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And then there were 8! On Chris Sims and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes' Layoffs...
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<blockquote data-quote="Beleriphon" data-source="post: 7658899" data-attributes="member: 27847"><p>I don't know, I think that's really the only thing they can do is push the brand rather than the game. The game honestly isn't worth that much money to a company like Hasbro if they can turn around make a few hundred million dollars on a movie with licensing. I also think if you compared Wizards of the Coast's entire staff, rather than just D&D, you'd find they actually have a pretty good sized staff if you take into account MtG and administrative folks.</p><p></p><p>The problem is that D&D at this point is only one small part of a much, much larger business. A business unit of 13 people is actually pretty good sized. I don't know what people want here, but Hasbro's share holders aren't super interested in a niche game, they're interested in brand licensing that will increase their profit share. Video games and movies are worth way more than the actual RPG they take their name from. All you have to look at is all the crappy Hasbro branded movies like Battleship. It was a terrible movie, but for Hasbro shareholders its a no brainer since the license was basically free money from whatever dingbat studio head thought it was a good idea to fund. The D&D brand is even better since it has even more cultural traction.</p><p></p><p>The comparison to Paizo is a poor one. If Paizo were a publically traded company they'd be in the same boat since the bottom line comes before anything else when push comes to shove. I don't think that the Wizards of the Coast team is going to be responsible getting the big brand moves pushed forward like movies. They don't have the corporate heavies to do so, and they never have really otherwise there wouldn't be the mess with movies rights like there is. Will they be involved with the creative direction of a movie? I would hope so if the people in control of those things at Hasbro have any sense, and looking that the success of the Marvel movies working closely with the people that made the comics so successful you'd think they would want to ape that process.</p><p></p><p>Ultimately D&D is so much more than a TTRPG now. We love our D&D for sure, and we want it to be successful in all things but in the long run the RPG portion Dungeons and Dragons is small potatoes. Like the comics <em>The Avengers</em> is based on the movie made more than the combined might of all of Marvel Comics did in a year. Using some rought figures of 100,000 comics per title sold per month, at $3.99 per issue, we're pulling somewhere around $95,760,000 per year on Marvel Comics sales and that's a generous figure. One movie over the course of about three months made $1,518,000,000. That's the box office, so total profit after the budget and such we're still well over $1 billion.</p><p></p><p>Wizards of the Coast's D&D success for Hasbro is the success of Marvel Comics having a banner year in comic sales for Disney. The shareholder's really don't care that much because its a percentage of a percentage total when compared to the big picture. If you want to see the TTRPG expand dramatically there's only way to do that, monetize play beyond buying one set of books. That's the main reason that Magic: The Gathering has remained so successful all these years later, they found a really good way to make money with a game by encouraging players to constantly want to, or even need to, buy new material. Paizo to some degree has done the same thing with the AP subscriptions. I don't have any good ideas for D&D since copying Piazo's model probably wouldn't work that well at this stage.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Beleriphon, post: 7658899, member: 27847"] I don't know, I think that's really the only thing they can do is push the brand rather than the game. The game honestly isn't worth that much money to a company like Hasbro if they can turn around make a few hundred million dollars on a movie with licensing. I also think if you compared Wizards of the Coast's entire staff, rather than just D&D, you'd find they actually have a pretty good sized staff if you take into account MtG and administrative folks. The problem is that D&D at this point is only one small part of a much, much larger business. A business unit of 13 people is actually pretty good sized. I don't know what people want here, but Hasbro's share holders aren't super interested in a niche game, they're interested in brand licensing that will increase their profit share. Video games and movies are worth way more than the actual RPG they take their name from. All you have to look at is all the crappy Hasbro branded movies like Battleship. It was a terrible movie, but for Hasbro shareholders its a no brainer since the license was basically free money from whatever dingbat studio head thought it was a good idea to fund. The D&D brand is even better since it has even more cultural traction. The comparison to Paizo is a poor one. If Paizo were a publically traded company they'd be in the same boat since the bottom line comes before anything else when push comes to shove. I don't think that the Wizards of the Coast team is going to be responsible getting the big brand moves pushed forward like movies. They don't have the corporate heavies to do so, and they never have really otherwise there wouldn't be the mess with movies rights like there is. Will they be involved with the creative direction of a movie? I would hope so if the people in control of those things at Hasbro have any sense, and looking that the success of the Marvel movies working closely with the people that made the comics so successful you'd think they would want to ape that process. Ultimately D&D is so much more than a TTRPG now. We love our D&D for sure, and we want it to be successful in all things but in the long run the RPG portion Dungeons and Dragons is small potatoes. Like the comics [I]The Avengers[/I] is based on the movie made more than the combined might of all of Marvel Comics did in a year. Using some rought figures of 100,000 comics per title sold per month, at $3.99 per issue, we're pulling somewhere around $95,760,000 per year on Marvel Comics sales and that's a generous figure. One movie over the course of about three months made $1,518,000,000. That's the box office, so total profit after the budget and such we're still well over $1 billion. Wizards of the Coast's D&D success for Hasbro is the success of Marvel Comics having a banner year in comic sales for Disney. The shareholder's really don't care that much because its a percentage of a percentage total when compared to the big picture. If you want to see the TTRPG expand dramatically there's only way to do that, monetize play beyond buying one set of books. That's the main reason that Magic: The Gathering has remained so successful all these years later, they found a really good way to make money with a game by encouraging players to constantly want to, or even need to, buy new material. Paizo to some degree has done the same thing with the AP subscriptions. I don't have any good ideas for D&D since copying Piazo's model probably wouldn't work that well at this stage. [/QUOTE]
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And then there were 8! On Chris Sims and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes' Layoffs...
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