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.

 

[Scribe]

PS MtG fans are pissed, they were expecting this to be a call addressing the fandoms issues with MtG and instead WotC was like things are find, no need to change except space products out more, now talk about our plans and excitement for D&D and IT's bright future. Didn't meantion Magic 30th, CEO Chris Cocks might as well have smacked MtG players in the face with a PHB. They turned a Fireplace chat about MtG into an ad for D&D movie and D&D Beyond. It'd be funny if MtG fans weren't so pissed.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I was referring to the MtG side of things. D&D side was just a puff piece for the investors.

Well the whole lot is a puff piece.

We learned more about D&D in an MtG Fireside chat, MtG fans are not impressed by and large.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I just think it will be a sad day when there is DDB only stuff. Adventure books and supplements etc. Want the new Faerun book? Only on DDB! Be sure you have the DDB app so you can take it to the game table with you!

 

[darjr]

The audio recording is up now if folks want to listen for themselves.

Hasbro, Inc. Webinar

December 8th, 2022 11:00am-11:45am

kvgo.com

 

[MNblockhead]

A lot of the monetization is going to have to come from outside the game itself. For me, I worry about market saturation. I quickly got tired with Marvel movies and have never bought much branded merch for anything property. But I'm also a father and when kids are really into something, their appetite for it can be insatiable. I have a middle-school son who is really into D&D now. I have a D&D Beyond account that I use with my monthly game, but my son and friends don't use it. I have Foundry, but they don't use it. From the game perspective, WotC doesn't make much money off of them. A few books shared by 6-8 boys.

But I'm getting the D&D branded Clue and Trivia Pursuit games for x-mas. We are looking forward to the movie. If the movie leads to merch ("if", ha!), I'm sure that'll end up on b-day lists. Assuming the movie doesn't flop causing their entertainment engine to lose steam, we should have TV series tied to D&D in the near future. Also really looking forward to Baldur's Gate 3.

I feel fortunate to have come into the hobby at its heights in the 80s (Saturday morning cartoons, action figures, etc.) and to have a kids getting into it just as it once again finds itself part of pop culture. As a grognard and a father, I'm rather loving this rampant monetization of D&D.

 

[VGmaster9]

I'd like D&D to become a wide multimedia franchise, including having a cinematic universe.

 

[Zardnaar]

We learned more about D&D in an MtG Fireside chat, MtG fans are not impressed by and large.

Yeah I know.

It's basically a reaction to try and stabilize the Hasbro share price IMHO.

But they're not fixing the fundamentals on the MtG side(way more important than D&D by a factor of 5-10).

And they're talking the D&D stuff up as a distraction imho. Movies not even out yet what if it flops for example.

There was some interesting D&D info about DMs and whales though. Basically a few people here like telling older players to shut up it's all about new players hut it seems the hard core are the DMs and bug spenders.

 

[overgeeked]

I allow them (probably a mistake), so anyone can play them. No one has to slip me a fiver for the privilege. To equate it to video games, we start a 1st level campaign, and:

• You buy the "Hero Pack" from Wizards, so you get extra ability score points with which to create your character
• You buy a vorpal sword from Wizards, so you have a vorpal sword in the game
• You pay Wizards to skip four levels, so you start the game at 5th level while everyone else is 1st

They're not the same!

Someone has to buy the rules to those subclasses. It's you as the referee buying them then allowing everyone to use them, not just whoever buys them. That's a call you get to make in meatspace about how you run your home game. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the VTT.

Now, think about how WotC is going to run their VTT. Do you honestly think that they'll just let anyone use anything that one person in the group bought without paying extra to share it? No, obviously that's never going to happen. More likely everyone who wants to use it needs to buy it separately or there will be a big DM subscription to grant access to the group. So you have either individuals paying-to-win (big advantage) or you have the referee paying a big subscription fee to get access to everything and grant that access to all their players equally. In that sense it's not pay-to-win as it's shared, but then it's moot as you're still paying extra for the privilege of a decision you can make for free at home.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Wrt artists & catchup.. By going 3d wotc's vtt already looks to be placing micro transaction over filling gm needs. I believe that I have tokens for all of the monsters at all crs from caeora plus the same for levelup"s monstrous menagerie token pack imported into the vtt I use. Paizo announced a couple of months ago that they are working with caeora to put out a mega pack of all their monster book monsters early (?) next year too. Then there are the literal gigs & gigs of mapping assets from my vtt of choice (arkenforge). Wotc's vtt could come out tonight & still be behind in art.

I think the real floodgates of RPG and VTT art and goodnes have yet to open. But by this time a year from now? It will then be well in the rear-view mirror. The water will be around our hips and rising.

A programmer and technical artist in the computer game industry I know who is VERY good at this stuff (and is regarded for his elite skills by other pros in the industry) assures me that the developments in AI and Stable Difusion et al will soon allow every gamer to utilize a simple template to create VERY GOOD NPC portrait art for any monster or NPC and have that available in seconds using these tools and AI trainers now in rapid development.

It gets better though. Those same tools can be used to then transpose that art and art style onto a 3d object -- or onto a 2d rendering of that 3d object -- in a particular style and ALSO create that to go along with the portrait with a few clicks and a POOF of digital magic dust.

Does that mean that your money spent on Caeora's tokens or a full library of Devin Night's tokens is money poorly spent? No. But it DOES MEAN that you will be able to add to those token libraries in the same artistic style by the ~ spring of 2023 using a menu driven interface and AI generated art of astonishing quality. Those floodgates are about to open for us all.

We live in interesting times.

 

[Greg Benage]

Now, think about how WotC is going to run their VTT. Do you honestly think that they'll just let anyone use anything that one person in the group bought without paying extra to share it? No, obviously that's never going to happen. More likely everyone who wants to use it needs to buy it separately or there will be a big DM subscription to grant access to the group.

Nah, I think if I buy the digital Tasha's in Wizards' VTT, then it'll be integrated in the game and people will be able to use it. I don't think players will individually have to purchase the twilight cleric if they want to play one.

But even I'm wrong and that's the way it works, I still don't have to let you play a twilight cleric if you buy one. It is not the same.

Anyway, the argument is getting a bit silly at this point, so I'll leave it at that.