The success of the editions has nothing to do with the designs?
D&D General Hasbro activist begins proxy fight, urges Dungeons & Dragons spinoff
The success of the editions has nothing to do with the designs?
Yora
Legend
The story that I always heard is that Hasbro is very hands off with Wizards and grants them a great deal of autonomy as long as the profits look good. And from all we've heard, recent years have been very good.
While I don't know any sources about that either, this seems to have been the common knowledge for a long while.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
Just what do you think you're trying to argue here? What do you think I'm trying to say? It looks to me like you're on some kind of tangent when I was just responding with an alternative viewpoint to darjr's post about Hasbro's impact on WotC's development of D&D.
I don't think Hasbro's management had any direct input into game design. They don't care if D&D is based on a d20, if there's damage on a miss, or what's canon in the Realms. But their plans do shape the overall game design, and their management has large trickle down effects that determine how designers build mechanics, expansions, and editions/revisions.
For example, my understanding is that selling D&D as a subscription/service rather than simply a book product was a goal from Hasbro in 4e. This indirectly but significantly affected game design by making sure the game was made for use with the online tools. Also, the fact that it didn't meet Hasbro's targets as a subscription service is why 4e was a shorter lasting edition, regardless of how good the design was or how successful or not the book sales were going.
For 5e, Hasbro was specifically aiming for a longer product lifecycle. This is one of the main reasons why we have so few 5e books compared to earlier editions; it's intentionally a slow burn rather than flooding the market. I expect this is something the designers took into account for each new release. It also means that if you partially measure "success" by how long the edition lasts without a major revision, Hasbro's management decisions are a large factor.
There's also a lot of stories about how pre-Hasbro management plans shaped the mechanics and release of 3.5e. And I think it would also be easy to show that major personnel hiring/firing events are based on Hasbro's fiscal cycle.
I have to say that the things Alta Fox are claiming don't smell right on a first pass. A lot of the things they talk about don't necessarily sound wrong, per se, but what they are focused on certainly does not match up with what Hasbro considers important in it's major info releases. For example, the brands that Alta Fox talks about as important (other than WotC) aren't what I understand to really be the biggest drivers at Hasbro. And letting go of IP has never been a part of Hasbro's playbook since they transitioned from manufacturing to brand management.
It's possible there's a lot that I just don't know about the scenario; I don't keep up with Hasbro's financials as an investor. And I certainly know nothing about the politics involved. But I also remember the giant nothing-burger from a few years ago when some Youtube investment bros tried to claim Hasbro was going to sell off WotC/D&D. And this really doesn't feel that different. So far.
It's possible there's a lot that I just don't know about the scenario; I don't keep up with Hasbro's financials as an investor. And I certainly know nothing about the politics involved. But I also remember the giant nothing-burger from a few years ago when some Youtube investment bros tried to claim Hasbro was going to sell off WotC/D&D. And this really doesn't feel that different. So far.
I am responding to the following:
"I think the success of 5th edition has more to do with Hasbro backing off or adjusting to lessons learned from 4e's record."
It is unclear to me in what way in which their "backing off" could have had an impact, unless they'd had fairly direct influence over the design. There seems to me that there's an implication that Hasbro leaned in heavily on design for them to "back off" of, and I'm asking for more direct support for that implication.
I mean, if you find Mearls had said somewhere, "Yeah, Hasbro had a lot of design goals for us to fulfill," then you'd have a great point. But otherwise, it seems an unsupported assertion that Hasbro was forward, to have to "back off".
LuisCarlos17f
Legend
Hasbro is not going to do it because they know the future of the entertaiment are the multimedia franchise. Would you sell your stock package if you know they are going to be more valious in the future? WotC is a rising value. They aren't going to shoot in the foot.
If you are going to sell, then you should wonder who is willing to buy and why.
Other reason is to avoid the spin-off could be adquired by a rival company.
If you are going to sell, then you should wonder who is willing to buy and why.
Other reason is to avoid the spin-off could be adquired by a rival company.
A golden opportunity for Sony to make a bid
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Finkel as in Jon Finkel, pro Magic player and original face of Shadowmage Infiltrator?
I am pretty sure that was a WotC move, not a push from Hasbro. WotC had watched two editions basically crash and burn with an aggressive production cycle for books, they'd had to lay off a huge chunk of the D&D group and they had to try something different. A slower release schedule was the "something different".
Now there was something in the recesses of my memory about someone in the chain deciding that different product lines had to support themselves - so the Magic line wasn't going to carry the rest of the company anymore financially - and I think that also played into those decisions. But again, I think (though I could be wrong) that that was from the high ups at Wizards, not a directive that was pushed on them by Hasbro specifically.
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