D&D General Elon Musk Wants To Know 'How Much Is Hasbro?'

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Following the richest man in the world's attack on Wizards of the Coast for two paragraphs in the 500-page celebration of D&D, The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977, Elon Musk--who bought Twitter not that long ago--wants to know how much D&D's owner Hasbro would cost.

After the public sharing on Twitter of Jason Tondro's (who wrote the book’s foreword) private Facebook posts, Musk replied "How much is Hasbro?"

Hasbro's estimated capitalization is currently $8.71 billion, with $3.95 billion of debt.

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It was on 21st December 2017 when Musk similarly enquired "How much is it?" before proceeding to make a bid for Twitter. He later tried to back out of the deal, but was forced to buy the platform for $44 billion in June 2022. Current estimates by investment firm Fidelity put the platform at a value 80% less than when he bought it, with a worth of only about $9.4 billion.

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Following the richest man in the world's attack on Wizards of the Coast for two paragraphs in the 500-page celebration of Dungeons & Dragons, Elon Musk--who bought Twitter not that long ago--wants to know how much D&D's owner Hasbro would cost.

After the public sharing on Twitter of Jason Tondro's (who wrote the book’s foreword) private Facebook posts, Musk replied "How much is Hasbro?"

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I think he was joking, but this far-fetched scenario is probably the sole chance I will ever care about anything with the label Dungeons & Dragons on it again. In the meantime, I'll stick with the classics.
 

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Apparently Amazon slashed the price on the book that set Elon off by 50% after he made his buying Hasbro comment. Don't know it's to try boost sales using the attention it's got or they just think it's value drop hard and want to get rid of it I can't say.
 


Apparently Amazon slashed the price on the book that set Elon off by 50% after he made his buying Hasbro comment. Don't know it's to try boost sales using the attention it's got or they just think it's value drop hard and want to get rid of it I can't say.
This is a really unhelpful, conspiracy-tinged misrepresentation of the facts, and I'd ask why you would post something like this?

It's not either of those, and trivially easy to prove it's not:

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I know you know what Black Friday is, and what a Black Friday Deal is. So I would politely request that you check facts before spreading potential misinformation in future. Are you not US-based?
 

I know I cringe having to seen his face whenever I open ENworld, and I hate to see the website desperatelly chase clicks with putting news about him, as if he's not an abusive monster acussed of sexual assault. It's gross to put him in the spotlight and we should strive to better quality of conduct. Elon Musk talking crap on twitter is not rpg news, it's him begging for nerd creed.
The Man came into our house and threatened it. It's at least worth discussing the possibility of the damage that would do. Do I think he will? No, but I'm not 100% certain. And more importantly, he's putting new eyes on a hobby that has fought long and hard for respectability and trying to drag all gaming down to the cesspool of Gamergate style reaction politics by knuckle-dragging cretins will reverse a lot of gains made in the last decade.

I think it's fine to discuss threats to the community. If nothing else, I've been filling up block lists on all my SM full of Elon supporters. Anyone who supports that man has no opinions worth listening to or valuing.
 

So... Just for the sake of argument: Let's say Musk -does- by Hasbro. What is the worst case scenario?

1) A bunch of toy lines either get changed dramatically or more likely the quality/variety drops like a rock as he looks for every corner to cut. Transformers and GI Joe get a new focus on a smaller group of central characters to save money who get more options for them but less global variety. Probably the characters from the 80s Transformers movie because of his personal nostalgia. My Little Pony, Princess Guinivere and the Jewel Riders, and other lines made for girls either get cut entirely or reworked drastically to try and attract little boys, -too-, to increase engagement. Musk's personal Transformers collection skyrockets in value because they're no longer being made.

2) Hasbro's Board Games (Yahtzee, Scrabble, Monopoly, Etc) are either sold off piecemeal to other companies for the value of their trademarks -or- get a massive "Online-Only" push as videogames and the like. If something can't be sold off due to contracts, expect it to be dropped in production as Musk throws a tantrum and starts judge-shopping for someone to nullify that contract. (This happens in the toy lines, too, if we're honest, but in board games it happens much more often)

3) Magic: The Gathering suddenly gets a boatload of cross-promotions. We're talking Mishra in Fortnite, 80s Cartoon D&D deck promos, movie tie-in cards, etc. AI Art? Every card. Hell, half the game will be AI generated abilities, too. "Grok, read all the rules for Magic: The Gathering and provide me with 10 new card abilities that are not currently in the rules."

4) Dungeons and Dragons. AI Art everywhere. AI Writing everywhere. Musk slashes the staff drastically in order to try and get more money out of it. Expect tons of crossovers and fanwank material as the settings dwindle and vanish. But a ton of racism, sexism, and other bigotry? Will flow out on his Twitter Posts, not from the core rules (Unless the AI Writing happens to be bigoted). The most he'd do is a kibosh on "Wokeness" for the writers who survive the purge.

Mostly that means not adding more content with LGBT characters or specifically making space for them or ethnic minorities. No more tacos appearing in Heroes Feast, no more Abigail Thorn in Baldur's Gate 4. Not specifically adding strength penalties to women and getting rid of black characters. (Though the AI Art will probably default white a -lot-.)

But hiring Lanasa to put him in charge? Musk is a fool convinced of his own genius, but he's still a greedy piece of excrement. He still wants to make money. If anyone gets put into a position of authority over D&D by Musk it's going to be someone who with ruthlessly "Trim the Fat" and work people to death in order to make Musk's bottom line look fatter.

Not someone with an ideological axe to grind and 0 experience being more than an online nuisance.

Expect fewer products with more AI and the most milquetoast fantasy available being presented as avant garde or special because of the double Ds on the cover.

But the vast majority of people just won't give a damn, buy it anyway, ignore half the rules, and keep playing D&D exactly the same way they have for the past 50 years. You'll get a bunch of Muskrats screaming and hooting and hollering on Twitter that it's the best version of D&D there's ever been, but most people will ignore them because it's just more D&D24.

Because unlike your Twitter feed, Musk can't put Nazis at your game table.
 

But hiring Lanasa to put him in charge? Musk is a fool convinced of his own genius, but he's still a greedy piece of excrement. He still wants to make money. If anyone gets put into a position of authority over D&D by Musk it's going to be someone who with ruthlessly "Trim the Fat" and work people to death in order to make Musk's bottom line look fatter.

Not someone with an ideological axe to grind and 0 experience being more than an online nuisance.
Respectfully, I think you're stuck on an idea of Elon Musk from like, ten years ago, before the brainrot got him.

He himself has run Twitter as a person who has an ideological axe to grind and 0 experience being more than an online nuisance. He's cut things, sure, but in irrational and incompetent ways that have caused direct damage to Twitter's success, and haven't managed to make it profitable. You suggest he thinks the bottom line is everything, but the way he has run Twitter shows it isn't to him. Not anymore.

Thinking he's going to hire someone competent and non-ideological to run WotC if he bought is a laugh, frankly. The Musk of a decade ago might well have done that. The Musk of now? We'd be lucky if it wasn't Joe Rogan or someone lol.
 


The only reason Elon would ask his hate speech buddies what the price of D&D’s owning company is is if he was cooking his brain on psychedelics on no sleep again, and wants to stir (s**t) with his fawning stooges.

He knows how to use Google and can figure out the cost of something… I think?
 


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