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.

 

[KYRON45]

Dogs and cats living together!!!!

 

[ezo]

Grog: "D&D was always inclusive"

Googles D&D club in the 80s. 9 out of 10 people in every photo is a white male.

"Inclusive". I don't think that word means what you think it means.--Vizzini

*I started in 1981 and I didn't even meet my first female gamer until 1992, but I try to stay away from anecdotal experience on things like this, because a lot of the grognards making that claim like to say "I had a female in my group, so it was totally inclusive!"

When I first started in the late 70's, we had seven players: my cousins (male was DM, female played), me friend and his older brother and older sister, me, and my older sister. 3 out of the 7 were female, and two of them were the oldest people in the group.

I realize my experience wasn't commonplace. After my cousins moved, the five of us played for a while, but as the older girls got more interested in older boys... they stopped playing. It would be most of a decade before I had a female player in the group again. Luckily, by the early 90's, I've nearly always had at least one female player, often a girlfriend or sibling of a male player.

What I never had much of concerning inclusivity is people of colour. I grew up in a predominantly white region and it wasn't until college I had a player who was non-white. I still live in a region with mostly white people, but in my games here over the last 10 years or so I've had about 20% non-white players--more than before, but not as much as elsewhere.

As far as non-hetero players, college in the mid 90's had my first gay players, and two players in one of the groups I play in are trans. So, that has also slowly expanded over the last decade or so.

Anyway, back to Elon and on topic.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Man, Elon Musk's marketing campaign is in full swing. That is the 3rd or 4th Musk headline this week, if I am counting correctly? But I guess it drives up engagement taking about a controversial figure, and that's what we need in our attention economy.

 

[Mistwell]

I leave for a few weeks and WotC goes to HELL!

I'm glad I invested in Dragonbane, Shadow of the Weird Wizard and Fantasy AGE.

Kobold Press must be happy that they did Tales of the Valiant. It could become the 'new Pathfinder' D&D schism.

literally nothing happened

 

[Morrus]

Thanks random dude in the internet. You've totally debunked me and proven Elon is a bad business man. I can't wait for an IPO from a financial genius like you and stand corrected by your blue line chart

Dial it down, please.

 

[mamba]

He might be a nepo baby, but when business after business of his reaches massive heights, and charts completely new territory, it becomes more then just luck

so far only Tesla did, nothing else. Space X may or may not turn into something thanks to government contracts, The Boring Company is just plain idiotic and Twitter is a business study in what not to do.

 

[The Soloist]

literally nothing happened

Forwarned is forearmed.

 

[mamba]

Sure, but every indication ia that there was no long term impact: it has been nearly two years.

agreed, they switched to CC fast enough to avoid that

 

[Some Dude]

so far only Tesla did, nothing else. Space X may or may not turn into something thanks to government contracts, The Boring Company is just plain idiotic and Twitter is a business study in what not to do.

And the Cybertruck is a complete debacle.

 

[mamba]

I reading this thread, it seems like a lot of people really don't like Elon.

is that a surprise?

If Elon did purchase WotC, I'd say the reaction would be incredible

I doubt it very much

The number one thing WotC could do to not have this sort of issue would be to not talk about how they don't want or need their older customers. Everyone is welcome to play D&D

they are not saying that, and yes everyone can, it’s the ‘older customers’ who do not want to