WotC Roll For Combat: Hasbro Downgraded. Toys Rotting on the Shelves

[Velderan]

No, that info is from before DnDB existed: granted that the industry has had several good years since then, but if 50,000 people paying $10 a month is ~10%, thst means thst Beyond subscription revenue was about $60 million ([50,000 * $10] * 12 * [10 * 50,000] = $60 million). Do even if the rest of TTRPG industry has doubled since then, that means Beyond became approximately half the industry between being started and the OGL crisis, just for subscriptions let alone digital book sales

Makes the purchase of Beyond more sensical.

Subscriptions are closer to $5 a month, but yeah, the purchase makes a lot of financial sense both in the monthly revenue from the subs and being able to sell digital books directly for more than their cut selling physical books to Amazon and distributors while having less expenses to do so.

Edit: Glicker had said Paizo had an annual revenue of something like $12m a couple years ago, so if they’re the second largest publisher, your logic tracks IMO.

 

[mamba]

No, that info is from before DnDB existed: granted that the industry has had several good years since then

I am not doubting the math. I meant that I do not believe DDB was a part of the 35M market figure, and am not sure what is really included in it, I assume book sales (however accurate) and not DDB, Roll20, etc.

The other variable is whether those 50-60k subscribers are indeed 10% and not maybe 20%. Either way, buying DDB seems to have been a good decision.

 

[Parmandur]

Subscriptions are closer to $5 a month, but yeah, the purchase makes a lot of financial sense both in the monthly revenue from the subs and being able to sell digital books directly for more than their cut selling physical books to Amazon and distributors while having less expenses to do so.

Edit: Glicker had said Paizo had an annual revenue of something like $12m a couple years ago, so if they’re the second largest publisher, your logic tracks IMO.

Ah, lol, never been a subscriber. Still a pretty gobsmacked percentage of the TTRPG industry.

 

[Parmandur]

I am not doubting the math. I meant that I do not believe DDB was a part of the 35M market figure, and am not sure what is really included in it, I assume book sales (however accurate) and not DDB, Roll20, etc.

The other variable is whether those 50-60k subscribers are indeed 10% and not maybe 20%. Either way, buying DDB seems to have been a good decision.

Yeah, no, I wasn't saying that number included Beyond...I was comparing the industry literature number for how much income the entire TTRPG industry had a couple years ago to how much Beyond appears ro have been making recently. Kind of gigantic.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, no, I wasn't saying that number included Beyond...I was comparing the industry literature number for how much income the entire TTRPG industry had a couple years ago to how much Beyond appears ro have been making recently. Kind of gigantic.

Have they ever mentioned a hard number?

Companies love throwing around acco7nt ans subscriber numbers.

BUT most accounts are inactive/free and paid subscriptions are a very small %.

Losing 50k whales hurts. 50k active accounts hurts less.

 

[Endie]

This means Hasbro will lean even harder on WotC to save their skin again. Buy there is no BG3 this year to do.

What direct contribution to the bottom line has BG3 made in 2023? Larian will have bought the license to use D&D material a few years ago: they would not have spent years in dev otherwise. Do you mean that they included some sort of a royalty deal on top of that? That would be weird.

 

[Velderan]

What direct contribution to the bottom line has BG3 made in 2023? Larian will have bought the license to use D&D material a few years ago: they would not have spent years in dev otherwise. Do you mean that they included some sort of a royalty deal on top of that? That would be weird.

Not having a royalties deal in place would be the strange part. They definitely had one, otherwise they wouldn’t have reported it as being significant revenue for the brand in the quarterly earnings statements just released a month or so ago for Q3 2023.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

What direct contribution to the bottom line has BG3 made in 2023? Larian will have bought the license to use D&D material a few years ago: they would not have spent years in dev otherwise. Do you mean that they included some sort of a royalty deal on top of that? That would be weird.

I believe Larian's license is specifically to make Baldur's Gate 3, they don't have any general license to make D&D video games. Non-exclusive licenses like that are usually royalty based rather than lump-sum payments.

Now, if Larian proposes to negotiate a license for a BG4, I suspect WotC will roll out the red carpet all the way to Belgium.

 

[mamba]

What direct contribution to the bottom line has BG3 made in 2023? Larian will have bought the license to use D&D material a few years ago: they would not have spent years in dev otherwise. Do you mean that they included some sort of a royalty deal on top of that? That would be weird.

A royalty deal is the norm, and I believe WotC ended up getting 60M from that

 

[Henadic Theologian]

A royalty deal is the norm, and I believe WotC ended up getting 60M from that

Not a bad deal given someone else did most of the work.