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.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

D&D 4e from memory released a product generally every month. Which I guess was too fast for each product to properly get it’s time.

 

[Incenjucar]

For non-completionist consumers, a deluge of books is great because there's a better selection, but the ROI is harder to justify. I am very glad to have existed through the bad-at-capitalism days, but it's understandable that those are over.

 

[GDGD]

Tying this in with my 2nd passion, hockey, I hope the Leafs break though this year in the playoffs and make a Cup run!

Leafs vs Oilers for the SC final?

 

[mamba]

For non-completionist consumers, a deluge of books is great because there's a better selection, but the ROI is harder to justify. I am very glad to have existed through the bad-at-capitalism days, but it's understandable that those are over.

they were bad at capitalism for a lot more reasons than releasing a lot of products though. To the point that I am not so sure whether that even had anything to do with their downfall.

Selling below manufacturing cost, and that on some pretty well selling products, cannot have helped. Nepotism in all its forms was rampant too, and incompetence in the decision making as a result of that (like ordering tons of boxes of a size that then turned out to be too small for the content, so they had to destroy those and order several 10k correct ones…)

 

[GDGD]

I'm less interested in assuming the initiative will fail and more interested in fantasizing about a gold box remaster.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

For me slightly faster eg and extra Xanathars or two would be fine.

Not monthly like 3E and 4E F that.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D 4e from memory released a product generally every month. Which I guess was too fast for each product to properly get it’s time.

3.5 did it as well.

I have found 50 3E books. And even if couldnt keep up.

I stopped buying them towards the end. 50 odd books and im still missing some of the complete hooks, Tome of Magic, Book of 9 Swords, various races books, and one of the Complete XYZ books.

Barely used any of it. If players don't know about it it may as well not exist.

When Pathfinder rolled around I bought about 6 books and used 3.5 stuff.

So more than 2 splats eg Xanathars and Tashas is nice but no more than say 4 or 5 imho.

PHB2 and the first 4 complete books in 3.5 would last you a decade imho.

 

[Parmandur]

D&D 4e from memory released a product generally every month. Which I guess was too fast for each product to properly get it’s time.

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.

 

[Reynard]

4, 5, 6 . . . we can quibble over the exact number. But fewer, higher quality releases as opposed to more frequent, lower quality releases . . . seems to be working for WotC for the past decade.

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.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

What barriers do you imagine exist? We Americans work internationally just fine. I've trained people in China, Japan, and India without issue. Why is talking to default bilingual people who are closer to the US than North California is to South California a barrier?

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.