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

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Seriously those guys need to steal some people from EA’s Dragon Age team or something. Every DA game absolutely knocks it out of the park with flawed but deeply appealing and likeable NPCs.

Right? And it's not like some of those guys aren't on the market, making indie games and stuff. Some of the best people are still at Bioware but the old head writers are almost all elsewhere. WotC seems to have seen the opportunity, given they hired several ex-ME people including Drew Karpyshyn, who was lead writer for ME1 (though not, as some think, the guy who came up with the basic ideas for ME).

 

[dave2008]

You seemed big on the $100 million number, that's pocket change for a movie these days.

No that is not pocket change, but it is about the average (if you include marketing) for a major studio movie. Of course that puts it way out of the league of most small studios.

 

[Campbell]

The vast majority of movies that get made by major studios are still in the 30-70 million range. We just generally see the budgets of blockbuster titles.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Right? And it's not like some of those guys aren't on the market, making indie games and stuff. Some of the best people are still at Bioware but the old head writers are almost all elsewhere. WotC seems to have seen the opportunity, given they hired several ex-ME people including Drew Karpyshyn, who was lead writer for ME1 (though not, as some think, the guy who came up with the basic ideas for ME).

Yeah I’m really excited to see what they come up with for the new wotc studio.