WotC D&D Gets A New Division At Hasbro

Hasbro is reorganizing and giving tabletop gaming -- Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering -- a higher priority.

According to the Wall Street Journal, WotC's revenue last year was $816 million (a 24% increase on 2019). Brian Goldner, Hasbro's Chief Executive, says WotC is predicted to double revenue from 2019 to 2023.

Hasbro is dividing into three 'units' -- Consumer Products (toys, classic board games); Entertainment (film, TV, licensing); and Wizards & Digital (WotC plus digital licensing).

Hasbro bought WotC in 1999 for about $325M.

WSJ News Exclusive | Dungeons & Dragons Gets a Bigger Role at Hasbro

Toy maker Hasbro is reorganizing to capitalize on a pandemic-fueled boom in old-school tabletop games, creating a separate division around the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.

www.wsj.com

 

[imagineGod]

Indepence Day for The Wizards could not come soon enough. Almost independent.

 

[Hatmatter]

There is no doubt some people will have fallen in love with D&D and will continue to play. Similarly there will surely be some drop off. I am actually more interested in how the pandemic has changed D&D -- how, where and why it is played. For most of D&D's history it has been an obsessive sort of hobby and I feel like there's a casualness to it now (I do not mean that as any sort of pejorative) it hasn't had mostly. Most of us (meaning GenX nerds) grew up playing like the Stranger Things kids: for hours and hours in the dark of the basement. I used to LOVE marathon sessions ans still miss them. I don't feel like that is a common way to play for the Millenial players and others that have recently discovered the hobby.

This has been my observation as well. Well said, Reynard.

 

[embee]

They will be releasing some sort of big anniversary edition in 2024, you can count on it. It would be easier to get everyone to buy it if, at the very least, it updated some of the books at least in a mild fashion. I think we should expect, at a minimum, that it'll be a 5.1 edition.

Judging by history, I think a premium white box reprint is more likely.

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[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And just like that I realized D&D is turning 50 years old. Wow.

I wonder how prominently they'll feature gold dragons. The whiskered pseudo-Chinese dragons with unusual wings aren't really their standard dragon design, but otherwise, golden dragons seems like great branding for a 50th anniversary of D&D.

 

[Hatmatter]

I wish they sold it off; to Paizo. Better left in the hands of actual gamers and not corporate stockholder butt-kissers.

Although I'm disappointed in Paizo with their PF2e debacle, and they forever lost my support. Now I've grown suspicious of them.

I think Wizards of the Coast has been very nurturing with the legacy of Dungeons & Dragons and has published wonderful books. Of course, when I fall in love with someone, or something, I tend to embrace.

 

[imagineGod]

Right on cue...

Paizo's Starfinder suffered a debacle with core books breaking their spines, including the special edition I got signed by the writers.

Pathfinder 2e has been a stellar success, though obviously, Roll20 lists different.

 

[embee]

There is no doubt some people will have fallen in love with D&D and will continue to play. Similarly there will surely be some drop off. I am actually more interested in how the pandemic has changed D&D -- how, where and why it is played. For most of D&D's history it has been an obsessive sort of hobby and I feel like there's a casualness to it now (I do not mean that as any sort of pejorative) it hasn't had mostly. Most of us (meaning GenX nerds) grew up playing like the Stranger Things kids: for hours and hours in the dark of the basement. I used to LOVE marathon sessions ans still miss them. I don't feel like that is a common way to play for the Millenial players and others that have recently discovered the hobby.

Once you put up faux-wood paneling and put in a ping-pong table, it stops being a basement and starts being a rec room.

 

[Rabulias]

I wonder if those "Hasbro is selling D&D" rumors were actually based on some of the internal Hasbro preparations for this new division. So, not entirely speculation, but maybe insider gossip about goings-on getting out and leading to a wildly wrong conclusion?

 

[Jack Daniel]

I've never called them hobbits ... in any D&D game i played. /shrug I am sure some do but not every player since

They're taking the halflings to Isengard!

…Nope, it just doesn't have the same ring.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Judging by history, I think a premium white box reprint is more likely.

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I'm not sure today's audience really cares about that. The OSR folks picked that up a few years ago and largely saturated that market.

Are there a lot of 20-somethings pining for a little wooden box with the original booklets inside?

If they do re-release the White Box, I hope they do what they did at the end of 3E and put out premium reprints of the other editions; I really regret not picking up the 3E premium reprints then. I was just exhausted by 3E at that point and didn't appreciate that I'd want the deeeeluxe versions of my shelves as a reference work today. (I did pick up the 1E reprints then, although I wish they'd put out a reprint of Fiend Folio as well.)