Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks Talks AI Usage in D&D [UPDATED!]

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks is convinced that the Dungeons & Dragons franchise will support some kind of AI usage in the future. Speaking today at a Goldman Sachs event, Cocks spoke about how AI products could soon support Dungeons & Dragons and other Hasbro brands. Asked about whether AI has the potential to "bend the cost curve" in terms of entertainment development or digital gaming, and how it's being used in the toy and content industries, Cocks said the following:

"Inside of development, we've already been using AI. It's mostly machine-learning-based AI or proprietary AI as opposed to a ChatGPT approach. We will deploy it significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and as a development aid. I'm probably more excited though about the playful elements of AI. If you look at a typical D&D player....I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There's not a single person who doesn't use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That's a clear signal that we need to be embracing it. We need to do it carefully, we need to do it responsibly, we need to make sure we pay creators for their work, and we need to make sure we're clear when something is AI-generated. But the themes around using AI to enable user-generated content, using AI to streamline new player introduction, using AI for emergent storytelling, I think you're going to see that not just our hardcore brands like D&D but also multiple of our brands."

Wizards of the Coast representatives has repeatedly said that Dungeons & Dragons is a game made by people for people, as multiple AI controversies has surrounded the brand and its parent company. Wizards updated its freelance contracts to explicitly prohibit use of AI and has pulled down AI-generated artwork that was submitted for Bigby's Presents: Glory of the Giants in 2023 after they learned it was made using AI tools.

A FAQ related to AI specifically notes that "Hasbro has a vast portfolio of 1900+ brands of which Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons are two – two very important, cherished brands. Each brand is going to approach its products differently. What is in the best interest of Trivial Pursuit is likely quite different than that of Magic: The Gathering or Dungeons & Dragons." This statement acknowledges that Hasbro may use AI for other brands, while also stating that Wizards is trying to keep AI-generated artwork away from the game. However, while Wizards seems to want to keep AI away from D&D and Magic, their parent company's CEO seems to think that AI and D&D aren't naturally opposed.

---

UPDATE -- Greg Tito, who was WotC's communications director until recently, commented on BlueSky: "I'm deeply mistrustful of AI and don't want people using it anywhere near my D&D campaigns."

 

[mikeburke]

“Avrae, be my DM in the style of Brennan Lee Mulligan”.

I wonder what kind of models you could build by training it on thousands of hours of YouTube

 

[sevenbastard]

Im going to fight the fight against AI even if I know I will lose.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Internal use of AI: translation: "For example, we have tens of thousand of monsters over the editions, so the next monster book will be "Give me a monster book with 350 random monsters stylized and configured in a 2024 D&D format." rather than pay someone to do all of that."

 

[Oofta]

I'd be okay with a DM assistant and help with creating NPCs. They've taken a stance against AI art.

But for the most part? I suspect it's just Buzzword Spin! The corporate game where you claim to use whatever buzzword happens to be hot at the moment!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There's not a single person who doesn't use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That's a clear signal that we need to be embracing it.

Or, Chris, it's a clear signal that you game with tech bros.

I game with about half as many people as you do, and one player uses Stable Diffusion to create game art of his character.

 

[Jared Rascher]

Internal use of AI: translation: "For example, we have tens of thousand of monsters over the editions, so the next monster book will be "Give me a monster book with 350 random monsters stylized and configured in a 2024 D&D format." rather than pay someone to do all of that."

It's more likely that they'll generate the monsters, realize they're garbage, but pay someone less to "develop" them rather than design them from scratch, the same way the media companies were going to use it to undercut paying screenwriters for their scripts.

If there is something there, even if it's unusable garbage, they can say you're just fixing something that already existed instead of creating something new.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Speaking today at a Goldman Sachs event

Asked about whether AI has the potential to "bend the cost curve" in terms of entertainment development or digital gaming, and how it's being used in the toy and content industries, Cocks said the following:

What curve? What's the curve?

"Inside of development, we've already been using AI. It's mostly machine-learning-based AI or proprietary AI as opposed to a ChatGPT approach. We will deploy it significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and as a development aid. I'm probably more excited though about the playful elements of AI.

Well, now we know what those layoffs are paying for.

If you look at a typical D&D player....I play with probably 30 or 40 people regularly. There's not a single person who doesn't use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas. That's a clear signal that we need to be embracing it.

Peak CEO logic. "I know a lot of people who do it, therefore, this is a signal that means something for EVERYBODY."

We need to do it carefully, we need to do it responsibly, we need to make sure we pay creators for their work, and we need to make sure we're clear when something is AI-generated.

This is OK.

But the themes around using AI to enable user-generated content, using AI to streamline new player introduction, using AI for emergent storytelling, I think you're going to see that not just our hardcore brands like D&D but also multiple of our brands."

This is probably bad.

 

[overgeeked]

That’s really disappointing, but par for the course for WotC and Hasbro.

 

[EthanSental]

I’m surprised by the 30 or 40 players and all have used AI for character development in some shape or form. Must be different socio-economic level of players, or time strapped, in that group cause none of our group have “played” with AI for anything with their many characters…or art or story elements.