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.

 

[Parmandur]

I am not saying they should, I am saying having 200 people work on the same book was the wrong takeaway. All of this ignores that video game developers might not have the right skill set for creating TTRPG supplements anyway

Not sure I agree with breakneck pace though, four or five books a year is not something I consider breakneck, and given how much third party material is getting made, there seems to be room for more, albeit you probably increase overall profit while lowering the profit margin

4 books a year is ideal: any more than that really starts to be too much.

 

[payn]

4 books a year is ideal: any more than that really starts to be too much.

For you or for everybody?

 

[mamba]

4 books a year is ideal: any more than that really starts to be too much.

that probably assumes that you buy all of them, I assume most people are not collectors that compulsively buy everything. For the non-collectors who only buy what piqued their interest, the average year probably gets between 0 and 2 purchases. Having a wider array of offerings might change that

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If my memory doesn't fail I remember to have read something about Hasbro's strategy is to use the videogame studios to create new IPs, and later these could be adapted to TTRPG. I doubt seriously Hasbro want to risk creating new game systems when players don't want to learn. Other thing could be acquiring franchises by other publishers.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I don't think it makes sense to hire hundreds of new people to work on the tabletop game. Maybe a dozen or so, even twenty, but there's only so much you can profitably invest in any given product; after that you're just lighting money on fire. TSR illustrated that vividly. (Mind you, that era also generated a flood of raw material that D&D continues to draw on to this day, so it's not all down side.)

That doesn't mean all these video game studios are a smart investment either. WotC's track record with in-house development remains abysmal; M:tG Arena is literally the only good product they have ever built, and not for lack of trying. (Reminder here that WotC did not build D&D Beyond in-house. They bought it.) Maybe the new guy will change that. I'm not holding my breath.

So what should Hasbro do with their D&D profits? Well, it wouldn't hurt to put some of that dev talent on improving D&D Beyond, which has the potential to be a lot better than it is. Beyond that (heh), I would focus on outside partnerships -- both officially licensed deals like BG3, DDB, and Honor Among Thieves, and more serendipitous connections like Stranger Things and Critical Role -- and on looking to the future. Experiment with new RPG systems, board games, card games, dice games. Invest, judiciously, in D&D-adjacent startups, both digital and analog, and especially ones trying to ease the burden on DMs (the single biggest long-standing obstacle to growing the game).

The current boom won't last forever; use the time to prepare to catch the next wave.

Also, give the third-party community some love. It's a talent pipeline and free R&D program that has contributed massively to D&D's success.

While I agree with you that putting that kind of investment into tabletop would not be useful and that Beyond needs more developmemt.
I think that game studios are orobably a good investment. They have prebuilt ip, as long as they acceot that most games will fail in one way or another but they get enough hits to pay for the rest before they run out of money and focus on producing good quaility game instead of chasing trends.
It remains to be seeb but I wish them luck.

 

[mamba]

If my memory doesn't fail I remember to have read something about Hasbro's strategy is to use the videogame studios to create new IPs, and later these could be adapted to TTRPG. I doubt seriously Hasbro want to risk creating new game systems when players don't want to learn. Other thing could be acquiring franchises by other publishers.

I don’t know, they can spend 1M on a new TTRPG or 100M on a new game, and I am not sure the game is guaranteed a higher chance of success than the TTRPG…

If your game takes off then releasing a TTRPG for it might be a smart idea for WotC, but the hurdle still is to make a successful game first

 

[Dire Bare]

Different management, different strategies.

But yeah, the opening and closing of game studios within WotC sure seems like the company does not have its act together. And folks losing jobs is the result. Yay, capitalism!

Hopefully, this time around the decisions will be stronger and more lasting . . . without layoff news within the next year or so . . .

While my overall point isn't changing . . . I'm realizing I'm confusing Hasbro/WotC's video game studios with their movie studios.

 

[Dire Bare]

For you or for everybody?

While some of us might want more books that WotC currently puts out, and remember fondly the 80s and 90s firehose of content . . . much more than current levels would probably get WotC quickly to the point of diminishing returns . . . just like it did for TSR.

 

[payn]

While some of us might want more books that WotC currently puts out, and remember fondly the 80s and 90s firehose of content . . . much more than current levels would probably get WotC quickly to the point of diminishing returns . . . just like it did for TSR.

Its 30 years later so maybe not? Im more curious why 4 is the magic number?

 

[Starmaster]

2E AD&D shows that throwing more money and more product at the wal is not necessarily profitable.

It may have driven TSR to ruin, but I sure am grateful for all that product that was released in the 1990's.

TSR was releasing close to a dozen products a month in the 1990's, yet they still managed to stay afloat for years before it all crashed down. Given that they were producing probably close to a hundred game products a year (not including all the magazines & novels) and the fact that D&D is supposedly more popular now than it was then, it seems like Hasbro could crank out at least a rulebook a month without losing money. I wonder if the strategy is only to put out products that they think will make a lot of money and not to bother with those that only make a little money.

I'm rather surprised at the number of posters here who say they DON'T want to see WotC print D&D books at a faster rate than they currently are.