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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

For sure. But you had to have picked up Descent into Avernus to know that it was a tie-in. (Or be extremely online.) That would have been an ideal situation for a shrink-wrap and sticker situation, making it clear to the folks who walked into Barnes & Noble when taking a brief break from their third run-through of BG3 that here was something more to plunk down money for.

 

[WhiskeyFires]

Sounds like they want to license out more official D&D products to third parties instead of trying to do things in house. I don't see that as good, bad, or even really much of a change other than giving one person a specific title. They've been franchising video games with mixed success and of course there's the mythical TV series that's in limbo because of the chaos in streaming. We also see them working more closely with third parties in DndBeyond which makes me wonder if they'll allow other companies to officially put the D&D label on books and modules.

This is literally the opposite of what they said: "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"

 

[WhiskeyFires]

Sounds like they want to license out more official D&D products to third parties instead of trying to do things in house. I don't see that as good, bad, or even really much of a change other than giving one person a specific title. They've been franchising video games with mixed success and of course there's the mythical TV series that's in limbo because of the chaos in streaming. We also see them working more closely with third parties in DndBeyond which makes me wonder if they'll allow other companies to officially put the D&D label on books and modules.

This is literally the opposite of what they said: "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."

 

[Argyle King]

Well, "D&D" in this context is not a single thing. It is a brand under the umbrella of which many things could be made. One would not expect them to license the entire brand out in one go...

Perhaps, but that needn't be assumed.

The rights to how, what, when, and where you can use all or only some of an IP can be complex. An example would be the Supernatural TV show having rights to use music in episodes when episodes are on DVD but streaming versions of the same episodes needing to use different music because rights to a particular song do not extend to streaming.

Similarly, there was a time when, despite Spiderman being a Marvel character, the character could not be used in the Marvel movies because the rights to that specific character had been granted to a different company.

It would not be unheard of for an IP with as much content as D&D to slice the pie into smaller pieces. Doing so would not be unusual for a company looking for ways to better monetize parts of their IP.

 

[dbolack]

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

That was very different management. The kind of management that sold back or released IP back to creators. We're in Hedgefund land now.

 

[dbolack]

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.

3. Judiciously reuse existing minis in the set as these are new customers who won't be so bothered by recycling

 

[Parmandur]

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.

And I mean, it's not like Descent into Aver us went out of print: hack, they gave away the Gazateer for Baldur's Gate (which is chonky) for free on Beyond when the game did finally release in full.

 

[Umbran]

It would not be unheard of for an IP with as much content as D&D to slice the pie into smaller pieces. Doing so would not be unusual for a company looking for ways to better monetize parts of their IP.

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

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Licensing? That's what it amounts to?

 

[Dausuul]

Another executive hire from the tech industry. Sigh.