Stonesnake
Explorer
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...Nonsense.DND is no longer a cash cow, it's bleeding to death.
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.Nope.1) The OGL upset too many players & tons have quit, moved on, stopped buying.
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.