WotC Hasbro Gaming Down 17% But D&D Remains 'Bright Spot'

ICv2 reports on Hasbro's latest quarterly report, noting that "Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons were two bright spots in Hasbro’s Q3, an otherwise tough quarter with sales and earnings both hit by actual and threatened tariffs on goods from China".

Other notes from ICv2:

• Hasbro Gaming, which does not include franchise brands Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering, was down 17%
• Total gaming sales, including Magic and Monopoly, were roughly flat, a big change from the 26% growth in Q2
• WotC has close to a dozen [digital] games in development for delivery over the next five to six years
• Hasbro believes that WotC sales can be doubled over the next five years, “…as we’ve accomplished over the past five years.”

 

[Urriak Uruk]

There is space in the TTRPG market for superheroes or "urban epic-horror".

Don't sell only a sport car if also you can produce all-terrain vehicles o an utility car.

Ferrari only sells luxury sports cars. Do they have the money to make minivans if they wanted to? Sure. But they don't, because Ferrari correctly understands its brand represents quality, prestige and speed.

Dungeons & Dragons is called Dungeons and Dragons, not Superheroes and Cuthulu. The reason D&D is the most popular TTRPG in the world is because of its strong brand and easy accessibility of its ruleset.

The business minds at Wizards fully understand that, and when deciding how to spend their resources likely find developing more material for their already successful brand to be a more fruitful endeavor than trying to build a new brand and ruleset.

Now, there's nothing wrong with feeling that Wizards should invest in making new systems for modern or future or horror TTRPG games because you personal would like them (I would too). But there is almost no evidence that Wizards or Hasbro "needs" to make these to be a successful company.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Don't sell only a sport car if also you can produce all-terrain vehicles o an utility car.

There are several very successful car campanies that only produce sports cars. The ones that have branched out tend to be owned by larger corporations that have the technical expertise to create a sports crossover, like Porsche.

Thing is, @LuisCarlos17f, I'd point out that you got what you are looking for back in the d20 heydays of the 2000's. D20 versions of every property under the sun and every genre.

Games that promptly utterly failed to connect to an audience. Who is playing d20 Cthulhu today? How many d20 based modern or SF games are on the market right now? Compared to systems like FATE, or CORTEX or other non-d20 systems that have succeeded much more within their niche. There's a very good reason we aren't getting a flood of d20 games this time around. People have realized that d20 does D&D really well but, doesn't really do anything else.

Consider this. Starfinder has been out for 3 months now. It's selling on Amazon behind Princes of the Apocalypse - a 4 YEAR old adventure module. There just isn't any demand for it.

 

[darjr]

Hey! I like d20 CoC.

But it's true. And those other games, I think, are getting a lift from the rise of D&D, very much around here anyway.,

 

[ccs]

Consider this. Starfinder has been out for 3 months now. It's selling on Amazon behind Princes of the Apocalypse - a 4 YEAR old adventure module. There just isn't any demand for it.

?? I take it you missed 2017?
Because: The Starfinder RPG was announced in May 2016 on Paizo's website and officially released at Gen Con in August 2017. (Starfinder Roleplaying Game - Wikipedia)

Or are you confusing SF with Pathfinder 2?

 

[Hussar]

Sorry, yeah, got my dates mixed up in my head.

But, the point still remains. After 1 year, Starfinder is behind a 4 year old module on Amazon. Not exactly taking the world by storm is it?

 

[darjr]

Well, no. But then again it’s doing really well for a second tier RPG.
I do agree that it is a good argument against WotC doing something similar.
Which sucks.
I want them to do Star Frontiers 5e. But in no way do I think they MUST do it. That’s silly.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Sorry, yeah, got my dates mixed up in my head.

But, the point still remains. After 1 year, Starfinder is behind a 4 year old module on Amazon. Not exactly taking the world by storm is it?

I don't trust sales rankings for Paizo products on Amazon because if you buy the book directly from Paizo, then you can the pdf of the book for free. And I am sure Paizo has a ton of sales of just the pdfs of their books, so who knows what their actual sales numbers are.

 

[Zardnaar]

Only d20 innovation I would be interested in is a classless system.

D20 skill based.

 

[5atbu]

@Zardnaar try True20

 

[Morrus]

Consider this. Starfinder has been out for 3 months now. It's selling on Amazon behind Princes of the Apocalypse - a 4 YEAR old adventure module. There just isn't any demand for it.

Starfinder launched in 2017.