WotC Hasbro selling D&D IP?

[Stonesnake]

DND is no longer a cash cow, it's bleeding to death.

Nonsense.

Sort of... WoTC hired a massive number of people these last few years, many of whom were working for myself and Paizo (who can now no longer work for me since they went to WoTC) and are spending hundreds of millions on their VTT and marketplace. I literally know the person who is heading up the digital marketplace and the team on this project is massive. D&D might be doing well, but WoTC's expenses over the past few years for D&D have increased tenfold. And the cost to update and maintain a digital marketplace in Seattle, one of the most expensive cities in the world to hire coders, is going to cost millions. It's going to take WoTC years to get back their investment and they don't have years...

1) The OGL upset too many players & tons have quit, moved on, stopped buying.

Nope.

It's estimated that from the OGL scandal, and many inside sources have confirmed to me that during the OGL scandal they lost more than 10% of their D&D Beyond subscribers. That is tens of millions in subscriptions that they didn't plan to lose and will take years to get back. In the "bigger picture," they didn't lose than many people, but the people they lost were all whales and massive spenders, and it hurt them... bad.

I will say that if WoTC wasn't spending hundreds of millions buying D&D Beyond, building their new D&D VTT, building their massive digital marketplace, and not to mention the massive hiring spree they did over the past few years to ram up D&D 2024, they probably could have gutted this out.

But considering they have around $400m in dividends they need to pay to their stockholders every year, they are $3 billion in debt and MUST interest on this debt every month, and they have to pay salaries and other incidentals. In total, they need around $1 billion every year, in cash, to stay in business. And they are running out of time and money.

Look for them to start selling more properties or licenses to those properties in the very near future.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Videogame rights != the complete IP

 

[bedir than]

Kale and Dan?

Kale Stutzman (3D VTT head) and Dan Rawson (Head of D&D Studio)

 

[bedir than]

Videogame rights != the complete IP

There you go reading the full article and stuff

 

[SteveC]

As others said, this is someone picking up and running with RFCs talking points to make clickbait. And then others piling on.
When only 1 division of your company (WotC) is making money, covering the losses of the rest of your business, you don't sell it off (or part of it off).

It is interesting that you say this. If you do a search on "tencent buying dnd" you're starting to see articles from a bunch of sites on the topic. Maybe they're all fruits from the same poisonous vine, but do we have any actual evidence that this is all based on Roll for Combat article? I'm trying not to ask to prove a negative but I've heard nothing that links the sources to Roll for Combat.

I'll say again that maybe this will turn out to be a big nothing burger but to dismiss it out of hand when the source is saying this is coming from inside Tencent is not a good idea either (of course, in my opinion).

 

[mamba]

Declining sales is not failing?

declining sales? Sales are pretty good actually. Do the new adventures sell as much as the old ones did in the first 6 months or so? No, but there can be a multitude of reasons for that, sales overall did not fall

BG3 was the only bright spot last year for D&D, which was mostly due to Larian Studios, who's major investor is Tencent. I wouldn't discount this rumor just yet.

eh, sure, BG3 was a nice windfall, beyond that I am not so sure

 

[mamba]

Is Hasbro Selling D&D?

if you video is more than ‘No, they are not’, you are wasting people’s time

 

[Timespike]

The place I actually expect to see the biggest impact from BG3 is the video game industry. I think in the same ways that Slay the Spire and Disco Elysium were innovative and we're now seeing lots of games with their DNA, we'll start to see a bunch of heavy BG3 influences in upcoming CRPGs starting in 3-5 years or so.

 

[Divine2021]

It’s kinda ridiculous how seriously people are taking this clearly bs article. We’ve got to be a bit more skeptical of our “news” sources.

 

[SteveC]

Videogame rights != the complete IP

This is a really good point. And WotC got rid of their videogame people almost entirely, correct? I know they have hired a lot of technical people (and I know one of them from back in college who is not saying anything about this at all) but those are VTT people.