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.

 

[teitan]

I think Elminster, the rest of the Companions of the Hall, the Honor Among Thieves characters, and Minsc & Boo are just matter of time before they do those too.

I agree and 6” scale of the classic LJN characters with it. They’re doing those recognizable animated characters from Marvel Studios (someone said Toei in another thread, it was Marvel). I’d bet dollars to donuts on Iuz, Vecna, Fizban, Strahd and Mordenkainen as well. The Movie characters are wave 2 with the Thief, Dwarf, Hugh Grant and the Wizard.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think Elminster, the rest of the Companions of the Hall, the Honor Among Thieves characters, and Minsc & Boo are just matter of time before they do those too.

Elminster is a bit of a creeper, so less of a good idea to make toys of him that kids could get ahead of, lest they read up on him.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do too. But he was saying in that Theater of the Mind and In-Person D&D are inherently superior to other ways of playing.

Not possible. Plenty of people like to play online over in-person. Nothing inherant about a preference.

 

[SkidAce]

...

For a VTT, I imagine much the same. Like, your basic use comes with some standard tokens, but if you want something special, they'll sell it to you.
...

As long as I can add homebrew tokens via my own work/effort sure.

 

[SkidAce]

If there's one thing that will lead me to abandon D&D in its entirety, it will be WotC treating me like Electronic Arts treats me. If I'm going to be nickled & dimed, I'm out.

I wont be out, I'll just play with what I have.

 

[SkidAce]

Yes. I think a (imo legit) fear is that those sorts of things shift the baseline expectation of what it means to "play D&D" for newcomers to the game.
I know it's a little chicken little at this point, but I can envision, a generation or so from now, that the "TT" part of TTRPGing will be a long-forgotten fossil, and the idea of fully-online subscription-based RPGAAS ("Role-playing Gaming As A Service") could be the norm.
I mean, it might well be an awesome experience if/when it happens, but I do honestly believe there's a pretty good chance it will happen eventually.

Well I suspect the end state evolution of D&D will eventually be Star Trek style holo-deck so....

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Elminster is a bit of a creeper, so less of a good idea to make toys of him that kids could get ahead of, lest they read up on him.

That's bound to happen anyways, and Drizzt's story is filled with none child friendly content, giving his sister trying to seduce him then threatening him with being turned into a Drider when he refused incest

Plus collectible toys aren't for kids at all, they are targeted at adults.

 

[Incenjucar]

That's bound to happen anyways, and Drizzt's story is filled with none child friendly content, giving his sister trying to seduce him then threatening him with being turned into a Drider when he refused incest

Plus collectible toys aren't for kids at all, they are targeted at adults.

Maybe D&D needs some more family-friendly adventurers. D:

 

[Clint_L]

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

I've been thinking about this, and it has a serious problem in that while the game is super well known, the characters aren't. At all. Some of the monsters have crept into popular consciousness, but there's no one with anything approaching the name recognition of even a pre-MCU Captain America, let alone Spiderman. This, of course, being a function of a game where the main characters are invented by the players in each campaign.

The most well known D&D characters today are probably Vecna, because Stranger Things and the members of Vox Machina, because of that show. And neither product is explicitly D&D (talking about the Vox Machina TV show, not the actual play series).

 

[JiffyPopTart]

The dice are already a thing. The others seem reasonable enough. I’m just not seeing how they can ruin DDB with micro-transactions.

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