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.

 

[Reynard]

This simply isn't true.

It was a surprise to Larian.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Maybe now they can get the minis out WITH the adventure. Instead of the Adventure and then 6 months later after you are done with the adventure then get the tie-in minis.

Oh to dream

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It was a surprise to Larian.

Larian was 100% clear on what was happening in early access. The fact that it went on to be an even bigger hit than expected was a surprise, but irrelevant, unless you are on Larian's payroll.

It was clear extremely early on that BG3 was a big success. People on this forum not reading videogame news is one thing, but WotC's project manager should 100% have been in the loop. Even if they weren't reading industry news themselves (which would be weird and irresponsible), Larian was certainly telling them how things were going.

And, as noted, even if they had only figured it out upon commercial release that BG3 was a hit, they could have still turned around a starter set box pretty quickly.

But it doesn't matter in any case: WotC also knew that DADHAT was going to be a much better movie than the original set of D&D movies and chose to do nothing to tie into it.

The failure to do tie-ins was a choice, not them having movies and videogames sneak up on them without warning.

 

[Reynard]

Larian was 100% clear on what was happening in early access. The fact that it went on to be an even bigger hit than expected was a surprise, but irrelevant, unless you are on Larian's payroll.

It was clear extremely early on that BG3 was a big success. People on this forum not reading videogame news is one thing, but WotC's project manager should 100% have been in the loop. Even if they weren't reading industry news themselves (which would be weird and irresponsible), Larian was certainly telling them how things were going.

And, as noted, even if they had only figured it out upon commercial release that BG3 was a hit, they could have still turned around a starter set box pretty quickly.

But it doesn't matter in any case: WotC also knew that DADHAT was going to be a much better movie than the original set of D&D movies and chose to do nothing to tie into it.

The failure to do tie-ins was a choice, not them having movies and videogames sneak up on them without warning.

I wasn't making any argument about WotC and their ability to prognosticate success. As far as the evidence shows, every success they have had has been accidental and/or because of things beyond their control.

All I was doing was pushing back against the idea that everyone knew BG3 was going to sell 20 million copies.

 

[timbannock]

I wasn't making any argument about WotC and their ability to prognosticate success. As far as the evidence shows, every success they have had has been accidental and/or because of things beyond their control.

All I was doing was pushing back against the idea that everyone knew BG3 was going to sell 20 million copies.

By insinuating no one knew with the statement "it was a surprise to everyone."

Come on. This isn't either/or, black/white.

 

[Reynard]

By insinuating no one knew with the statement "it was a surprise to everyone."

Come on. This isn't either/or, black/white.

This definitely seems like something worth arguing about.

 

[Staffan]

Maybe now they can get the minis out WITH the adventure. Instead of the Adventure and then 6 months later after you are done with the adventure then get the tie-in minis.

Oh to dream

That's probably unlikely. The lead time on making miniatures is significantly longer than that on making adventures. So if you want minis and an adventure released more-or-less simultaneously, there are basically two ways of making that happen:

1. Once the adventure is done, have miniatures made and hold off on publishing the adventure until that's done.
2. First decide on what monsters are going to be in the adventure and get mini production going, and then build the adventure around that.

Neither of these is a particularly good option.

 

[xevin]

I don't fully understand what this means, but it being Hasbro, I await the inevitable downside.

Read the article.

 

[sevenbastard]

As long as this gets me a displaced beast Halloween outfit for my cat I am all for it.

Also franchise out some B/X modules, more AD&D content, Star Frontiers, ect. If coke can have 5 flavors D&D can locense out its old hits.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Larian was 100% clear on what was happening in early access. The fact that it went on to be an even bigger hit than expected was a surprise, but irrelevant, unless you are on Larian's payroll.

It was clear extremely early on that BG3 was a big success. People on this forum not reading videogame news is one thing, but WotC's project manager should 100% have been in the loop. Even if they weren't reading industry news themselves (which would be weird and irresponsible), Larian was certainly telling them how things were going.

And, as noted, even if they had only figured it out upon commercial release that BG3 was a hit, they could have still turned around a starter set box pretty quickly.

But it doesn't matter in any case: WotC also knew that DADHAT was going to be a much better movie than the original set of D&D movies and chose to do nothing to tie into it.

The failure to do tie-ins was a choice, not them having movies and videogames sneak up on them without warning.

Let's not forget they explicitly did design a tie-in prequel adventure to BG3, but Larian took so long in development that their game came out years later. The first act directly follows from BGDiA, I'm sure they planned for there to be only a year or two between the adventure and the game but then covid and scope creep happened.