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.

 

[Scribe]

And I did not claim that.
I said, that I like what they spend our money on.

https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-strong-revenue-operating-profit-and-earnings-0

OK, then tell me they need more?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Will we, the gaming community, be "just fine" with that approach?

Yes.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't really understand your point with that infographic. Are you suggesting that there should be a limit on the revenue that Hasbro can make? When they earn less or lose money, like for 2022, do we owe them?

 

[Oofta]

https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-strong-revenue-operating-profit-and-earnings-0

OK, then tell me they need more?

View attachment 269275

Because as a business they'd be stupid not to attempt to make more profit as long as it doesn't harm their core business? You keep insisting that making a profit isn't a bad thing and then ... complain that they're making a profit?

 

[Scribe]

Because as a business they'd be stupid not to attempt to make more profit as long as it doesn't harm their core business? You keep insisting that making a profit isn't a bad thing and then ... complain that they're making a profit?

No, but you continue to misrepresent what I'm saying, to a humorous degree.

They are already making a massive profit. So go ahead and go back to the post you initial responded to, and tell me what it said again. I'll make it easier.

See the flavour text here? Simply replace "power" with "profit" and "izzet mages" with "Hazbro executives". People understand the need for profits. There is a point where the methods to gain EVER MORE profits, is exploitive and harms the game/players.

"People understand the need for profits."

 

[Alzrius]

Because as a business they'd be stupid not to attempt to make more profit as long as it doesn't harm their core business? You keep insisting that making a profit isn't a bad thing and then ... complain that they're making a profit?

I think what @Scribe is trying to outline is that there are ways of making a profit that involve serving the best quality products they can make to their customer base, and ways of making a profit that involve deliberately offering products of less-than-optimal quality in order to encourage additional spending. Remember how, back when WotC was rolling out 4E, they openly admitted to holding back popular monsters from the first Monster Manual in order to encourage purchasing future volumes? Things like that.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

No, but you continue to misrepresent what I'm saying, to a humorous degree.

They are already making a massive profit. So go ahead and go back to the post you initial responded to, and tell me what it said again. I'll make it easier.



"People understand the need for profits."

They are allowed to try and make more money. So long as they don’t do stuff I am against I am fine with that.

 

[Oofta]

No, but you continue to misrepresent what I'm saying, to a humorous degree.

They are already making a massive profit. So go ahead and go back to the post you initial responded to, and tell me what it said again. I'll make it easier.



"People understand the need for profits."

Not sure how to interpret "OK, then tell me they need more?" other than you think it's somehow bad that they want to make more. Please explain if I'm missing something. Either it's okay for them to make more of a profit or it's not.

 

[Zardnaar]

They are allowed to try and make more money. So long as they don’t do stuff I am against I am fine with that.

There's bad ways to make money both for the consumer and probably long term for WotC.

And we have a prime example of that with MtG and what they're saying now.

 

[Oofta]

I think what @Scribe is trying to outline is that there are ways of making a profit that involve serving the best quality products they can make to their customer base, and ways of making a profit that involve deliberately offering products of less-than-optimal quality in order to encourage additional spending. Remember how, back when WotC was rolling out 4E, they openly admitted to holding back popular monsters from the first Monster Manual in order to encourage purchasing future volumes? Things like that.

But that has not been in any post that they've made on the subject. Based on the actual presentation they're pushing profit potential of capitalizing on D&D's popularity in areas outside of the core game. I don't see how it's bad that they're hoping to make money off of entertainment, licensing and merchandise related to the IP.

If we see indications they're making some of the errors TSR made or 4E did initially that's a different story. We see no indication of that.