Last year, in May, Alta Fox did a big presentation for shareholders of Hasbro and tried really hard to push for new management for Hasbro. Specifically they argued that due to poor capital allocation the company was underperforming. They wanted to add 3 people of their choosing to the Hasbro 10-person board of directors with the goal of increasing performance on behalf of shareholders because, let's face it, Hasbro is a corporation and making money for your shareholders is the start and end of their goals.
Wizards of the Coast makes up 70% of Hasbro's income year to year. With D&D a sizeable portion of that, but, y'know, Magic the Gathering is also doing well. Magic the Gathering is also intensely monetized with various releases, endless new ways to play, and an incredibly healthy aftermarket of rare and valuable cards.
In August, the Spelljammer book released and WotC saw significant backlash over the racist implications of the Hadozee. Q3 2022 had their profits almost $60 million down from Q3 2021.
December rolls around and Hasbro and WotC state that D&D is undermonetized. A sizeable subset of this forum argues that back and forth for a while and floats everything from the idea of D&D NFTs to making D&D Beyond Subscriptions practically mandatory to play, and even the idea of shutting out, or buying out, VTTs so that WotC's VTT (which has yet to manifest) will be the main way to play as to bring in more cash.
And then the OGL 1.1 is handed to Paizo and other companies with an NDA and a demand to sign it. Included in the new OGL is a requirement to give WotC and Hasbro cash, directly. To subsidize the work of third party publishers and homebrewers so that WotC can steal our labor and sell it for themselves.
Almost seven months passed between Alta Fox's actions and the comments about D&D being undermonetized. But could the pressure on the Hasbro brass have pushed the intention of increasing the income to the extreme degree of the OGL 1.1?
Personally, I think so.
And I think we also have Justin Lanasa to blame for it. As his bigoted Star Frontiers ripoff probably played into (or gave a reasonable cover of) their decision, as well.
Wizards of the Coast makes up 70% of Hasbro's income year to year. With D&D a sizeable portion of that, but, y'know, Magic the Gathering is also doing well. Magic the Gathering is also intensely monetized with various releases, endless new ways to play, and an incredibly healthy aftermarket of rare and valuable cards.
In August, the Spelljammer book released and WotC saw significant backlash over the racist implications of the Hadozee. Q3 2022 had their profits almost $60 million down from Q3 2021.
December rolls around and Hasbro and WotC state that D&D is undermonetized. A sizeable subset of this forum argues that back and forth for a while and floats everything from the idea of D&D NFTs to making D&D Beyond Subscriptions practically mandatory to play, and even the idea of shutting out, or buying out, VTTs so that WotC's VTT (which has yet to manifest) will be the main way to play as to bring in more cash.
And then the OGL 1.1 is handed to Paizo and other companies with an NDA and a demand to sign it. Included in the new OGL is a requirement to give WotC and Hasbro cash, directly. To subsidize the work of third party publishers and homebrewers so that WotC can steal our labor and sell it for themselves.
Almost seven months passed between Alta Fox's actions and the comments about D&D being undermonetized. But could the pressure on the Hasbro brass have pushed the intention of increasing the income to the extreme degree of the OGL 1.1?
Personally, I think so.
And I think we also have Justin Lanasa to blame for it. As his bigoted Star Frontiers ripoff probably played into (or gave a reasonable cover of) their decision, as well.