Dungeons & Dragons Shifts to Franchise Model, Dan Ayoub Named as Head

Ayoub takes over from the departing Jess Lanzillo.
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Wizards of the Coast has shifted Dungeons & Dragons to a "franchise model," with former Senior VP of Digital Games Dan Ayoub named as the new VP of Franchise for the game. Ayoub made the announcement on LinkedIn late yesterday, announcing the shift in franchise. In Ayoub's words, the new model means that everything related to Dungeons & Dragons - books, video games, film, and TV - will now live under one roof. Ayoub stated that this model will allow for a "strong, coordinated, and well-funded approach for the franchise.

Ayoub comes from the video game industry, having worked at Microsoft for 11 years prior to jumping over to Wizards of the Coast. He notably worked on the Halo video game franchise for years, working as a Studio Head and Executive Producer of 343 Industries. He also worked as an executive producer for Ubisoft and a Game Director for The Walt Disney Company.

When first announcing his move to Wizards of the Coast back in 2022, Ayoub stated that he was a fan of both D&D and Magic: The Gathering, having played both as a child.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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Sure, but that wouldn't be licensing out "D&D". It would be licensing out Dark Sun, or whatever the bit is.

There's a valid semantic argument there, but the end result is still the same.

It would be licensing out things that are under the umbrella of D&D IP.

Allowing an outside company to use a particular setting, monster, or character does not require making the entirety of the D&D catalog available.
 


For D&D, in my opinion, the best business model is maximizing brand value and then generating revenue through licensing and derivatives.

To achieve this, the brand needs to stay kinda cool, the type that film directors would want to feature it to show stylish characters.

One way to do this would be establishing an affordable D&D Beyond to bring in new players and stay in its current top of mind status, and selling luxury books to appeal to nostalgia and showing the game quality, like comics selling graphic novels and collector editions.

The idea is to make the game itself an investment, with true revenue coming from its offshoots. Stop trying to generate profit from TTRPG: it won’t work.
 
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I’ve read that statement a few times and I still don’t know what they mean by franchise model, how that’s different from what they did in the past, or what the impact is to me as a consumer.
 


There's a valid semantic argument there, but the end result is still the same.

It would be licensing out things that are under the umbrella of D&D IP.

The end result of doing it piecemeal with a setting here or there, and doing it with the entre kit and kaboodle in one package is not at all the same.
 

I don't say Ravenloft 3e sourcebooks were bad but... who is the owner of the new characters created by the licenced publisher? If there is a new licenced, what happens with the continuity? Let's remember Hasbro's IPs when there is a new comic publisher.

Let's imagine WotC creates a mon sub-franchise like "Batlezoo" by Roll for Combat, but others follows the same path.

I would bet WotC is willing to produce a new D&D cartoon but it would be a reboot adding the Asian-descendent cleric.

WotC doesn't need to licence Dark Sun. A book about defiler magic, some PC species and monsters and unlocking in DM Guild would be enough.

When I see the new titles of romantasy I wonder how would be one set in Birthright/Cerilia.
 

I’ve read that statement a few times and I still don’t know what they mean by franchise model, how that’s different from what they did in the past, or what the impact is to me as a consumer.
I think this is the real question in the end.

Like, what is changing here? The impression given in the LinkedIn post is that this is a big change.

We shifted our structure internally and D&D moved to a full franchise model, meaning everything: books, video games, film, and TV – everything touching the franchise lives under one roof. The impact here cannot be overstated; this is massive for D&D and will allow a strong, coordinated, and well-funded approach for the franchise, and most importantly, for us, the fans.

See the "cannot be overstated" and "massive", but like, is it? Ayoub doesn't specify how things will change and to be clear, D&D wasn't NOT using a franchise model before. That's why he says "full franchise model", rather than just "franchise model".

So what's the difference between his position and say, that of Mike Mearls a few years ago after he left being in charge of the TTRPG and became in charge of the brand?

Like, clearly, Mearls was largely doing what a franchise does when he worked with Larian to get BG3 made, for example. The whole point of a franchise model is that one company retains the IP, branding, know-how etc. and then franchisees approved by that company work, usually in a fairly standardized way, to create stuff for that franchise. But is that what is meant here? Because the way Ayoub is talking about it makes it sound more like he's just using "franchise" to mean "brand".

I mean, at the risk of accidentally leaning on the "PANIC PANIC" alarm, is this another OGL 2.0 situation, just from a different angle and with less attempted coercion? Like, is the intention to, by a combination of carrot and stick, to essentially get some 3PPs to become "WotC franchisees"? I.e. creating content with actual WotC branding, sold on WotC sites (including Beyond), and so on, and privileged above other 3PPs, but with stricter controls on what they can do? And presumably doing similar with books, games, etc.?

Or is this just a fancy and dramatic way of saying "We're bringing all the brand strategy, licencing and marketing in to one place, and funding the actual brand strategy/licencing/marketing department a lot better"?

My suspicion is it's the latter. That in fact, contrary Ayoub's statement, whilst this may well feel "massive" internally at WotC, it won't be "massive" for us, people who play D&D, buy D&D stuff, and so on, unless this makes them dramatically more successful at doing stuff that they were already.

We shall see - personally I'd say 20% chance this is something bad-bad where they try and do a silly thing re: 3PPs, 80% chance this is just "The way we did it before but with more people in technically the same department" and with significantly more funding/employees.

If it is that latter, the one other thing I do suspect is we're going to see WotC videogame studios shut down - at least some of them. Because why do that internally, and take all the risk, when you have a department which should be getting other companies to do that?
 

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