Wizards of the Coast Announces One D&D

[Old Man]

Eberron creator Keith Baker considering walking away from Eberron and WotC

[Scott Ruggels]

 

 

[Old Man]

D&DBeyond founder expresses frustration with "walls being built around D&D garden", joins Paizo's ORC with TTRPG tool website demiplane.com

[Scott Ruggels]

 

 

[Opal]

I wonder if Hasbro coughed up for product placement on Stranger Things?

[Steve]

8 hours ago, Opal said:

I wonder if Hasbro coughed up for product placement on Stranger Things?

Hasbro does Stranger Things merchandise, but they could also charge the show for using their trademarked stuff like Vecna. There is some sort of contractual arrangement going on between them, so it seems much more complicated than just product placement.

[Scott Ruggels]

8 hours ago, Opal said:

I wonder if Hasbro coughed up for product placement on Stranger Things?

Not initially. 

[Scott Ruggels]

 

[Scott Ruggels]

The boycott may be having its intended effect. :

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hasbro-to-lay-off-1000-staffers-1235310817/

[Christopher R Taylor]

Might just be generally bad economy taking effect there, like in a lot of businesses.  The recession is about a year old now, its tough on companies as well as regular folks.

[Ternaugh]

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

The boycott may be having its intended effect. :

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hasbro-to-lay-off-1000-staffers-1235310817/

 

It's not the boycott. It's the rest of Hasbro's business. From the article (bolding mine):

 

Quote

Hasbro released preliminary earnings, reporting 2022 revenue down 9 percent for the year, and 17 percent in Q4.

Only its Wizards of the Coast and digital gaming divisions saw their finances improve for the year, with Q4 revenues up 22 percent and 2022 revenues up 3 percent. Hasbro’s entertainment division saw its revenues decline 12 percent in Q4, and 17 percent in 2022.

 

The article goes on to note:

 

Quote

The cost-cutting move also follows Hasbro having prevailed in a boardroom proxy battle against Alta Fox Management. The activist investor failed to get shareholders to back its call for Hasbro to spin off its gaming division to unlock shareholder value.

Hasbro’s returned board reiterated that spinning off the gaming division was not required to realize greater shareholder value at the toy maker. Seeing off Alta Fox’s proxy battle challenge marked a victory for newly installed CEO Cocks amid the toy maker’s drive toward becoming a gaming powerhouse.

 

This shareholder battle is probably where the idea that WotC and D&D was undermonetized came from.

[Old Man]

42 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

 

It's not the boycott. It's the rest of Hasbro's business. From the article (bolding mine):

 

 

The article goes on to note:

 

 

This shareholder battle is probably where the idea that WotC and D&D was undermonetized came from.

 

That article and the one it links to are really depressing, since it sounds like neither management nor the shareholders have any idea wtf is going on with respect to their entire business, let alone TTRPGs.  They have no explanation for why they are losing that much money when there's not even a recession?  And their solution is to just jettison the "underperforming" divisions and quintuple WotC's profitability overnight?

 

Also disturbing is the strategy of hooking kids on their IP young by "engaging" them at the age of two.

[Ternaugh]

And WotC blinks: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1439-ogl-1-0a-creative-commons

 

Quote

These live survey results are clear. You want OGL 1.0a. You want irrevocability. You like Creative Commons.

The feedback is in such high volume and its direction is so plain that we're acting now.

We are leaving OGL 1.0a in place, as is. Untouched.

We are also making the entire SRD 5.1 available under a Creative Commons license.

You choose which you prefer to use.

This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don't control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It's open and irrevocable in a way that doesn't require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there's no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There's no going back.

Our goal here is to deliver on what you wanted.

 

[Cygnia]

It's a trap, get an axe...

[Opal]

And the door closes on the third and probably final opportunity to win mainstream name recognition for a non-D&D TTRPG outside the hobby.

 

With only Pathfinder, an outright D&D clone having been glimpsed. 

[Duke Bushido]

[  sorry. ,I was working,on a very unrefreshed window.]

[Steve]

2 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

And WotC blinks: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1439-ogl-1-0a-creative-commons

 

 

It will be interesting to see how the fans react. Lots of YouTube activity on this subject has been going on. On the OGL mess Hasbro had on their hands, I mean.

 

I wonder if anyone will be fired over this. They blew their own face off with this stunt.

[Old Man]

This was from yesterday:

 

 

[Cygnia]

https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/news/pathfinder-call-of-cthulhu-rpgs-sell-out-dnd-ogl-backlash

[Steve]

7 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/news/pathfinder-call-of-cthulhu-rpgs-sell-out-dnd-ogl-backlash

Well, that’s gotta sting quite a bit. After blowing their own faces off with their stupid attempt to bully the RPG industry into compliance, followed quickly by tens of thousands of D&D account cancellations happening, the fans then go and buy record amounts of other RPGs instead.

 

I wonder if someone’s getting fired over this? D&D is (was?) one of Hasbro’s biggest cash flow IPs.

[Scott Ruggels]

I would be careful.  What the survey says may not be what WOTC does. Trust has been broken, and I expect them to try something in the future.  

[Opal]

I wonder if they weren't pulling something else under the cover of this kerfluffle?

[Duke Bushido]

7 minutes ago, Opal said:

I wonder if they weren't pulling something else under the cover of this kerfluffle?

 

 

Doubt it.   Though I am quiet certain that they would like you to believe they were that clever, as opposed to caught with their pants down and two counties away, and caught attempting to strong arm small time writers into surrendering their livelihood.

 

The idea that this might be a brilliant smokescreen is akin to the "brilliance" of Coca-Cola's "New Coke Maneuver."  Yeah, in the end, nostalgia and public outrage actually worked in Coca-Cola's favor (thiigg I will never pass up an opportunitjy to note that they switched to corn syrup anyway, even while telling the world that the peole demanded that they not do it, so they weren't going do do it).

 

Now given that people are lining up by the thousands to participate in the surveys and join in the "conversation" and help to push the focus away from the fact that you dont send drafts out for signatures, all of which essentially is selling- well, whatever you want to call it: ret-con? about face?  I prefer "blatant lies and and frenzied play born of desperation," but that might just be me.

 

 

Tangentially, I think it would be hilarious to see Hasbro put Wizards up for sale as being "too troublesome to keep"- or better; too expensive to keep," but again, it may be just me.

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

 

Enjoy the celebratory mood, But I still don[t trust them farther than I can throw them.

[Old Man]

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Tangentially, I think it would be hilarious to see Hasbro put Wizards up for sale as being "too troublesome to keep"- or better; too expensive to keep," but again, it may be just me.

 

It would be, but Hasbro isn't going to sell their only profitable division.  Although after this disaster maybe it won't be profitable either.