WotC Hasbro Bets Big on D&D

During today's 'Hasbro Fireside Chat', Hasbro's Chris Cocks, chief executive officer, and Cynthia Williams, president of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming mentioned D&D, and about betting big on its name. This was in addition to the Magic: The Gathering discussion they held on the same call.

The following are rough notes on what they said.

D&D Beyond

• Leaning heavily on D&D Beyond
• 13 million registered users
• Give them more ways to express their fandom
• Hired 350 people last year
• Low attrition

What’s next for D&D

• Never been more popular
• Brand under-monetized
• Excited about D&D Beyond possibilities
• Empower accessibility and development of the user base.
• Data driven insight
• Window into how players are playing
• Companion app on their phone
• Start future monetization starting with D&D Beyond
• DMs are 20% of the audience but lions share of purchases
• Digital game recurrent spending for post sale revenue.
• Speed of digital can expand, yearly book model to include current digital style models.
• Reach highly engaged multigenerational fans.
• Dungeons and Dragons has recognition, 10 out of 10
• Cultural phenomenon right now.
• DND strategy is a broad four quadrant strategy
• Like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or Marvel
• New books and accessories, licensed game stuff, and D&D Beyond
• Huge hopes for D&D

What is success for the D&D Movie

• First big light up oppourtunity for 4th quadrant
• Significant marketing
• They think it’ll have significant box office
• It has second most viewed trailer at Paramount, only eclipsed by Transformers
• Will be licensed video games, some on movies
• Then follow up other media, TV, other movies, etc.
• Bullish on D&D.

 

[Zaukrie]

For me, part of the explicit appeal, the reason I go to this hobby over others, is that a one time purchase can create almost indefinite value. It's not a quirk, it's a feature. So a change in that is a change in the draw.

That said, we obviously can't know now, but if what they add is visual flair to their online arena, fine, whatever. But I certainly can't say it excites me in any way. It adds nothing to my games.

It also doesn't hurt your games or effect you at all.

 

[darjr]

One point. This chat wasn’t only about the future but also about what they have already been doing.

 

[Zaukrie]

"Evergreen" brands are the proverbial golden ring for corporations today. Though personally, I'm not convinced how "evergreen" any of them truly are. I know that media access (via phones, smart TVs, streaming devices, etc.) is far, far more prevalent than ever before, but I'm still not sure if we'll have anything approaching the current amount of Star Wars or Marvel media still come out fifty years from now.

No exec is worried about more than about 5-10 years from now, if you're lucky. Certainly not fifty.

 

[Greg Benage]

I think it should be noted that unlike microtransactions in video games (which I loathe), not paying for them in a TTRPG doesn't hurt you. I.e., you aren't forced to buy them to compete with others who do.

First: This scares the bejezus out of me.

Second: A lot of video games have cosmetic microtransactions that don't confer an in-game advantage. I never buy 'em, but they're there.

Third: If (big "if") they pull off a functional 3D VTT, I actually would be more tempted to buy "skins" than I ever have in a video game. People already commission character art, and I have no gripes about Hasbro getting paid for something that is actually used in-game.

On the other hand, executives talking about how "X is under-monetized" has never ended well, in my experience, even when I was a product manager at a Fortune 200 company.

 

[occam]

Think “battle pass” and cosmetics/skins like in Fortnight etc

Or it's ongoing subscription revenue from people who've already purchased the books, from people like me, and nothing new. This could very well be just an observation that D&D Beyond gives WotC the opportunity to earn recurring revenue.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I don't know why D&D players hate the idea of spending money on their hobby.

Best guess: because we're used to spending very little, or at least needing to spend very little. A PHB is $30 and you can get a set of dice for about $10 (and if you're coming from an older edition you already have them.)

Sure, most of us have spent more but they were all optional and even the whole set of player-facing books is only a couple hundred over eight years.

Video gamers will buy loot boxes and cosmetic items and special weapons up the wazoo...

Well, most don't. Most players never touch loot boxes, or only buy one. But the players who buy them regularly spend hundreds or even thousands. They're called whales because they're big spenders... and they're the main source of revenue in mobile games.

but roleplayers think that if they bought three books 8 years ago for $40 a pop that they have spent as much money as they need and anything beyond that is them getting gouged by the company.

That's how it's been, and people don't like change.

I think a cheap subscription that gets you 90% of the player-facing content would do well enough. It would drive a lot of players off the platform to paper-only, but they weren't going to spend much anyways. If they stick to skins and other mechanics irrelevant stuff as add-ons for players it should work (and I think it's likely they will - they do know how the game works.)

Honestly if they can make good, easy-to-use digital Adventure Paths and modules those could be the real income driver for the game going forward.

 

[Incenjucar]

I do very much hope WotC never tries to turn D&D into a whale hunt again. There are plenty of things they can sell that are based on affection rather than impulse control exploitation.

A big gap I see is a lack of a contemporary face for the game. I'm pretty sure that Drizz't is still the most famous face in the game outside of streaming after all these years. We could use a fresh band of unlikely heroes for people to daydream about.

 

[Xamnam]

It also doesn't hurt your games or effect you at all.

If the company is aiming for the average player to spend $X more than they currently do, that can alter design philosophy and where resources are prioritized, so it can. No, it won't definitely do so, but it could.

 

[Alzrius]

It also doesn't hurt your games or effect you at all.

@Charlaquin did a good job of explaining how it does, potentially, affect you or your game, i.e. that the focus of the people who make the products shifts to quantities of cosmetic options rather than the development of quality game mechanics/lore. That means less of the stuff those people like is being developed.

 

[Zaukrie]

@Charlaquin did a good job of explaining how it does, potentially, affect you or your game, i.e. that the focus of the people who make the products shifts to quantities of cosmetic options rather than the development of quality game mechanics/lore. That means less of the stuff those people like is being developed.

We literally have no idea if that will be true here, or not. I just don't see the point in assuming the worst. But I'm old, and have learned that just makes me (and most everyone else I know) less happy. I choose not to do that to myself anymore.