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.

 

[GDGD]

It most cases, it doesn't really matter if the company is around long term; shareholders and executives are thinking of what increases profit this year.

Sorry, but they aren't. Executives of successful companies think long term.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Generally, no. Or at least, those strategies only work for brief periods. If you overcharge customers, you're inviting competition and profits will shrink. If you underpay workers, you're inviting a disengaged workforce who deliver poor-quality results, again damaging profits in the long term. If you know of any companies that have proven, long-term profitability based on a strategy of overcharging customers and underpaying workers, let me know.

Cost externalization is a bit of a different animal. I've seen companies boost profitability by outsourcing functions. For instance, I've seen companies move their customer service call centre and accounts payable departments to India because the wages are a fraction of what you have to pay in first world nations. That's just following the trend started by moving manufacturing to wherever labour is cheap, though, which has been going on for decades. Of note, a lot of game publishers have their books printed in China, but WotC still prints in the US.

Short term profits are generally more valued than long term, in my experience, and D&D does not effectively have any competition.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Sorry, but they aren't. Executives of successful companies think long term.

We aren't talking about most companies, we are talking about Wizards of the Coast. They just screwed the pooch and have mortally wounded their cash cow - M:TG.

Moreover, we can guess exactly why this happened, too.

With M:TG, execs at WotC who are compensated, in part, on increases in sales are highly incentivized to "pump and dump" their sales in the short term, get paid their bonuses, and then... Then it's somebody else's problem to fix. This is what happens at corps where management get incentives that are normally only earned by owners - without having any expectation of a long-term role at the company. Make hay while the sun shines -- and it doesn't shine long.

That is, I surmise, exactly what happened with M:TG this past year+. On a smaller scale, we saw it happen at WotC with 3.xx. They flooded the market with WAY too many sourcebooks in a short period of time, shrugged,, released 4th ed...

And almost killed the D&D brand.

Yes. I can absolutely see incentives to pay execs bonuses based on short term spike in annual sales to result in EXACTLY this problem again.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Short term profits are generally more valued than long term, in my experience, and D&D does not effectively have any competition.

That's the sort of attitude that saw 4th Ed D&D get pushed off of store shelves not a decade ago. The brand went from #1 to NOT AVAILABLE with that attitude. D&D surrendered the pole position in the RPG marketplace for ~5 years with that kind of delusional talk.

The most remarkable thing isn't that it happened -- it's that is happened so recently, yet you still think it can't happen again.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's the sort of attitude that saw 4th Ed D&D get pushed off of store shelves not a decade ago. The brand went from #1 to NOT AVAILABLE with that attitude. D&D surrendered the pole position in the RPG marketplace for ~5 years with that kind of delusional talk.

The most remarkable thing isn't that it happened -- it's that is happened so recently, yet you still think it can't happen again.

4e didn't meet sales expectations from Hasbro. By most standards, it was successful. Many have noted that S&D only lost their #1 status because they ceased producing product in the gear up to 5e.

I didn't like 4e personally, but I would never say it wasn't a successful game.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

It was successful, but not as successful as desired.

 

[darjr]

4e didn't meet sales expectations from Hasbro. By most standards, it was successful. Many have noted that S&D only lost their #1 status because they ceased producing product in the gear up to 5e.

I didn't like 4e personally, but I would never say it wasn't a successful game.

I don’t think that’s true. I think Pathfinder did better in sales at least once while new 4e product was showing up.

I had made this same assumption a while ago.

But I concede that it’s on me to find it.

 

[Jaeger]

I just don't see what the issue is. D&D is not an MMO. About the only subset of users that could potentially be negatively affected would be professional DMs who feel like they have to keep up with the latest bling for their online games. IMHO it's much ado about nothing. Maybe that's a head-in-the-sand response. If it is, please explain how a DM will lose control of the game and what is allowed. I just don't see it happening.

Will OneVTT effect you and your table? No.

Will the OneVTT ecosystem have an effect on the wider 'official' WotC D&D culture of play?

That is obvious.

The only thing left to debate is what kind of effect it will have. Granted, until we see the implementation it is mostly speculation.

But, the speculative concerns have very real foundations given how many people have seen microtransactions effect other gaming media.

To say it is 'all much ado about nothing' is putting your head-in-the-sand up to your waist.

there is no evidence that mircotransations are even coming at this point.

So people shouldn't take the head of WotC at her word?

Miss Williams At 34:08 in: Hasbro, Inc. Webinar

"...digital will allow us options to create rewarding experiences post-sale that helps us unlock the type of recurrent spending you see in digital games, where more than 70% of revenue in digital games comes post-sale. The speed of digital means that we are able to expand from what is essentially a yearly book publishing model, to a reoccurring spending environment, and we're offering content that we know fans want."

Lathered with corporate-speak, but she's not hard to understand.

...Now maybe the gaslighting will stop.

No such luck dude.

That's the sort of attitude that saw 4th Ed D&D get pushed off of store shelves not a decade ago. The brand went from #1 to NOT AVAILABLE with that attitude. D&D surrendered the pole position in the RPG marketplace for ~5 years with that kind of delusional talk.

The most remarkable thing isn't that it happened -- it's that is happened so recently, yet you still think it can't happen again.

No. WotC thinks that it won't happen again.

Because the circumstances around the OneVTT / DnDone upcoming launch are very different than what went down with 4e...

 

[Alzrius]

With M:TG, execs at WotC who are compensated, in part, on increases in sales are highly incentivized to "pump and dump" their sales in the short term, get paid their bonuses, and then... Then it's somebody else's problem to fix. This is what happens at corps where management get incentives that are normally only earned by owners - without having any expectation of a long-term role at the company. Make hay while the sun shines -- and it doesn't shine long.

It helps to also be on the board of directors for multiple companies, drawing a salary from each. Case in point, Cynthia Williams joined board of directors for Aterian back in April, even though she's still working as President of WotC.

 

[darjr]

So out of curiosity i went to check on the Foundry DNDBeyond importer persons Patreon. Holy cow!!!

Am I right, is he making nearly 40 grand a month? Minus patreon fees?

He doesn't need no fookin check from WotC.

link