WotC Hasbro's CEO Reports OGL-Related D&D Beyond Cancellations Had Minimal Impact

Hasbro held a quarterly earnings call recently in which CEO Chris Cocks (who formerly ran WotC before being promoted) indicated that the OGL controversy had a "comparatively minor" impact on D&D's revenue due to D&D Beyond subscription cancellations. He also noted that D&D grew by 20% in 2022 (Magic: the Gathering revenues grew by an astonishing 40% in Quarter 4!)

WotC as a whole was up 22% in Q4 2022.

Lastly, on D&D, we misfired on updating our Open Gaming License, a key vehicle for creators to share or commercialize their D&D inspired content. Our best practice is to work collaboratively with our community, gather feedback, and build experiences that inspire players and creators alike - it's how we make our games among the best in the industry. We have since course corrected and are delivering a strong outcome for the community and game.

 

[darjr]

Wait, 2 million accounts? Not subscriptions?

There was a way to tell how many accounts there were, via the forum data, every account got a forum ID. Anyway it was already at 12million (if I recall correctly, I’d have to check again). But that’s accounts not subscriptions.

And just to add, it’s an impressive thing, that many accounts and new accounts. Not denying that.

 

[Velderan]

The estimates we have is 2 million DDB subscribers, 50 thousand cancelled accounts. We have no clue how many re-upped.

But the numbers are just estimates and AFAIK, the 50k dropped subscriptions was from an unreliable source. I guess the real point is that WOTC can spin the truth in some contexts, flat out lying in an earnings call has all sorts of legal ramifications.

D&D forums are a bit of an echo chamber and seeing a handful of posters saying they've canceled their DDB accounts (knowing it won't actually expire until their renewal date) doesn't really mean anything.

Ok so numbers someone made up and you're speculating on. Got it.

We know they have 12 or 13 million registered users as stated in the investor chat late last year. I don't know if we've ever actually seen credible estimates on how many of them are paying subscribers, if you've seen a number quoted by anyone credible please provide that source. I know people keep using that "DMs make up 20% of the audience, but do most of the spending" to guess at subscriber numbers but that's purely a guess that seems to assume the 12 or 13 million accounts are all actually active and engaged users running campaigns and not accounts made to access free material, provide playtest feedback, or just to poke around to see what DDB is. If they reported stats like weekly logins or active campaigns, you could probably start to make an educated guess but even then it would still be at best a guess.

Worth mentioning if the 12 or 13 million registered users were all engaged users, they would have spun it that way. Remember how Blizzard used to report active WoW subscriptions up until the numbers no longer were something to brag about and they decided to spin it as something along the lines of "there's other ways to measure success" claim and stopped reporting subscription numbers? I'd think WotC wouldn't be shy about their paying subscriber numbers on investor calls if they were anywhere near the 20% of 12 or 13 million users level. That would be an immediate way to assure investors they spent $146m wisely. Just my 2 coppers.

As for cancellations, we had a credible report saying they had a five figure ticket queue at one point but there's conflicting info on if that ticket queue was 100% people who requested their account be deleted or if a ticket is generated each time someone cancels which makes sense because the "why are you cancelling" comment has to go somewhere to be reviewed, right? That leaves so much wiggle room on how many people ACTUALLY cancelled that it's not really a productive rabbit hole to go down without more credible info to support. From the quotes in this post, he claimed on this call they were in touch with cancelled subscribers and most were open to renewing which again doesn't provide numbers or even a percent who renewed. Just that they were open to it. Guessing he's spinning the comments people left during cancellation as them being open to renewing (I specifically wrote I can't support them if revoking OGL1.0a is in their plans, so that could certainly be interpreted as me being open to coming back now for example), but who knows how many people cancelled and actually renewed. Again, it's all guesswork that isn't productive without actual credible figures to work with.

 

[Cergorach]

I don't think an army-builder is comparable in terms of complexity and feature-density to a VTT.

No, I agree that the software is not comparable, but that is not the issue. It's the datasets that are used to simulate a particular system in the VTT. I've added non-OGL stuff to the old RTM (old management D&D management software) myself. And there are a TON of rules sets available in VTTs that have no official endorsement.

Heck, some even allow for importing from DNDB into their own VTT...

And you could even produce pdfs with tags in them and then import them into whichever tool or plugin that would be created to use OGL content into computer software. It never really was an issue imho.

 

[Justice and Rule]

No, I agree that the software is not comparable, but that is not the issue. It's the datasets that are used to simulate a particular system in the VTT. I've added non-OGL stuff to the old RTM (old management D&D management software) myself. And there are a TON of rules sets available in VTTs that have no official endorsement.

Heck, some even allow for importing from DNDB into their own VTT...

And you could even produce pdfs with tags in them and then import them into whichever tool or plugin that would be created to use OGL content into computer software. It never really was an issue imho.

Yes, but that doesn't really matter when Wizards is releasing a policy where they say you can't show off animations in a D&D game and putting down a marker that they might get litigious in the matter.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Wait, 2 million accounts? Not subscriptions?

There was a way to tell how many accounts there were, via the forum data, every account got a forum ID. Anyway it was already at 12million (if I recall correctly, I’d have to check again). But that’s accounts not subscriptions.

And just to add, it’s an impressive thing, that many accounts and new accounts. Not denying that.

The thing here is that do we know if they are judging things simply off forum IDs, or if have a way of seeing if an account is active or not.

 

[Parmandur]

Ok so numbers someone made up and you're speculating on. Got it.

We know they have 12 or 13 million registered users as stated in the investor chat late last year. I don't know if we've ever actually seen credible estimates on how many of them are paying subscribers, if you've seen a number quoted by anyone credible please provide that source. I know people keep using that "DMs make up 20% of the audience, but do most of the spending" to guess at subscriber numbers but that's purely a guess that seems to assume the 12 or 13 million accounts are all actually active and engaged users running campaigns and not accounts made to access free material, provide playtest feedback, or just to poke around to see what DDB is. If they reported stats like weekly logins or active campaigns, you could probably start to make an educated guess but even then it would still be at best a guess.

Worth mentioning if the 12 or 13 million registered users were all engaged users, they would have spun it that way. Remember how Blizzard used to report active WoW subscriptions up until the numbers no longer were something to brag about and they decided to spin it as something along the lines of "there's other ways to measure success" claim and stopped reporting subscription numbers? I'd think WotC wouldn't be shy about their paying subscriber numbers on investor calls if they were anywhere near the 20% of 12 or 13 million users level. That would be an immediate way to assure investors they spent $146m wisely. Just my 2 coppers.

As for cancellations, we had a credible report saying they had a five figure ticket queue at one point but there's conflicting info on if that ticket queue was 100% people who requested their account be deleted or if a ticket is generated each time someone cancels which makes sense because the "why are you cancelling" comment has to go somewhere to be reviewed, right? That leaves so much wiggle room on how many people ACTUALLY cancelled that it's not really a productive rabbit hole to go down without more credible info to support. From the quotes in this post, he claimed on this call they were in touch with cancelled subscribers and most were open to renewing which again doesn't provide numbers or even a percent who renewed. Just that they were open to it. Guessing he's spinning the comments people left during cancellation as them being open to renewing (I specifically wrote I can't support them if revoking OGL1.0a is in their plans, so that could certainly be interpreted as me being open to coming back now for example), but who knows how many people cancelled and actually renewed. Again, it's all guesswork that isn't productive without actual credible figures to work with.

One of the leaders said 40,000 or 50,000 had cancelled as part of the boycott. Which is a big chunk of change, per month. But even just here and on Reddit, I saw many people who were part of that number saying they were resubscriibg since the CC drop (I am not and will not subscribe, because I'm an analog crank). Given that he said it on an investor call, it seems very plausible that their data showed that many of the people who dropped came back onboard already, and more may do so. And of there is a Beyond commercial before the movie this Quarter, and they'll sell a bunch of Starter and Essential Sets...might be net positive by Q1 end.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Look, I get it, there are a bunch of people who just want this over because they don't want to have to consider the impacts of the company that makes their game and they get uncomfortable when the conversation is about that. But you'd be better served by not trying to minimize the impact of what was done here, nor trying to paper over it with bad excuse like "But really, it was all theirs to take anyways, right?"

Well, when I see those people you are referring to... I'll pass on what you said.

 

[darjr]

The thing here is that do we know if they are judging things simply off forum IDs, or if have a way of seeing if an account is active or not.

No idea. I wonder though. Have to look.

 

[Velderan]

One of the leaders said 40,000 or 50,000 had cancelled as part of the boycott. Which is a big chunk of change, per month. But even just here and on Reddit, I saw many people who were part of that number saying they were resubscriibg since the CC drop (I am not and will not subscribe, because I'm an analog crank). Given that he said it on an investor call, it seems very plausible that their data showed that many of the people who dropped came back onboard already, and more may do so. And of there is a Beyond commercial before the movie this Quarter, and they'll sell a bunch of Starter and Essential Sets...might be net positive by Q1 end.

Do you have a source for that 40,000 or 50,000? I was looking for more info and the best I could find (I think..) was from the DND Shorts leaks which I don't consider worth citing in a discussion given he was wrong on a few major points.

 

[Oofta]

Oh what the heck... I'm feeling frosty this morning, let me try!

D&D is not the "entire hobby". There are many hundreds of roleplaying games out there (and have been for 40 years) that are not in any way connected to Dungeons & Dragons OR the Open Game License. And thus nothing regarding what WotC did was a hostile act against those companies and games.

So that's the first one we can shoot down.

WotC revoking of the OGL would not have impacted anyone who published through DMs Guild. Those people's products would have been completely unaffected. So there was no hostility aimed at those products.

(Unless of course a person wishes to claim the percentage a person has to pay to OneBookShelf and WotC as a fee to publish under the DMsG to be hostile-- but if that's the case then all those people were voluntarily walking into a hostile situation and there's no reason to feel bad for them. They "signed the contract" knowing what they had to give up and they did so volunarily. )

So that's a second one we can shoot down.

What ended up being offered by OGL was a part of the Dungeons & Dragons game area in the Roleplaying Game hobby that the owners of the game controlled for themselves up until that point that they made the OGL. Thus people who used the OGL to produce D&D content were not breaking into new grounds of the RPG landscape... they were moving INTO the section of the landscape that had been TSR/WotCs. Which means that the attempt of WotC to revoke/change the OGL was them just trying to reclaim that part of the landscape that they used to own. They weren't "taking over" anything that wasn't originally theirs to begin with. So no, the "entire hobby" was again not impacted by this.

So there's number 3.

========

Look, I get it. People were and are pissed. It's understandable. But at the same time... if someone chooses to express it in such a way that the resultant response isn't sympathy but rather a cock of the head and a "Whaaaaaaa?"... then we have to hope that person isn't actually trying to change minds, but rather just vent. And if it is just venting... then hopefully they are fine that their venting is being looked at askew.

If venting just for the sake of expressing themselves and getting their anger out is all they want, then more power to them! I hope they feel better putting finger to keyboard and getting it all out onscreen.

But if they are actually looking to change minds? Then the hyperbole usually does not usually work. At least not on a lot of people. It certainly doesn't to me. I instead waste 20 minutes typing up refutations to the hyperbole instead, LOL.

TLDR version: some clueless manager making stupid decisions is more likely than an attempted takeover of the TTRPG hobby.

For #3 ... I think people infer malicious intent when the reality is just as likely, if not more likely, incompetence and a lack of understanding of what the reaction would be.

To someone who doesn't understand the culture, exposing the brand to some white nationalist BS D&D 3PP is a risk. Especially after the nuTsr backlash, the risk of this crap negatively affecting the brand (even if it can't be officially labeled D&D) popped up on someone's radar. Add in the possibility of someone suing for stealing intellectual property even if unintentionally, and the idea that someone can make millions off the brand.

All of this could easily be the the facts. The VTT limits were a clumsy (and idiotic) attempt to keep their product unique, but also something a person with no clue of how VTTs work would suggest.

So perhaps some ignorant pencil pusher really did just want to protect the brand and get some revenue from companies reliant on D&D for their product sales. That, and there's nothing stopping another PF selling more than WOTC in their minds.

It wasn't necessarily nefarious, incompetence by someone in HASBRO upper management is, IMHO, more likely. There was no plan to somehow simultaneously steal everyone's ideas while also shutting down all 3PP. Idiotic? Unforced error? Sure.

HASBRO is looking for the next Transformer franchise. They care more about the brand image than book sales. Some management types had to be forced to see reality which took time and a survey.

There are many moving parts to a big corporation, not all of them know what they're doing. This whole thing just exposed WOTC as the big company that they are. They don't care about me as an individual, companies of a certain size never do.

None of this means they were attempting a hostile takeover of the entire hobby. First, they could only affect one segment of TTRPGs. Second, why would they bother? From a corporate perspective, movies, video games and streaming shows are where the money is at.