a unique ecosystem of best-in-class tabletop and digital play to create deeper player engagement and satisfaction and grow revenue across all expressions and regions. Similarly, with more than 80% of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS fans having already played the game virtually in 2021, aided by online digital platforms such as D&D Beyond, this acquisition accelerates the game’s ability to penetrate new markets, gather valuable consumer insights and provide players with the best DUNGEONS & DRAGONS experience on all platforms.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and the receipt of certain regulatory approvals, and is expected to close during the second or third quarter of 2022. The transaction will be funded out of cash on hand and is expected to be immaterial to revenue and earnings per share in 2022 and accretive to earnings per share in fiscal year 2023 and beyond. The transaction has been approved by both Hasbro’s and Fandom’s Boards of Directors.

Welcome to the Party, D&D Beyond | Dungeons & Dragons

We are excited to welcome everyone at D&D Beyond, bringing together two teams dedicated to making Dungeons & Dragons easy to run and accessible to all!

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Stormonu]

Nobody has yet cracked the puzzle of how to make a physical book that gives access to digital content, where the codes for that can't be easily stolen, so I doubt that'll happen.

Doesn't have to be foolproof, just difficult enough that the majority won't see value in pirating it.

Personally, I'd go with a scratch-away sticker on the inside back cover for FLGS sales, or maybe an activation code on a sticker/card that has to be activated at the counter/with purchase like how gift cards are done. If it can get widespread acceptance and standarization throughout the RPG/book industry, it'd be more likely that stores would implement the policy correctly.

 

[Zaukrie]

This is a good move for WotC, as I think most here agree. Hopefully their future VTT plans involve integrating D&D Beyond into existing services rather than making their own. Paizo just got a partnership with Foundry VTT; if they can afford to hire people to make VTT versions of their content and adventures then WotC certainly can as well.

I'd bet every penny I have they try to do their own VTT.

 

[lkj]

I'd bet every penny I have they try to do their own VTT.

I bet they're already doing it. I won't get in the discussion about whether ddb has been good or bad. I find their product largely excellent with some gaps that need filling. I'll agree that the fixing has appeared to slow recently. But last year they made numerous comments about how we couldn't see all the stuff they had been working on in the background and couldn't share it yet. Here's hoping their ability to share opens up in the next few months. After that leaked 'survey', I suspect there has been work going on in the background on something like a virtual game space for some time. But obviously that's just speculation

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[Ruin Explorer]

So, first, please chuck your appeal to authority, as it doesn't hold a lot of water when you're talking to people who also have a ton of software development experience.

Dude, you don't get to complain about an appeal to authority whilst making an appeal to authority.. come on.

I mean, you say "Oh yeah, my appeal to authority is bigger than your appeal to authority", and sure, fine, whatever, maybe that's true, but you can't complain about it when you're doing the same thing in response. Sheesh! My main point wasn't "I KNOW MORE", because I don't think I do. It's "I'm not total outsider to this". If I wanted an appeal to authority I'd say "My wife is a very senior developer..." etc. (which is true but irrelevant).

And no, there's no universal setup, but the ultimate responsibility and call on strategy isn't generally with developers. The CEO can't stand in front of the Board of Directors, point to developers and say, "Well, they thought it'd be better..." and get away with it. Ultimately, it isn't a developer's responsibility to decide what gets developed.

Responsibility and actual decision-making are two different things, and I know you know that.

Sure, the CEO or equivalent is the person who gave the authority to the guy in charge of the devs to decide what was developed, and if that guy then said to the lead dev "Well you decide!" (which I know has happened, and you know has happened, at times), then yeah, the responsibility lies with the CEO for passing off the decision to people lower on the tree. Which happens. It's even happened to me before. More than once. Luckily I made the right decisions! And my point re: Beyond specifically is that the devs have claimed were not being interfered with by management - I am aware this is always what they say, true or not - but they then talked about their decision-making and prioritization in a way that I found relatively convincing re: them being in charge of at least the prioritization of non-monetized features. If I screw up developing a product, when my boss and their boss authorized me to make decisions, yeah, ultimately the second boss there is going to be the one getting the hotseat in a meeting, not me. But I still made the actual decisions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd bet every penny I have they try to do their own VTT.

Given that Beyond have been working on a VTT for quite a while, I don't think anyone is going to be willing to give you any odds on that - it's more or less a sure thing. Especially given that Roll 20 and Foundry, whilst lovely, are not user-friendly enough for truly non-technical portion of the D&D audience (as I saw over the pandemic), especially not to use enjoyably.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not knowing anything about the internals of the development process, the team, the goals and restrictions they were given I'm not sure we can say too much about the team. I've been on software development teams that were great but were given unrealistic goals and deadlines while being forced to take shortcuts. Unfortunately far too often deadlines are set based on unrealistic assumptions by people who either have no clue how much effort this type of development takes or by people who should know better but put on rose colored glasses for management.

In any case I hope WOTC provides appropriate funding and direction going forward. It's all we can ask for.

Absolutely.

Having worked in software dev and IT for a long time before leaving in frustration to pursue a different career path, what you're describing is very unlikely to be a problem with the "dev team". Those are management issues - what are they prioritizing, how much are they budgeting for hiring new staff, how much are the existing staff having to deal with legacy support issues instead of improvements, etc.

It's unlikely that the dev team needs a kick - they likely just need more people and a direction that isn't "we need to figure out a way to make money off this to please our investors - focus on that". Heck management might not even need a kick - just a change in ownership and the new owners setting down a new direction is probably enough for them to actually start doing the things they want to do instead of floundering around trying to figure out how to increase profits every quarter to make their owners happy.

It isn’t even an accurate read of the last few years. They’ve been working on essentially a complete overhaul of the original framework into a much more flexible framework that can actually handle all the weird fiddly stuff D&D has, and handle new kinds of mechanics that wotc might put in a new book.

 

[darjr]

Huh. This is more than they paid for TSR.
Granted TSR was about to go bust. I dint think DnDBeyond or Fandom was, and they are not buying a whole company this time.

 

[The Glen]

YAY!!! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!

Okay I'll be honest I really don't have any idea how to react to this

 

[Michael Linke]

This settles an older argument about whether it would be a waste of time and money for Fandom to work so hard on their Cortex Prime VTT when they already have D&D Beyond. Now they have both (sort of): they can develop their own tools, and they sell D&D Beyond off to Hasbro for probably a decent price so they have plenty of cash on hand to develop their own tool.

Edit $146.3 million!? This is a good deal for all parties. Fandom can throw all the cash it wants into their Cortex Prime VTT. People commenting on the high price should note that deals like this aren't solely based on the current value of the company, but also adjusted up based on how much better the company can be if the buyer has control and can develop it to their vision. D&D Beyond as it is today isn't worth $146.3 million to anyone but the buyer and seller, but Hasbro clearly has a plan for it that will make it worth MORE THAN $146.3 million over some timeframe.

Fandom will probably use this money to continue developing their VTT, but also to buy licenses new IPs for Cortex Prime to replace the outgoing D&D license.

 

[JThursby]

Given that Beyond have been working on a VTT for quite a while, I don't think anyone is going to be willing to give you any odds on that - it's more or less a sure thing. Especially given that Roll 20 and Foundry, whilst lovely, are not user-friendly enough for truly non-technical portion of the D&D audience (as I saw over the pandemic), especially not to use enjoyably.

We'll see how they do then. It'll have the benefit of being made for a singular ruleset, but VTTs truly run the gamut from awesome to abysmal. I don't think there's any way to predict how it'll turn out, so I'm going to wait and reserve judgement until there are previews and product demos.