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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Always assuming the worst is getting old.

Better to be pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly surprised.

 

[Rabulias]

To be clear, I think the more the better, too. I just think you're only going to be able to buy integrated rules, campaigns, adventures, and other products on one of them. If you're willing to do all the manual work yourself, you'll be able to play wherever. I'm not a lawyer, but I can't see how Wizards could do anything about that.

I would never bet against stupid decisions, but if WotC closes off official support from all other VTTs, it will be a grave misstep. Even if their new VTT is the hottest, most feature-rich, bug-free VTT ever in its first few months (which no VTT is), they will piss off a great number of their fans. I won't bet money down, but I think WotC knows they have to woo people away from the other VTTs, not force them.

 

[Greg Benage]

I would never bet against stupid decisions, but if WotC closes off official support from all other VTTs, it will be a grave misstep. Even if their new VTT is the hottest, most feature-rich, bug-free VTT ever in its first few months (which no VTT is), they will piss off a great number of their fans. I won't bet money down, but I think WotC knows they have to woo people away from the other VTTs, not force them.

I just assume contracts will not be renewed. So yes, there will be a transition period. And, you know, we can pretty much bet on a free trial period.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm glad I've banned phones at my table. Too distracting for players. I just hope that the ones buying green hair for their online mini will finance products I'll be interested in. I fear it won't be the case (but I am willing to buy pdfs).

WotC doesn't believe in pdfs.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I think that plugin is disabled these days since Paizo are selling actual Foundry implementations instead.

That doesn't really affect your overall assessment of the dude, I just wanted to have it out there.

The plug-in for PDF2Foundry is not disabled. It still works AFAIK. It just is no longer being updated for new material, which, as you point out - is now available for purchase from Paizo. It's a hybrid approach and does require data migration from v. 9 to v.10, but it's not that big a deal.

It does explain, however, why there was a mass migration of PF GMs off of Roll20 and to Foundry VTT which belies the numbers on Roll20. Those PF GMs who remained on it are those who had purchased content on Roll20 and have remained there on a sunk costs fallacy (not realizing there is a module to download it from Roll 20 and migrate it all to Foundry) and don't want to move their games to a new VTT when they feel comfortable on the existing one.

The prevalence of PF GMs on Foundry VTT is very high though. At PaizoCon 2020, it was "demoed" by a relative handful of GMs. By PaizoCon 2021, it was a near majority of GMs using it. PaizoCon 2022 showed the increase to a clear majority. With the all digital PaizoCon 2023, my guess is that 6 months from now in May 2023, those usiing Roll20 to run a PF2 game will be less than 20%, if it's even that high.

And games have been bleeding off of Roll20 to Foundry VTT on the 5e side, too. To be clear, the largest numbers of Foundry VTT users are 5e DMs. I know, I am now one of them. I think the leveraging Foundry VTT makes of DDB is great and I happily buy products on DDB now for that purpose.

Which means WotC is getting my money now whereas before, they weren't. I'm pretty sure that's good for WotC.

 

[darjr]

WotC doesn't believe in pdfs.

DMSGuild would disagree with you.

 

[Umbran]

It truly is.

But, for the brand, it is also true. For the household recognition the brand has, to not have movies and TV shows and popular computer games out there is the definition of "under-monetized."

I'm pretty sure every worry we've had re: monetization and some stuff we didn't even think of is going to come true in the next 4-6 years.

I'm pretty sure that similar prognostication has been made every time WotC has made any public announcement about business matters. The worst has in general failed to happen.

 

[overgeeked]

As long as the microtransactions are optional and completely non-essential to playing the game (and I believe they will be), I will be fine with it. I have been able to use D&D Beyond to fill needs for me and my game. I see their ads for custom dice, token frames, and character sheet backgrounds, but I do not use those, so I can ignore them. Just because they sell it does not mean I have to buy it.

I think many of these doom-and-gloomers see the following happening:

DM: After the red-robed figure completes his arcane mutterings and gestures, a tiny glowing dot speeds toward your group and blossoms into a massive ball of fire! Roll Dexterity saving throws!
Player: Uh, I don't see my Dex save...
DM: Did you buy the Dexterity saving throw yet? I told you you would need it.
Player: Hey man, I wanted to buy some Doritos today, so I skipped it!
DM: OK, I guess you fail the save then. Take full damage!

Which is absurd of course.

The transition from pay-to-look-good to pay-to-win is very fast and very short. Ask any MMO player.

 

[Umbran]

I hope I'm wrong.

(But I'm not.)

Given WotC's absolutely abysmal record with software development, chances are they are coming not with a sword, but with a sad trombone.

 

[Zaukrie]

Better to be pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly surprised.

NM.