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

[Parmandur]

The interesting thing he mentioned was according to his source, somewhere between 50k and 60k people unsubscribed during the DDB cancellation push and at the time, that was roughly 10% of the subscriber base. No idea how accurate that number is since he only mentioned one source but given how connected they clearly were at the time, I'd guess it's not far off from the truth.

That was the number being thrown around at the time. Chris Cocks did say in a subsequent investor meeting *so subject to SEC oversight on statements of fact) that they were having success with retaining those subscribers after the CC resolution, sooo...ultimately unclear what the long term effect I'd on a broader scale.

 

[Parmandur]

In 2021 DDB allegedly had close to ten million "users," which seems like an awful lot; I am kind of skeptical. However, the paid subscriber base being 5-10% of that does not seem unreasonable. My paid subscription to DDB props up an awful lot of free accounts. This year, Chris Cocks claimed that, by Hasbro's reckoning, close to 50% of D&D games now use some form of digital tabletop, mostly DDB.

Free accounts are so easy to set up, and WorC pushes them so aggressively, seems pretty plausible. Last number I saw was over 13 million accounts.

 

[LordEntrails]

Or who keep reposting them to forums such as this...

This can not be emphasized enough.

In 2021 DDB allegedly had close to ten million "users," which seems like an awful lot; I am kind of skeptical. However, the paid subscriber base being 5-10% of that does not seem unreasonable. My paid subscription to DDB props up an awful lot of free accounts. In 2023, Chris Cocks claimed that, by Hasbro's reckoning, close to 50% of D&D games now use some form of digital tabletop, mostly DDB.

Eh, I would be surprised if paying accounts were 1%. I'm sure I'm counted in that ten million and the only times I've logged in since a month after creating the account when it first came online is to claim free items. Just in case I ever actually do decide to use it for anything. But, I would love to see actual numbers, but I doubt we will ever see them. Proprietary and all that.

 

[Velderan]

That was the number being thrown around at the time. Chris Cocks did say in a subsequent investor meeting *so subject to SEC oversight on statements of fact) that they were having success with retaining those subscribers after the CC resolution, sooo...ultimately unclear what the long term effect I'd on a broader scale.

I recall the 50k cancellation number, but never remember seeing that being 10%. A few people here latched on to the 12 million user number and have argued the cancellations were just a drop in the bucket which apparently they weren’t. I don’t doubt they were able to get most of those people to resubscribe though.

In 2021 DDB allegedly had close to ten million "users," which seems like an awful lot; I am kind of skeptical. However, the paid subscriber base being 5-10% of that does not seem unreasonable. My paid subscription to DDB props up an awful lot of free accounts. In 2023, Chris Cocks claimed that, by Hasbro's reckoning, close to 50% of D&D games now use some form of digital tabletop, mostly DDB.

Edit: I suspect a lot of those DDB free accounts were seldom used and since abandoned. I would love to know how many regularly active accounts there are. It seems to me that the subscription numbers should be out there somewhere, as Hasbro is a publicly traded company.

At one point, my paid sub was sharing books with 13 people and I figured my experience was probably common enough. There’s no real compelling reason to have more than 1 subscription at a table. I would love to know how many of the registered users ever actually log-in.

 

[ECMO3]

Is this guy actually a financial analyst, because a couple things he says are completely different from my understanding and experience.

I don't think companies actually take out loans to issue dividends. If they don't have cash for that and they want to ussue a dividend, they typically issue more stock to cover it.

He also has it backwards when he says the stock will go down if they don't issue a dividend. Issuing a dividend is what will make the stock go down (nominally by the value of the dividend). Their current cash position is already baked into the stock price and reducing cash through a dividend will almost always make the stock price drop. If they want to keep the stock price high they should not issue a dividend.

 

[Parmandur]

I recall the 50k cancellation number, but never remember seeing that being 10%. A few people here latched on to the 12 million user number and have argued the cancellations were just a drop in the bucket which apparently they weren’t. I don’t doubt they were able to get most of those people to resubscribe though.

Yeah, that is new ut not too surprising: it was clearly a large enough percentage to alarm WotC and get whoever was pushing the OGL changes to fold utterly and completely.

 

[Parmandur]

I recall the 50k cancellation number, but never remember seeing that being 10%. A few people here latched on to the 12 million user number and have argued the cancellations were just a drop in the bucket which apparently they weren’t. I don’t doubt they were able to get most of those people to resubscribe though.

At one point, my paid sub was sharing books with 13 people and I figured my experience was probably common enough. There’s no real compelling reason to have more than 1 subscription at a table. I would love to know how many of the registered users ever actually log-in.

One kind of shocking thing from the 10% number: that suggests that DNDB monthly takeaway was somewhere around $5 million a month, or $60 million a year.

Per this older article, as of 2016/2017bthe entire TTRPG industry was worth like $35 million.

That means that even after losing 10% os subs, Beyond subscription might be over half the industry....

How big's the RPG market?

How big is the RPG market? Pretty damn tiny, is the answer. As of 2016/2017 it's about $35m in size, according to ICv2. That's of a Hobby Games market currently worth just over a billion dollars. The RPG segment is a mere 2.9% of the overall Hobby Games market, which includes boardgames...

www.enworld.org

 

[mamba]

He also has it backwards when he says the stock will go down if they don't issue a dividend. Issuing a dividend is what will make the stock go down (nominally by the value of the dividend). Their current cash position is already baked into the stock price and reducing cash through a dividend will almost always make the stock price drop. If they want to keep the stock price high they should not issue a dividend.

yes and no. If they pay the dividend, the stock price in theory goes down by that amount (distributed across all shares), but if you look at the dividend as gaining interest, then a lower dividend only justifies a lower stock price when you keep the rate the same, so lowering the dividend usually also negatively affects the stock price, for that reason and because it is generally considered bad news to begin with.

 

[mamba]

That means that even after losing 10% os subs, Beyond subscription might be over half the industry....

I doubt DDB counts towards those 35M as that data is not really available

 

[Parmandur]

I doubt DDB counts towards those 35M as that data is not really available

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.