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.

 

[Greg Benage]

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

Put we're not talking about computer games. Spend however much you want -- you're not bringing any "pay to win" stuff into my game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Doesn't terrify me. It's true. Been true for just about the entire 50 year history of the game.

D&D has had great brand recognition since the 80s, but has never effectively translated that into making D&D a powerhouse franchise like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or Harry Potter. And it has that potential, always has.

All WotC is saying is . . . they recognize that potential, they haven't managed to reach it yet, and they want to.

Will it mean more crappy D&D products, from WotC and licensed partners? Well, we already have that . . . . (there's great products too)

Will it mean consumer-unfriendly practices? Perhaps. But there is NOTHING suggesting it so far, so I'm not going to lose sleep over it until it actually happens.

WotC has pushed Magic the Gathering too far in their quest to monetize that brand, but they've been called out for it by the banking industry, and hopefully have learned their lesson for both brands. But even so, Magic continues to rock as a game, hobby, and franchise. I'm not overly worried about D&D.

Do we have any evidence that they've learned their lesson from the MtG debacle?

 

[overgeeked]

Better to be pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly surprised.

It's why I'll never understand optimists.

 

[Greg Benage]

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

This is very true. I hope they come out with something amazing that makes me happy to switch, but I'm not exactly counting on it.

 

[Clint_L]

Not a lot of huge revelations that I can see. Obviously Hasbro is going to emphasize the profit potential of D&D; it's one of their biggest assets and, they are arguing, the one with the most upside potential. And they are trying to keep shareholders on board after some disappointing quarters.

From Hasbro's perspective, D&D has the most profit potential because it has an absolutely massive cultural footprint at this point - "10/10" as they describe it. Contrast with Magic the Gathering, which is extremely profitable (or was) but with much narrower cultural awareness. Just about everyone who matters from a marketing perspective is broadly familiar with D&D. That's why they are comparing it to Marvel, etc. But in comparison to those brands, it is really poorly leveraged, still deriving most of its profits for them from sales of the game itself. That's like if Marvel was still making most of its money off comics.

Someone commented earlier that Hasbro probably looks at products like Warhammer and World of Warcraft and sees money that should be theirs (that is entirely correct for those two products, BTW: Warhammer was created in response to TSR pulling its D&D license from its UK distributors, and Warcraft was created when its creators couldn't finalize a licensing agreement for Warhammer). So they are arguing that they are in a prime position to take D&D beyond being just a game and make it into a brand.

What does that mean for us? Well, things like micro-transactions on DnDBeyond are already a thing...and are sometimes a good thing for consumers, because they let you buy only the parts of material that you actually want (for example, if a new adventure comes out that you aren't interested in, but includes a playable race that you want, you can pay a few bucks to just purchase that). So we have to be careful not to paint with too broad strokes. There are potential upsides and downsides.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know why D&D players hate the idea of spending money on their hobby. Video gamers will buy loot boxes and cosmetic items and special weapons up the wazoo... 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.

Speaking for myself, I have virtually no interest in stuff for D&D that isn't actual content. Put more of that out, and I'll spend money all day.

 

[overgeeked]

Put we're not talking about computer games. Spend however much you want -- you're not bringing any "pay to win" stuff into my game.

We already do. Splats with explicit power creep. This new subclass is OP compared to the subclasses in the last splat book, which are OP compared to the subclasses in the PHB. You pay to get better stuff. It's literally how RPGs are monetized.

 

[Incenjucar]

Part of me really wants to see what would happen if Lauren Faust was asked to make a pilot episode for a D&D cartoon.

 

[Greg Benage]

We already do. Splats with explicit power creep. This new subclass is OP compared to the subclasses in the last splat book, which are OP compared to the subclasses in the PHB. You pay to get better stuff. It's literally how RPGs are monetized.

But I don't have to allow any of that in my game? And if I do, everyone at the table can use it -- you can't spend money to gain an advantage over me or the other players. So, no, it's not at all like video games.

 

[Xamnam]

It's why I'll never understand optimists.

Less overall time spent disappointed.