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.

 

[Maxperson]

They could warn the DM, and then kick them off the service if they persist. A simple change to the TOS would allow that. Who reads those things anyway?

Hah. Very bored people read things like that. About 13 years ago my cell phone company changed insurance plans and they sent me a book with the new coverage. It sat on my desk for about 2 months and then one day I was bored out of my mind and thought, "Why not read that and see what it says?"

Anyway, I picked it up and it started off pretty standard. Covered for theft. Covered for fire destruction. Not covered for use in crimes and confiscated. And so on. Then it took a sharp left turn. I kid you not it said, "If the phone is destroyed in a nuclear explosion, you are not covered." A bit stunned I read on and the next line was, "Unless the nuclear explosion causes a fire and the fire destroys the phone. Then you're covered."

All I could think was, my phone is never more than inches to a few feet from me. It doesn't matter whether the nuclear explosion destroys it or the resulting fire, I'm not calling to collect the insurance.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Man a lot of you seem to be missing the point. A closed system that only works with D&D is one of the potential strengths of this upcoming VTT. If it's made for D&D and nothing else, they can fully support and help automate the system, as they don't have to keep in mind any other systems for it's use.

Nobody has missed that point at all - because nobody is even discussing it. The "point" people are discussing is if the VTT will be "closed", in the sense that you can only use their 3d art and textures they sell to you -- and not your own 3d assets and textures you created (or far more likely, obtained and/or modified from somebody else).

It's not about supporting more than WotC's then current version of D&D; it's about the art you can use in their D&D VTT. If it's only art they create and sell to you? Then it's a closed system people here are decrying.

Is the paradigm NWN 1 or 2 -- or is it essentially Neverwinter Online when it comes to "custom content"? That's the discussion. Rules were never part of that as 6e was always assumed.

 

[Maxperson]

Ha! How? How would they even know?

Complaints. People love to complain and players wronged like that would scream bloody murder if the ToS supported them.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't think it will be nearly that cheap. Here's how I think it will work:

You'll probably get basic access to the VTT if you have paid DnDBeyond subscription, or if someone in your party has a Master Level subscription. But I think that will only include basic assets, to give you a taster.

You'll pay extra for extra assets, such as entire source books like the MM and expanded character customization. Also, every adventure book will be released with VTT assets (dungeons, creatures, etc.) for an extra fee.

You'll be able to mix and match assets when creating your own stuff (much like buying Warlock Tiles or Dwarven Forge sets, only virtual).

So I think building up a big collection of digital assets for us with the VTT will cost you a pretty penny, especially if you are a "gotta have 'em all type." BUT it will still be much, much cheaper than buying all those miniatures and terrain, and will have the advantage of being able to use the same asset multiple times (so if you need 50 kobolds, you can just use one or a few virtual kobolds to cover your needs).

The advantage to the player is that you will save a lot of money compared to buying physical miniatures, etc., you won't have to store them (my garage is bursting already), you can use them online or take them with you anywhere you have your laptop...really, there will be so much more convenience at a much lower cost. The advantage to WotC is that they are earning a lot of the money that is currently going to folks like Wizkids.

The disadvantage is that it is virtual. Tough to buy and sell your assets, and (for me) way less fun to collect. And paint. Etc.

 

[darjr]

Imagine!

DnDBeyond: hey you have to let that player with the five arms and 5inch thick helmet and loaded dice back into your game or we’ll kick you off.
DM: curse words that would make grandma scream curse words back at yiu logs off to never login again.

Yea, that won’t fly.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And, it's very, very unlikely that they're going to make the tabletop so closed that it will be impossible to import material that people make at home. It's possible, true, that's certainly possible. But, given how none of the VTT's on the market work like this, and the fact that WotC has spent a LOT of time and effort regaining people's good will, I really, really doubt it.

I think importing will be mroe complicated than in most existing VTTs, because 3d models are more complex than 2d assets, but if the Sims can do it, I'm sure they'll find a way lol

Also, I am 100% sure that you will be able to build assets within the program, and eventually there will be a marketplace ecosystem through DDB for VTT and non-VTT resources.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Economy is not only selling products or offering services, it is also the prestige of the companies, the power of the brands, and the trust by the consumers.

Digital market is not only VTTs. D&D has got enough experience in the videogame industry, and not always it worked too well.

Take care about a possible buble of virtual items.

Even when the product was good, the prestige of the VTT could be destroyed by fault of toxic players and DMs. The damage can be worse if the victim was a streamer showing her game.

* Why not to produce actual-play shows to promote VTTs?

* If One-D&D worked and WotC made money..... why not ordinary videogame studios created their own VTTs based in their IPs?

* Even when the product is good, if it is a bad economic year and the people have to save money, then all the companies in the entertaiment industry suffer a fall of sales. My fear is 2023 is going to be a year with lot of troubles in the global economy, and not only by fault of Covid or the Russian-Ukranian war.

* You have forgotten totally the no-English-speaker market. And only a little number of titles by 3PPs are translated into other languages.

* The market of multiplayer online videogames is very hard. Even big fishes of the industry have failed some time. Then the players are thinking twice before spending the money in a game whose servers could be closed some years after.

* The youngest players haven't enough money to buy more sourcebooks, and the older players haven't enough time to play with the friends in the weekend.

* M:tG+D&D multiverse could be used to try a new chance/opportunity to forgotten IPs, for example a new version C.O.P.S&Crooks in New Capena, or a fantasy rebooted version of Robotix set in Kaladesh. Of course I know that sounds like a very fool idea, so a fool idea what even it could work.

 

[Maxperson]

Imagine!

DnDBeyond: hey you have to let that player with the five arms and 5inch thick helmet and loaded dice back into your game or we’ll kick you off.
DM: curse words that would make grandma scream curse words back at yiu logs off to never login again.

Yea, that won’t fly.

I agree. However, I also think people aren't going to buy things that are hard to use.

 

[darjr]

I agree. However, I also think people aren't going to buy things that are hard to use.

looks at roll20's customer base

I don't agree. I mean they'd rather have ease of use, sure.

 

[mamba]

When it comes to working with 3d assets? An inability to import models into the setting is the default state of all games.

it may be the default, simply because it is the easiest, but it certainly is not true for all games

It's hard for end users to approach this as a game developer does, but the software plug-in that WotC will create for its 3d assets will be designed to export a model from their modeling software of choice to their file format used by their 3d VTT.

their 3d vtt is based on Unreal, that already has a widely used and supported format

The code will not exist to import a model into the modeling software, and then export it - because they don't need that and can't use it if they did create it.

that is pure speculation

Original IP assets used in game are created from scratch, so the 3d modeling workflow to get original assets into their 3d VTT doesn't require the sort of tools community users and modders need to accomplish that.

again, pure speculation. The fact that modders can use it might be reason enough to support it, some games do