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

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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Only if you decide to serve just one market. I think it is a big mistake to think of "D&D fans" as a single, homogenous market.

WotC to my mind seems to have picked the biggest one and ran with it.

 

[timbannock]

I don't think anyone knew that BG3 would be as big of a hit as it was.

Clearly that was the case for WOTC, but...why did no one see this? BG1 and 2 were massive hits, and even they had tie-in products. They (along with several other similar era D&D video games) got hugely successful remaster releases just a handful of years ago. The team working on BG3 clearly did it out of a labor of love, which should have only strengthened WOTC's support for the game's release.

WOTC being clueless is kinda par for the course, but it's absolutely crazy to me that anyone else wouldn't have seen this as a huge potential hit. I certainly wasn't surprised, though admittedly I also wasn't paying attention much before release since I generally don't play videogames any more.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They have done it with "lesser" properties. I can see no reason to preclude them from considering licensing out one of the settings, though I sincerely doubt there would be enough money in it for them to look at it seriously.

They did it back in the 3e days, with
Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and L5R (which they owned at the time), to name a few.

 

[Amphytrion]

BG3 basically snuck up on them (which is hilarious in its own right). It vaguely seems like Descent Into Avernus was about the best they could pull together for a tie-in there. And Rime had the snowy prison featured in DD:HAT, and of course that movie wasn't an MCU-level success story which led to the sale of E-One.

Descent Into Avernus was indeed a BG3 tie-in, but one meant for its early access phase (in 2019, if my memory does not fail).

Besides, if BG3 was to serve as a gateway to D&D, it needed products other than a hardcover adventure, which is really limited in audience. When the game was properly released, my impression is that a sizable portion of the players wanted to know more about the world itself, the gods, the organizations and the NPCs they encountered, i.e. spend more time in it.

It probably should have been a setting book, considering Sword Coast’s Adventurer’s Guide is so notably inadequate and spends a lot of ink apologizing for 4e’s changes and describing meta reasons for things to return to their pre-4e status quo. It’s a very unappealing book to have as an introduction. A well-done Starter Set themed around some of the game’s narrative threads would also have been a good idea.

Part of it is that hindsight is 20/20, I don't think anyone knew that BG3 would be as big of a hit as it was. There likely should have been something and hopefully this new office is more than just corporate speak.

I think it was known as early as 2019 (early access) that BG3 would be a success. Perhaps the magnitude was unknown, but certainly enough for WotC to get organized.

 

[Reynard]

Clearly that was the case for WOTC, but...why did no one see this? BG1 and 2 were massive hits, and even they had tie-in products. They (along with several other similar era D&D video games) got hugely successful remaster releases just a handful of years ago. The team working on BG3 clearly did it out of a labor of love, which should have only strengthened WOTC's support for the game's release.

WOTC being clueless is kinda par for the course, but it's absolutely crazy to me that anyone else wouldn't have seen this as a huge potential hit. I certainly wasn't surprised, though admittedly I also wasn't paying attention much before release since I generally don't play videogames any more.

BG3 has sold about an order of magnitude number of copies more than BG2.

it was a surprise to everyone.

 

[Ath'kethin]

So does that make me a Franchisee instead of a DM?

Depends on which name you buy the license to use, I suppose.

 

[Parmandur]

Clearly that was the case for WOTC, but...why did no one see this? BG1 and 2 were massive hits, and even they had tie-in products. They (along with several other similar era D&D video games) got hugely successful remaster releases just a handful of years ago. The team working on BG3 clearly did it out of a labor of love, which should have only strengthened WOTC's support for the game's release.

WOTC being clueless is kinda par for the course, but it's absolutely crazy to me that anyone else wouldn't have seen this as a huge potential hit. I certainly wasn't surprised, though admittedly I also wasn't paying attention much before release since I generally don't play videogames any more.

BG1 and 2 were relative hits. They were successful for CRPGs. BG3 is a breakout phenomenon.

 

[AlViking]

Clearly that was the case for WOTC, but...why did no one see this? BG1 and 2 were massive hits, and even they had tie-in products. They (along with several other similar era D&D video games) got hugely successful remaster releases just a handful of years ago. The team working on BG3 clearly did it out of a labor of love, which should have only strengthened WOTC's support for the game's release.

WOTC being clueless is kinda par for the course, but it's absolutely crazy to me that anyone else wouldn't have seen this as a huge potential hit. I certainly wasn't surprised, though admittedly I also wasn't paying attention much before release since I generally don't play videogames any more.

Even Larian was surprised by magnitude of the success, it wasn't just WOTC. Other D&D games that had been released never hit gold box levels of success and, as others have said, BG3 did far better than those games.

Maybe they'll learn from their mistakes, maybe they won't. Doesn't really matter much to me either way, I'd just be happy with some decent video games.

 

[timbannock]

None of that lessens that WOTC should have suspected success. Sure, probably not the magnitude, but burying the only tie-in deep into Descent Into Avernus? Nah, my point still stands.

WOTC continuously fails to leverage their own success. Maybe Dan Ayoub will change things, but an incredibly long history to the contrary says otherwise.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was a huge fan of Halo when under Bungie. Then Micorsoft/347 took over, and it was a long, steady decline. That included introducing lore elements that many fans of the franchise were not crazy about.

Not saying that will be the case here, but the track record here is not great IMO.

That was also my thought seeing that this guy was coming from 343i. Those clowns killed what had been one of the biggest phenomena in video games at the time that they gained stewardship of it. Doesn’t exactly inspire faith in what their former head might do with stewardship of “the world’s greatest roleplaying game.”