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.

 

[mamba]

If the negative effects of microtransactions on the wider play culture in other gaming media that people have repeatedly brought up in this thread have not registered, then explaining it like you're a fourth grader will not convince you of anything.

The problem is that it is other gaming media, I do not think these issues are all that transferrable.

The main issues revolve around the game being changed to incentivize the player to buy microtransactions. This can be done either by cutting down on grind / advancing faster or by giving some small boost to the player's char.

Both of these work great in a video game because everyone is playing the same game with the same rules, all of which is controlled by the computer / developer. I do not see either working well for D&D. There are multiple ways to play an adventure and none of them but this one VTT would allow for the above, so either you need to change the rules just for this one VTT, create specific adventures just for this one VTT (and hope the DMs follow your idea instead of doing what they want, just like they are used to) or you are limited to cosmetics only.

Since you have no control over gameplay, unlike in computer games, you are essentially limited to purely cosmetic microtransactions (there are some pretty successful PC games that follow that route, so it's not like you need to get some kind of in game bonus).

Given this, I do not see anything but cosmetic options coming with the VTT. And if you think Mr Sparkles the wizard is too much for your Ravenloft campaign, then I guess we will see what you can do about it once the VTT arrives. Personally I'd just let the guy play.

 

[Alzrius]

The thing is most of what I can imagine actually coming is no different than players and DMs buying minis and terrain for an in person game.

Except it's very different. In a VTT micro-transaction environment, there's only one market to choose from: the store which sells (or rather, lets you rent) the assets. You can shop around for minis from different publishers, the secondary market, or even tokens or tiles instead of miniatures, etc., none of which can be done in the sort of closed ecosystem that a VTT functions in. For that matter, you can also transfer the minis and terrain from one game system to another, whether it's D&D, Rolemaster, Harn, RuneQuest, etc. You can't really do that with VTT assets bought in a shop either.

 

[SkidAce]

If you let players roll you over and force cheating that’s on you.

I wouldn’t. I have whole tables to think about. One person cheating is going to get talked to or bumped.

You do what you like.

Again? How is WotC going to enforce it?

I think the problem is they won't have to "enforce it" when they have changed the play culture enough.

DMs get flack now for changing species options. And if its easy and prevelant to use WoTCs option, and hard to use your homemade option, then the culture of DMs in charge may change to a culture of using WotC options only, at which point people will expect to be able to use what they buy.

The specifics of what and what time of transaction items I agree are still unknown.

But I do feel they are going to try to change the paradigm in their (monetary) favor.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Except it's very different. In a VTT micro-transaction environment, there's only one market to choose from: the store which sells (or rather, lets you rent) the assets. You can shop around for minis from different publishers, the secondary market, or even tokens or tiles instead of miniatures, etc., none of which can be done in the sort of closed ecosystem that a VTT functions in. For that matter, you can also transfer the minis and terrain from one game system to another, whether it's D&D, Rolemaster, Harn, RuneQuest, etc. You can't really do that with VTT assets bought in a shop either.

It’s still more or less the same, long as you know the stuff you bought only works on that system.

I don’t imagine we will have to pay for each model anyway. I imagine players in a campaign will have a character creator were you pick your species, face, hair, color, clothes, and pose and other things.

If the DM owns the Monster Manual they will have models for all the creatures in it.

 

[mamba]

Except it's very different. In a VTT micro-transaction environment, there's only one market to choose from: the store which sells (or rather, lets you rent) the assets. You can shop around for minis from different publishers, the secondary market, or even tokens or tiles instead of miniatures, etc., none of which can be done in the sort of closed ecosystem that a VTT functions in. For that matter, you can also transfer the minis and terrain from one game system to another, whether it's D&D, Rolemaster, Harn, RuneQuest, etc. You can't really do that with VTT assets bought in a shop either.

No it is absolutely the same, because the point was that the impact of the cosmetic microtransaction is no different from some player bringing a miniature today, and that is completely independent of where the mini is from

 

[darjr]

I think the problem is they won't have to "enforce it" when they have changed the play culture enough.

DMs get flack now for changing species options. And if its easy and prevelant to use WoTCs option, and hard to use your homemade option, then the culture of DMs in charge may change to a culture of using WotC options only, at which point people will expect to be able to use what they buy.

The specifics of what and what time of transaction items I agree are still unknown.

But I do feel they are going to try to change the paradigm in their (monetary) favor.

could be. But that is worlds away different than kicking DMS off of beyond because they won't let a player use their purchased items.

ultimately though D&D belongs to us and there are so very many people of all kinds of play styles, among new and old players, that if wotc gets manipulative in this way people will walk away.

it's happened before.

edit to add
I think that scenario gives them too much credit about control over the D&D culture. I mean Matt Mercer has more control than that.

 

[tetrasodium]

Except it's very different. In a VTT micro-transaction environment, there's only one market to choose from: the store which sells (or rather, lets you rent) the assets. You can shop around for minis from different publishers, the secondary market, or even tokens or tiles instead of miniatures, etc., none of which can be done in the sort of closed ecosystem that a VTT functions in. For that matter, you can also transfer the minis and terrain from one game system to another, whether it's D&D, Rolemaster, Harn, RuneQuest, etc. You can't really do that with VTT assets bought in a shop either.

The player interface app is the side where problematic microtransactions are more likely. Quite a few modern VTTs have some form of reoccuring revenue stream like a subscription unlock, asset packs, or whatever... those are almost universally a thing the GM buys or gets gifted. Even the ones with a client app of some form tend to allow players to use it for free. Wotc as both system creator & a vtt maker could do things that current VTTs can not like include forms of pay to win type features or gacha mechanics in the client app & the gm might not even have the ability to realize the player did so without auditing the player's account on the player's phone.

 

[Malmuria]

The thing is most of what I can imagine actually coming is no different than players and DMs buying minis and terrain for an in person game. Are you against that?

One difference is that ownership of digital objects are more uncertain than physical objects. eg. if you buy digital terrain or minis (or books), do you still have them if you cancel your subscription, or if the company stops the service, or if they decide you've broken TOS in some way.

 

[Alzrius]

No it is absolutely the same, because the point was that the impact of the cosmetic microtransaction is no different from some player bringing a miniature today, and that is completely independent of where the mini is from

Except for the fact that it's not a transaction at all if they previously bought the mini years ago for a completely different game, and are repurposing it now. Hence, they performed one previous transaction that (insofar as that particular mini is concerned) doesn't need to be repeated. It undercuts the whole "recurrent spending environment" that was mentioned in the fireside chat, in other words.

 

[Oofta]

I rate this a 4 out of10 on the attempted 'gotcha' scale.

Nice try at a smear by association with the link, but as my actual quote does not contain any of the pet phrases, you ultimately fell short at your attempt to put words in my mouth.

Do better.

If people continue to see the whole thing as one big nothingburger after several exchanges; I see no point in persisting to convince them otherwise.

We'll see how this all plays out in two years...

Nobody has been able to explain why it's a somethinburger. Other than the two ways I mentioned above what problems would it cause? How is my logic flawed?

Assertions without supporting logic aren't particularly convincing. Until proven otherwise I don't see any reason for concern.