WotC $HAS Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call + D&D and Chris Cocks on AI usage transcript excerpt (26Feb10)

[Reynard]

I don't think that would stop them, sadly, when owned by a corporation.

I think, based on the history of D&D at WotC/Hasbro, there's a very narrow band of existence between "The execs have Big Ideas for D&D! < shark-like grin >" and "We've decided to vault the respected D&D IP for now until conditions are more favourable". Indeed "Make big money or D&D gets it!" was the stick behind 4E's digital subscription-oriented push.

The flipside is that if you want a D&D that isn't owned by a corporation and doesn't have pop culture appeal there are a lot of D&Ds out there like that!

Hasbro owned D&D for 20 years before they really started to care.

 

[bedir than]

tbf - Cocks is leading Hasbro because he loved D&D and Magic so much that Hasbro demanded he be promoted

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hasbro owned D&D for 20 years before they really started to care.

Definitely incorrect, I'm afraid.

The reason 4E was created (and this has been discussed in interviews etc.) was that Hasbro issued an ultimatum that either D&D would start making $50m revenue per year, or D&D would get vaulted for now.

4E's approach to design, particularly to going heavily-digital and heavily-subscription was very much influenced by the desire to hit this arbitrary revenue goal, set by Hasbro.

Now, 4E did not hit that goal. And 4E got canned because of that. But D&D wasn't vaulted as had been threatened. This is because of the other aspect of corporations - the mid-level and often even upper execs and their goals and pet projects are constantly changing (this applies to WotC themselves as well as Hasbro). Instead of being vaulted, 5E was allowed on the ground that it would take a very different approach, one that would minimize costs and risk to Hasbro, and maximize returns. An approach that actually proved largely successful from 2014 through about 2020-ish when WotC started to be interested in a more maximalist approach.

But certainly it's not 20 years of ignoring D&D, it was 8 at the absolute outside, followed by another what, 5-6 years maybe after 5E came out.

Hasbro/WotC c-suite have had periods of seemingly ignoring D&D, but not continuous ones.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Oh, I did not want to suggest that was likely, or even a state of affairs that (like you say) has ever been true for very long.

I guess the other option would be for it to lose its pop culture appeal and go back to being relatively obscure, so no one in corporate cares enough to mess with creative.

The corporates don’t appear to be messing with creative right now, so the current state seems pretty good.

 

[Reynard]

The corporates don’t appear to be messing with creative right now, so the current state seems pretty good.

I don't know if that is true. Seems like there is definitely some changes happening, and we still don't have any idea what is on the horizon, which could be taken as evidence of schedule shuffling.

 

[Marandahir]

Definitely incorrect, I'm afraid.

The reason 4E was created (and this has been discussed in interviews etc.) was that Hasbro issued an ultimatum that either D&D would start making $50m revenue per year, or D&D would get vaulted for now.

4E's approach to design, particularly to going heavily-digital and heavily-subscription was very much influenced by the desire to hit this arbitrary revenue goal, set by Hasbro.

Now, 4E did not hit that goal. And 4E got canned because of that. But D&D wasn't vaulted as had been threatened. This is because of the other aspect of corporations - the mid-level and often even upper execs and their goals and pet projects are constantly changing (this applies to WotC themselves as well as Hasbro). Instead of being vaulted, 5E was allowed on the ground that it would take a very different approach, one that would minimize costs and risk to Hasbro, and maximize returns. An approach that actually proved largely successful from 2014 through about 2020-ish when WotC started to be interested in a more maximalist approach.

But certainly it's not 20 years of ignoring D&D, it was 8 at the absolute outside, followed by another what, 5-6 years maybe after 5E came out.

Hasbro/WotC c-suite have had periods of seemingly ignoring D&D, but not continuous ones.

Agreed, tho I'd note that 4E was very successful. It just didn't meet the threshhold of success that Hasbro had laid out, and a series of unfortunate events* led to a very troubled roll out of the digital tools (and as we've seen with Sigil, even the CRAZILY more successful 5E wasn't able to prop up the lofty ambitions of the VTT, but roll20 and DDB Maps are quite reasonable, if less ambitious, VTTs).


*not the book series, mind you

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Do you think Hasbro will be interested into acquiring new IPs from other companies? At least because to update and reimagine a forgotten franchise should be easier than starting from zero totally while you try to be enoughly original.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

The corporates don’t appear to be messing with creative right now, so the current state seems pretty good.

I think the fact we still not have any announcments for 2026 is a sign corporate is messing with creative in some way.

 

[TheSword]

I think the fact we still not have any announcments for 2026 is a sign corporate is messing with creative in some way.

Well they are hiring a lot of creatives. So if by ‘messing with’ that’s what you mean. Whether you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on what you think of the designers and there work up to this point.

It’s hard because I’m really enjoying what they have put out in the last two years and can’t see the reason everyone is being so negative. When we start getting rubbish product then I’ll start to get down.

 

[TheSword]

Oh, I did not want to suggest that was likely, or even a state of affairs that (like you say) has ever been true for very long.

I guess the other option would be for it to lose its pop culture appeal and go back to being relatively obscure, so no one in corporate cares enough to mess with creative.

I can’t abide the hope that D&D becomes unpopular or exclusive again because then “we’ll get it back”. It sounds like the worst kind of aspiration to want to something to fail so you can own it.