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?
