D&D General Hasbro activist begins proxy fight, urges Dungeons & Dragons spinoff

[MoonSong]

Hasbro doesn't relinquish something once they get it. I would be greatly surprised if they cut out WotC, especially since it wouldn't surprise me if WotC was quite a huge chunk of their income. I wouldn't be against it, but I don't see it happening.

This is the reason shareholders want it spun off. Shareholders see WotC getting record sales with very little investment, but that income isn't becoming money in their pockets, because it is being used to support the rest of Hasbro. They don't see it reflected in share prices, not in dividends. But if they spin off WotC, the company on its own would see that record income become record profit, which can be reinvested in WotC itself-to raise share price- or taken as dividends -money given to shareholders-.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Not a chance. Disney is literally an empire, while Hasbro is just a successful company.

Splitting off WotC could benefit the stockholders, which is a reason to run the numbers on it.

Rebember before the Little Mermaid, Beast & Beauty and the Renaissance of Disney company this wasn't in the best years, the 1968-1989 is known as "Disney dark age". Hasbro has got the potential.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Rebember before the Beast & Beauty and the resurecction of Disney company this wasn't in the best years. Hasbro is like pre-resurecction Disney.

Not even close. Disney has always had the foundation income from the parks to fall back upon.

 

[Remathilis]

Not even close. Disney has always had the foundation income from the parks to fall back upon.

Well, sorta. The Disney Rennisance also coincided with Bob Igor's plans to renovate the parks, including the long-unprofitable Euro Disney Park and several smaller American locations that either failed or never began. The main parks were money makers, but it was being squandered on bad expansion ideas.

Long story short: there was a not insignificant window of time where Disney could have ended up a much smaller media player rather than the megacorp it did.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

...the Now 20's, not the ancient 20's.

Even a mediocre video game has good profit potential compared to novels.

Also great loss potential. Mediocre video games easily get crowded out in the market and fail to recoup their development costs, which are substantial compared to novels.

 

[Parmandur]

Also great loss potential. Mediocre video games easily get crowded out in the market and fail to recoup their development costs, which are substantial compared to novels.

Actually, my understanding is that a middling seller can keep the doors open more than you might think (200,000 total sales is a success, for most companies).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Do you have reason to believe that Dark Alliance is less profitable than pulp novels in the 20's...?

I do.

It was universally panned and games which are basically never make money unless there is a meme or fad attached, which wasn't the case here. It has a Metacritic of 53% and generally unless your game has Mario, Zelda, Pokémon or similar in the title getting anywhere below 70% is death. And D&D isn't a brand associated with quality in videogames, largely thanks to WotC/Hasbro consistently giving licenses to losers post-Black Isle/Obsidian. There are some not-bad games sure, and BG3 is shaping up to be a classic (big improvements in most recent patches) on full release so that will help, but the last 15 years of D&D videogames is a story of them being anywhere from ok to awful in most cases.

Anyway I strongly suspect that, if, as WotC directly claimed, Tuque was staffed up like a ln AAA studio (expensive) then it lost money. The deal to get it on day 1 on Game Pass will have helped, but sales have to have been dismal, given that on Steam it peaked at 3k players and rapidly dropped to double digits. Compare that with Warhammer 3 which also was day 1 on Game Pass yet had 156k peak on Steam

So yeah TLDR we have good reason to believe it didn't make money. If it did, expect a sequel, but that seems unlikely.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Actually, my understanding is that a middling seller can keep the doors open more than you might think (200,000 total sales is a success, for most companies).

Not with an AAA studio. With an AA and a bit of luck you can work that - you need some bigger hits too though. Obsidian struggled with much better numbers. And the WotC claim is they staffed Tuque up as an AAA studio (they were AA previously). I am very interested to know what Tuque are working on now, if anything.

 

[Parmandur]

Not with an AAA studio. With an AA and a bit of luck you can work that - you need some bigger hits too though. Obsidian struggled with much better numbers. And the WotC claim is they staffed Tuque up as an AAA studio (they were AA previously). I am very interested to know what Tuque are working on now, if anything.

They said their ambition was to make AAA games...but that was a AA game.

 

[Parmandur]

Not with an AAA studio. With an AA and a bit of luck you can work that - you need some bigger hits too though. Obsidian struggled with much better numbers. And the WotC claim is they staffed Tuque up as an AAA studio (they were AA previously). I am very interested to know what Tuque are working on now, if anything.

And at any rate, my point isn't "Dark Alliance did well," but that I see no reason to believe it was less of a wise financial investment than throwing out a bunch of cheap paperback novels.