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.

 

[Velderan]

Do they need to in order to be the new face? They do work closely with WotC, have released 2 official books for 5e, promote DDB on their stream. I'd be shocked if WotC isn't working to secure them moving to the 2024 ruleset and while I don't think Exandria will become the new default setting in this update, I also wouldn't be surprised if when they eventually stop doing their own streams, that they wouldn't sell the IP to WotC for a huge pile of cash to retire on.

Yes, because WotC isn't going to make them the main focus of their brand if there's even remotely a chance someone else could write a big check and convince them to switch games. There's also the possibility they just decide to make their own system and strike out completely on their own. WotC like any other big company wants their face to be something they completely own and can use as they like.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think it reaches a breaking point for a lot of people though. I am at the point where I am looking to decrease, not increase my subscription services. I just can't afford all those monthly or annual fees anymore. I'll keep the basics, for example I use Word and Adobe enough, but I am not going to do a subscription for an RPG or a new streaming service.

I think that this is a key factor.

So many companies want to move their products to a subscription model. Which makes sense, individually. Think about it from the perspective of both the consumer and company-
Company- Why get $50 now, when I can get $8 every month for years?
Consumer- Why spend $50 to buy a single product, when I can pay $8 and access lots of products?

So far, so good, right? But we rapidly get into a "tragedy of the commons" type of issue (well, if consumers were a common good ... it's not a perfect analogy!). As more companies switch to this model, the individual subscriptions which may not amount to much individually collectively amount to a huge figure.

And as the model spreads, we see more and more companies adopting it even in areas that traditionally wouldn't have it (such as, most recently, the spread into automobiles where you pay a subscription to access your cars features).

If you have a few recurring subscriptions, that's not a problem. But you can quickly end up with hundreds of dollars of these recurring fees- and more and more companies are switching to this model.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They've already gone online-only with content, for the 'bonus' monster documents for spelljammer and dragonlance. It's been free - so far - but there's a very small step to it not being so.

edit: ninja'd by the entire world.

Conversely, I think we should also expect the bonus monsters to be the basis for the next supplemental monster book, along with the most portable monsters from the adventures. (So, yes to sea lions, no to Strahd zombies.)

They didn't put this much labor into creating the monsters, with art, to never have them appear in a book.

 

[Oofta]

Well, gravity ensures that it always is falling.

When it comes to the sky falling, it literally is all the time. We are constantly being crushed by an untold number of atoms that make up our atmosphere that are trying to fall on top of us.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

I think, given the movie, we're going to see WotC doubling down on the Forgotten Realms as the core setting, for all the reasons you've stated. Not my preference, but it makes too much business sense.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think Minsc has name recognition due to the latest comic run.

How many copies did they sell? Ten thousand would be a remarkably high number.

I think the movie, BG3 and the TV show are their best bets for getting characters and settings lodged in the audience's mind.

 

[payn]

How many copies did they sell? Ten thousand would be a remarkably high number.

I think the movie, BG3 and the TV show are their best bets for getting characters and settings lodged in the audience's mind.

Probably true, but I think the characters is a sticking point for a D&D franchise. The reason D&D doesn't really have any iconic characters is because the point of the game is to make them yourself.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wizards screwed up in not continuing their novel lines.

I think they need the novels back -- but, heresy time -- they need to stop letting it be a vanity press for folks who couldn't get a publishing deal otherwise (which is a large portion of who's written game fiction, historically). They need to bring in a celebrity editor like GRRM (who does a lot of this) or Neil Gaiman and have them recruit better writers to work on this stuff.

The D&D novels shouldn't be ones where outsiders look askance at you for reading them which is (again, sorry for the heresy) most of the novels published to date.

The previous novels can be enjoyable and no one is a bad person for having enjoyed them, but the quality has held them back over the years. Hasbro has the resources and ambition to do better and expand the brand. If they do novels again, they should go much, much bigger.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

On the plus side, unless I missed it, no mention of doing NFTs at least.

Can we interest you in some GygaxCoin, though?

 

[Scribe]

I think they need the novels back -- but, heresy time -- they need to stop letting it be a vanity press for folks who couldn't get a publishing deal otherwise (which is a large portion of who's written game fiction, historically). They need to bring in a celebrity editor like GRRM (who does a lot of this) or Neil Gaiman and have them recruit better writers to work on this stuff.

The D&D novels shouldn't be ones where outsiders look askance at you for reading them which is (again, sorry for the heresy) most of the novels published to date.

The previous novels can be enjoyable and no one is a bad person for having enjoyed them, but the quality has held them back over the years. Hasbro has the resources and ambition to do better and expand the brand. If they do novels again, they should go much, much bigger.

I can agree with that. Tie-In fiction is generally not...fantastic in terms of quality.