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 earnings 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.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Excuse me if this may be a little off-topic but if Hasbro now is mainly a brand/franchise manager company then this could become the possible acquisition targert by a bigger company. We aren't talking only about money but the entertaiment industry like a tool of "soft power".

* Should Hasbro to allow any space to publish amateur fan-fiction about its IPs? For example fanart of Dark Sun or chuanshu(reincarnation within a literare work) of Dragonlance. Something like White Wolf's "Dark Pack".

 

[TheSword]

What are you trying to ask/say here? Nobody knows why they stopped as they have not made it public, or even announced why or that they have stopped, hence the lack of apparent care.
I am bemoaning the lack of some digital products from an article where the WotC CEO says they are digital first, yet other publishers do it better. I have also said nothing about the other digital products that failed.

Pathfinder was published as pdf from day one. The products were expressly designed to be sold as PDFs and alongside the subscription model that was one of their main routes to market. They were also a scrappy insurgency so had a reason to want their products out there cheaply and easily.

It’s very different to saying a company are obliged to go back and make a back catalogue of everything they have ever written over 50 years and make it available to you. Particularly for products that are unlikely to sell any copies.

 

[500 Toads]

Should Hasbro to allow any space to publish amateur fan-fiction about its IPs? For example fanart of Dark Sun or chuanshu(reincarnation within a literare work) of Dragonlance. Something like White Wolf's "Dark Pack".

WOTC already has its Fan Content Policy, which allows a lot of such things so long as they're clearly marked unofficial and with reference to the FCP; are freely available to the public with essentially no barriers at all; are not being licensed to anybody else for any kind of compensation; and are open to everybody else to reuse and build upon under the same terms, without your approval or even needing to give you credit; and subject to their disapproval (as in, you don't need their explicit prior approval to publish; but they can demand that you take down your short story collection if it's about Faerunian heroes turning to the dark side and running drug cartels and prostitution rackets, etc).

Anything else, such as if you want to sell it ala carte or lock it behind paid Patreon tiers or w/e, you'd need to make other arrangements with WOTC. DMsGuild for instance would not host it, as their agreements require that whatever is there be supplemental or useful to actual gameplay (campaigns and character options, yes; novellas, no).