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

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.

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.

 

[Parmandur]

That's absolutely stupid. Why not go all the way with the stupidity and compare it to the Holocaust? That's how stupid he's being. Rob needs to get over himself.

It's such an absolutely bizarre historical comparison to make.

 

[Azzy]

According to payroll.org, 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And yet, we're in a world where techbro buys a banana for $6 million and another techbro could seriously drop $8 billion on a whim to buy a major corporation.

The French had it right.

 

[Corinnguard]

So far none of the 5e-alike games have managed to gain much traction, as 5e still exists and currently dominates the market.

True. However, if Musk were to acquire Hasbro and through it WoTC, which of the 5e-adjacent games could see a big spike in players?

 

[Remathilis]

That's absolutely stupid. Why not go all the way with the stupidity and compare it to the Holocaust? That's how stupid he's being. Rob needs to get over himself.

The more I hear from the Old Guard at TSR, the more I realize why Gary thought he could get away with what he did.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The more I hear from the Old Guard at TSR, the more I realize why Gary thought he could get away with what he did.

A whole lot of the old guard are progressive folks. Most of them are in fact. I think Gary thought he could get away with what he did not because those beliefs were reinforced by others working for him, but because he was in charge and didn't really care what others thought. Gary's way or the highway. It wasn't until the infamous Sheridan Springs "ambush" that Gary realized he wasn't in charge and couldn't do whatever he wanted. That's why it's called "ambush".

For example, I mentioned in the other thread maybe that when Roger E Moore was hired in 1983 as Dragon Editor, he responded to the complaints about sexism in the game with honest thought and promise to do better. Pretty sure any concerns Roger may have brought to Gary about that would have been met with combativeness and dismissiveness. So even if/when the old guard would bring these up, we didn't see changes because no one told Gary he was wrong about anything, based on all the stories we've all heard about how it went down when those things happened.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

True. However, if Musk were to acquire Hasbro and through it WoTC, which of the 5e-adjacent games could see a big spike in players?

I wonder which would get most of the market in a 'post-DnD' world? Level up A5e and Tales of the Valiant both resemble 5e a lot more. Pathfinder 2e is pretty large, but as it's so crunchy it puts off many casual players. And then Daggerheart is also trying to become one of the larger systems, seemingly catering to the same crowd.

Or would a 'Pathfinder' happen again, where a brand new system appears from nowhere and quickly leaps in popularity.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

This is truth. I work for a major corporation. Just last week on a call discussing impending layoffs, I said, "This seems like a very poor idea, especially when the incoming administration has said they want to cut H1-B visas (half of our technology business group is here on an H1-B visa--hundreds of people). What's going to happen if you layoff 15% of the people and then lose 50%?"

The answer? "I didn't think of that. I don't think senior leadership has as well."

And when I said, "We laid off people to save $100,000 in salary costs which led to the project going $1 million over budget because we lost that expertise and no one could do the work as efficient or in the same time frame. How does that make sense?"

The answer? "Honestly, there are senior managers who won't give that information to the board."

So yeah, you're on it. I've long said that corporate leadership only cares about short term cost custs because they will leave and get a golden parachute anyway, so long term planning doesn't get considered. It's maddening.

The entire system is completely broken, it's what happens when you let wall street/bay street unfettered control of almost everything in the economy.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

That's absolutely stupid. Why not go all the way with the stupidity and compare it to the Holocaust? That's how stupid he's being. Rob needs to get over himself.

You argue that with him, I just shared the news of the Last Great One lashing out on Tondo.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Musk is going to look at the whole "D&D is under monetized" thing and put it on steroids. AI powered D&D Beyond tools? Rules sold only online and frequently updated? NFT Magic cards? Character sheets on the block chain? You laugh, but have you ever seen what Tesla has done to car design? You can't unlock the car without an app and a subscription!

He won't care about if the game plays any good, he will care if you are playing for the subscription to access the rules and tools needed to play.

This is alot of baseless assumptions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

True. However, if Musk were to acquire Hasbro and through it WoTC, which of the 5e-adjacent games could see a big spike in players?

Do we get to vote?