WotC Hasbro Bets Big on D&D

During today's 'Hasbro Fireside Chat', Hasbro's Chris Cocks, chief executive officer, and Cynthia Williams, president of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming mentioned D&D, and about betting big on its name. This was in addition to the Magic: The Gathering discussion they held on the same call.

The following are rough notes on what they said.

D&D Beyond

• Leaning heavily on D&D Beyond
• 13 million registered users
• Give them more ways to express their fandom
• Hired 350 people last year
• Low attrition

What’s next for D&D

• Never been more popular
• Brand under-monetized
• Excited about D&D Beyond possibilities
• Empower accessibility and development of the user base.
• Data driven insight
• Window into how players are playing
• Companion app on their phone
• Start future monetization starting with D&D Beyond
• DMs are 20% of the audience but lions share of purchases
• Digital game recurrent spending for post sale revenue.
• Speed of digital can expand, yearly book model to include current digital style models.
• Reach highly engaged multigenerational fans.
• Dungeons and Dragons has recognition, 10 out of 10
• Cultural phenomenon right now.
• DND strategy is a broad four quadrant strategy
• Like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or Marvel
• New books and accessories, licensed game stuff, and D&D Beyond
• Huge hopes for D&D

What is success for the D&D Movie

• First big light up oppourtunity for 4th quadrant
• Significant marketing
• They think it’ll have significant box office
• It has second most viewed trailer at Paramount, only eclipsed by Transformers
• Will be licensed video games, some on movies
• Then follow up other media, TV, other movies, etc.
• Bullish on D&D.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I do very much hope WotC never tries to turn D&D into a whale hunt again. There are plenty of things they can sell that are based on affection rather than impulse control exploitation.

A big gap I see is a lack of a contemporary face for the game. I'm pretty sure that Drizz't is still the most famous face in the game outside of streaming after all these years. We could use a fresh band of unlikely heroes for people to daydream about.

The movie, if it's popular, might close this gap. Thus making either Chris Pine on Rege Jean-Paige the new face of DnD.

 

[Charlaquin]

It also doesn't hurt your games or effect you at all.

It absolutely does hurt the games. Just look at what recurrent user spending models have done to video games. When the money comes from in-game purchases, it becomes more profitable to design games around encouraging in-game sales, rather than designing them to be experiences people want to pay up front to enjoy.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

From the bullet summary it sounded like their strategy for D&D is “a four-quadrant strategy,” not the movie specifically. Maybe I misunderstood.

What is a four-quadrant strategy?

 

[tetrasodium]

So you're saying you think the rest of what I posted is sound?

Some of his points about polling best practices & survivorship bias might be rooted in valid logic as a thing to be aware of but he uses them simply being a thing in polling to push for personal preference with calls for offerings to the altar of simplicity at all costs that gave us 5e's 2014-2022 style of somehow empowering GMs by not supporting them rather than anything data driven.

 

[Zaukrie]

It absolutely does hurt the games. Just look at what recurrent user spending models have done to video games. When the money comes from in-game purchases, it becomes more profitable to design games around encouraging in-game sales, rather than designing them to be experiences people want to pay up front to enjoy.

How much less do you think WotC will produce going forward? Or that other companies will stop doing?

 

[Greg Benage]

What is a four-quadrant strategy?

A strategy to extract as much money as possible out of your accessible market. Basically divides customers and products into existing and new and then uses different tactics to maximize each resulting quadrant.

 

[occam]

That’s generally what “recurrent spending” is code for, yeah.

In digital (usually "free-to-play") games, yes, "recurrent spending" usually means micro-transactions. D&D is much bigger than some mobile game, though. Recurring revenue also means subscriptions, which is already a feature of DDB, and probably a big part of what it made it financially appealing to acquire.

Besides, as already noted, micro-transactions aren't new to DDB; they've been a part of it from the beginning.

I will ask everyone so worried about some of the language used here to at least consider that D&D is not a free-to-play digital game; it's a brand with broad and global name recognition, and that context makes a big difference in how you interpret the language.

"Monetization" in a free-to-play game means getting people to buy in-game resources. Monetization for a global brand means merchandising, movies and TV, subscriptions, and sure, some digital micro-transactions -- but the latter is teeny-tiny potatoes compared to everything else.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

A strategy to extract as much money as possible of of your accessible market. Basically divides customers and products into existing and new and then uses different tactics to maximize each resulting quadrant.

Thanks.

 

[Steel_Wind]

You know, I honestly don't understand why some people think that the video I posted is "clickbait" (or otherwise excessively negative), as that seems to presume no legitimate points are being raised.

I disagree, I think that there are legitimate points made in that video, and that we're seeing some of them (not all of them) verified - or at least sound like they're being verified - in the Cocks/Williams chat. The big one being how it sounds like micro-transactions on the D&D Beyond VTT are now in the works.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that some people have a desire to protect the companies they like from criticism (similar to how they would for family members), which I can understand even if I don't agree with it.

Alright, I watched him.

What do I think? I think it's a pile of ALARMIST CRAP made by someone who doesn't even know the technology that he's complaining about. VTT's have been around before Roll20. The main competitor to Roll20 is Foundry VTT. He doesn't mention Foundry even once -- because he doesn't even know about it. He thinks CoC is the 2nd leading RPG -- because he's basing his data on Roll20. He doesn't know WHY Pathfinder GMs abandoned Roll20 for Foundry VTT en masse in 2020 and the first half of 2021 for Foundry VTT. There are good reasons for that which show how easy it is to auto-import a PDF into a VTT and have it work for all and sundry automagically. But he doesn't know this becuase he doesn't care enough about VTT play to know.

He simply doesn't know much at all about VTT play - or how large it is. This is not surprising as his comments demonstrate that he believes it is a lesser form of gaming that has no legitimacy. He clearly believes that in person physical play is superior (I don't agree) or that the move away from TotM is some sin and inherently limiting factor which is a BAD IDEA (I have had this conversation with a few GMs - including one who is a good friend. Crap to that.)

I don't have any issues with a more fulsome VTT experience that delievers higher visual fidelity. And that's from somone who's first experience with the game was a siege combat in OD&D using lead minis, a model of castle walls and a grid on a ping-pong table in 1977. My main complaint is that we have had to wait so long for these digital toys, not that they are coming at last. They should have been here in ~2010. That it took a pandemic to take the blinders off of game publishers so that they could see the revenue steams they are missing -- and the ease of use of the medium -- is the astonishing thing.

So... no. He's not completely wrong, but he is alarmist, biased AF and yes -- mostly full of crap. What he really is most of all is an advocate for a particular style of gaming and is overly attached to what he sees as the One. True. Game. that he will make alarmist statements about it.

 

[Xamnam]

I'll admit, I might look foolish later, but for how I play the game, I can not imagine a subscription ever benefiting me more than the current model.