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...

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.

Hasbro.jpg


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.
 

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payn

He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Personally, I don't think that the "invisible chains" argument is overstated in the video, largely because he lays out the issue in a very matter-of-fact manner and doesn't engage in hyperbole in terms of either rhetoric or presentation; there's no exaggerated yelling or screaming into the mic, no statements of "it's the death of imagination!" or similar over-the-top statements. He's simply pointing out that this is an aspect to using graphically-immersive 3D VTTs, particularly when they have a lot of interface with what the PCs can do. The more you rely on those built-in functions for interaction with the game world, the more interactions that the system isn't built to handle are marginalized, even inadvertently.

Likewise, there's nothing wrong with pointing to that as a reason to object to a mode of game-play that he doesn't prefer. It's everyone's prerogative to object to the greater prominence of things they don't care for, particularly when doing so marks a shift in resources away from things they do like (whether those resources are on behalf of the creators or among the general audience). That's only a problem when you start making moral judgments about a preferred style, but again, that doesn't happen in the video.

As for issues that aren't raised in that video, but have been here, I largely agree with you that the focus on micro-transactions can function as an effective replacement for minis, and that such a shift could be seen as simply a virtual form of minis. However, I think that there are additional issues which require that we, at the very least, put an asterisk on that level of reasoning.

For one thing, miniatures (i.e. figurines that exist in real-space) have a universality to them which VTT tokens simply don't have. You don't need to use officially-licensed D&D minis in your D&D game; you can use anything from official minis to off-brand minis to Warhammer figures, heroclix, cardboard pawns, etc. And this works with virtually any tabletop game where minis are utilized. Your D&D orc figure can work almost as well as a Shadowrun ork (even if the clothes worn might not be exactly appropriate). So you have multi-applicability not only of the type of minis used, but also in what games they're used in.

VTT tokens won't have that. Even if it's possible for various VTTs to be built on the same engine, and for programmers to make their assets transportable between them, there's no incentive to do so; why bother making it easier for someone to move their stuff over to your competition? So instead, you have people locked into a particular VTT where they've sunk more and more money into building a "mini" collection that can only consist of what's in the official store, but can't be used anywhere else. (Ironically, being locked into a particular digital ecosystem is something brought up in the video.)

Now, admittedly, some VTTs do let you import at least some assets (that I know of) for making virtual tokens, so this might seem like a non-issue. But as VTTs evolve into a more graphically-intensive and interactive 3D environment (like what we saw in WotC's demo showcase a few months ago), I expect this to cease to be the case. Most people aren't digital artists, and can't custom-build assets that are then uploaded into the program. So it'll turn into Fortnite-style "packages" of $0.99 items which can only be used on that platform, with no alternatives if you don't like what's in their shop.

Will we, the gaming community, be "just fine" with that approach? I don't think it will be the death of the gaming community, or the imagination, but I do think it represents a contraction. There's a trade-off going on between creativity and convenience, one which WotC/Hasbro clearly favors because it puts more money in their pocket, but which represents a step back from the inherent "hackability" of how tabletop RPGs work. That's really the point of the entire video, and I think it's a point that's both legitimate and worth considering.
This all sounds like its coming from someone with a severe lack of experience with VTT and an ass load of assumption. Every day a new OSR and bespoke game drops on the market. I hear all the time about 5E newbs wanting to try PF2 for a more tactical experience, or check out something older to get a variety of play experience. It's never been easier to find players for a myriad of systems, campaigns, and games. VTTs are fully customizable and ready to suit your needs today.

I do theater of the mind all the time on VTTs; its not a limiter. If WotC makes it one, there are several good alternatives and folks will use them instead and/or in addition. A 3D VTT isn't going to videogame you, or limit your imagination; only you can do that to yourself.
 

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Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
I'm surprised we're not hearing a lot more about how D&D Beyond will expand into solo-play that isn't entirely video game-like. I feel like that's a no-brainer for getting more player-side purchases.

Just think of all the people (players mostly, but certainly DMs, too) that have a handful (or more like dozens of handfuls) of characters created that aren't getting played.
I've recently dipped my toes into solo play and I agree.

It would not be hard to program any of the many solo play guides on DMs Guild and elsewhere into a D&D Beyond tool that lets people play through procedurally generated adventures. It seems like a relatively easy area for DDB to get into, especially since the tech is built once, other products like it could be built by swapping out content. (Instead of a dungeon crawl, this one is a jungle hex crawl! This one is Undermountain! This one is Greyhawk Castle! This is exploring the Feywild!)
 
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darjr

I crit!
How many copies did they sell? Ten thousand would be a remarkably high number.

I think the movie, BG3 and the TV show are their best bets for getting characters and settings lodged in the audience's mind.
I don’t disagree but previous video games also helped put characters in peoples minds especially the aforementioned Minsc.

He also has his own wiki entry, which isn’t a huge deal but it isn’t nothing.
 

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I think that's just the way of the business world now, much to my chagrin. We're seeing subscription type services everywhere, replacing things that were previously purchased one-time.
I remember arguing with my dad about this in the early 90s. He hated the idea of any subscription-based software, whereas I argued that it was inevitable and would be better for most people in terms of ease of use for non-technical end users. Now that we are well into this being a reality, I still think subscription models work well for many people. My main area of concern is with having so much of my own created content in hosted platforms. They still work better for me than having to manage everything myself, but I'm careful to ensure that the services I use make it easy for me to extract and move my content.

I don't ever see this being the case for something like DDB. I happily pay the subscription and it meets my needs well, but for the core books and the adventures I really like, I also buy the physical books. Really there is nothing WotC can do to "take the game away from me". I can easily go analog or use one of the many third-party system neutral VTTs, campaign managers, and other tools that are available. Personally, I find it less likely that WotC will take any action that drives me away. It'll more likely be their inaction or slow development. If someone were to come out with a VTT that modeled the rules of D&D really well, that was simple to use, and for which I could buy prepped adventures from third-party publisher, I could see completely moving out of the WotC ecosystem entirely and maybe buying a book or two every couple of years if I liked the new rules.

Even if the most dramatic of the sky-is-falling crowd turns out to be correct in their doom and gloom, I just do not see it affecting me much. In the meantime, I'm enjoying what's on offer and remain positive about most of the proposed changes and upcoming movies, games, etc. It is really difficult for me to get worked up about anything WotC does.
 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
Over the years a lot of my software has turned to subscription and that adds a lot too. I am also not the only person in my household making financial decisions, so what these companies often fail to realize is they have to convince both you and your significant other that the subscription price is worth it.
Software is just the beginning. When I originally signed on with an Internet provider, I bought a router from them. When I switched providers a few years back, they took it for granted that I would be renting a router. I balked, and said I'd buy my own; they gave me a huge song and dance about how that would impact their ability to provide support if something was wrong with my service. I ignored them and bought one anyway, and so far have yet to have any problems.
 
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Alzrius

The EN World kitten
This all sounds like its coming from someone with a severe lack of experience with VTT and an ass load of assumption. Every day a new OSR and bespoke game drops on the market. I hear all the time about 5E newbs wanting to try PF2 for a more tactical experience, or check out something older to get a variety of play experience. It's never been easier to find players for a myriad of systems, campaigns, and games. VTTs are fully customizable and ready to suit your needs today.

I do theater of the mind all the time on VTTs; its not a limiter. If WotC makes it one, there are several good alternatives and folks will use them instead and/or in addition. A 3D VTT isn't going to videogame you, or limit your imagination; only you can do that to yourself.
I'll certainly admit that there's a large degree of difference between very basic VTTs like Roll20 (which is essentially a digital piece of graph paper, dice roller, and filed character sheets; I know there's more to it than that, but I'm generalizing) and the sort of 3D quasi-video game environment like what was in WotC's recent showcase. As such, I think we need better verbiage than just "VTT" and "3D VTT" to talk about this, though we don't have said verbiage yet...though I suspect we will once 3D VTTs start to become more and more of a realty.

But a lot of that is because the VTTs of today are third-party creations meant to work with a variety of systems in order to draw in the largest customer base. That won't be the case with one owned and operated by the same company that makes the RPGs. Especially if it has bells and whistles, to say nothing of content support, that the third-party VTTs don't have. That's aside from the fact that I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that, when the graphics get better, it offloads the need for theater of the mind, and when that happens if can be difficult to go the other way. In that case, I don't think people will go to other VTTs, especially if they've purchased a lot of assets on WotC's. I think they'll be more likely to simply constrict their play-style rather than dump everything to try it again elsewhere.
 

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I think it reaches a breaking point for a lot of people though. I am at the point where I am looking to decrease, not increase my subscription services. I just can't afford all those monthly or annual fees anymore. I'll keep the basics, for example I use Word and Adobe enough, but I am not going to do a subscription for an RPG or a new streaming service.
I think many people have reached the point of saturation many times by now, especially during the past view COVID years. I find that I am at the point where I just look over my entertainment spend once a quarter, cycling through subscriptions based on which shows I'm currently interested in and what games I'm playing.

With TTRPGs, the tough thing is to avoid lock-in, one of the big reasons I chose Foundry is that I have full control over my content. I can host it myself or chose from a number of hosting providers. If my financial situation changes, I can continue to continue gaming even if I cancelled DDB, my current Foundry hosting company, and the couple of creators I support on Patreon. Patreon and Kickstarter have been bigger issues for me that I have to check myself on more. I spend too much on content I never use and realize for some that all I've really got was warm fuzzies for supporting an independent creator and some gaming material I have a small chance of getting around to using before I die.
 

Incenjucar

Legend
A WotC VTT could also be used for other Hasbro properties like the My Little Pony RPG and perhaps a Transformers RPG. Extra niche, but dedicated fan bases who are then one step closer to trying D&D if they somehow haven't.
 

Clint_L

Hero
Thinking more about it: who gets most of my D&D money?

I spend a lot on this game, and very little of it goes to Hasbro/WotC. In the past year alone, I've figure I've spent something like:

Dwarven Forge: $2k or more
Reaper: $500 (backed the last KS hard)
Archon Studios/Dungeons and Lasers: $150 (KS)
Forged: $100 (KS)
Wizkids: $300 (various miniatures)
Army Painter: $100 (paints/supplies)
Games Workshop: $100 (same)
Steamforged Games/Epic Encounters: ($200)
Various Vendors: $200 for things like lights, books, supplies, etc.
Amazon Prime Subscription (Vox Machina, Stranger Things, etc.)
Twitch Subscription (Critical Roll)

WotC: $200? (DnDBeyond and a few books)

I think I am underestimating what I purchased outside WotC, but you get the idea. Hasbro/WotC is getting maybe 5% of my D&D money. Obviously, my heavy miniatures+terrain interests make me a high spender in the hobby, but this is still an issue, and the VTT is meant to try to get in on some of that action.
 

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
1. Yeah, micro-transactions are already a good thing on DnDBeyond - they let you buy just the content that you want. Don't need the whole Wildemount Guide but really want the new Echo Knight sub-class? Just buy it for a dollar or two. As a consumer, I like having the option to not pay extra for stuff I don't need.
Also, if you do decide to by buy the entire book later they will discount based on and bit of content you have already bought. One can argue whether the cost makes sense for how you use the content--which ultimately individuals need to decide for themselves--but DDB does a good job with being transparent about its pricing and giving the consumer a lot of choice on what to buy.
 

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