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.

 

[Sircole]

I don't see this as anything in danger of actually happening. Entertaining the actual thought for a moment ...

This is basically no better than his "I'm making an AI video game company" thing. It basically means nothing.

He's not a gamedev and wouldn't spend any time on the company so he's mostly meaningless in this context. He would hire someone to run the company in alignment with some kind of philosophy and that person would have some kind of impact. Without knowing who that is, we couldn't even venture a guess if it were good or bad.

So what was the point of everything you wrote?

Also, no one in the world was a game dev... Until they were one. Saying he isn't one is a pointless statement. He was/is a coder who single-handedly coded several projects, at least one of which sold for many millions of dollars, is supposedly a fan of games himself, and supposedly interested in D&D... All suitable starting points leading to game dev.

And one of the longest running / biggest complaints about him by those working underneath him is that he's too hands-on. He micromanages and gets too involved. So your statement saying that he would just appoint someone to run it is also not really representative of what he's done in the past.

The man might be socially and morally inept, but he is very well technically versed in the areas that he chooses to involve himself. He would likely be very much involved if he were to acquire Hasbro.

And financially speaking, their debt makes it more likely, not less likely. Hell, people can try and pretend like he is not technically not knowledgeable in all these technologies he gets involved with, but if anyone out there anywhere tries to argue that he is bad at raising funds for acquisitions/projects, they are clearly talking out their ass, as that is where he excels most. So, anyone saying its not possible or likely clearly don't know what they're talking about in the slightest.

 

[jayoungr]

They have stated in investor calls thst there was no longterm impact in sales or accounts being added to Beyond...which means there were no longterm PR effects.

Key word there is "longterm." They patched things up so that they bounced back from the effects of the OGL fiasco. That doesn't mean they weren't concerned when they were in the middle of the fiasco and accounts were being cancelled so fast that it overloaded their server.

(Also, they are naturally going to put the most positive possible spin on events when talking to investors.)

 

[Parmandur]

Key word there is "longterm." They patched things up so that they bounced back from the effects of the OGL fiasco. That doesn't mean they weren't concerned when they were in the middle of the fiasco and accounts were being cancelled so fast that it overloaded their server.

(Also, they are naturally going to put the most positive possible spin on events when talking to investors.)

Positive, but they cannot lie about financial numbers. And what they said was that there was no slowdown in growth afterwards: longterm, it has had no impact on the bottom line.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

If Musk gets ownership of D&D, I wager he will deep six the OGL and find a way to remove it from the CC. He will probably argue that it was illegal to put it there in the first place and with enough lawyers and venue shopping, he'll find a judge who will let him void the contract and remove the game from CC. (He will do irreparable harm to the CC while he's at it, but that's collateral damage).

He could also sue any company who made a game derived from the OGL or CC SRD. He could also go after games that no longer use either, but still originally was based on it (like M&M or Pathfinder). He doesn't even need to win, he just needs to file motion after motion to keep them in court and bleed them out for the cost of fighting in court for years. Could Paizo or Kobold fight Musk for years in court battles? They are small private companies. Again, it won't even be if he is right or not, just if he can bankrupt them in lawfare.

Musk is a big supporter of proprietary technology. He is absolutely not going to allow companies to ride off the work he just purchased. He will make sure there are no D&D like RPGs to complete with. I don't know if OGL, ORC, or CC can survive a protracted legal battle if Musk wants it. He's already considering if Bluesky hews too close to Twitter's format that he can sue for infringement. He doesn't even need to win, just outlive his smaller competition.

And he's petty enough to try it.

Yeah this is what scares me about the US legal system. He can just throw lawsuit after lawsuit at small competition, and they just can't afford to fight it.

Whoever is richer wins.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah this is what scares me about the US legal system. He can just throw lawsuit after lawsuit at small competition, and they just can't afford to fight it.

Whoever is richer wins.

Yeah, which is why people who don't support WotC and think they can sit back and laugh at this while playing any D&D clone system should take this seriously. He doesn't need to take out everyone, just whittling down a few of the big fish in this small pond will chill everyone else.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Yeah, which is why people who don't support WotC and think they can sit back and laugh at this while playing any D&D clone system should take this seriously. He doesn't need to take out everyone, just whittling down a few of the big fish in this small pond will chill everyone else.

Are any of the DnD-alike companies based outside the US? As that would make them a lot less vulnerable?

I get the feeling they're all US based though.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Are any of the DnD-alike companies based outside the US? As that would make them a lot less vulnerable?

I get the feeling they're all US based though.

EnWorld is UK and I think that lawfare is harder in the UK.

 

[Corinnguard]

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

Could become, Tales of the Valiant has competition to become the 'new Pathfinder'.

 

[mamba]

The man might be socially and morally inept, but he is very well technically versed in the areas that he chooses to involve himself.

being involved is not the same as being knowledgeable, try telling Musk he should let you work on this without interfering because he does not know anything about the topic while working for the guy...

 

[Remathilis]

EnWorld is UK and I think that lawfare is harder in the UK.

There is a timeline where the RPG market is saved because Morrus decided 5e wasn't crunchy enough...