D&D 5E Hasbro Acquires D&D Beyond For $146M

D&D owner WotC and D&D Beyond have announced that the online tools platform is being acquired by WotC.

DDB’s (former) owner was Fandom, which acquired it in 2018, and which also acquired the Cortex Prime TTRPG system recently. Fandom is producing a range of licensed games using the Cortex Prime system starting with the recent Tales of Xadia: The Dragon Prince RPG. Several DDB core staff members and founders moved on to other projects last year.

D&D General - Adam Bradford, Lauren Urban, Todd Kenrick Leave D&D Beyond

They join lead writer James Haeck, who left a couple of weeks ago. Adam Bradford is the D&D Beyond co-founder, and VP of Tabletop Gaming at its owner, Fandom. Lauren Urban is DDB's Community Manager. Todd Kenrick is the company's Creative Manager. D&D Beyond, launched in 2017, is currently...

www.enworld.org

This move has been widely expected for some time. The purchase figure being circulated is $146 million. By comparison, when WotC purchased then-D&D owner TSR in 1997, it did so for $25M. Hasbro later purchased WotC for $325M.

D&D Beyond was created in 2017 by Curse LLC, a company owned by Twitch. Fandom purchased Curse in 2018. WotC will be the third owner of the platform.

In other news, back in November WotC applied for a trademark for 'Atomic Arcade' for a variety of electronic gaming applications, and earlier in the year, rumours spread regarding WotC’s plans for its own virtual tabletop platform (VTT) following a survey in which they gauged opinions and allegedly showed off graphically rich 3D screenshots.

Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) today announced that it is acquiring D&D Beyond, the leading digital toolset and game companion for the Company’s groundbreaking fantasy franchise, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, from Fandom. Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform, has owned and operated D&D Beyond since 2019 and has grown the direct-to-consumer business to be the leading role-playing game (RPG) digital toolset on the market with close to 10 million registered users. This strategic acquisition, for $146.3 million in cash, will further strengthen Hasbro’s capabilities in the fast-growing digital tabletop category while also adding veteran talents to the Wizards of the Coast team and accelerating efforts to deliver exceptional experiences for fans across all platforms.

Since 2017, D&D Beyond has helped to power DUNGEONS & DRAGONS tabletop play and deliver the brand's eighth consecutive year of growth in 2021. Over the last three years, the royalty paid to Hasbro by D&D Beyond has represented a significant contribution to the fastest growing source of revenue for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. The strategic acquisition of D&D Beyond will deliver a direct relationship with fans, providing valuable, data-driven insights to unlock opportunities for growth in new product development, live services and tools, and regional expansions. As part of Wizards, the brand’s leadership will soon be able to drive a unified, player-centric vision of the world’s greatest role-playing game on all platforms.

“The acquisition of D&D Beyond will accelerate our progress in both gaming and direct to consumer, two priority areas of growth for Hasbro, providing immediate access to a loyal, growing player base,” said Chris Cocks, Hasbro Chief Executive Officer. “Hasbro’s gaming portfolio is among the largest and most profitable in the industry, and we continue to make strategic investments to grow our brands, including in digital.”

“This is the perfect next step for the talented D&D Beyond team, who built a transformative digital product that engaged and delighted millions of D&D fans around the world,” said Perkins Miller, CEO of Fandom. “We can't wait to see what this team will do next as an integral part of the D&D franchise, and I look forward to investing in more brands and products to super serve Fandom’s 300 million+ global fans.”

“D&D Beyond has been one of our most valuable partners in the digital space for the past six years and we’re excited to bring their best-in-class talent onto our team,” said Cynthia Williams, President of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming. “The team at D&D Beyond has built an incredible digital platform, and together we will deliver the best-possible DUNGEONS & DRAGONS experience for players around the world.”

Hasbro’s continued investment in Wizards of the Coast’s digital growth for its two iconic franchises, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and MAGIC: THE GATHERING, is representative of the significant opportunity in PC and mobile gaming, an industry that represented over 3 billion players globally and $129 billion in revenue in 20211. With the launch of Magic: The Gathering Arena on PC in 2019 and on mobile in 2021, Wizards has built a unique ecosystem of best-in-class tabletop and digital play to create deeper player engagement and satisfaction and grow revenue across all expressions and regions. Similarly, with more than 80% of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS fans having already played the game virtually in 2021, aided by online digital platforms such as D&D Beyond, this acquisition accelerates the game’s ability to penetrate new markets, gather valuable consumer insights and provide players with the best DUNGEONS & DRAGONS experience on all platforms.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and the receipt of certain regulatory approvals, and is expected to close during the second or third quarter of 2022. The transaction will be funded out of cash on hand and is expected to be immaterial to revenue and earnings per share in 2022 and accretive to earnings per share in fiscal year 2023 and beyond. The transaction has been approved by both Hasbro’s and Fandom’s Boards of Directors.

Welcome to the Party, D&D Beyond | Dungeons & Dragons

We are excited to welcome everyone at D&D Beyond, bringing together two teams dedicated to making Dungeons & Dragons easy to run and accessible to all!

dnd.wizards.com

 

[deganawida]

Heck management might not even need a kick - just a change in ownership and the new owners setting down a new direction is probably enough for them to actually start doing the things they want to do instead of floundering around trying to figure out how to increase profits every quarter to make their owners happy.

Heh, don't forget that WotC doesn't have the, "We promised our investment capital firm 10% returns each quarter" issue, too. Good heavens, I hate working for companies that do that.

 

[Jer]

I'd assume this will help accelerate WotC's VTT plans, right? I honestly don't know enough about that kind of software development to tell.

Beyond isn't a VTT and doesn't have a VTT presence so I doubt it.

It does suggest that what they might do for their VTT plans is partner with someone with a plan to acquire them if they like what they see through the partnership. Watch for more announcements of "D&D Beyond Integration" in existing VTTs to suss out who Wizards is looking to purchase. (Or they could license Beyond integration to all of the VTTs and let them pay Wizards for the privilege - as long as there are multiple competing VTTs it may not make sense for them to actually own one and spend their own money on it, depending on how profitable they are).

 

[bedir than]

No. The founders make money on the first sale. Founders are generally not majority owners after that, and don't stand to make much money on subsequent sales.

I'd be surprised if the founders had zero shares after the first two purchases. Yes, the ones that left for other companies probably aren't making anything off the 146 million that WotC just paid Fandom, true

 

[bedir than]

I can haz Sidekicks now?

 

[Umbran]

Honestly, I hope they shake the sugar (ahem) out of the dev team.

They're godawful, and have been getting worse, and worse, and worse for nearly three years. Before that they were actually improving, gradually. Have you been following the development? It's slowed to almost nothing, and it's been largely features that are either monetized junk, or that nobody was asking for being added, whilst basic stuff, that's in actual rulebooks, is written off as "too hard to implement" - for literally years.

Dude. Do not blame the dev teams for Product or Business decisions.

 

[OB1]

Thank goodness. After that weird WoTC survey last year about a new VTT product, I was hopeful that acquiring DDB would be a part of it, but worried that it wouldn't. Every chance I got in the survey I said that I had purchased a ton of product in DDB and that I wouldn't do it again in a new WoTC product.

I'm cautiously optimistic that this deal is going to work out great both for me and my players, and the hobby as a whole.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If your business model is very successful, you don't get bought at all, because you don't sell a goose that lays golden eggs.

If your business model is mediocre to middling, and you have built functionality that aligns strongly with a bigger fish, that's when you get bought.

I mean, I'd disagree, because virtually every extremely successful software or website-based business in the last decade or two got sold to a super-big-boy business for tens or hundreds of millions or even billions. There's a hierarchy of success.

What you never see with something truly successful is multiple re-sales unless the people in charge of them keep going bust and are doing it out of desperation (and I can only think of one example of that).

Dude. Do not blame the dev teams for Product or Business decisions.

Whilst I broadly agree as a general principle, they've given every impression that the developers are, in fact, involved in these decisions, and that separation between management and development at Beyond is not as clean as you're suggesting. Specifically the devs have actively defended a number of business decisions on technical grounds. In some cases at great length.

As someone who works with a lot of third-party software and talks to a lot of developers, I know it's not as simple as you're suggesting, sorry. There's no universal setup where the devs are always at the mercy of terrible and evil capital-M Management.

But what I'm referring to is whoever is making the decisions on what to implement and what is a priority at Beyond. Whoever is leading that, whether they're some "clueless suit" stereotype, or a lead dev with bad ideas or both, they need a boot to the rear.

 

[darjr]

Well this explains a lot

 

[Willie the Duck]

Re: Ruin Explorer's comments and the responses to it:--
All we can say for sure is that there were fundamental play issues (my own personal gripe--Clockwork and Aberrant Sorcerers could not swap out their archetype-granted spells) that damaged our enjoyment (and potentially likelihood to start/continue paying for the service). Previously, this did not get addressed, be it because no one knew, no one cared, the expense was too great, no one knew how to fix it with the resources available, or it was always #3 on the priority list (even as they cycled through ever-changing @s 1&2).

Now that D&DB is moving under WotC's umbrella, will this change? Potentially, as great playability will no longer impact just X subscriptions per month, but be part of the PR for the D&D brand as a whole.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

…

Are the founders even still with the company?

Adam Bradford is one of the Cofounders, and he left for another venture roughly a year ago. Note, however, that he was a cofounder because he spearheaded the project for Curse. Some of the conversation (not necessarily from you) has seemed to assume the a couple of independent “founders” started it, and then were bought out by other companies. DDB was originally a Curse project (pitched to Curse management by Adam), that was subsequently sold to Fandom. (Adam made the move to Fandom, and was a VP there before leaving for a new startup in the RPG space)

Interestingly, while Adam was always referred to as a “co founder,” I’ve never heard that term used for anyone else associated with DDB. Dave Hartless was the original lead developer, and he is still with the company. I believe his current title is VP for Development.