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.

 

[Oofta]

Lets go in a slightly different direction with this discussion.

What do YOU think the 350+ new employees working on the digital footprint of DnD are going to be working on, and how do you think Hasbro/WotC is going to recoup the costs of exploding their paid workforce? What do YOU think it means that they want to focus on recurring post-purchase revenue? Do you believe their new focus is to just do whatever they are doing now without any significant changes?

I see you shooting down everyone elses idea of what WotC might mean, but I don't see you offering up your own opinion on the matter.

I have doubts a company is going to hire 350+ additional coders just to keep doing what they already are doing.

I don't remember it being 350 coders. But they could be working on a lot of things, the VTT being just one of them. DDB may need major revisions so that it can be more flexible and provide a better API. They could be looking at publishing a AAA game. They could be adding writing staff to release a new version of Gamma World.

We don't know what they're planning on. Obviously they are working on products that WOTC will make a profit on, that still doesn't mean there's any reason for concern. If the VTT doesn't work for you because you don't like their pricing strategy, don't use it. I will agree with @Hussar (sorry Hussar), in that it feels like the term microtransaction is being used as a scare tactic when they'll just likely be adding tokens and assets like all VTTs do.

 

[mamba]

I have doubts a company is going to hire 350+ additional coders just to keep doing what they already are doing.

If there are more than 100 coders here I’d be surprised. It being 50 ‘only’ would not surprise me however.

I assume there are a lot more involved in creating models (chars, monsters, environments) and textures, etc. Even so that 350 number is huge and WotC must expect a return on their investment (of easily 20M a year).

That could be a subscription model for the VTT, I would expect sets for the different adventures too, and definitely buying skins or fancy items for the chars.
If you look how much some games make, the last one alone can easily cover the salary if things go ‘as planned’. Might even make the VTT free to attract more users.

 

[Hussar]

Lets go in a slightly different direction with this discussion.

What do YOU think the 350+ new employees working on the digital footprint of DnD are going to be working on, and how do you think Hasbro/WotC is going to recoup the costs of exploding their paid workforce? What do YOU think it means that they want to focus on recurring post-purchase revenue? Do you believe their new focus is to just do whatever they are doing now without any significant changes?

I see you shooting down everyone elses idea of what WotC might mean, but I don't see you offering up your own opinion on the matter.

I have doubts a company is going to hire 350+ additional coders just to keep doing what they already are doing.

Well let’s go back to 4e for a moment. Even with a vastly smaller DnD community than now, it was generally agreed that WotC was seeing about 100 000 subs. That was about half a million dollars per month.

Suddenly recouping that investment doesn’t seem to far about of reach without “loot boxes” and “micro transactions “.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Well let’s go back to 4e for a moment. Even with a vastly smaller DnD community than now, it was generally agreed that WotC was seeing about 100 000 subs. That was about half a million dollars per month.

Suddenly recouping that investment doesn’t seem to far about of reach without “loot boxes” and “micro transactions “.

I subbed back in the 4e days because the character builder was AWESOME. Access to every character related item (there were a few that didn't get programmed from odd sources) pretty much within a month of it coming out. I killed it when they killed the builder and repla ed it with a crappier version.

I have no interest in DDB because I'm not going to pay double for every book I purchase.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

For example right now you can share content with your group on dndbeyond; they might start charging to do that.

I'm saying one path to increased revenue would be charge for the one person to share content

This is from a few pages back, but D&D Beyond already has a subscription service level that lets you share the content you and your players have bought with each other in a campaign.

D&D Beyond already has microtransactions and a subscription service. D&D has had microtransactions for decades if you count minis, battlemaps, and similar products. Weren't the D&D magazines subscription services? A bunch of people in this thread that are complaining about the notion of subscription services being added to D&D have previously said that they loved those magazines.

What's changed, folks? We've had microtransactions and subscription services in D&D for decades. D&D Beyond already has them, and people seem to love that site.

 

[Malmuria]

This is from a few pages back, but D&D Beyond already has a subscription service level that lets you share the content you and your players have bought with each other in a campaign.

D&D Beyond already has microtransactions and a subscription service. D&D has had microtransactions for decades if you count minis, battlemaps, and similar products. Weren't the D&D magazines subscription services? A bunch of people in this thread that are complaining about the notion of subscription services being added to D&D have previously said that they loved those magazines.

What's changed, folks? We've had microtransactions and subscription services in D&D for decades. D&D Beyond already has them, and people seem to love that site.

Well everyone here seems to have a different relations to these things; I seem to be on the cheapo side. For me, I would have two questions: 1) is this necessary or useful for playing the game, and 2) will this be something I own or something I rent.

For example:

• to play dnd one set of dice is necessary, multiple sets of dice are helpful; physical dice you'll own for your whole life (and the planet will own them for longer), digital dice you might lose with your subscription.
• a physical magazine you can keep or recycle, sell it later if you want; digtial subscription benefits (some of them, at least) disappear end when you stop paying
• physical minis you own, and though I never got into it, painting minis seems to be creative and fun and I imagine it would be a nice activity to do with friends. Digital minis you have to purchase on a proprietary system are not something you own. I guess learning how to design a 3d virtual mini might be fun and creative.

I do spend money in the ttrpg hobby, backing kickstarters and what not. Many of the kickstarters I have backed have absolutely come into use (like my OSE books), but others I feel I may have backed just because of fomo and hype. Though, even the ones I regret I've sold with minimal financial loss if any, or given away to people who will appreciate them. I wrote about some of my ambivalence about my spending here.

Cheapo 5e playing: paper character sheet or set up something in google sheets, phb has little plastic tabs for each section. I don't use dnd beyond (clearly!). Physical dice and we just trust each other if playing online (though there are free dice apps)
Cheapo 5e dming: google doc plus a physical notebook, sometimes owlbear rodeo if online

 

[Hussar]

I subbed back in the 4e days because the character builder was AWESOME. Access to every character related item (there were a few that didn't get programmed from odd sources) pretty much within a month of it coming out. I killed it when they killed the builder and repla ed it with a crappier version.

I have no interest in DDB because I'm not going to pay double for every book I purchase.

Whereas, for 5e, I own three physical books - the core 3 - and about six or seven digital versions for Fantasy Grounds. This thread has made me realize that I haven't actually opened my 5e Monster Manual in years. Heck, I barely open any of the books. They look practically brand new.

So, for OneD&D, I'll likely only buy one version of every book - the digital one. I highly doubt I'll bother buying a physical copy.

 

[Oofta]

Well everyone here seems to have a different relations to these things; I seem to be on the cheapo side. For me, I would have two questions: 1) is this necessary or useful for playing the game, and 2) will this be something I own or something I rent.

For example:

• to play dnd one set of dice is necessary, multiple sets of dice are helpful; physical dice you'll own for your whole life (and the planet will own them for longer), digital dice you might lose with your subscription.
• a physical magazine you can keep or recycle, sell it later if you want; digtial subscription benefits (some of them, at least) disappear end when you stop paying
• physical minis you own, and though I never got into it, painting minis seems to be creative and fun and I imagine it would be a nice activity to do with friends. Digital minis you have to purchase on a proprietary system are not something you own. I guess learning how to design a 3d virtual mini might be fun and creative.

I do spend money in the ttrpg hobby, backing kickstarters and what not. Many of the kickstarters I have backed have absolutely come into use (like my OSE books), but others I feel I may have backed just because of fomo and hype. Though, even the ones I regret I've sold with minimal financial loss if any, or given away to people who will appreciate them. I wrote about some of my ambivalence about my spending here.

Cheapo 5e playing: paper character sheet or set up something in google sheets, phb has little plastic tabs for each section. I don't use dnd beyond (clearly!). Physical dice and we just trust each other if playing online (though there are free dice apps)
Cheapo 5e dming: google doc plus a physical notebook, sometimes owlbear rodeo if online

Which is fine. DDB works for me because it's worth the convenience. I like that I can purchase just parts of books that interest me, I haven't purchased a physical book for a while.

Good news for you and people like you? Nobody is going to make you subscribe to DDB or a VTT, you'll never have to pay a subscription service, you have no reason to be concerned about microtransactions.

 

[Oofta]

Whereas, for 5e, I own three physical books - the core 3 - and about six or seven digital versions for Fantasy Grounds. This thread has made me realize that I haven't actually opened my 5e Monster Manual in years. Heck, I barely open any of the books. They look practically brand new.

So, for OneD&D, I'll likely only buy one version of every book - the digital one. I highly doubt I'll bother buying a physical copy.

I have a few books gathering dust on a shelf. Meanwhile I'm a sucker for new monsters even though I rarely use them but can buy just the monsters from a book for a reduced cost.

 

[Umbran]

Not claiming it is just saying that's where the concern comes from.

I know. I knew when you said it before. We didn't misunderstand you. We are going beyond that, trying to shine a light on it to show that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to apply those examples to this game.