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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 2350623" data-attributes="member: 20741">WotC has been shopping the D&D franchise for 18 months now.  The going price is 30 million USD.Please appreciate that the most significant asset in the D&D line is the right to make computer games based on WotC's IP. That license remains in the hands of Atari for the next 10 years, significantly reducing the value of the D&D brand on a resale.With electronic rights that are not owned lock stock and barrel -  that would be a very different story.  Then it would not surprise me to see Microsoft or NCSoft buy the brand and resell to an operating company to carry on RPG products while retaining all electronic rights. (Shade of FASA and MEchwarrior/Battletech licensing).But that is not currently possible with the D&D brand.  The D&D electronic rights were granted by Hasbro in 2000 for less than FMV as a critical sweetener in their sell off of a blood gushing redline on their financial statement called "Hasbro Interactive".  Hasbro Interactive was a dot. com bust of epic proportions and they were desperate to dump it. A 15 year exclusive license for D&D was the price Hasbro had to pay for it.Just last month, Hasbro tried to buy back the electronic rights to D&D from Atari - and Atari asked Hasbro for far more money that Hasbro was prepared to pay.  Hasbro DID reclaim Transformers and Magic electronic rights for about 60 million - but Atari will not let D&D go at a price Hasbro would pay.  Moral of the Story: The big money in the brand is CRPGs and MMORPG royalties and licensing fees - not Rule books or miniatures.  Sorry if that does not sit well with some people here - but that's the cold reality.</blockquote>

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