WotC “Atomic Arcade”— WotC’s New Digital Platform?

WotC has applied for a trademark for “Atomic Arcade”. The application was made late last month, and covers:

• Downloadable electronic games to be used in connection with computers, console gaming devices, and wireless devices
• Fantasy role playing games, board games, trading card games, and collectible toy figures
• Entertainment services, namely, providing online computer games and interactive multiplayer online computer games via a global network

Earlier in the year, rumours spread regarding WotC’s plans for its own virtual tabletop platform (VTT) following a survey in which they gauged opinions and allegedly showed off graphically rich 3D screenshots.

“TSDR” is the application’s status which reads:

LIVE/APPLICATION/Awaiting Examination
The trademark application has been accepted by the Office (has met the minimum filing requirements) and has not yet been assigned to an examiner.

Status:
New application will be assigned to an examining attorney approximately 6 months after filing date.

 

[darjr]

And WotC has been growing, at an accelerating rate.

 

[Dausuul]

I think the magnitude of the issue is larger now, with D&DB, than it was then,and they've had the experience of what happens when they pull that nonsense. Indeed, I think those prior bad experiences and learning from them were largely why they farmed the thing out to D&DB.

I think farming out the job was making a virtue of necessity. 5E is a tremendous success today, but at the time it came out, D&D was at a pretty low ebb, and the team had been sliced to the bone. Hasbro was probably in no mood to greenlight an expensive digital offering.

So Wizards looked around for a partner who was willing to front the cash. The first attempt (Trapdoor/Dungeonscape) didn't go so well, but the second try was a success. Their tight budget forced Wizards to do what they should have done in the first place--focus on their core competency, making tabletop games, and license out the tech stuff, which they had always been bad at.

Now, of course, the budget is a lot less tight and WotC is in empire-building mode. Here's hoping the Wizards of today is better at technology than the Wizards of ten years ago. They did a pretty good job with M:tG Arena, from what I hear, which is a good sign... but that's one bright data point in a long and dismal series.

 

[darjr]

If you look at what companies they bought and who they are hiring and what they are looking for and how, then squint. It looks a LOT better than last time around. Maybe.

 

[Umbran]

I think farming out the job was making a virtue of necessity. 5E is a tremendous success today, but at the time it came out, D&D was at a pretty low ebb, and the team had been sliced to the bone. Hasbro was probably in no mood to greenlight an expensive digital offering.

Hrm. I don't know about that.

5e came out in August, 2014. D&D Beyond first opened in August, 2017, by which time, as memory serves, we were already saying, "Wow, this 5e thing is taking off." It hadn't yet reached the current, quite stunning, height, but I don't think "low point" really described it at that point either. Much of the world happens neither at peaks, nor in valleys.

 

[darjr]

DnDBeyond negotiations happened well before the launch and even at the launch I think the momentum at WoTC hadn’t caught up with the reality of D&Ds success. Maybe.

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

I am digging around trying to sort out Fandom revenues. One site suggests Fandom revenues are in the 100 million dollar range, and that is for the entire company. Once again, how much of that is DBB, who knows. But I can't reselling WOTC products via DBB makes up the overwhelming chunk. I would welcome anything with hard numbers.

 

[darjr]

Oh and it’s not Hasbro, WotC applied for the trademark.
I wonder how many trademarks are registered like this from WotC?

 

[Dausuul]

Hrm. I don't know about that.

5e came out in August, 2014. D&D Beyond first opened in August, 2017, by which time, as memory serves, we were already saying, "Wow, this 5e thing is taking off." It hadn't yet reached the current, quite stunning, height, but I don't think "low point" really described it at that point either. Much of the world happens neither at peaks, nor in valleys.

That is true, but DDB was not the first attempt at digital 5E. That was the ill-fated Dungeonscape (formerly and subsequently Codename: Morningstar), which was announced in the summer of 2014 and had been under development for some time by then. This means it almost certainly started before 5E's launch. And we do know that Wizards did not front any money for Dungeonscape. So, at least back then, they were indeed pursuing a low-cost strategy--making a deal with a small, untested partner and putting all the risk on that partner if things went south, which they did.

Wizards pulled the plug on Dungeonscape in late 2014. We don't know if Curse also fronted the whole development cost as Trapdoor did, so you may well be right that the purse strings were loosened for DDB. Even so, DDB had to have started development by summer 2016 at the latest; two years is not a lot of time for WotC to make a sweeping change in their approach.

 

[Deset Gled]

Oh and it’s not Hasbro, WotC applied for the trademark.
I wonder how many trademarks are registered like this from WotC?

I'm very curious to find out exactly what will fall under Atomic Arcade, from a business standpoint.

"Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming" is a separate division from "Consumer Products". Obviously, things like VTT and D&D video games will fall under W&D. But the "Hasbro Gaming" brands like Monopoly, Clue, Risk, etc, have always been part of Consumer Products. These brands have a much bigger digital gaming footprint than D&D. But WotC is clearly growing at a nice rate, not just in profit, but in overall responsibilities and business share. It will be interesting to see if the "Digital Gaming" part of WotC is allowed to get access to these other brands, or if they will remain isolated.

It does look like 2021 may be the first year that D&D is a bigger income generator than Monopoly, which is pretty cool.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Wizards pulled the plug on Dungeonscape in December of 2014. We don't know if Curse also fronted the whole development cost as Trapdoor did, so you may well be right that the purse strings were loosened for DDB. Even so, DDB had to have started development by summer 2016 at the latest; two years is not a lot of time for WotC to make a sweeping change in their approach.

This is correct. I strongly suspect DDB was in development at least a few months before that because they appeared on Twitter in July 2016 and even in this era I doubt that was their first move. I remember people being pretty disappointed with Beyond early on because one of the first things they announced after the basics was their terrible pricing model for if you only wanted some content. In practice it didn't matter because barely ever did anyone want "just some content" but man it was/is a terrible pricing module.