D&D General Elon Musk Wants To Know 'How Much Is Hasbro?'

Following the richest man in the world's attack on Wizards of the Coast for two paragraphs in the 500-page celebration of D&D, The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977, Elon Musk--who bought Twitter not that long ago--wants to know how much D&D's owner Hasbro would cost.

After the public sharing on Twitter of Jason Tondro's (who wrote the book’s foreword) private Facebook posts, Musk replied "How much is Hasbro?"

Hasbro's estimated capitalization is currently $8.71 billion, with $3.95 billion of debt.

It was on 21st December 2017 when Musk similarly enquired "How much is it?" before proceeding to make a bid for Twitter. He later tried to back out of the deal, but was forced to buy the platform for $44 billion in June 2022. Current estimates by investment firm Fidelity put the platform at a value 80% less than when he bought it, with a worth of only about $9.4 billion.

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah, which is why people who don't support WotC and think they can sit back and laugh at this while playing any D&D clone system should take this seriously. He doesn't need to take out everyone, just whittling down a few of the big fish in this small pond will chill everyone else.

I can sit back and laugh at this. Because nothing happened. Dude who trolls on a daily basis happened to troll in this sub-culture and now what, everyone needs to get super outraged and take this oh so seriously? Come on, it's OK for people to laugh about this.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can sit back and laugh at this. Because nothing happened. Dude who trolls on a daily basis happened to troll in this sub-culture and now what, everyone needs to get super outraged and take this oh so seriously? Come on, it's OK for people to laugh about this.

I will say I think the actual likelihood of him acting on this is extremely low. I understand why he bought twitter (that has cultural influence). But D&D seem like a such a small hobby for him to spend that kind of money on. I say a 1% chance at most this goes beyond being a post to stir the pot

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Frankly I think this is way too low of a 'value' for the company since it literally owns the rights to huge media franchises like the naughty word Transformers and G.I.Joe, among other IP's, which are basically a license to print money every few years.

Transformers, GI Joe, are not the hot IP they used to be.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Thanks to the class action lawsuit Hasbro might soon be worth alot less and cheaper for Elon to buy.

 

[trappedslider]

Another brightside: Instead of saying "Hasbro is AND Musk are evil bad juju" we'll be able just to say "Musk is evil bad juju"

 

[abirdcall]

If Musk gets ownership of D&D, I wager he will deep six the OGL and find a way to remove it from the CC. He will probably argue that it was illegal to put it there in the first place and with enough lawyers and venue shopping, he'll find a judge who will let him void the contract and remove the game from CC. (He will do irreparable harm to the CC while he's at it, but that's collateral damage).

He could also sue any company who made a game derived from the OGL or CC SRD. He could also go after games that no longer use either, but still originally was based on it (like M&M or Pathfinder). He doesn't even need to win, he just needs to file motion after motion to keep them in court and bleed them out for the cost of fighting in court for years. Could Paizo or Kobold fight Musk for years in court battles? They are small private companies. Again, it won't even be if he is right or not, just if he can bankrupt them in lawfare.

Musk is a big supporter of proprietary technology. He is absolutely not going to allow companies to ride off the work he just purchased. He will make sure there are no D&D like RPGs to complete with. I don't know if OGL, ORC, or CC can survive a protracted legal battle if Musk wants it. He's already considering if Bluesky hews too close to Twitter's format that he can sue for infringement. He doesn't even need to win, just outlive his smaller competition.

And he's petty enough to try it.

Rules can't be copyrighted.

This is why there is a plethora of board games that have the same rules as popular ones with slightly different names and artwork.

If the big board game companies could stop them they would have.

 

[Parmandur]

Rules can't be copyrighted.

That's not quite accurate: the gist is thst nobody knows to what extent rules can be copyrighted, since nobody has ever had the temerity to push the matter in court. Musk could change that...

 

[Remathilis]

Rules can't be copyrighted.

This is why there is a plethora of board games that have the same rules as popular ones with slightly different names and artwork.

If the big board game companies could stop them they would have.

If Musk was a rational actor, I'd agree he has no chance. But Musk doesn't need to win, just make it hard for other companies by keeping them tied up in court on motion after motion.

 

[Remathilis]

I will say I think the actual likelihood of him acting on this is extremely low. I understand why he bought twitter (that has cultural influence). But D&D seem like a such a small hobby for him to spend that kind of money on. I say a 1% chance at most this goes beyond being a post to stir the pot

I can sit back and laugh at this. Because nothing happened. Dude who trolls on a daily basis happened to troll in this sub-culture and now what, everyone needs to get super outraged and take this oh so seriously? Come on, it's OK for people to laugh about this.

It's very possible nothing comes of this. But people thought the same about Twitter. I'm just pointing out there might be a point where this isn't as funny as it is right now...

 

[Jahydin]

What a timeline we're in... What sort of team would Musk assemble? My guess (sarcastically)...

D&D 6E
President: Elon Musk
Lead Designer: Alexander Marcis
Design Team: RPGPundit, Greg Gillespie, and James Edward Raggi IV.
Sensitivity & Exclusivity Experts: Jordan Peterson and James Lindsay.
Public Relations: Joe Rogan