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.

 

[Dire Bare]

“D&D is under monetized” is a terrifying thing to hear from the Hazbro CEO.

Doesn't terrify me. It's true. Been true for just about the entire 50 year history of the game.

D&D has had great brand recognition since the 80s, but has never effectively translated that into making D&D a powerhouse franchise like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or Harry Potter. And it has that potential, always has.

All WotC is saying is . . . they recognize that potential, they haven't managed to reach it yet, and they want to.

Will it mean more crappy D&D products, from WotC and licensed partners? Well, we already have that . . . . (there's great products too)

Will it mean consumer-unfriendly practices? Perhaps. But there is NOTHING suggesting it so far, so I'm not going to lose sleep over it until it actually happens.

WotC has pushed Magic the Gathering too far in their quest to monetize that brand, but they've been called out for it by the banking industry, and hopefully have learned their lesson for both brands. But even so, Magic continues to rock as a game, hobby, and franchise. I'm not overly worried about D&D.

 

[Dire Bare]

Think “battle pass” and cosmetics/skins like in Fortnight etc

D&D Beyond already has microtransactions and it already has cosmetic items including dice, backgrounds, and portrait frames.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I am a registered user of DDB and I use it weekly to run my Foundry VTT games. I also PAY EXTRA so that all of my players have access to mybooks I purchased on DDB. My players DO NOT own WotC 5e hardcovers. While I do own about half of the ones I have on DDB in physical form -- I have not used a dead tree product to play or run 5e at any time. I am digital only and prefer it that way. I no longer purchase physical products in the 5e line, either.

That doesn't make one of us right and one of us wrong. It does mean, however, that your perspective on the importance of this digital product to WotC's long-term success is probably too low.

Indeed. That $100 per user I used above considered those users who are registered but don't spend any, or may just a little, on the surface already.

for example, in my core gaming group, there are 6 of us. All are registered. 3 don't pay anything. One pays the $36 a year. Two of us pay the $72 a year. The two of us who have main subscriptions have each spend well over $200 in additional material, and the one player has spent an additional $50.

So that's $630 a year for 6 people. If our table is representative of a typical table, that's $1.3 billion

If they are saying DMs are 20%, if each DM is spending $250 a year on subscription and books and materials, even assuming non-DMs aren't paying a penny, that's still 2.6 million users * $250 = $650 million in revenue.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I disagree, I think that there are legitimate points made in that video...

Alright, now I have to go watch it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't know why D&D players hate the idea of spending money on their hobby. Video gamers will buy loot boxes and cosmetic items and special weapons up the wazoo... but roleplayers think that if they bought three books 8 years ago for $40 a pop that they have spent as much money as they need and anything beyond that is them getting gouged by the company.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Going from other games, you can give ecmverything for free and just charge for cosmetics in a virtual tabletop, and people spend money on it like on drugs...

so what I hear is promising and if they handle it right really great.

It can also prove disatrous... but I think, they are able to do it.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm not a big fan of the dice. Nor the backgrounds of sheets or the character frames.

While I wouldn't mind them doing more of that, I'd mostly ignore it. Other than what they are doing now on dndbeyond I'm not sure what else they could do.

Mini's? OK maybe. But I'm not a fan of the 3d tabletop anyway. I get tokens now via avrae. Will I get the mini's for an adventure? A generic set? This area leaves me with a lot of questions.

Same. Plus, we use Foundry and the dice roll there......
Now, when they get a VTT, I'll be more interested. But, even then, I will have reservations because I use A LOT of stuff from Kobold Press and Sneak Attack Press and Monte Cook Games.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't know why D&D players hate the idea of spending money on their hobby. Video gamers will buy loot boxes and cosmetic items and special weapons up the wazoo... but roleplayers think that if they bought three books 8 years ago for $40 a pop that they have spent as much money as they need and anything beyond that is them getting gouged by the company.

Yeah, especially considering the cost per hour of entertainment. How much do we spend on a movie for 2 hours of fun? RPGs are still amazingly cheaper than any other form of paid entertainment.

 

[Charlaquin]

The dice are already a thing. The others seem reasonable enough. I’m just not seeing how they can ruin DDB with micro-transactions.

The thing about microtransaction models is they shift the priorities from making a product which will sells itself on its high quality, to encouraging user retention and recurrent spending through manipulative design.

 

[Umbran]

The dice are already a thing. The others seem reasonable enough. I’m just not seeing how they can ruin DDB with micro-transactions.

It seems to me most of the micro-transactions on D&D Beyond are a good thing for the users. You want pretty dice to roll online? Sure! You want cool backgrounds for your DDB character sheet? There you go! And, more importantly - you want a particular monster, PC race, or magic item, but don't want to buy the whole darned book it is from? Done!

For a VTT, I imagine much the same. Like, your basic use comes with some standard tokens, but if you want something special, they'll sell it to you.

Microtransactions are not themselves an issue. Pay-to-Play is an issue.