WotC Who should own Wizards of the Coast if/when it is sold?
- Thread starter Luminous
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doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Yep, one of the few I could see actually happening.
Ok, ICv2 is doubling down on it. I guess the first article got lot of clicks?
Oh, man, that's a terrible news article. An interesting history piece, but a terrible news article. Just like Scott Thorne's last rumor piece it ignores many changes to Hasbro, WotC, the gaming industry, and the publishing industry over the past decade. I highly doubt that Hasbro is looking to sell D&D. But on the off chance they are, I know for sure it's not for any of the reasons in these articles. Not a good look for ICv2.
Sacrosanct
Legend
Jon Favreau. Seeing what he did with Mandalorian, saving the Star Wars franchise (hyperbole, but just a bit lol), he's the man for the job 
Jon Favreau. Seeing what he did with Mandalorian, saving the Star Wars franchise (hyperbole, but just a bit lol), he's the man for the job
I would guess that he's at least played D&D at some point, so there's that.
Dire Bare
Legend
It's not a news article. It's an opinion column from a game-store owner who's been in the biz for quite some time.
It's not a "rumor piece" . . . it's just a dude, with a level of expertise and knowledge of the industry, doing what nerds do. Taking a small bit of news and speculating what it COULD mean.
Dire Bare
Legend
I'll add that I really enjoyed the speculation in the second article. It covers a possibility not much discussed on gaming message boards, that a traditional book publisher might be interested in purchasing D&D. And with the discussion of TSR's history publishing novels, it makes perfect sense to me.
I totally buy the idea that a major book publisher would love to get their hands on the D&D back catalog of novels AND a chance to revitalize a top-selling novel franchise. I can see Random House, or some other publisher, focusing on revitalizing the novel line, but also deciding to jump into RPG publishing, especially considering how popular and visible the D&D game has become in recent years. Or, focusing on the novels and licensing out the game to a smaller RPG publisher.
Thorne is right on the money that the D&D novel line(s) were BIG in the 90s. Hundreds of books taking up lots of real estate in book stores, with a good number of reliable NYT best-sellers from certain authors. Heck, even today D&D novels take a up a good deal of shelf space in your local Barnes & Noble. Mine has the complete "Legend of Drizzt" series and the Dragonlance Chronicles, which alone is a pretty long list of titles. They are also carrying a good selection of the game books, the newer Endless Quest books, and D&D collectibles.
I'm not sure why WotC has mostly abandoned novel publishing, although I'm sure they have their reasons (lack of profit isn't one of them) . . . but it's something the right publisher could potentially make a lot of money on.
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