WotC Hasbro Bets Big on D&D

Staffan · Dec 8, 2022

Snarf Zagyg said:
That's it! That's how they can monetize D&D. They need to leverage the fandom .... eating itself!

You've heard it here, first! Don't just metaphorically eat other fans .... LITERALLY eat other fans! That's right, you can now EAT other fans with new, fan-flavored D&D Meat.

If you've always been cannibal-curious, but never want to go full Armie Hammer, Hasrbo's new lab-grown FanMEAT is for you! You can buy the Happiest Meal with a FanBURGER at McDonald's, and, for a limited time, it will be Chris Pine flavored!

Are you a vegetarian? Hasbro has you covered with D&D-flavored Hufu- all the great fan flavor you expect, none of the moral issues with long pork consumption.

FanMEAT- it's .... FAN-TASTIC!

And here I thought Ray Winninger left?

Umbran said:
It seems to me most of the micro-transactions on D&D Beyond are a good thing for the users. You want pretty dice to roll online? Sure! You want cool backgrounds for your DDB character sheet? There you go! And, more importantly - you want a particular monster, PC race, or magic item, but don't want to buy the whole darned book it is from? Done!

As long as microtransactions are either in the "bling" category or an optional way to buy a sub-set of a larger work, I have no issue with them.

Alzrius said:
@Charlaquin did a good job of explaining how it does, potentially, affect you or your game, i.e. that the focus of the people who make the products shifts to quantities of cosmetic options rather than the development of quality game mechanics/lore. That means less of the stuff those people like is being developed.

With a video game, you have the issue that microtransaction assets basically use the same resource as the game's "main" assets – a 3D artist working on a new cool cosmetic transmog isn't working on designing a new cool monster for the next expansion. But I strongly doubt that 3D art is the strong suit of either Jeremy Crawford or Chris Perkins, so at least short term they are not competing for the same resources.

Steel_Wind said:
There are good reasons for that which show how easy it is to auto-import a PDF into a VTT and have it work for all and sundry automagically.

To be fair, the "import PDF" feature of Foundry regarding Pathfinder used the PDF more as a key than actual data. Basically, it was a plugin that checked that the PDF was legit, and then either downloaded the data from elsewhere or extracted it from pre-determined places in the PDF (e.g. the plugin would know that the token for monster X should be based on image Y on page Z). I think that plugin is disabled these days since Paizo are selling actual Foundry implementations instead.

That doesn't really affect your overall assessment of the dude, I just wanted to have it out there.

Zaukrie · Dec 8, 2022

I guess I have one more thing....

I remember when Gygax expanded too fast, and killed Dnd.
I remember when Lorraine Williams killed DnD.
I remember when too many books killed DnD.
I remember when 4e did the job, and when having a certain employee during 5e did it.....

The company literally said "we love this brand, and are going to invest in it to make even more money!"......that's a good thing. Much better than the alternative.

Ruin Explorer · Dec 8, 2022

Charlaquin said:
“D&D is under monetized” is a terrifying thing to hear from the Hazbro CEO.

It truly is.

I'm pretty sure every worry we've had re: monetization and some stuff we didn't even think of is going to come true in the next 4-6 years.

Velderan · Dec 8, 2022

jmartkdr2 said:
It mostly means that selling new stuff doesn't preclude selling old stuff. I for one doubt they'll stop printing physical books any time soon.

If anything, they're clearly exploring how to use physical and digital together like the current Dragonlance bundles available. there are a few other options they're currently selling, like the token kits with DDB books included also.

Greg Benage · Dec 8, 2022

darjr said:
Why wouldn't they? They already support them as a market for their books. The work to turn them into a vtt is all on Roll20's side.

I hear echoes of, "Why wouldn't Disney keep the MCU movies up on Netflix once Disney+ launches? All they have to do is sit back and count the money!" They're not making this investment and getting into the market to compete with Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, et al. They come not to bring peace but a sword.

I hope I'm wrong.

(But I'm not.)

Rabulias · Dec 8, 2022

Zaukrie said:
I remember when Gygax expanded too fast, and killed Dnd.
I remember when Lorraine Williams killed DnD.
I remember when too many books killed DnD.
I remember when 4e did the job, and when having a certain employee during 5e did it.....

If D&D died all those times, how am I still playing it? I guess a friendly cleric cast raise game on it?

Rabulias · Dec 8, 2022

Greg Benage said:
I hear echoes of, "Why wouldn't Disney keep the MCU movies up on Netflix once Disney+ launches? All they have to do is sit back and count the money!" They're not making this investment and getting into the market to compete with Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, et al. They come not to bring peace but a sword.

I think a broad market of competing VTTs is a good thing for the hobby. I welcome WotC's entry, but they will not have a monopoly by any means. I will look at their offering, but they have a hard road to travel to beat Foundry VTT for my needs.

Edited to add: And even if they do become the VTT for 99.9% of D&D games, there are other games that other VTTs serve, which is also good for the hobby, even if they are games I do not play.

Greg Benage · Dec 8, 2022

Rabulias said:
I think a broad market of competing VTTs is a good thing for the hobby. I welcome WotC's entry, but they will not have a monopoly by any means. I will look at their offering, but they have a hard road to travel to beat Foundry VTT for my needs.

To be clear, I think the more the better, too. I just think you're only going to be able to buy integrated rules, campaigns, adventures, and other products on one of them. If you're willing to do all the manual work yourself, you'll be able to play wherever. I'm not a lawyer, but I can't see how Wizards could do anything about that.

Ruin Explorer · Dec 8, 2022

Staffan said:
With a video game, you have the issue that microtransaction assets basically use the same resource as the game's "main" assets – a 3D artist working on a new cool cosmetic transmog isn't working on designing a new cool monster for the next expansion. But I strongly doubt that 3D art is the strong suit of either Jeremy Crawford or Chris Perkins, so at least short term they are not competing for the same resources.

But that's the issue "at least short term".

And you're right short term. Initially the artists etc. will playing catch-up with what's already in D&D.

But this is a company that wants to make money, and you can bet that, long before the artists are done catching up, WotC will have them creating new stuff specifically because it's awesome-looking and will sell, even though maybe it's not a good fit for existing D&D or whatever. As soon as WotC starts seeing what sells and what doesn't we can expect the resources to start getting refocused.

I mean, if they have like just simple tokens I can put a few letters/numbers on and maybe a colour (like I use on the tabletop, to hell with minis, they cost money and space), I won't be too worried, but there's little incentive for them to support that kind of thing well, to be honest.

Rabulias said:
I welcome WotC's entry, but they will not have a monopoly by any means. I will look at their offering, but they have a hard road to travel to beat Foundry VTT for my needs.

The idea that any other VTTs will meaningfully be able to compete with the offering WotC are suggesting they'll have is laughable.

Sure, a locked-in, ageing user like yourself may well decide to stick with Foundry, but anyone less locked-in is likely to move, if WotC's VTT does what they're saying it will. They will have a de facto monopoly.

Of course that's a big if. But if they really have 350 people on it? They'll manage it by 2025 if not 2024.

darjr · Dec 8, 2022

The 350 people are probably not exclusively working on the VTT, I think.

WotC Hasbro Bets Big on D&D

Staffan

Legend

Zaukrie

New Publisher

Ruin Explorer

Legend

Velderan

Hero

Greg Benage

Legend

Rabulias

the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever

Rabulias

the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever

Greg Benage

Legend

Ruin Explorer

Legend

darjr

I crit!

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