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.

 

[mamba]

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.

These are two completely unrelated topics. They can fully support D&D and be open when it comes to the import of assets.
They can even be open to homebrewed or 3rd party stuff, assuming it fits into the framework they created

 

[Hussar]

I wonder why no one seems to complain that your D&D Beyond stuff is entirely unusable on Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20? In either of those VTT's you must buy the books IN those VTT's in order to use them. I'm pretty sure that that patreon mentioned earlier that supplies access to DDB in another program is very likely illegal and will be coming to a very abrupt halt in the fairly near future.

I mean, if it was as simple as just linking the VTT to DDB, why don't ANY VTT's do this?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Then explain how it could hurt the game. The only 2 options I see are
1) The player could buy some upgrade that affects the game directly. An extra set of spell slots, a magic item ... I'm not sure what.
2) The player could buy some cool cosmetic stuff for their PC.

For #1, does anyone really believe that? But let's say they buy Super Elf (because why not have yet another version of elf). How would WOTC stop DMs from simply saying "no"? Report me because I'm being a big meanie DM? I don't see that happening, but even if it did so what? DMs have all sorts of restrictions on games now, I don't see this as any different. If someone really wants to play their SE, sorry bud. Find another DM.

For #2, why would anyone care? Some people come to the table with fancy dice and a professionally painted mini. It's bling that doesn't affect the game in any appreciable way. If someone has an avatar that is clearly against the theme of the game, that's still something that can happen right now. The DM talks with the player and it gets fixed or the player finds a different game. If I'm pitching a Ravenloft campaign and you bring Sunshine Bunny attitude to the game, I'd probably wonder why you were in that particular game. It's no different than what we have today.

If someone buys something they can't use, that's too bad. Hopefully next game it will make sense.

The person making the final decision on what's allowed in an MMO is the company that owns the MMO. In D&D the person that makes the final decision is the DM. There's no comparison.

Explain to me like I'm a 4th grader if I'm missing something other than "MMOs suck when they do it". Something concrete that is not just handled by the DM and the group at a table by table basis.

4th grade language incoming.

You own a game company. You make games that people like and give you money for.

You also make doo-dads to go along with your game that people also give you money for.

The doo-dads take 1 hour to make and sell for $10. The games take 24 hours to make and sell for $50

Your boss tells you to make more money with your 8 hour day.

Do you...
A Make 8 more doo-dads for a game you already have.
B Make 1/3 of a new game.

SEE: Rockstar and how it has ridden the coattails of GTA Online for 10 years in lieu of actually making expansions for GTA 5, releasing a new game using it's engine (Vice City/San Andreas), or even having a GTA 6.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes it would be different. Microtransactions(paying money for a single magic item or skin) are different from macrotransactions(buying a non-core book).

I like the way dndbeyond does it. If you buy enough little things, you get the book. So it just offers an additional choice.

 

[Staffan]

It's difficult to have a meaningful debate against concepts like "all of them" and "it's pretty rare" without any concrete examples. I run four companies, and none of them overcharges customers or underpays workers. The notion that someone should be paid "as much the value their labor is producing" isn't valid. How is that value determined? Price? So a worker should be paid the full price of what they produce? How would the company cover its overheads if the full price of its products goes to direct payroll? How would it attract investment dollars when it's guaranteed to be not profitable? Your arguments seem to suggest a lack of understanding of the financial realities of running a company.

Yes. Capitalism is inherently based on exploiting the surplus value created by labor. This is what we call "profit".

Some amount of profit is reasonable, like a percentage point or two over what you'd get from a savings account. But when you try to maximize profit, you will by necessity do so by trying to squeeze more value out of labor without commensurate increase in compensation.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes. Capitalism is inherently based on exploiting the surplus value created by labor. This is what we call "profit".

Some amount of profit is reasonable, like a percentage point or two over what you'd get from a savings account. But when you try to maximize profit, you will by necessity do so by trying to squeeze more value out of labor without commensurate increase in compensation.

Except, when you plan to invest it in new technology or in things for only a few people.
So the 1% more you get from many might keep the D&D, just the RPG alive and healthy, even if only a few people still do it the old way.
After all, it takes huge investments sometimes and it might create a big loss sometimes.

Would you rather have TSR times back, that did not create any profit at all?

Edit: I agree with you depending on what you mean by "maximize".
If you mean "maximize short term profit" then yes. It will ultimately drove people away.
If you mean "sustainable profit", then no, because this deends on continuous goodwill, which you can lose if you overplay your hand.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We aren't talking about Hasbro's intention to make money but if the strategy is right. Maybe this or that product is good, but not wanted by the most of consumers, or it is too expensive for a lot of players. Hasbro wants to bet for the variety, to offer different type of products linked with the brand, for example toys bought by adults as gifts for the little children of the family.

Hasbro could be dreaming the action-live movie to cause the start of a "D&D-Mania", like Star Wars, "Jurasic Park" and the first Tim Burton's Batman, but nobody can safe this to happen. They shouldn't risk too much.

They have to understand where were the mistakes of the failed project from the past. Maybe the cartoon movie of Dragonlance was too violent, or only ninty minutes weren't enough to tell a lot of things from the books.

Hasbro should get ready for a plan B if the genre of fantasy start to be too "burnt and wasted" and then the fandom start to search other things. WotC shouldn't put all the eggs in only one or two baskets.

If D&D becomes too popular, then other megacoporation could try to acquire Paizo or other 3PP searching the potential value of the IPs.

This is not only about how much the players want to spend, but how much the players can spend. Even the best products can't be sold so good in the years of economic crisis.

 

[Steel_Wind]

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

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

that is pure speculation

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

Unreal 5 is a game engine - it is not a 3d file format. Those are two different things.

This is not pure speculation. I ran the main mod team for Neverwinter Nights 1 (DLA) and my team ultimately made the assets for BioWare's DLC for that game. We made the final expansion for that game (Wyvern Crown of Cormyr) under license from Atari and WotC. By that time, we had incorporated as roXidy Games Inc. and went on to work for CD Projekt on the Witcher Games.

So no, this is not the rampant speculation of a unknowledgeable fan. For a time, before the bottom dropped out of the PC Games market in 2008 (that was before Steam, remember?), I did this for a living (alongside practicing law).

Be dismissive about this if you like; however, my post, unlike your response, is based on knowledge and experience in doing exactly what is being discussed here.

 

[Oofta]

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.

Some technical writer, knowing that nobody reads these things, was bored one day as well. Now it almost makes me want to read some of my insurance statements. Almost.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

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.

The movie is just a first step towards a broader D&D cinematic universe that will include many D&D settings, it's just that as the most famous and popular setting, the Forgotten Realms goes first, it's where the DDU starts, but I'd be surprised if Eberron, Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer, etc... don't get their time in the sun.

I think the core setting of One D&D will be the multiverse, not a particular setting, because of them wanting the DDU to be the next MCU.

But I do think in 2024 we will get a Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Book.