Wizards of the Coast Head Explains Benefits to D&D Franchise Model

The move will allow for better cross-platform integration.
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The head of Wizards of the Coast believes that moving to a franchise model will allow for more alignment between D&D multimedia and the core D&D tabletop game. Recently, Wizards of the Coast president John Hight spoke with GameIndustry.biz in a wide-ranging interview about the gaming company. Much of the interview was spent on Wizards' digital gaming ambitions, but Hight did speak about the realignment of the company to a franchise model.

Under the franchise model, all D&D-related operations now run through Dan Ayoub as opposed to having different arms for entertainment, video games, and tabletop. In the interview, Hight stated that the franchise model would allow for better coordination - specifically between different aspects of the franchise. One example was the D&D movie, which had relatively limited crossover with the D&D tabletop game. "We'd love to have had a D&D book or campaign a part and parcel with the movie," he says.

He also noted that Stranger Things - which is receiving a new tie-in project next month - could be integrated more with the game. "It'd be nice to have that all lined up, so when this thing rolls out, we've got a campaign for you to enjoy that's something you saw on the show, or the characters in the show."

Additionally, Hight noted that another side to the franchise model is to fully align the digital and physical sides of play, which he hopes will lead to in-person play. "Unfortunately, because of COVID, there's a whole generation of gamers that has spent a good deal of their time playing only online," he said. "And they're re-discovering the joy of being able to play together. What I want us to be able to do is have players move fairly seamlessly between in person play and online play."

Elsewhere in the interview, Hight hinted at a new D&D MMORPG, stating that he has encouraged development of a new MMO but stopped shy of saying a project was officially in the works.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

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The head of Wizards of the Coast believes that moving to a franchise model will allow for more alignment between D&D multimedia and the core D&D tabletop game. Recently, Wizards of the Coast president John Hight spoke with GameIndustry.biz in a wide-ranging interview about the gaming company. Much of the interview was spent on Wizards' digital gaming ambitions, but Hight did speak about the realignment of the company to a franchise model.

Under the franchise model, all D&D-related operations now run through Dan Ayoub as opposed to having different arms for entertainment, video games, and tabletop. In the interview, Hight stated that the franchise model would allow for better coordination - specifically between different aspects of the franchise. One example was the D&D movie, which had relatively limited crossover with the D&D tabletop game. "We'd love to have had a D&D book or campaign a part and parcel with the movie," he says.
He also noted that Stranger Things - which is receiving a new tie-in project next month - could be integrated more with the game. "It'd be nice to have that all lined up, so when this thing rolls out, we've got a campaign for you to enjoy that's something you saw on the show, or the characters in the show."

Additionally, Hight noted that another side to the franchise model is to fully align the digital and physical sides of play, which he hopes will lead to in-person play. "Unfortunately, because of COVID, there's a whole generation of gamers that has spent a good deal of their time playing only online," he said. "And they're re-discovering the joy of being able to play together. What I want us to be able to do is have players move fairly seamlessly between in person play and online play."

Elsewhere in the interview, Hight hinted at a new D&D MMORPG, stating that he has encouraged development of a new MMO but stopped shy of saying a project was officially in the works.
Immediatly having the best year for d&d in media they fired everyone involved and pissed off the guys that made their billion dollar game. Wotc is a trash company
 

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Yet another thread turns into "Let's just rag on a company because it's made mistakes while insulting them on a forum dedicated the game they produce." Doesn't that ever get old? And why do it other than to just troll because you know this is supposed to be a forum about a game people enjoy playing?
 

Yet another thread turns into "Let's just rag on a company because it's made mistakes while insulting them on a forum dedicated the game they produce." Doesn't that ever get old? And why do it other than to just troll because you know this is supposed to be a forum about a game people enjoy playing?
We don't owe WOTC anything.

They are a private company run by adults selling products for the purpose of making money - I'm sure they will cope with people stating the real life terrible things they did.

If people are so unhappy to hear such things, start a new site called Warriors for the Wizards of the Coast and ban anyone who says, and yes I am going to repeat this, the actual bad things that they actually did.
 

selling more products to more customers is serving the shareholders. Getting people to buy more of your products should mean that you are creating more products they are interested in.
Maybe. If you look at the Magic side, they're doing some stuff that's... maybe not shady, but not exactly customer-friendly, and which I think are bad for the long-term health of the game.

A few years back, Wizards started entering into licensing agreements with other companies to make "Universes Beyond" sets – adaptions of various IPs to Magic. They've done things like Warhammer 40K, Assassin's Creed, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Who, and some occasions of just making a handful of cards released as overpriced Secret Lairs (Spongebob Squarepants, Sonic the Hedgehog, various others). These cards were originally not legal for Standard or Modern (Standard is what's supposed to be their flagship format where you can play cards from the last few years, though it's been edged out by the more casual multi-player Commander format, and Modern is a format where you can play all but the most ancient cards), because they were cautious about "Fortniteing" their own IP. Universes Beyond sets have usually been more expensive than regular sets, partially because of license fees and partially because they can.

Recently, they changed this policy so the current and future Universes Beyond sets are treated as regular sets for Standard and Modern legality, starting with Final Fantasy which was released earlier this year. Final Fantasy is also widely considered to have a higher power level than Magic normally has... so they're now selling higher-powered cards at a higher price. They kind of did this earlier with some sets designed to push cards straight into Modern or Commander without going through Standard, but now they're doing it for Standard as well. In addition, that means you have more sets released for Standard – six sets this year, as opposed to the normal four, three of which are Universes Beyond sets (Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, and Avatar: The Last Airbender). This both means you need to spend a lot more money if you want to keep up, and that there's less time to play with one set's new cards before they start the heavy publicity push for the next one (because there are two months instead of three between sets, and UB sets tend to get more publicity).

I've seen a lot of online creators complain about this – they might be excited about individual new cards, and think those cards do fun things that capture the theme of what the subject is about (for example, J. Jonah Jameson's card has the rules text "Whenever a creature you control with menace attacks, create a Treasure token." which is a fun play on the classic "Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?" headline), but they feel they don't have the time to absorb things before being hit with something new. The latest release was Edge of Eternities, which was an in-universe set with a science-fiction-fantasy theme, which had some absolutely stellar (heh) worldbuilding, but it's been completely overshadowed both publicity- and powerwise by the surrounding Final Fantasy and Spider-Man sets.

But commercially, this has been a triumph. I'm making a note here, great success. It's hard to overstate their satisfaction. Final Fantasy has been the best-selling set ever – partially because they're selling to both Magic players and Final Fantasy aficionados, and partially because it has some absolutely bonkers cards in it. So this will probably continue, to the detriment of the actual game.

So far, we haven't seen this happen with D&D. Whatever outside tie-ins there have been have been minor things like Stranger Things or Acquisitions Inc.. I don't think we'll see this particular thing happening with D&D. Partially because D&D's business model has generally been focused around primarily selling core books with other books basically being self-sustaining advertisements for the core, but also because D&D doesn't have the competitive element Magic does – while some Magic players might be willing to pay $35 (or up to $85 for a fancier version) for Vivi Ornitier, I don't see anyone willing to shell out $20 for a single feat or spell in D&D. But when we see Wizards bosses start talking about increasing D&D's monetization, it's hard not to look at what they've done with Magic and wonder how they'll apply that kind of thinking to D&D.
 

but you should be able to have a reason for your concerns, so far I see nothing that explains why a private investor would be any better for D&D
I'd like to offer an amendment to that: I see nothing that explains why a private investor with the kind of money it would take to buy D&D would be any better for it. I think there are plenty of people who could do better (from an artistic/consumer perspective) with D&D, and there are some people/companies with the financial muscles to buy D&D. The overlap between those categories basically does not exist.
 

We don't owe WOTC anything.

They are a private company run by adults selling products for the purpose of making money - I'm sure they will cope with people stating the real life terrible things they did.

If people are so unhappy to hear such things, start a new site called Warriors for the Wizards of the Coast and ban anyone who says, and yes I am going to repeat this, the actual bad things that they actually did.


Everyone, every company that has been in existence for any period of time has done a bad thing or three along the way. But at a certain point I can only assume trolling when we keep bringing up things that happened years ago. I may as well start complaining about crap that TSR did back in the day.

Feel free to start a thread "Let's all crap on WOTC" and it's fine. Have at it. But when every single time a thread stops talking about anything relevant to the topic at hand and dredges up past mistakes that aren't relevant? It's boring.
 

Maybe. If you look at the Magic side, they're doing some stuff that's... maybe not shady, but not exactly customer-friendly, and which I think are bad for the long-term health of the game.

A few years back, Wizards started entering into licensing agreements with other companies to make "Universes Beyond" sets – adaptions of various IPs to Magic. They've done things like Warhammer 40K, Assassin's Creed, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Who, and some occasions of just making a handful of cards released as overpriced Secret Lairs (Spongebob Squarepants, Sonic the Hedgehog, various others). These cards were originally not legal for Standard or Modern (Standard is what's supposed to be their flagship format where you can play cards from the last few years, though it's been edged out by the more casual multi-player Commander format, and Modern is a format where you can play all but the most ancient cards), because they were cautious about "Fortniteing" their own IP. Universes Beyond sets have usually been more expensive than regular sets, partially because of license fees and partially because they can.

Recently, they changed this policy so the current and future Universes Beyond sets are treated as regular sets for Standard and Modern legality, starting with Final Fantasy which was released earlier this year. Final Fantasy is also widely considered to have a higher power level than Magic normally has... so they're now selling higher-powered cards at a higher price. They kind of did this earlier with some sets designed to push cards straight into Modern or Commander without going through Standard, but now they're doing it for Standard as well. In addition, that means you have more sets released for Standard – six sets this year, as opposed to the normal four, three of which are Universes Beyond sets (Final Fantasy, Spider-Man, and Avatar: The Last Airbender). This both means you need to spend a lot more money if you want to keep up, and that there's less time to play with one set's new cards before they start the heavy publicity push for the next one (because there are two months instead of three between sets, and UB sets tend to get more publicity).

I've seen a lot of online creators complain about this – they might be excited about individual new cards, and think those cards do fun things that capture the theme of what the subject is about (for example, J. Jonah Jameson's card has the rules text "Whenever a creature you control with menace attacks, create a Treasure token." which is a fun play on the classic "Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?" headline), but they feel they don't have the time to absorb things before being hit with something new. The latest release was Edge of Eternities, which was an in-universe set with a science-fiction-fantasy theme, which had some absolutely stellar (heh) worldbuilding, but it's been completely overshadowed both publicity- and powerwise by the surrounding Final Fantasy and Spider-Man sets.

But commercially, this has been a triumph. I'm making a note here, great success. It's hard to overstate their satisfaction. Final Fantasy has been the best-selling set ever – partially because they're selling to both Magic players and Final Fantasy aficionados, and partially because it has some absolutely bonkers cards in it. So this will probably continue, to the detriment of the actual game.

So far, we haven't seen this happen with D&D. Whatever outside tie-ins there have been have been minor things like Stranger Things or Acquisitions Inc.. I don't think we'll see this particular thing happening with D&D. Partially because D&D's business model has generally been focused around primarily selling core books with other books basically being self-sustaining advertisements for the core, but also because D&D doesn't have the competitive element Magic does – while some Magic players might be willing to pay $35 (or up to $85 for a fancier version) for Vivi Ornitier, I don't see anyone willing to shell out $20 for a single feat or spell in D&D. But when we see Wizards bosses start talking about increasing D&D's monetization, it's hard not to look at what they've done with Magic and wonder how they'll apply that kind of thinking to D&D.

I assume there are many forums dedicated to MtG where you can complain. I don't play the game and don't care for the business model but I don't see how it's relevant on a D&D forum.
 

Or I, we, can just ignore the trolls with the ignore button. Problem solved this thread and future threads. I’ve noticed replies that I’m not seeing in this one so it’s working and adding a couple today.
 


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