WotC 7 Digital D&D Games In Development

Following up on the Hasbro earnings call a couple of weeks ago, WotC"s CEO Chris Cocks announced at New York Toy Fair (D&D comes up after about an hour of the audio - a lot of it is about Magic: The Gathering) that there are seven digital D&D games in development, with at least one coming per year. Unfortunately, there's no other solid information.

Of course, 'digital' can mean anything from full-fledged console or PC games to mobile and Facebook games.

What we already knew:

• WotC acquired Tuque, a video games company last year which is working on a brand new D&D video game called D&D: Dark Alliance.
• There is also, of course, Baldur's Gate 3 coming soon.
• Archetype Entertainment is WotC own new video game studio headed by ex-Bioware staff.

There was a slide show at the event which you can view online. D&D doesn't feature much in it, as it covers all of Hasbro's brands. One of them does feature a small image of a mobile game, though - looks like the existing Warriors of Waterdeep rather than a new game.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The videogames, teleseries and movies are the best advertising, but a good work needs time and talent, and more money and pressure doesn't help very much. Sorry but I am afair we will have to await for a good time.

The future of the new titles depend on the sales success of the media projects. We can ejoy an indirect advertising with other IPs of the same genre, for example Warcraft and the Witcher but we should take care or a saturation will be counterproductive, and then the medieval fantasy will be "old-fashion" like the spaguetti western movies. If this happens, WotC should to be ready with a no-medieval fantasy title, maybe something like d20 Future/Star Frontiers/Star*Drive/Gamma World. (the good new is the time travel and parallel universes will be canon in this d20 Future, allowing crazy mash-up or reboot of the franchises).

If there are videogames set in a no-FR world the candidates are Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Dark Sun and Ravenloft. I guess the strategy is "we learn to make good titles, and after we will publish the adaptation of the favorite lines". The good new is we can see "one-shot" stories as a test, like the pilot episodes to know the reaction of the public.

Other option is to use Enternaiment One to produce new movies and series and later these to be adapted to TTRPG. But this means d20 system should find the right power balance about firearms and modern technology because some media titles are set in the modern age.

 

[Raduin711]

Should we assume Dark Alliance is more or less a remake?

For a minute I was excited but I somehow got Dark Alliance and Demon Stone mixed up. Dark Alliance was... okay.

 

[Mercador]

Probably more comfortable too Big businesses tend to have both more money less quality minded executives and lot more angry email

Ahh a man of culture I see

 

[Morrus]

It is shocking when someone in this RPG hobby is surprised that we are actually tiny fish in the ocean of entertainment.

That's an odd non-sequitur.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Am I the only one whose eyes immediately got drawn to the transformers history? Gonna get that, I am. Like, asap

 

[Cergorach]

It is an interesting conundrum for a large company like Hasbro. Profits from RPG's are a pittance compared to video games, which are a pittance compared to movies, but the RPG is the basis of your IP.

That totally depends on the movie budget and also whether the film is received well or not... As for D&D, the D&D 2000 movie cost around $45 million to make and they lost about $11 million on it. On the other hand, the first Transformers movie cost around $150 million to make and the had a profit on that of $560 million, plus all the toys they made for it. The issue here is, that Hasbro didn't finance it, they license it out. On one side that doesn't create risk of loosing money, very little effort on actually doing work for the profit someone else makes, and they can make toys which is their core business. The same goes with most video games, with the big exception, in WotC's case is Magic: Arena. And that exception is making them tons of money with way less costs then paper Magic, more profit directly for WotC, with a potential larger playerbase.

BG3 through Larian is the first D&D game in a decade and a half (since NWN2), that isn't a flop, a remaster from ~20 year old game or an expansion to said ~20 year old game... It wouldn't honestly surprise me if Hasbro wanted to buy Larian if BG3 performs well. Video games can make very decent money if handled well, especially when you own the studio that makes it. Companies like EA or Activision Blizzard make a lot more profit compared to Hasbro...

 

[Prakriti]

BG3 through Larian is the first D&D game in a decade and a half (since NWN2), that isn't a flop

Behold! A traveler from the future.

 

[Cergorach]

Behold! A traveler from the future.

Atleast I'm not a Mindflayer that's Trolling... ;-)

Maybe 'isn't a flop' isn't a good way to describe it. Let's call it 'potential to succeed'. I won't be preordering it, but I suspect it'll be good, and I know that "Successes from the past aren't guarantees for the future.".

 

[Nebulous]

Baldurs Gate 1&2, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape: Torment, and more say otherwise!

And my personal favorite, the Icewind Dale games.

 

[Nebulous]

Behold! A traveler from the future.

Hey, ask him if 6e turned out any good