Hasbro Opens New Wizards of the Coast Video Game Studio in Montreal to Support D&D Franchise

Hasbro has announced a new video game studio in Montreal, with a new focus on supporting D&D video games. The new studio, called Wizards of the Coast Studios Inc. will focus on developing new content for the Dungeons & Dragons franchise and expanding Hasbro's lineup of digital games. The studio is expected to support 200 jobs. Dan Ayoub, the head of the D&D franchise, will also run the new studio. Ayoub, you may recall, has a long pedigree in video game development.

The new studio will not replace Invoke Studios, Hasbro's other studio located in Montreal. The new office for Wizards of the Coast Studios Inc. will be located next to Invoke Studios.

Hasbro has big aspirations for expanding the D&D franchise via video games. Several D&D video games are in development at third party studios and now we're seeing an in-house expansion of the D&D digital portfolio. One obvious speculation is that the new studio will work on a Baldur's Gate 4, which Hasbro has promised will eventually be released following the mammoth success of Baldur's Gate 3.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Or they could, you know, put those resources into actual D&D.

Why? I mean the game doesn’t really need any more resources. They could do nothing and it would be just fine.

 

[mamba]

Yup, there is pretty good research behind too many products meaning that people buy less than they would otherwise:

Say, for example the average player buys 2.5. books a year when WotC releases 4 books.

Let's then imagine that WotC triples that to produce 12 books a year again: now the average player maybe buys 1.25.

WotC could increase their costs to sell fewer books overall.

I can see someone wanting 5 out of the 12 and buying only 3 or 4, but only 1 if they previously bought 3 out of 4 regularly?

I can see someone who bought everything religiously lower their number of total purchases, much like I can see someone who only occasionally bought a book buying slightly more books then, so the question becomes does the increase in sales among ‘casuals’ make up for the drop in sales among ‘the core’. Can you point me to that good research?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Hey, this is only 200 jobs. Obviously the actual flagship product has to have an order of magnitude more than that?

Wait, wait? It's just a double handful of people? This studio with no product yet has a much larger staff than the flagship product? Well, it must be because those on the flagship are industry veterans hard to get that had to be lured in by sky-high salaries, right?

Industry veterans, but fairly average salaries?

Huh.

I don’t know about all the positions on the RPG side, but the ones they posted for recently were quite high salary.

 

[Incenjucar]

And I lived and worked in China for 5 years and Singapore for 3. I was one of 2 non-Chinese out of about 5K workers at my location there.

China has a set-up with English language schools and usually there is some benefit in place to help pay for it. Quebec, not so much.

Taxes are also quite high in Quebec.

Not the easiest place to recruit to. Easier if you are younger and single. Harder if you are older with kids.

Cheaper than Seattle, and we're drowning in tech companies. Main reason I'm not in Quebec myself is that they treat their nurses horribly and I was looking to move with one once upon a time.

 

[Parmandur]

There are ostensibly a huge number of additional customers than there were when 5E launched (maybe an order of magnitude more). That strongly suggests that WotC can diversify the D&D lineup without losing money on any given book because they don't have to sell every book to every customer in order to make every the same profit.

I'm not actually advocating hiring 200 TTRPG writers any more than one assumes those 200 game devs are all high level designers. But WotC could easily hire 200 people that forms a robust studio that puts out high quality, regular content and relies on in house professionals rather than freelancers.

But they already do put out high quality, regular content with a large team of in-house professionals...?

They do use freelancers, but freelancing is alao an avenue to in-house employment, Justice Armin is the head of the whole RPG team now and started freelancing.

 

[Parmandur]

I can see someone wanting 5 out of the 12 and buying only 3 or 4, but only 1 if they previously bought 3 out of 4 regularly?

I can see someone who bought everything religiously lower their number of total purchases, much like I can see someone who only occasionally bought a book buying slightly more books then, so the question becomes does the increase in sales among ‘casuals’ make up for the drop in sales among ‘the core’. Can you point me to that good research?

Yes, having more choices often leads to people choosing fewer, it is called "choice overload" if yoy want to look into the research on that and consumer products.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

But they already do put out high quality, regular content with a large team of in-house professionals...?

They do use freelancers, but freelancing is alao an avenue to in-house employment, Justice Armin is the head of the whole RPG team now and started freelancing.

I would not call the release schedule of 5e2024 "regular". We even had a very high profile last minute delay of an entire book that should have been out by now.

We've had one adventure supplement published for this ruleset so far, and it's an adventure anthology, which, anecdotally, was not consistent in quality.

 

[Dausuul]

I can see someone wanting 5 out of the 12 and buying only 3 or 4, but only 1 if they previously bought 3 out of 4 regularly?

I can see someone who bought everything religiously lower their number of total purchases, much like I can see someone who only occasionally bought a book buying slightly more books then, so the question becomes does the increase in sales among ‘casuals’ make up for the drop in sales among ‘the core’. Can you point me to that good research?

(Caveat: Psychological research is devilishly hard to interpret correctly, often does not generalize, and also often can't be reproduced.)

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/are-consumers-turned-too-many-choices-not-yet

The gist of it is this:

1. If someone's approach is "First I'll decide whether to buy a Widget, and then I'll pick the Widget I want," then having a lot of options makes it more likely that they'll buy a Widget.
2. If their approach is, "First I'll look over the available Widgets, and see if there's one I want enough to buy it," then having a lot of options makes it slightly less likely that they'll buy a Widget.

#2 seems counterintuitive at first, but if you've shopped on Amazon recently, you may have a sense of where this tendency comes from. When you're bombarded with dozens of options, many of them subpar, it's frustrating and demotivating, and if you aren't already committed to buying, you may throw up your hands and walk away.

When I go on the D&D website and look at their release schedule, I find myself scrolling through a long list of stuff I have no interest in. A Stranger Things tie-in. The 284,594th Drizzt novel. An introductory lore book aimed at middle schoolers. A Forgotten Realms supplement. A coloring book. A book of crochet patterns. And on and on.

Now, if I stop and read carefully, I see that the FR supplement claims to have a bunch of class options and similar rules with general application. And if the FR supplement were the only thing on the list, I'd probably at least look into it. But when you put it in the midst of a parade of tie-ins and knick-knacks... it looks like more of the same and I can't be bothered.

 

[Parmandur]

I would not call the release schedule of 5e2024 "regular". We even had a very high profile last minute delay of an entire book that should have been out by now.

We've had one adventure supplement published for this ruleset so far, and it's an adventure anthology, which, anecdotally, was not consistent in quality.

5 major products in 2024, 7 in 2025.

 

[TiQuinn]

And I lived and worked in China for 5 years and Singapore for 3. I was one of 2 non-Chinese out of about 5K workers at my location there.

China has a set-up with English language schools and usually there is some benefit in place to help pay for it. Quebec, not so much.

Taxes are also quite high in Quebec.

Not the easiest place to recruit to. Easier if you are younger and single. Harder if you are older with kids.

You know this from experience working in or with people in Quebec?