RPG Evolution: The Dragons Come Home to Roost

D&D has long striven to be more than a game, but a brand. Thanks to the game's surge in popularity, those plans are coming to fruition.

Hasbro’s Strategy​

Hasbro’s association with the movie industry has long been a mutually beneficial relationship, in which toy sales surge with each new movie. Star Wars and Transformers are both examples of how Hasbro’s bottom line is impacted by the release of the latest film. Unfortunately, this strategy means Hasbro is reliant on third party schedules to produce revenue, and the pandemic highlighted just how much can go wrong with the complicated process of releasing a movie. No wonder the company wants its own intellectual property that it can monetize for movies and streaming.

This is why Hasbro's strategy has moved well beyond just producing toys and games. Hasbro divides their new approach into four quadrants: Toys & Games, Digital Gaming, Licensed Consumer Products, and Media (TV, Film, Digital Shorts, Emerging Media). Hasbro previously announced plans to execute on this four quadrant strategy with all of its licenses, including My Little Pony, Transformers, Magic: The Gathering, and Dungeons & Dragons. Some of those Media plans have been easier to execute than others, with Transformer movies running out of steam, the My Little Pony series winding down, and a Magic: The Gathering series yet to launch on streaming. That leaves D&D.

WOTC’s Strategy​

Wizards of the Coast has always struggled to justify its revenue goals for Dungeons & Dragons amidst high revenue brands like Magic: The Gathering. At one point, each division was given a goal of $100 million in annual sales, a number that was not reachable through tabletop gaming channels.

The solution was digital gaming. D&D tried several times to mimic the Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) space, which it inadvertently spawned dating all the way back to Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) and Interactive Fiction (IF). The idea was that if the company could own a slice of that digital engagement dedicated to off-brand D&D, they could reach at least $50 million.

It didn’t work. WOTC never had enough resources, the right partners, or the technical know-how to effectively launch a digital ecosystem that would last longer than a few years. Then something surprising happened: D&D became more popular than all the other Hasbro brands combined.

The Dragons Take Over​

The passing of the previous Hasbro CEO created a power vacuum quickly filled by the staff shepherding D&D into the new age. The twin factors of the pandemic and streaming made D&D uniquely suited to a much wider audience, and it didn’t take long before WOTC was responsible for 72% of Hasbro’s total operating profit. In a very short period of time, WOTC went from a barely-mentioned division on Hasbro investor calls to the darling of the company, with CEO Chris Cocks taking the reins as Hasbro’s CEO in February 2022.

So what’s next? Sure enough, WOTC is executing on Hasbro's four quadrant plan for D&D. Let’s break it down:

• Media: The juggernaut most likely to influence the other three quadrants is the upcoming D&D movie. There have been many attempts at making D&D movies that have all been commercial failures. This time around feels different, if only because there was a legal battle waged through proxies on behalf of movie-making behemoths (Universal Studios vs. Warner Bros.) for D&D’s film rights. It’s clear they think there’s a lot of money to be made with a D&D movie. Unlike other movie launches, Hasbro is supporting the movie with the full force of its license. For an example of what this might look like, see the above picture of the D&D Advent Calendar. Speaking of which...
• Licensed Consumer Products: Advent calendars are interesting products because they can contain just about anything, but that thing has to be small. They also require a lot of creativity to produce, as 25 different items is a lot to put into one package. If the D&D advent calendar is any indication, we’re going to see a lot more of beholders, displacer beasts, mimics, owlbears, and gelatinous cubes. There are stylized, iconic images of each monster repeated across everything that’s in the calendar, including stickers, gift tags, pencils, and ornaments.
• Toys & Games: D&D is a game first and foremost, so the release of the next edition (an edition that requires playtesting but holds out the promise for backwards compatibility) is the obvious prime mover in this space. In addition to the aforementioned licenses, D&D toys are starting to show up in the wild. Egg Embry wrote an overview of just some of the D&D action figures available. We can expect a slew of monster toys too.
• Digital Gaming: The big news here is One D&D, which uses D&D Beyond as its base. With 13 million registered users, WOTC is banking on D&D Beyond as a base for propagating One D&D to the masses. For better or worse, this includes changes to the OGL with the likely plan to defragment any digital content that currently resides on third-party platforms. There has been several failed attempts at establishing a digital home base for D&D, so it’s really important they get this right.

Cocks has never hidden his digital ambitions for D&D, and now with the company’s full resources at his disposal, we’re about to see a four quadrant D&D plan in action. Hasbro and WOTC are all in on this plan, with the future edition of D&D, the D&D movie, and its reinvigorated digital platform all unified in an attempt to make D&D not just a game, but a brand expression.

Will it work? Perhaps the more relevant question for current D&D fans is ... what if it does?

 

[payn]

Whether it works or not won’t really effect me. I’m knee deep in a pile of TTRPGs at the moment but I’ll always have a passing interest in D&D. I’m mostly hoping success will float all boats so more gamers are available for all games.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Like many others, i am tired of the "new" version that is "compatible" with the "new" version so they can repackage the books in a slightly better or worse version of the game. The 5e was the last straw for me, and with the new generation of players who i have tried to DM, i have no interest in bending to accommodate their lack of intelligence, mind you a slim portion is not bad, but the bulk of them are. Also, the stuff they are releasing has very few rules or crunch and does little to help me as a DM. Now it is about collectable covers, and dividing the stuff up between many different areas so you can't just buy one book and be done.

Looking down on others is not the path to feeling better about yourself.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I want D&D Music and Artists.

 

[Cergorach]

I've been playing some form of D&D for ~35 years. I collected a LOT of 2e, I think everything 3e, most of 4e (which I thought lacked imagination), and just the PHB from 5E (which I did like)... With all the other RPGs, miniature games books, etc. I've collected over the past 35 years, my book cases are beyond full. The amount of digital RPG books I've collected (legally) is also quite extensive, especially the recent past has been fruitful of Bundles (Humble & Holding), plus some Kickstarters.

During the 4E era I bought D&D books out of some sort of 'obligation' or maybe collectors addiction. I've had some interest in the settings WotC has visited during 5E, but most of those books either go a direction I don't like or are whitewashed to such a degree that it feels Beyond Bland... I might still get the 5E DMG/MM, maybe the same for D&D One (but I doubt it). I do NOT like the new OGL (and I was already not that happy with what they did with 4e/5e OGL/SRD). I recently did buy some (not so) miniatures (D&D), the BIG Tiamat (and a couple of smaller versions) and the Dracoliches, very nice!

I do not like D&Ds current Blandness by trying to cater to everyone, but you can't please everyone. The heavy commercialization of D&D also doesn't sit well with me and I suspect that WotC/Hasbro will create a similar hellscape that Magic: The Gathering is currently in...

Now, what I'm saying is that I'm not averse to spending a LOT on D&D (now and in the past). But see very little benefit in me spending much more on the actual D&D RPG books. And making stuff for it with the OGL changes I can't ever see happening, why not do a couple of steps back, a pretty open OGL/SRD to build on, and move on from there... Heck, a lot of 3rd party publishers have been generating better stuff then WotC has been producing for a decade (or two)...

I'm old (46) and maybe that is the issue? But there are a ton of different current media that I do like. Movies, TV shows, books, computer games, board/card games, etc. But maybe I have an issue with IPs that become a 'brand' that needs to milked into oblivion, and I see that not just being a problem in RPGs... I see that especially with older RPGs (often already have had many editions), like the recent versions of Shadowrun I also don't like, Pathfinder 2E I look at with "Meh!(tm)" eyes, the new World of Darkness RPGs (Vampire, Werewolf, etc.) feel like they threw it all in the washer and threw in a couple of bottles of bleach for good measure, the newer RPGs in the 40k universe also feel like 'less' then the previous versions, etc.

I'm curious how the the Balder's Gate 3 game will get reviewed upon release, I might buy it... But mostly I'm now looking at older products for D&D (probably second-hand) instead of the new stuff. And beyond some of the iconic miniatures (like the Draconians), some older board games, maybe some of the old CCG stuff, a couple of artbooks and maybe filling a couple of really old holes in my D&D RPG book collection, I'm not seeing WotC/Hasbro selling me much...

I have enough (D&D) material to last me a lifetime. Not everyone is in that position and I worry for those that will have to enter that D&D subscription blandness hellscape WotC/Hasbro is planning...

 

[MNblockhead]

That is absolutely the question, Michael, spot on.

I think it will probably work, at least in the short-to-medium term. Because I'm 44 and thus ancient, I don't think anything will work in the longer term, I think as cool as D&D might be right now, the pendulum will swing, and maybe kids who are happily playing it with their parents and cousins aged 10 will be like "Lol that dumb game" when they're 18 or 22 or whatever. We certainly saw a bit of that with '80s D&D/AD&D fans after the boom. Whilst some "kept the faith" and still loved D&D, many others saw it as a game they played as kids, and they then grew out of.* One day Matt Mercer is going to 60, y'know, and will the kids still be so keen on his show? Hell all the kids from Stranger Things will be 30 before we know it.

I suspect media oversaturation of D&D will also occur in the next ten years, which contribute to any uncoolness. I do note one smart thing with the D&D movie is that whilst they have some older stars likely to appeal to "grown-ups", most of the leads are in their twenties. You could probably have guaranteed success a little more by using a mostly 30s through 50s cast of bigger stars, but his has a better longer-term profile, maybe it will work out.

But in the short-to-medium term I'm fairly confident WotC can make their "digitalization/lifestyle" strategy will work. I know a huge number of 30s/40s parents who are buying D&D merch, are or want to play D&D with their kids, and so on, and a lot of them have a lot of disposable income. They're also mostly very tech-friendly so using digital tools, especially well-designed ones, is unlikely to be an issue.

My bigger concern if what this does to TTRPGs. If WotC are really successful with this, they may "raise the bar" so high on what people expect from a TTRPG that D&D becomes something entirely different to other TTRPGs, and with little/no transfer audience. Some would argue this is already happening, but I'm not sure I'd go that far myself. But it would benefit WotC (or so WotC think) if it did, because it means you have a captive audience, who have only your brand or "nothing". Of course if D&D is ultra-successful, it may be that another company gets investment to try and challenge that, but we'll see. That would still not be good because all it would be doing would be confirming that you need all this digital bling and so on to compete.


* = I will note that there's a generational issue where "growing out of" stuff is less of a "thing" for Millennials as compared to Gen Xers, but it remains to be seen if younger Gen Z and beyond follow the same pattern.

I'm even more ancient (50), but am more optimistic. It will ebb and wane, as it always has (and as most things do), but I've never felt more optimistic that D&D will be evergreen for generations to come. Perhaps it is because I stepped away from gaming for most of my adult life jumping from 1e to 5e. I think this makes me less jaded than many who have been engaged in the hobby consistently for decades. But TTRPGs have a lot of power to suck you in and D&D is the gateway to that.

I got back into the hobby in 2014, when my youngest son was 5. No he's 13 and has a regular gaming group completely separate from me. I see every indication that they will continue to play through middle and high school and are getting to the age where they are a ripe target for 1DnD, the movie, etc. One other thing I've noticed that is very different from when I played in the 80s is that there a number of parents who play or at least played "back in the day" and there is a lot of support with parents helping organize game days for the kids. There is adult nurturing of the hobby that just didn't exist when I was a kid.

I only see a growing new generation of players and see things going strong for the next 5-10 years. Perhaps as this generation goes to college and enters the workforce, there will be a dip. But there are plenty of folks in their 20s and 30s who picked up the game and are or will soon be having kids. I just do not see the game ebbing back to pre-2014 levels in my lifetime.

As for your concerns about expectations setting too high of a bar. I guess I don't worry about that because my experience is more with the current middle school generation, not the millennials and early gen Zs. I don't think any of the younger kids are watching live play, much less having got into the game via live play. They are pretty much playing it pen and paper. One of the main reasons so many parents are so supportive of their kids getting into TTRPGs is that it gets them away from the computer. So long as kids are still getting into the game in middle and high school and learning from playing with friends, I'm not seeing much a risk of the game getting too far from its roots. WotC is smart enough to continue supporting traditional play and creating ways to help kids ease into the game while also offering other options to older players with more disposable income.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've been playing some form of D&D for ~35 years. I collected a LOT of 2e, I think everything 3e, most of 4e (which I thought lacked imagination), and just the PHB from 5E (which I did like)... With all the other RPGs, miniature games books, etc. I've collected over the past 35 years, my book cases are beyond full. The amount of digital RPG books I've collected (legally) is also quite extensive, especially the recent past has been fruitful of Bundles (Humble & Holding), plus some Kickstarters.

During the 4E era I bought D&D books out of some sort of 'obligation' or maybe collectors addiction. I've had some interest in the settings WotC has visited during 5E, but most of those books either go a direction I don't like or are whitewashed to such a degree that it feels Beyond Bland... I might still get the 5E DMG/MM, maybe the same for D&D One (but I doubt it). I do NOT like the new OGL (and I was already not that happy with what they did with 4e/5e OGL/SRD). I recently did buy some (not so) miniatures (D&D), the BIG Tiamat (and a couple of smaller versions) and the Dracoliches, very nice!

I do not like D&Ds current Blandness by trying to cater to everyone, but you can't please everyone. The heavy commercialization of D&D also doesn't sit well with me and I suspect that WotC/Hasbro will create a similar hellscape that Magic: The Gathering is currently in...

Now, what I'm saying is that I'm not averse to spending a LOT on D&D (now and in the past). But see very little benefit in me spending much more on the actual D&D RPG books. And making stuff for it with the OGL changes I can't ever see happening, why not do a couple of steps back, a pretty open OGL/SRD to build on, and move on from there... Heck, a lot of 3rd party publishers have been generating better stuff then WotC has been producing for a decade (or two)...

I'm old (46) and maybe that is the issue? But there are a ton of different current media that I do like. Movies, TV shows, books, computer games, board/card games, etc. But maybe I have an issue with IPs that become a 'brand' that needs to milked into oblivion, and I see that not just being a problem in RPGs... I see that especially with older RPGs (often already have had many editions), like the recent versions of Shadowrun I also don't like, Pathfinder 2E I look at with "Meh!(tm)" eyes, the new World of Darkness RPGs (Vampire, Werewolf, etc.) feel like they threw it all in the washer and threw in a couple of bottles of bleach for good measure, the newer RPGs in the 40k universe also feel like 'less' then the previous versions, etc.

I'm curious how the the Balder's Gate 3 game will get reviewed upon release, I might buy it... But mostly I'm now looking at older products for D&D (probably second-hand) instead of the new stuff. And beyond some of the iconic miniatures (like the Draconians), some older board games, maybe some of the old CCG stuff, a couple of artbooks and maybe filling a couple of really old holes in my D&D RPG book collection, I'm not seeing WotC/Hasbro selling me much...

I have enough (D&D) material to last me a lifetime. Not everyone is in that position and I worry for those that will have to enter that D&D subscription blandness hellscape WotC/Hasbro is planning...

I deeply regret not having the ability to write a post like this. Thank for expressing my feelings better and more fairly than I ever could.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Ugh. D&D has had such better quality and much more quantity than before it got popular. Miss the good ol' days.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ugh. D&D has had such better quality and much more quantity than before it got popular. Miss the good ol' days.

I think the 5e ruleset is a better base than any previous official version of the game (though it still needs a fair amount of work to get it where I want it), but in other respects I agree.

 

[Dausuul]

Diving headfirst into video games (six game studios at once!) strikes me as exceptional hubris. It's an incredibly crowded market, with gigantic up-front costs, and they're going up against established firms with decades of institutional experience competing in this difficult space.

All this from a company whose track record with digital stuff is abysmal. M:tG Arena has been an exception, but a single success does not a full-fledged game publisher make.

I dunno. I mean, I'm all for boosting the D&D brand. But I'm worried that Hasbro is going to load D&D's balance sheet down with a lot of ill-conceived projects, and only then discover that they've hit the limits of the current expansion.

 

[Stormonu]

Brand, brand, brand, brand. I'm so sick of hearing about the "brand" rather on actually focusing on making a good product that sells itself on its own good will.

It isn't just the advertising that bothers me (people need to know your product exists), its the incessant shoving it down one's throat and trying to sell you every variation of the product that has NOTHING to do with your product actually is.