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.

 

[Maxperson]

Honestly, I'm not worried that WotC will introduce cosmetic items allowing people to cheat. I think it's more likely someone might try to create a hack to enable that behavior, but it's not a route I believe WotC would deliberately walk.

No. I don't think they will do that. I can see them making some sort of skin for a wizard where electricity arcs and snakes around your wizard's body constantly as a cosmetic alteration, and perhaps another where a storm cloud with lightning going off inside of it appears over your caster's head when he casts a spell. I don't see the DM being able to deny that sort of thing if someone pays money for it. Being able to shut that sort of thing down would shut down the microtransactions themselves as people won't spend money on things that they can't or might not be able to use.

 

[Velderan]

There's a huge difference between D&D and MMOs. You're only interacting with 5 other players and you have a DM. If someone at my table was putting down someone else for a "bad" avatar, we'd be down one player and it wouldn't be the one with the standard avatar.

I just don't see an issue. Someone wants to spend $100 or more on dice? Get a custom painted mini? More power to them. We may ooh and ah for a moment, but it has zero impact on the game. There have always been people that spend an inordinate amount of money on games and others, like me, that buy books or parts of books that interest them but use a dry erase marker and plastic dice I bought by the pound. Someone wants bling for their PC? We'll ooh and ah for a moment and then get on with playing the game.

That stuff already exists in the in-person games anyhow so what's the big deal with it existing in a VTT. I've played games where 1 player had a mini they painted themself that looked really nice while another player used an extra d6 because that's what they had. Dice exist in a wide variety of materials and colors, from the basic plain dice you can find in a tube at your FLGS to dice made of metal, various types of stone, or wood at a huge range of price points. They all basically roll the same at the table so who cares if someone spent $7 or $700 on their dice?

 

[Zardnaar]

I'd absolutely note the constant really good dice rolls or damage. I've had cheaters in games before.

One time a player used a huge big gulp to hide his rolls. Another a player would pretend to roll on their phone.

If the cheats are so small I don't notice? Well it's hardly worth it then isn't it? If they are big, out they go. WotC's going to have to show up at my house to stop me, and no, terrain or bribes won't help WotC.

I had a notorious cheat as well so I just did it back. When he eventually left town I told him I had known for years.

He never really figured out why he got hit so hard or so often. I was giving NPCs +5 to hit and damage.

In the 90's we caught him firing a bow he didn't own with ammo he didn't own at a Vampire that needed magical weapons to hit. He also wasn't proficient in said bow.

When my now wife started playing she said "you know XYZ fudged his announced numbers" my reply was "that's ok so do I".

 

[darjr]

No. I don't think they will do that. I can see them making some sort of skin for a wizard where electricity arcs and snakes around your wizard's body constantly as a cosmetic alteration, and perhaps another where a storm cloud with lightning going off inside of it appears over your caster's head when he casts a spell. I don't see the DM being able to deny that sort of thing if someone pays money for it. Being able to shut that sort of thing down would shut down the microtransactions themselves as people won't spend money on things that they can't or might not be able to use.

You're almost there.

No one will spend money on things that will limit their playing because of getting asked to leave games.

 

[Maxperson]

You're almost there.

No one will spend money on things that will limit their playing because of getting asked to leave games.

I don't really see much of a difference. Not being able to play the lightning wreath skin and storm cloud spellcasting animation kinda = being asked to leave. I'm going to want to be in a game where I can use it. If I have to keep going from game to game to game before I find a DM that will allow it, it's not going to be worth the money to purchase.

I doubt WotC will sell things like that(if they do) and not allow the player to decide if it gets used in a given game.

 

[Maxperson]

If it has an actual impact on play, every DM I've ever had has final say on what's allowed. Some are okay with anything, some will ban specific books, classes, races, most will ban 3PP until they review it.

I don't see why that would change. Someone shows up with a color mini they printed on HeroForge? Cool. Show up with a warlock when the DM has specifically banned them? Nope.

They won't make those items I don't think. It will be cosmetics for characters. This cool effect or that cool looking mini.

 

[Maxperson]

This was about the “cheater” items, if it ever happens.

But OK, Still how would WotC enforce it?

They could include acceptance of those cosmetics in the ToS. The DMs will have agreed to allow them if they want to use the platform.

 

[Maxperson]

For sure, but only in terms of magnitude. If we're using videogame analogies, what's the difference between DLC and microtransaction? Size, basically, but otherwise it's the same thing in the sense that it's an optional expense.

That's basically the difference between a gocart and a Lamborghini as well. I just paid for the DLC expansion to WoW. That's very different from a microtransaction with Blizzard for a specific mount. I've paid for all the DLC(expansions), but never microtransacted with Blizzard for the cosmetic stuff.

One of the cool things about microtransactions is that it can make everything modular. You can spend or save as you see fit. Take Xanathar's for example. As a DM, you may well want to buy the whole thing. But as a player, maybe you only want the College of Glamour rules for your bard concept. You don't want to have to drop $40 on a whole book, the majority of which you'll never use. So if they give you the option of $5 for just the College of Glamour, that's making things more accessible and more afforable.

Yes, but I think most of those transactions will be DMs set to allow one into their game or players who have already gotten permission to use it. I doubt that there will be a high percentage of people buying the glamour bard and then shopping around for a game.

 

[Clint_L]

I had a notorious cheat as well so I just did it back. When he eventually left town I told him I had known for years.

He never really figured out why he got hit so hard or so often. I was giving NPCs +5 to hit and damage.

In the 90's we caught him firing a bow he didn't own with ammo he didn't own at a Vampire that needed magical weapons to hit. He also wasn't proficient in said bow.

When my now wife started playing she said "you know XYZ fudged his announced numbers" my reply was "that's ok so do I".

I personally use physical dice and always make open rolls unless there is a mechanical reason why the roll has to be secret. However, one thing I really like about DnDBeyond, which I use for all my school groups, is that all of the player's digital rolls come rolling right across the screen for everyone to see, which is exciting but also makes fudging impossible, so your old player would have been out of luck.

I get why people want to fudge rolls because they get caught up in the story and want to "win." I work really hard with young players, right from session 0, to emphasize that "winning" in D&D just means making a fun adventure, and failed rolls are a big part of it. Then I go out of my way to make misses and fails extra narratively exciting, so that students soon look forward to a failure as much as a success, because they know something interesting will happen. I make a production out of natural 1s, both theirs and mine, so now they probably get more excited for a natural 1 than a natural 20.

Edit: In my opinion, failed dice rolls are the most important part of the game, because they spark so much instant creativity. As a teacher, I think schools tend to stigmatize failure, which leads to students and parents (and a lot of teachers) focusing on marks rather than on learning. Learning only happens when you take chances, and mistakes are crucial - nobody ever accomplished anything important without making a ton of mistakes. So I make it my mission as a teacher, D&D included, to destigmatize mistake making. "Gee...what if I am wrong?" and "What can I try next?" are the most important questions a learner can ask, whereas "How do I win/get the highest mark?" is crippling.

 

[BrokenTwin]

While I am 100% on the side of "corporations are bad, death to capitalism", I don't see the possibility of Wizards selling cheats / cheat items on their VTT to be a remotely plausible possibility. There's a massive difference between games like Call of Duty and a D&D game played on a virtual tabletop. The latter is an intimate game played entirely by directly socially engaging a small group of other players for extended periods of time. If someone tries to bring a cheating item into a game, the GM can just... remove the player from the game. I'm reminded of a card game I own where there's a sidebar in the rules that says "What about cheaters? Simple, don't play with people who cheat". And if WotC ever released something like weighted dice or something for their VTT, the social media backlash and exodus to another VTT would be loud and immediate.

Having said that, I fully expect them to focus on the development of profitability to the detriment of the end users. Because they have shareholders, and that's what they're incentivized to do. One of the advantages of tabletop RPGs being a niche market is that creators are more incentivized to focus on providing a quality product, because your market is small with plenty of competition. But D&D's exploded in popularity over the last few years, so...