WotC Roll For Combat: Hasbro Downgraded. Toys Rotting on the Shelves

[Oofta]

They claim that a Chinese company owns Larian. This is untrue. They don't even own a plurality. They later claim that Tencent would finance Larian buying D&D, but a non-controlling partner fully financing a corporate takeover is rare.

They were not first, which is what "Breaking" a story is.

And you are right. They are not journalists. They do not follow a code of ethics.

The idea is that a company would by the D&D IP for books and video games and leave DDB and the VTT with WOTC. Then, because "Larian knows more about D&D than WOTC does" they could do a better job of maintaining it. At about the 10 minute mark was that "It's not very well known but there's a little thing is that Larian is actually secretly owned ... 30% is owned by Tencent". I heard that wrong the first time, it's easy to miss if you're only sort of paying attention. In addition the way they state it it's like it's a super secret conspiracy not something that anyone could find out since Larian is publicly traded.

This is all obvious because they spent a lot of time and effort developing the game (which, honestly is a pretty amazing commitment) because Tencent is bankrolling them. Which, is kind of how stock in a publicly traded company works, the other 70ish% of stock held by others as an investment also bankrolled the game but that's not how he makes it sound. Listening to the video, it sounds like Tencent is the sole financial support for the company, not just a minority stock holder.

The whole thing is based off of a conversation people would have over beers and then spun into some grand theory of this multibillion dollar conglomerate funding Larian so that they could easily afford to buy parts of D&D backed up by misleading statements. I mean, yes Marvel sold off the rights to some characters, just like TSR sold off the rights to movies to Sweatpea back in the day. Someone could come in to buy the D&D books and video game rights if they wanted, I just don't see any reason it would be Tencent by way of Larian.

 

[MockingBird]

Larian made a great video game. It's my favorite game, beating out Red Dead 2. But that's just it, they made a great video game. There's no track record that they could make and maintain a great TTRPG.

 

[mamba]

I think you're assuming you have that option. What you sell off is what people are interested in and make an offer for.

yes, I do assume that, because so far Hasbro is turning a profit, so they could just not sell anything if they wanted to.

 

[Queer Venger]

I chuckle every time I see these click-bait videos.
D&D survived the naughty word-show that was TSR and it will survive Hasbro.

 

[Queer Venger]

I do wish people would stop re-posting clickbait YouTube videos here. Most of us come here to get away from that garbage.

This. Thank you for saying it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The idea is that a company would by the D&D IP for books and video games and leave DDB and the VTT with WOTC. Then, because "Larian knows more about D&D than WOTC does" they could do a better job of maintaining it. At about the 10 minute mark was that "It's not very well known but there's a little thing is that Larian is actually secretly owned ... 30% is owned by Tencent". I heard that wrong the first time, it's easy to miss if you're only sort of paying attention. In addition the way they state it it's like it's a super secret conspiracy not something that anyone could find out since Larian is publicly traded.

This is all obvious because they spent a lot of time and effort developing the game (which, honestly is a pretty amazing commitment) because Tencent is bankrolling them. Which, is kind of how stock in a publicly traded company works, the other 70ish% of stock held by others as an investment also bankrolled the game but that's not how he makes it sound. Listening to the video, it sounds like Tencent is the sole financial support for the company, not just a minority stock holder.

The whole thing is based off of a conversation people would have over beers and then spun into some grand theory of this multibillion dollar conglomerate funding Larian so that they could easily afford to buy parts of D&D backed up by misleading statements. I mean, yes Marvel sold off the rights to some characters, just like TSR sold off the rights to movies to Sweatpea back in the day. Someone could come in to buy the D&D books and video game rights if they wanted, I just don't see any reason it would be Tencent by way of Larian.

Dude, so it's like, super-secret that Tencent owns Ubisoft.* And even super-secreter than Tencent owns Reddit.** So like, it's totally possible that Tencent is going to buy D&D, cross it up with Assassin's Creed, and make it possible to play only as a Reddit thread, but in China!

Here's my Youtube video- D&D to only have Assassins, and ONLY IN CHINA???

I mean, it's totes plausible, right?



*10%
**5%

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Anyway, I am reminded of a good friend of mine in the past ... anytime he would get a couple of drinks in him, he would start a rant about how the Death Star in Return of the Jedi wasn't a new Death Star, but was the "old Death Star" (from ANH) that they were rebuilding.

It was pretty funny, if a little infuriating ... of course, now he would have a Youtube channel, I am sure.

 

[billd91]

What you sell off is what people are interested in and make an offer for. Marvel sold off X-Men, Spiderman, and Fantastic Four. Characters that they'd "never sell" but that was what they had offers for. I don't think there was much interest in Rocket Raccoon.

Let's unpack that a little bit. Marvel didn't sell off X-Men, Spiderman, or Fantastic Four - they've always still owned the characters (and I doubt there's a realistic offer that could induce them to fully sell them off short of extremely desperate circumstances for Marvel). They sold the film rights because they wanted to make money off the films but, at the time, didn't have their own film-making studio or infrastructure. If they had Marvel Studios or were in a position to start it up like they were several years later, they wouldn't have sold the film rights to those characters at all.
Of course, the fact that there were successful movies out there of some of those characters by other studios probably enabled them to make the case for making their own movies...

 

[MockingBird]

Anyway, I am reminded of a good friend of mine in the past ... anytime he would get a couple of drinks in him, he would start a rant about how the Death Star in Return of the Jedi wasn't a new Death Star, but was the "old Death Star" (from ANH) that they were rebuilding.

It was pretty funny, if a little infuriating ... of course, now he would have a Youtube channel, I am sure.

Wait...so it wasn't being rebuilt?

 

[Nikosandros]

Wait...so it wasn't being rebuilt?

There's going to be an animated mini-series about a team of Imperial space garbage collectors that picked up the debris from the Death Star in order to rebuild it.