WotC WotC in a small decline as revenue drops by 16% as Hasbro shares hit a new 52-week low

[darjr]

I think some of the comments here are over the top..... But I agree with the general statement that 5e is too generic and many of the adventures are in need of a lot of work. There is never a stretching of the boundaries, like Strixhaven was just another generic magic school..... And had nothing to do with how magic works in MTG. That seems to be working for sales, but I'm buying less and less......

Witchlight didn’t stretch boundaries? The critical role book with a rival party didn’t? Theros didn’t?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Yeah, because you haven't followed my posts for very long, and are pretty new on the board.

I am a bit surprised being here for nearly a decade is considered pretty new. New compared to you I guess.

 

[darjr]

I am a bit surprised being here for nearly a decade is considered pretty new.

It kinda is but I love new folks showing up. I dint think it really matters how long you’ve been here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Let's remember the market of videogame online is very hard, and the server of lots of titles are closed after some years. Not even the biggest studios can avoid some failure. And after a couple of years the videogames loses value. It is not only competing with rival brands but with old but cheaper titles what don't need the last graphic card.

And it is not only Dark Alliance. There are other videogames based in Hasbro franchises what haven't worked too well.

Dark Alliance didn't fail because the market is hard.

It failed because it's absolutely atrocious game on every level, particularly gameplay.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance

Join up to 4 friends and battle iconic monsters from Dungeons & Dragons in the new co-op action RPG Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. Dark Alliance brings to life the world of Dungeons & Dragons in an explosive action RPG filled with real-time combat and dynamic co-op. Frost giants and...

www.metacritic.com

53% is shockingly bad. Most games that get called "bad" or "mediocre" are in the 65-75% range or even into the 80s. Very few professionally-designed games manage to score that low. And D&D games usually get a few free points just for being D&D.

As for "other Hasbro franchises have failed too", absolutely true, yes! Hasbro and WotC have an astonishing record of manage to licence their products to exactly the wrong people. It's really genuinely been a horror show for like 20 years now. About smart licences WotC have ever done with D&D have involved the word Neverwinter (the MMO is very "mid" but it's not insultingly bad at least, and NWN1 & 2 were pretty decent), or I guess BG3 which is looking alright. Not a great record. There was a particularly sad period of about a decade when WotC sold the D&D licence to er... I forget if it was Interplay or Atari, but whoever it was then just essentially sat on the licence for a decade, until WotC had to actually sue them to get the licence back. And since then WotC's decision-making has not improved.

WotC now owns two game studios:

1) Archetype Entertainment, which has several Bioware veterans (particularly some senior Mass Effect guys), but who have existed since early 2019, still haven't got enough staff to even really make an AA game, let alone an AAA one, are still hiring, and whilst it looked like they were going into production last year, that doesn't seem to have happened. They've never released a game. I would be unsurprised if they shut down without ever releasing one in 3-5 years. I hope they release an awesome CRPG. It just seems a bit unlikely right now.

Note that the US games industry right now is rife with companies like this - a few key/impressive senior employees who previously worked at Bioware, Bungie, Blizzard, or the like, who have hired like 30-70 Bright Young Things, who aren't as senior but have some experience or are new to the industry but well-qualified, and pretty much none of them have actually released any games, and most of them don't even seem to have an AAA game in development.

2) Invoke, who used to be Tuque Games, a small Canada-based studio who have never made a good game, only a very mediocre one nobody played, and the truly awful Dark Alliance, and who claim to be working on an AAA game. They also don't appear to have enough employees for that to be true, but we shall see.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am a bit surprised being here for nearly a decade is considered pretty new. New compared to you I guess.

The idea that I only "only say things suck" when I've been basically beaten senseless for liking stuff that was unpopular or controversial, like y'know 4E, really doesn't say "I've been here a long time and know your work" lol. Sheesh, I've gone to bat at length for elements of 5E and some of the books (like Tasha's and the UA that lead to it), but maybe that doesn't count?

EDIT - Posted this before I saw @Umbran's post - I can delete or whatever if that's right

 

[Zaukrie]

Witchlight didn’t stretch boundaries? The critical role book with a rival party didn’t? Theros didn’t?

Not with rules. I was not clear

 

[darjr]

Not with rules. I was not clear

Oh.

Well that I do not want. This edition has essentially killed the bloat problem. Something I didn’t believe was possible but I had hopes.

 

[Zaukrie]

Oh.

Well that I do not want. This edition has essentially killed the bloat problem. Something I didn’t believe was possible but I had hopes.

I have hope that one dnd will add some things for classes to do that add variety.... And make room for new ideas. I don't need to return to a rule book every month, but 5e , for me, needs some expansion. I get many don't agree.

 

[Sacrosanct]

5E-based Kickstarters appear to be underperforming a little since the 1D&D playtests started coming out, compared to similar previous projects. Nothing drastic yet, but it's starting to become noticeable. This is just anecdotal observation, though; I haven't gathered any industry-wide statistical data or anything.

That seems to be my observation as well. Which makes sense. A healthy part of the D&D community wants to see what changes are coming before buying any material, particularly from 3PP. Heck, I've had customers ask me directly how my stuff is compatible with 1DND, so it's definitely out there.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have hope that one dnd will add some things for classes to do that add variety.... And make room for new ideas. I don't need to return to a rule book every month, but 5e , for me, needs some expansion. I get many don't agree.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet there is still some sensitivity about making too many changes to the core game after what we saw with 4e. They are there to sell as many games after all, which doesn't always marry to scretching boundaries and expanding creative leeway.