D&D General Official D&D In Decline. Source Hasbro.

[mamba]

The writeoff is the difference between the imagined money and the real money. That doesn't mean it was a bad investment. It could be bad, but it could also have been a good investment, just not quite as good as hoped.

I don’t know, there is an imagined part here, namely the value of the parts Hasbro kept, the other two are actual money however.

Unless you think Hasbro is so bad at estimating the value of their properties that this can account for the $1.3B writeoff (i.e. the properties are at least that much more valuable than WotC’s supposed best estimate believes they are, or they had such unrealistic expectations before and are now more realistic about it), then this is an actual loss, at least for the most part. If I lose over $1B between buying and selling a company, I’d consider that a bad investment. That still gives you plenty of imaginary wiggle room for the parts they kept.

Just like you said, there is still an imaginary piece to this, I’d expect Hasbro to write off as little as they can afford to (ie following accounting standards), so there even might be another writeoff in the future. The imaginary part of this can still go in either direction…

 

[Dausuul]

that is licensing fees, just like plush Themberchauds. It is not making a difference to D&D books sales, print or digital.

It is income to Hasbro which directly derives from their ownership of Dungeons & Dragons. As such, it is important to the financial health of D&D, just as the novel lines were back in the day. (The movie should also count, positive or negative.)

If you're interested in the health of the D&D community rather than the corporate brand, sales of any kind are a tricky metric, and you definitely don't want to dump adventures and PHBs into the same bucket. Adventures tell us something about how many people are actively playing. PHBs tell us something about new player recruitment. And in both cases, we have to watch for shifts in a bunch of ratios: What percentage of adventure books are bought to be played instead of merely read? What percentage of groups are using official published adventures vs. homebrew or third party? How many people are using physical books instead of D&D Beyond? Has the number of players per gaming group changed? And, of course, are there external factors influencing short-term purchasing choices, like a recession, a pandemic, or a new edition on the way?

 

[bedir than]

Movie wasn't a bump it was a 50 million write off.

Not for Hasbro. They took an impairment, that wasn't the amount. It was only 25 million for Hasbro. It is almost certain that no other 25 mill marketing spend could have pushed D&D as high in search, social and Amazon purchases, plus other licensed goods.
It wasn't a box office success. There are plenty of reasons to think that it was a good spend (see also Paramount buying the Thuber project, Paramount first looking Daley+Goldstein, Hasbro picking up the documentary, Netflix considering optioning BG3, the Kolstad script)

Additionally, Cocks said 2025 is going to have a significant increase in branded Hasbro entertainment. 2024 has nearly zero plans for branded movies/TV (some small cartoons).

Hasbro doesn't seem to think so:

View attachment 346043

If BG3 fees were part of it, that alone could easily explain that

@mamba & @Alzrius they state that the WotC decline is specifically because they won't be able to compare the massive two quarter bump from BG3. But, that was a 90 million bump or so for the two quarters. There was also a huge WotC bump for the Lord of the Rings magic sets, which don't have a comp next year.

Despite those two bumps in revenue, they only expect to be down 3-5%, which is much less than what those two bumps were. So they are expecting the product that is being released to sell better than the direct comps of 2023.

We are planning for growth within D&D with the upcoming update of the Fifth Edition and the continued expansion of D&D Beyond.

Full year growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS & TRANSFORMERS

D&D the Brand is stronger than ever. There was a single quarter drop in D&D tabletop.

Growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING tabletop revenues offset by declines in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ahead of 5th edition release

 

[Alzrius]

@mamba & @Alzrius they state that the WotC decline is specifically because they won't be able to compare the massive two quarter bump from BG3. But, that was a 90 million bump or so for the two quarters.

So in other words, the expected bump from the new edition (or whatever we're calling D&D 5E 2024) won't be as big as the BG3 revenue from last year. And with no new video game on the horizon for the end of this year or anytime next year (that I'm aware of), then once the bump from the new edition wears off, revenue seems likely to continue to decrease.

D&D the Brand is stronger than ever. There was a single quarter drop in D&D tabletop.

The brand is, arguably. The game is much more questionable.

 

[Meech17]

WotC and Digital Gaming
- Revenue increase of 10% driven by increase in Licensed Digital Gaming revenue behind Baldur's Gate III from Larian Studios and Monopoly Go!

- Tabletop revenue increased 1% behind growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING with a strong performance from the Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth

This part scares me a little bit. If the LoTR Magic set was a big key stone point for the brand they may try and repeat that success, as any company would..

As someone who plays MTG, I really liked the LoTR set. I know a lot of people I play with really enjoyed it as well, including some of my friends who don't particularly care for LoTR. It was a really fun, and flavorful set.

I don't think that's why it sold so well though. I'm sure people talked about it on here, but this was the set that feature the serialize, 1 of 1 card. The one that Post Malone purchased for like $2Mil. This drove people insane! I knew of people who had never touched a Magic card in their life asking me if they should buy a pack. The live streamer XQC (The kind of guy who I assume would be the target audience for videos like these) publically spent several thousands of dollars (Like $7k I think?) to try and crack this card.

This set didn't sell because it was good.. It sold because it held a lottery ticket.

What is WoTC going to do to try and repeat this success?

 

[mamba]

in other words, the expected bump from the new edition (or whatever we're calling D&D 5E 2024) won't be as big as the BG3 revenue from last year.

yes, or spill into 2025 given how late the books are being released (with the MM even coming in 2025)

And with no new video game on the horizon for the end of this year or anytime next year (that I'm aware of), then once the bump from the new edition wears off, revenue seems likely to continue to decrease.

the question being how soon it wears off and how drastically. They had a good run with 5e, if 2024 can extend that another 6 or 7 years (not maintaining the growth, just not dropping off like the previous editions did), they are in good shape. Maybe they can even grow a little still, but I assume we are past the strong growth years with 30% rates for good.

The brand is, arguably. The game is much more questionable.

the game is much harder to answer too… so far the best I can see is a slight dip, and that is not really unexpected with the new core books coming ‘soon’

The real question will be how the VTT fares

 

[Parmandur]

that is licensing fees, just like plush Themberchauds. It is not making a difference to D&D books sales, print or digital.

As stated, tabletop was flat, that is D&D to me, and I am pretty sure also what the poster I replied to was asking about…

If you want to lump in everything D&D adjacent, that just distorts the picture and WotC doesn’t do it consistently either, the movie brought down the entertainment side, not WotC

WotC cares about income, more than licensing versus game sales. BG3 is a major blockbuster game, thst shows to them the potential of the brand. That ia how they monetize it.

 

[Parmandur]

I also doubt that D&D tabletop grew by 50% or so, so no idea what they are referring to there, don’t think that can all be BG3 fees either, but maybe it can?

I've seen estimates thar BG3 grossed nleth of a billion dollars, so WotC lice sing fees legitimately can be that.

 

[Parmandur]

no, I absolutely would not expect a corresponding increase in sales. 50% increase in searches maybe gets you a 5% increase in sales, if that.

But the increase in online activity was about 1000%, a full ten-fold.

And frankly I think it did boost sales: the core rule books are still selling like gangbusters on Amazon, and in other stores per the Bookscan data. Unprecedented for ten years old RPG books, and I doubt Hobor Among Thieves didn't help (BG3 helped more).

 

[mamba]

WotC cares about income, more than licensing versus game sales. BG3 is a major blockbuster game, thst shows to them the potential of the brand. That ia how they monetize it.

agreed, but if someone wonders how D&D is doing, I assume they mean the game, not the brand, esp. on this forum