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

DnD isn't and without a total redesign of the game can't become MtG. Obviously they want a steady revenue stream from DndBeyond and they want to make a profit on other products. That's how capitalism works - nobody publishes a game unless they believe they can make money off of it.

For what it's worth, I can kind of see their point that D&D is under monetized but I'm not talking about the game itself. Previous editions seem to show that flooding the market with product doesn't really increase revenue and I don't see any way they could enforce trading cards or pay for bonus microtransactions. I do think there are likely plenty of opportunities to leverage the brand recognition in video games and other media.
WotC was making plenty of money off of D&D before they decided they needed to find ways to make more.
 

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LEGO's biggest profit makers are the massive, boutique sets designed for well off adults.

Playmobil is what those adults get their friends and family when they have a toddler's birthday. It's a kids toy still.
You really, really forgot the €4,00/minifig set for D&D?

And while I bought the big arse D&D set for adults on day #1 at full price, I still spend more on the D&D minifigs, even with a 25% discount. And while the big sets might sell for more, they sell a LOT less then the oodles of minifigs. 90 of those minifigs are equivalent to Lego as one big set. I suspect they sell a LOT more then x100 the minifigs then the big D&D sets.
 

You really, really forgot the €4,00/minifig set for D&D?
No, I understood that LEGO as a whole re-invented itself as an adult toy collectibles company which is why they sell architecture buildings, flowers, paintings and 1000 dollar Death Stars.

The existence of mini-figs doesn't negate that the LEGO market and the playmobil market no longer overlap significantly.
 

I don't want DnD to become MtG.
In the last 35+ years I've spend more on D&D products then 95%+ of the people that play MtG. Imagine many cases of D&D minis you could buy if the objective was one of at least everyone and for most monsters x12 (the old 3e encounter 'max' size)... Most people are not doing that, I'm not doing that anymore, but you can bet that some folks are still buying D&D products like that. And back when I did this, the D&D minis were still made inhouse by WotC...

The issue with micro-transactions isn't that they are there, it's the playing experience without them that's the issue. Most people are fine with playing D&D with just one or a few books, some even don't own any. As long as people can continue to play D&D like that, no problem. The issue with the Sigil 3D stuff is that it's pretty darned expensive to make (good) 3D models, so you need to ask money for it. And as we're seeing with STLs, people are willing to pay for digital miniature files (STL is for printing, which is something else from using them in a VTT). We're also seeing people willing to pay good money for good VTT content, like the Kingmaker and Ember campaigns for Foundry VTT ($120/$100)...
 




Hasbro would like collabs in D&D like Magic: Beyond Universe but this isn't so easy. Most players aren't going to buy a new starter set and most of franchises can't be adapted to D&D easily, even most of isekai animes the main characters usually are broken or overpowered for the D&D standars. WotC could publish a "Fortnite d20" but that wouldn't be D&D, and Hasbro chose to licence various IPs to Renegade Games Studios.

I suspect if Hasbro could, it would try to acquire White Wolf's IPs, not only WoD and CoD. Also I guess Hasbro dreams D&D to be a videogame franchise like Pokemon but a monster-trainer videogame would need a lot of work, money and time.

Other companies with a strong brand-power aren't too interested into licences but they would rather to start from zero their own IPs with total creative freedom and control over the IP.

D&D is not so popular franchise to be licenced to Playmobil.

* How would be a animated movie, or videogame, of LEGO: Dragonlance more focused into the comedy?
 

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.
Does the world really need another MMO?

Those things cost an insane amount to make, and just end up being tools to driving up online addiction through microtransactions and yet still fail to turn much profit all while managing to dilute brands and anger fans.
 

Some of us really wanted that to be the case... not literally of course. But PLEASE realize that we, the players, don't want so much monetization and cross-over as defaults...
I don't want DnD to become MtG.
I gotta say I've been hearing people worry about D&D since what was it '96


hasn't happened yet
 

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