D&D General WotC Continues D&D's Advance To Digital First Brand

It's been apparent for some time that Dungeons & Dragons is moving towards a digital-first brand, centered around D&D Beyond, accompanied by a larger a shift into IP and lifestyle property.

D&D has had cartoons, toys, comics, and so on for decades, so this is not new, but the focus on these IP-based licenses appears to be gowing.

In Hasbro's latest earnings call, CEO Chris Cocks notes that the company -- by which he is referring to Hasbro, WotC, and their digital studio teams -- "delighted more than 1 billion kids, families and fans, secured partnerships that further underwrite future growth, advanced our evolution to a digital-first play and IP company and delivered record profits for our shareholders."

As we enter 2026, we view playing to Win and more importantly, the execution behind it by our Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast and digital studio teams as a clear success. Despite market volatility and a shift in consumer environment, we returned this company to growth in a meaningful way. We delighted more than 1 billion kids, families and fans, secured partnerships that further underwrite future growth, advanced our evolution to a digital-first play and IP company and delivered record profits for our shareholders.

As previously mentioned, this isn't really new information, but it is informative to see it clearly laid out by Hasbro's CEO. In the last couple of years, the company has had massive success with Baldur's Gate 3, and critical (if not commercial) success with the movie Honor Amongst Thieves. At least two D&D TV shows are currently in development--one from HBO as a sequel to Baldur's Gate 3, and another from Netflix, also set in the Forgotten Realms. In the eanrings call, Cocks notes that they have "top-tier creative partners across more than 60 active entertainment projects."

Digital sales currently make up 60% of D&D's revenue. With digital-exclusive expansions being sold on D&D Beyond, a robust virtual tabletop integration, and the bringing in of the larger third-party D&D content creators as partnered content, D&D's move towards digital-first is well underway. While there is no indication that the physical books will go away, they are slowly becoming secondary or collector's items rather than the primary product.

 

[Johnsy]

Here's a good analogy.

Before the discovery of the Americas by Columbus, balls used for Old World ballgames, as the medium of the game, were made primarily of leather and inflated animal bladders. After the Columbian exchange introduced the concept of rubber balls, rubber totally eclipsed bladders and in many cases replaced leather as well. If you're a historical reenactor who's interested in playing Calcio Storico with a ball made from an inflated pig bladder no one's stopping you, but you also can't reasonably expect to pop into a sporting goods store and buy one like that, right?

The anology is a good one, but not for the reasons you use it. Balls that used inflated bladders versus ones that use a synthetic material actually behave differently. As such, this leads to qualitative differences in how the game is played when it shifts from bladder to rubber. Modern football (or soccer, if you prefer) is a very different game now, for various reasons, but partly also because the medium through which it is realised has also changed (including the equipment).

By the same analogy, digital tools are not just quality of life enhancements, instead they subtlety begin to change the nature of the play experience itself. This is not inherently good or bad, and depends on what type of experience you are seeking. But… and I think this is the point people are repeatedly making, right now we all have a choice of play from purely analogue to purely digital and everything in between. This is a good thing.

If the game moves to being purely digitally mediated it will inevitably exclude those who don’t want to play that way and, more significantly, change the type of game that they want to play. Not because they are just Luddites, but because the properties of the medium through which it is played has changed, which alters the game itself.

 

[mamba]

what mamba seems to be suggesting is that there is a strong fan dislike of product that somehow still generates positive P&L

I was not suggesting anything, I only pointed out that you can have profit growth at the same time as a stagnant or slightly shrinking customer base. I said nothing about WotC, quite the opposite

Not that they definitely are in that range...

 

[bedir than]

I was not suggesting anything, I only pointed out that you can have profit growth at the same time as a stagnant or slightly shrinking customer base. I said nothing about WotC, quite the opposite

i misunderstood.
thank you.

I expect @Alphastream will share a best estimate for D&D The Brand soon

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

The anology is a good one, but not for the reasons you use it. Balls that used inflated bladders versus ones that use a synthetic material actually behave differently. As such, this leads to qualitative differences in how the game is played when it shifts from bladder to rubber. Modern football (or soccer, if you prefer) is a very different game now, for various reasons, but partly also because the medium through which it is realised has also changed (including the equipment).

By the same analogy, digital tools are not just quality of life enhancements, instead they subtlety begin to change the nature of the play experience itself. This is not inherently good or bad, and depends on what type of experience you are seeking. But… and I think this is the point people are repeatedly making, right now we all have a choice of play from purely analogue to purely digital and everything in between. This is a good thing.

If the game moves to being purely digitally mediated it will inevitably exclude those who don’t want to play that way and, more significantly, change the type of game that they want to play. Not because they are just Luddites, but because the properties of the medium through which it is played has changed, which alters the game itself.

To me that's a feature, not a bug. The dialectic of concept and material is one of the driving forces of human culture. And as long as the original form of the game is recorded well enough and nothing required to play it is permanently lost (say, if it required an aurochs bladder to play, and auroches are now extinct) I see no reason why we can't simply "fork" the game like an open source program.

There are people playing white box D&D in the exact same way they did in the 70s; they're arguably historical reenactors even if they'd rather be called grognards. There are also people playing white box D&D using digital tools right now, and that's just as valid, to say nothing of the people who play 5e like it's still 1975 or those who play 5e exclusively on the computer.

 

[Gambit42]

There are definitely cool ways to play D&D that are not entirely analogue, Foundry is a really good experience. But playing at a table using only a phone as your character sheet and books reference is annoying af, I've had to do it before, it sucks, give me books and a character sheet over that anytime.