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.

 

[bedir than]

Is it?

Like seriously, is it?

They trashed several things with no actual testing, just "it didn't hit the arbitrary 70% threshold, destroy it forever". But then they kept Mearls' darling Proficiency Dice for like four or five packets running before finally, finally killing it and replacing it with Proficiency Bonus, because people hated the flat chance of getting a +1 bonus regardless of whether it meant they could theoretically potentially get a 2x bonus.

That, to me, looks VERY much like performative testing. Is it 100%, top-to-bottom, exclusively performative testing? No. They clearly do a modicum of actual, legit testing, meaning, they analyze data, check to see if things are meeting their targets, and reconfigure to address issues, or roll back and start over if something has genuinely hit a dead end. But the overwhelming majority is marketing and performative acts, nothing serious.

That's why Specialties took so long to die, despite being unpopular, ineffective, and problematic. That's why they promised, up and down, that we'd get outright actual martial healing...and then it became pure vaporware. That's why they dithered and dallied just trying to nail down the Fighter, and then had to save a third of the classes for after the public playtesting ended...leaving most of those abandoned classes poorly designed (Ranger, Sorcerer, Warlock, and to a lesser extent Monk being the top offenders).

I wish to heaven that more than a slim minority of the playtesting had been actually serious. We'd have gotten a much, much better game if it had.

Are you litigating D&D Next, rather than the current Unearthed Arcana process?

 

[mamba]

Are you litigating D&D Next, rather than the current Unearthed Arcana process?

sounds like it, but it's not like the 2024 UAs went much better. They too scrapped stuff instead of iterating on it even once, and not just things that were deeply unpopular. They even threw out things that did meet the threshold because apparently some individual comments are enough to make them do that, regardless of what a decent majority (>70%) actually wanted.

 

[Zardnaar]

sounds like it, but it's not like the 2024 UAs went much better. They too scrapped stuff instead of iterating on it even once, and not just things that were deeply unpopular. They even threw out things that did meet the threshold because apparently some individual comments are enough to make them do that, regardless of what a decent majority (>70%) actually wanted.

Well some comments might point out problems the 70% miss.

Conjure Minor Elemental apparently 70% + thought that was ok.

 

[bedir than]

sounds like it, but it's not like the 2024 UAs went much better. They too scrapped stuff instead of iterating on it even once, and not just things that were deeply unpopular. They even threw out things that did meet the threshold because apparently some individual comments are enough to make them do that, regardless of what a decent majority (>70%) actually wanted.

Yes, that would mean they responded to the playtest.
That's not an example of performative testing. That's an example of things being tested and failing.

Performative testing wouldn't be concerned with ANY response.

 

[wicked cool]

sounds like it, but it's not like the 2024 UAs went much better. They too scrapped stuff instead of iterating on it even once, and not just things that were deeply unpopular. They even threw out things that did meet the threshold because apparently some individual comments are enough to make them do that, regardless of what a decent majority (>70%) actually wanted.

Not saying your right or wrong but can give examples?