Yeah... that will get people to play Pathfinder. If Microsoft buys it... that *could* be fun, keyword *could* as it would go vastly more digital but the digital part would get a *vast* and I mean *vast* upgrade and it is already pretty good. The video games would be nice, at least some would be but who knows what it would do to the TTRPG.
Agree, Disney has had a rough track record with their video games, and especially Star Wars licensing, although they seem to be doing a little better than in the past (not saying much). But so far Hasbro developed D&D video games have been either terrible or canceled. They need to get good developers behind their games like with Baldur's Gate.
Being forced to play DnD thru a microtransaction saturated meta-verse is an absolute hellscape. Kinda the opposite of what makes role playing fun (a relatively inexpensive social experience that actively engages the imagination). People like rolling dice; people like collecting dice; digital dice suck.
PBST! You don't need WOTC to play D&D. You don't even need D&D. It is a role playing game. All you need is an imagination. Even the dice are optional, but who would skip dice.
WOTC/Hasbro can do what they like. I vote with my dollars. I've voted a couple hundred times this past month, and every vote has been for other RPG systems.
I don’t really care what happens to the words “Dungeons & Dragons”. That’s all Hasbro really controls. The idea-friends telling a fantasy story together using dice, pencil, and paper-can never be owned.
Honestly, the complete digitization of D&D sounds like a nightmare scenario. Books are expensive but I can imagine how much more costly the hobby would be if the consumer is nickel-and-dimed with microtransactions for essential portions of the game or given loot box mechanics for expansion material.
Dont forget you lose just about ALL resale value. A D&D book in its physical form, even to somebody who doesn’t play D&D, has an inherent worth of about $30-40 used… Whats a digital, nontransferable file of the dame thing worth to that same person? If somebody who doesn’t need it wants to sell a book because their done with the game, they can. A digital file, you’re stuck with. You gonna sell a cellphone logged into D&D beyond for a markup price on ebay? How many people do you think are chomping at the bit to buy THAT used instead of buying the physical books?….. I rest my case.
@@apotheosis21 I play D&D because it's D&D not because it's a video. Video games and D&D are wildly different and as such business models are not directly comparable. If you turn D&D into an mmo or platform like roblox or secondlife to create limitless MMO's, it will just be that, an MMO, not D&D!
You have to remember that all this growth from Wizards don't really comes from d&d or Magic cards, but Magic Arena. When they say "replacing the brand blueprint strategy for one focused on consumer products and entertainment" they mean stop thinking like a media company (like Disney for example) and start thinking like a game company (like Activision for example). It would probably include, like you said, investing in a bunch of d&d games for mobile (and other things like streamers and e-sports) instead of investing in a movie and cartoon series
@Anne O'Nymous I see your point but I believe if these writers took a more show don't tell approach and have a good story that accurately portrays a typical D&D scenario (a group of fantasy adventurers/do-gooders/ne'er-do-wells going into dungeons, fighting monsters and claiming long lost treasures) you don't need to explain everything. If you look at Star Wars, Lucas barely told you anything. All you knew is the guys in the little ship stole something and a bad guy in a black cape in a bigger ship was there to get it back. He pretty much assumes you'll figure it out. I'm not optimistic that these films and shows will be good but I do hope they are.
@Anne O'Nymous Ultimately, the problem with a "Dungeons and Dragons" movie is that D&D is a set of rules. It isn't a setting (though it does have some assumptions), it isn't a story, there's absolutely no lore guaranteed to be the same from one table to another. There is absolutely nothing about D&D that one could write a film about while separating it from generic fantasy nonsense. Now a fantasy noir movie set in Eberron, or a fantasy series set in The Frozen North? That could work.
@@Parker8752 very not true, dnd has more books written than any other setting out there, besides possibly comic books, and comic movies have worked out great, dnd movies can also do this
Finkel is an an interesting fellow. Well over a decade ago he came into the public eye after he had a few dates with a journalist who, after she learned he was not just an MTG player, but a pro with his face on a card, she went on a final date with him to gather some background, and then wrote a whole "Eww, gross, an Internet dating site set me up with a NERD!!" editorial that blew up in her face. The blowback for being biased against geeky guys was a surprise. A lot of people saw it as the turning point when geek culture became mainstream. Finkel handled himself like a true class act, in spite of being publicly humiliated by a journalist acting like a highschool mean girl on a major news outlet. No idea if that makes him any more qualified for a executive role on WotC, but we definitely know that he knows what it's like to be a geeky outcast on a global scale.
This is a good summary of the topic. The document form Alta Fox has a lot of interesting information about how Hasbro got to this point, and what is actually happening there, now. Well worth reading if you have any stock in Hasbro, or interest in the future of WOTC.
The move to digital in the future worries me. I see micro-transactions and memberships. Lets not forget the locking out of the third party content, and to be fair is far better then the official content. Wizards being separate from Hasbro could be a good thing but then again it all depends on whos running the show.
Thank you for an Interesting video on a less-than-sexy topic. Every day I feel more confirmed in my decision to effectively move all my play experience to “D&D” games like BFRPG, OSE, and OSRIC.
This is where I am now, too. If I wanted microtransactions and digital assets I'd go play Apex. The biggest hurdle is getting my gaming group to try the OSR. I know they'd like it but anything that doesn't have a recognized brand name attached to it is persona non grata to them.
That would be fascinating if WotC actually did spin off from Hasbro and went IPO. As someone who plays dnd and mtg, it would be hard to not buy that stock.
The professor is right. They ARE going to next-level digital metaverse this. He's also right about remembering that it's not a mom and pop game - it's an IP controlled by corporate interests. People can rail and complain about how the game is not "perfect" for them after the latest change from Wizards made to better align the game with the current zeitgeist. (Which is obviously a sound financial strategy based on the numbers shown here). Or people can just run the game they want to play because D&D is at it's core a modular sandbox game. Buy paper books.
@@bettsdn Nothing like browser game profitable. And print will be in direct competition with a "Meta" experience. All the little 5e heads will follow like sheep if WotC goes 100% online. They are already begging for it. Then comes the big homebrew crackdown on the "legacy" pen and paper version of 5e. 5e is almost completely design to skirt OGL.
As a kid, I read Avengers comics. My friends and I would talk about how cool and fun the stories were. We'd see movies get made that weren't one tenth as interesting or meaningful as the stuff we read in the comics. Why couldn't we get a cool movie derived from this much better material? We felt the same about the Lord of the Rings. Was it just effects? It did seem like there was a lot of disdain for the comic or genre novel among the elites producing films. And you know what we also thought was cool and fun and similarly had fantastic potential if only someone would pay attention and invest in it? Dungeons & Dragons.
Now I am older and have money to spend. My nostalgia is material for artistic endeavors looking to part me from my gold pieces. So, any minute now, someone is going to figure out I and millions of others really like D&D. And try to sell us on it.
@@ericjome7284 In regards to .. nostalgia. Any person that is self-aware enough to notice self .. maturity ... and personal independent growth. After 44 years of life I have seen people fall into arrested development with no critical thinking in religion, politics, or imagination. This is coming from someone that remembers the " Satanic Panic," which harassment of gaming shops didn't end in my area till around the early 2000's. Other than the azz backwards mentality I have seen in my home town in the pass thirty years. 2.) My home town two RPG, MtG gaming shop, .. a.) First shop I went to as an adult in 1998 at 21 years old before WotC buy out played AD&D2ndE, WEG west end games Star Wars d6 system, TMNT, White wolf/World of Darkness. The place was also a paint blast aero soft gun shop with a weight bench so players can dead lift for their PC's strength score stats. Since the first gaming shop was in a basement, at times we played all night. Then WotC brough out their Star Wars rpg in my area before the D&D updated system came out. So we had no problem mixing WEG with the WotC d20 system. Few of the fun nights we watch both Conan movies and counted all the enemy hits and ability checks step by set and played AD&D set to the action of the Conan movies. Along with the " Wizards," cartoon movie. It was a more advance style of play than what I did with my cousins & friends in the early to mid part of the 1990's as teenagers. b.) My second game shop in my mid to late 20's, .. which end around 2012. My second shop group " 4am in the morning club, cause by 4am every fell asleep in the gaming shops chairs and floor." basic had to break and rewrite WoD/ Vampire the Masquerade d10 system to play through all the " Blade " movies step by step. Bumping thirty and playing with people in the forties and early fifties have a real different style of play and problem solving. Along with mixing things from AD&D into 3.5e with WEG for a diversity in play. c.) Nostalgia moments, .. Game shop owner 8yo daughter wanted to join our game played by 26 to forty yo. Everyone eye each other at the table silently thinking for a moment on how to drop her into mid game. I drop her into the game as a child fire genie that could grant Wish once per day. She was a riot to watch in play. Three 12 yo girls were brought to the game shop, they wanted to play baby red dragons .. and .. I was the one to write up their PC sheets. Those three pre teens ruthlessly underhanded stomp the mid 20 yo in sneaky tactics. My grandpa first taught me dice RPG in the early 1980's playing under the dinning room table tented over with bed sheets. Playing with He-Man action figures. It was Craps .. Roll 2d6 to hit or dodge, highest roll wins and hp counter was a 1d6 for six hits. Then there was green army men. ( Five year old little boys arguing that I hit you follow with no you didn't ! Grandma told my grandpa to deal with it.) 3.) Comic book game of the multiverse,... Death trap house during a high class party. Jimmy Olsen and Peter Parker were called in to photograph the event. Clark Kent got stuck in a closet as a joke amongst the robbers. Bruce Wayne without his bat suite. After a hour of play, Superman, Flash, and Wonder Woman spent 45 minutes or so doing math to see if they could just dismantle the whole building and get everyone out moving faster than the explosive could overtake the building. b.) It was common for some DMs to start a 3.5e game then move it through D&D into Star Wars along with DC into Marvel alternat reality multiverse. We had index cards which were randomly drawn to see which PC we would play at a given moment. One guy got both Spider Man & Dead Pool, it was fun watching him insult himself in three different voices. Having a fun up coming weekend gaming with friends & family.
If what I've heard is accurate comics, movie and TV are going awful due to the rights for those characters. Where d&d is concerned they need to ditch that idiotic message to avoid the mess Lucasfilm and Amazon are in because that message isn't profitable.
As a DM myself, I can personally attest that I am not looking to turn my D&D campaign into some virtual reality experience "IN THE METAVERSE". Virtual table tops allow us to play our favourite games with people, we never would have been able before. And even through that, make friends we never would have before... If you start trying to push beyond that framework and into "metaverse" concepts (Which have absolutely no place in D&D), I will tell you exactly which level of the nine hells you can take yourself!!!!
Honestly I don't think Hasbro has ever had any idea of what to do with WotC, the simple fact they took so long to do a M:tg/D&D crossover book speaks volumes to this. Had I been running the show we would have gotten a campaign setting for M:tg based on the early lore and background 20 years ago. The current run of 5e is mediocre at best. The almost random-topic all hardcover releases has turned off a lot of fans. They still play D&D but don't really buy any of the books; exactly what Hasbo doesn't want. They can only see online as the future, which is like a car company saying only cars that can turn into boats is the future. Sell the print D&D to Goodman games and retain all other rights until you run those into the ground and sell them too.
Due to my location i play D&D all online on Discord. But when i used to run games at a table there is nothing like it. I'm gonnah eventually start up a D&D club for like minded Caribbean players.
When it seemed Hasbro didn't understand D&D, many of us felt they should break off or buy WOTC from Hasbro. But now that we know WOTC is the most profitable part of Hasbro, they'll never let it go.
I actually like the idea behind the Death Saving throw mechanic, even though it is abused to hell and back. The rules around it just need to be reigned in a bit. I like it because in my mind it's the idea that someone on the battlefield is injured, unconscious, and out of the fight, but this doesn't mean that they're dead. They very well could regain consciousness later on. I like the idea, but the implementation is admittedly messy. Especially if the DM allows that person to regain consciousness at 1 HP, get up and start fighting again without any outside aid. I think the real problem comes in with Cleric revive abilities after the fight has concluded. Resuscitation during or immediately after battle I can get behind, but full revivification way after the battle is over(I'm talking days or even years in some cases) is a bit ridiculous imo. If it can't be done within 10 in game minutes of the death then it shouldn't be possible to do.
VTT are an important part of the future of ttrpgs, it's cool for the players and designers but it has some problems: - VTTs are not flexible if you don't pay for them and spend time to code or prepare your sessions, and even with that in mind there are certain things you can't do: it means that d&d and other rpg are becoming less and less compatible with house rules or homebrew content. - Most VTTs are designed for d&d and rpg designers have to think of game systems compatible with VTT tech. - VTTs tend to focus on grid combat and cosmetics. - VTTs simplify the use of complicated game mechanics by the press of a button, this is especially true for mainstream games, and it offers no incentive for designers to fix bad game mechanics. So, to sum up, VTTs tend to promote a version of rpg that is a tabletop grid with heavy mechanics, not easly customizable, evolutive and limiting original game design. One could say that the rigid constraints of VTTs favor monopolistic control of the market and purchases, that is to say a better IP control and revenues for the the industry, The biggest issue with VTTs at the moment is the time DM has to sink in to prepare their adventures, that's why we see more and more pay-to-play ttrpgs sessions and 'professional DMs" online. If wotc wants to make d&d mainstream (like coffee is), they'll have to address this by making the game easier for DM and simplify VTTs terrible interface and ease of use. They already have started this mutation with functionnalities imbedded in d&d beyond usable by third parties, however it means that they control the game engine, making any change, house rule or improvement difficult to implement for the players. So by making their game easier to use online, they might not fix issues the game has and make it even more complicated for non d&d beyond/VTT users which in turn will limit the access to the game.
Very true. As a DM who's invested a few hundred dollars into a VTT set-up, it is currently quite the endeavor to prep initially. House/custom rules are currently the biggest challenge, which sucks because that's part of what really makes a game shine in my opinion, making the game your own. Once set-up and play, including custom rules and a low barrier to entry is achieved, is when I think VTT will explode.
Hasbro's video games so far have been DoA if they arrived at all. Hope that pattern gets better soon. Honestly, I think if someone made a vanilla Forgotten Realms D&D video game vs a Vox Machina video game. The VM game would outsell it by a mile. New BaldursGate (not Hasbro developed if I am correct) looks fantastic, but I think VM would outsell even that.
Just wanted to comment on your last point that you get flak when you change a rule. Even when I disagree with some of your choices, that's for me and my games. You do what you want for your groups. It is your right. Ultimately we all play the game we want to play and that is how it should be. Vive la différence. Cheers.
I think you're right about the relative decline in physical toys, however, it should be noted that this isn't what killed Toys R Us, rather the rise of Walmart, Target, and Amazon shifting shopping habits away from specialty stores to discount, single stop, and online shopping.
@@sumdude4281 they incurred that debt fighting a losing battle against low price megastores otherwise they wouldn't have been ripe for that takeover. You're giving us the mechanics of their dissolution, I merely pointed out the reason they found themselves in that predicament.
Enjoyed this vid. As usual I think you make some very good points and your analysis seems well supported with data. So my question for you is, without access to billions of $$, how can we get rid of those deplorable "death saves"? I mean besides just houseruling them away, or playing an older version of D&D, or maybe playing another FRP all together? ;-)
D&D will always be a social game. That's what makes it good. Anything that pulls people away from the table is not good for D&D. Video games have their place, but they are not social enough, and are not D&D.
Something to note: Hasbro selling toys is not completely at risk since it is not just the children that are the sole target of toys anymore but rather collectors and this is why there has been an evolution of better quality toys at higher prices and more points of articulation. With regards to Wizard's of the Coast the Magic the Gathering card decks are also set up deliberately for collectors by only issuing small numbers of specific cards and the random aspects of that just plays into the addictive nature of buying more cards to get the set that you are looking for. Wizard's only produces D&D books but most likely they gain royalties off official supplementary products that are produced by third party companies such as Wizkid's. Holding the rights to the D&D produces passive income with little effort or resources of the company themselves. The Critical Role books are an example of profits that they make off not producing the product but rather publishing it. This also goes for GI Joe since Hasbro does not need to actively seek out people to make a movie for them but rather people are approaching them for movie rights. Passive income from ip rights is wonderful which is why Disney started buying up comic book companies that had nothing to do with their overall image since the royalties alone can bring in far more income than the comic books themselves so when people complain about the quality of the stories in comic books today it could be because Disney doesn't actually about the profits from them.
Professor, the corporatization of DnD will have good and bad effects. Good - as more people will move towards the game and play it, raising awareness and making it even more mainstream. This will attract talented people to it. Net plus. Bad because it very well will lead to a Fortnight-ified, microtransactional version of the game where access is limited and pay to play will be in full effect. The best we’ll be able to hope for is that the game stays more sand-boxy so that individual spins on the game will still be the norm and not a sterilized corporate shell trying to shill everyone for $.
I don't see a proliferation of the hobby as a net positive if that proliferation comes at the expense of the very core character of the hobby itself. Luckily there are alternatives to D&D 5E. And luckily the availability of older and OOP game materials through DTRPG has been increasing as well.
@@Jayce_Alexander I agree. I play a home-brewed 1/2e DnD. I have even re-written large portions of the rules (especially the 1e PHB) to suit. I love that it’s reaching a wider audience but fear that the flavor of the game will be wrung out in the interest of making a $ on it.
Prof. DM notes that people complain when he suggests rule changes ("What right do you have?") and then notes that the rules are set based on what WotC think will sell. Of course this is true. The game isn't owned by lifetime gamers who want to make a living doing what they love. It's a business. But this is EXACTLY why every gamer should embrace the fundamental truth that no company can tell you how to play. You don't like Death Saves? You can get rid of them. Modding the game and playing it the way you want to has always been a core idea in RPGs.
Modding the game and playing your way has always been a core concept of D&D, pretty much every version has basically said "the rules are an outline/framework for you to use as you see fit. Take what you want, toss what you don't, it's YOUR game." Unfortunately you have rules purists who feel the need to dictate how you play your game, even when they aren't your DM, let alone even playing at your table.
Running a campaign on roll 20 in the Covid era, I'm constantly looking for digital assets and maps for my campaign. I'm creating them myself, but I think there is a market for these kinds of handouts. I think the acquisition of D&D beyond is a step in this direction. Roll 20 may be next.
The only word of any descriptive value in the entire proposal is, *_"activist."_* That literally tells you all you need to know about their motivations.
Remember that "activist" investors are the ones involved in the company's decisions, compared to passive investors. But yes, WotC have a woke problem and is getting worse.
People should find out if they buy shares whether or not they are voting shares. Some corporations have non-voting shares and the voting shares may or may not still be traded. So if you do plan to buy a share to vote on some sort of corporate decision, make sure it actually enables you to vote. Do your research.
Interesting analysis. Truth be told there is no turning back from the direction the game is going. But I can run the game I want, which has always been the point.
Interestingly, I used Hasbro and WotC for a project in my marketing class last year. Ultimately, i argued that their marketing strategy is doing fine so far as profit goes. It seems clear they are forward-thinking and addressing stakeholders from many avenues. So it is that I cannot argue for spinning off the brand. WotC, without Hasbro's capital and direct management cannot sustain itself in an increasingly globalist and technocratic market. Maybe someone with a better understanding of corporate business could address my opinions?
Actually WotC spinning off from Hasbro would only be a good thing. It should have no problem sustaining itself, as Hasbro has been leeching off of Wizards for the past 20years. Any problems Wizards has had since Hasbro bought them is due to Hasbro corporate interference with properties they didn't understand how to manage by trying to force old world boardgame thinking onto rpg tabletop and TCG genres. I say this as someone who was hired by Wizards a year prior to the acquisition and was there for another 5. When you look at the way Hasbro has bungled many of it's other properties, for me personally it's GIJoe, I'm not surprised it's stock has dropped, I'm more surprised it hasn't dropped more.
@@jameslevesque9720 Care to elaborate? This sounds like a trolling statement, but I'd like to assume positive intent. Maybe you just want to educate me on something I'm missing?
There are already video games out there where you buy stuff that nickels and dimes you to death. That's not the same as dungeons and dragons at the table.
The thing I love about RPGs is that you as a player can do whatever you want if the group they play with collectively agrees to it, and if you are the GM, you can impose the rules you want for your own campaign. The owners of the IP have no say in what you want to do in your own campaign. Want 12 foot blue elves that are the basis of your campaign? You go for it! Want to avoid death saves and just have your characters die when they hit zero hit points? Go for that! I've never understood why people demand official blessings to their home campaigns. You do you! If WOTC declared tomorrow that all gnomes are now twenty feet tall hairless creatures with six eyes, there's no reason you can't just ignore that and drive on. That's why some people still play OD&D and 1st Ed AD&D. I love what 5E brings to the table, but the truism that players decide how to play has never stopped.
When it comes to voting on these issues in a company, there is always a lot more going on then alta's business proposal. This restructuring would appear to benefit wizards but I don't see it as being beneficial to hasbro's corporate structure. Note this is only beneficial as long as wizard's is always making solid growth & Nothing always grows. The real question is has dnd peaked or when will it peak?
@@anthonynorman7545 most of them aren't making it for free it is a byproduct of their games & their chosen reward is social as long as we are assuming that publishing their works is not an attempt to get noticed by paying entities. Offer those people a writing deal & their free content will be gone. BTW you do know that without capitalism most things that we take for granted would not exist including DND. When you respond be sure to include what capitalist entity produced whatever item that you are using & how you, or others, paid for it.
@@JohnBrown-wk4io 🙄 capitalism is not as old as humanity so claiming it as the only means in which we'd have items is asinine. Also, the exclusion of any internal reward means that you're aware that there are more driving forces than just capital.
Shareholders could vote to make higher environmental standards for Hasbro? Yes! More elves, druids, dryads & treants in D&D! Less steampunk and dwarf mines! 😉
D&D 5E's refusal to develop campaign settings is a massive mismanagement of D&D. It is all predicated on this insane belief that business decisions made in the 1990's would work the same way in the 2020s. Technologies like Kickstarter exist and as such there is virtually no risk to WotC to write and publish a campaign setting with extensive support like the campaign settings of old. You don't end up with warehouses full of books if you pre-sell the books before you print them. If people want more, then just kickstart a re-print. Also, the reason the movies and video games all suck is because the wishy-washy generic fantasy setting developed in response to this irrational fear of printing books that they will print too many of makes them try and force EVERY product into being core and compatible is BORING and nobody cares about it. Further, they need to go back to AD&D and D&D, and by that I mean 1/2E and 4E. The only editions with clear visions of what they were. The 2E based version as the theater of the mind oriented in person system that is highly flexible because you are playing with your real friends and 4E based version is the gamified tactical miniatures focused game played in roll20 and other VTT. The two play environments are very different and two versions of D&D can co-exist because the two environments will never be the same. WotC D&D is pathetic as a product line, it would be a massive struggle for them to allow a customer to even spend the cost of a jetski. I'm pretty sure my table costs more than the D&D product line. It doesn't help that the people running the company appear to be bending over backwards to appease weird people on Twitter that can barely make rent because they spend their time being weird people on Twitter instead of productive people with disposable income that would throw several hundreds of bucks at a 5+ book kickstarter with maps and STLs for a cool setting because it looks cool. A nurse straight out of school is pulling like $40-50 an hour, so if your company can't offer a Kickstarter on a quarterly basis that makes them willing to pull just one extra shift to go all in on a $500-600 pledge, then you are doing it wrong. Especially since you can then sell the PDF versions as essentially pure profit from now until the end of time. What is even more nuts is that the same company sells Magic cards where a single box of boosters will run people $100, so they clearly know what kind of pockets people with real jobs have.
If Wizards of the Coast is spun off, then am I correct it will still be part of the Hasbro Corporation but will have its own independent board? So only rpg and card game people will be on the board, it won't be diluted by other members from Hasbro's toy & boardgame divisions.
I would love to play d&d in person. But i have never had a more constant weekly game then we have now online. I have 7 players and we have a weekly game witch nearly always has a full house. It makes me happy and also sad when i look at the minis and terrain on my shelf. 😭
Do people really say "What gives you the right to change the rules?" I think those comments must be few and far between, because I never see them -- but I don't read anywhere near ever comment on a video. RUclips comment sections are so badly implemented it is a pain to read more than a handful. Speaking of which -- suggestion: make your own reddit. For each video, make a thread in your reddit. Then disable comments in youtube and provide a link to the reddit thread in the description. Much better platform for discussion.
I remember when Disney bought Marvel and all the articles were making fun of them: What are they going to do? Make a Thor and Black Panther movie.” Disney at the time had the talent to do that. I’m not so sure you can do that nowadays
Sounds like some investors believe WoTC is profitable, and Hasbro has been using those profits for things other than expanding WoTC. They want a spinoff to protect and further invest on WotCs future
That's exactly how I'm reading it. Especially as a former WotC employee, for the six + years I worked there (pre and post Hasbro acquisition), Hasbro was suckling off our teat the whole time. From info gathered from others still there over the years, that's pretty much been the case ever since.
You are so correct on almost every single point you made here. Okay you are 100% correct but I didn't want to yield easily. . . Pokémon Go DnD version skin eta 18 months . . .
As my main homie Mike Shae says, wizards ain't DnD, the only thing that matters is what you bring to your table. They can take the official products down whatever toxic microtransaction driven hell hole they want, but they should remember that the players don't need them. AT ALL.
I don't think you mean that but at 5:07 you say "it's the same vote if you have 1 share or 100 shares..." - I think you mean to say that each share entitles you to one vote (unless things are different there which I would be surprised at), which means that large shareholders will always have more say than small ones. On the spinoff, the way I see the presentation from Alta Fox, it would not be a sale as some people in the comments below seem to be suggesting but rather a spinoff into an independent business where Hasbro shareholders would remain shareholders of WotC. Could definitely be interesting and would allow the stocks to develop independently of one another! I will keep my eyes open for the investor letter as I am a Hasbro stockholder. Oh - it's oversimplifying a little of course to suggest that being on the board at Hasbro would give you creative rights for D&D but hell yeah, let's drop those %&%$$$## death saves! I've instituted a rule in one campaign where if you go into death saves and survive, you permanently lose one death save - so in the future you only have 2 to roll and so on...
i bet one big reason kids don't play with toys as much is that they are not home as much. Most kids are in daycare after school theses days and that means different types of toys for communal use.
So there's a few issues with the direction that WOTC is looking to go in. On the one hand with the growth of the gaming and video gaming industries post covid it makes complete sense to start trying to move into having more digital representation. I could totally see something along the lines of a mashup of VRchat, Tabletop Simulator or something more in depth like Talespire, and DnD Beyond going over really well and being a huge hit, but maybe not the hit they're hoping it will be. Secondly, here post-covid (side note by that I mean we're over the initial worries and most people are kinda done worrying about it aside from big events and such), we're starting to see a bit of backlash against screen time. Screen time during covid increased a lot and people are starting to move away from all of it and become more analog for lack of a better term. If these come at the wrong time it would be a huge blow to WotC especially if they split. Thirdly, a lot of tech stuff is greatly overvalued and is definitely in a bubble of some kind that's begging to be popped. VR is still too expensive for most people and the only people currently that have one are big tech enthusiasts and content creators. Not a huge casual market for it right now and especially not Metaverse, crypto, or NFTs which are generally seen as a bunch of scams by most people. Plus a lot of digital storefront stuff is usually super predatory and there'll be a huge backlash against it, but it'll still be rolled out and probably make the company a lot of money at the risk of alienating a lot of their current fanbase, especially those like me who mostly gave up video gaming for all the predatory aspects of it. There'll be three groups: 1. The people who don't care and will just buy the new DnD stuff because it's popular 2. The people that run for the hills to help the indie scene flourish and become more popular and likely also full on stop buying WotC products and protest the awful monetization 3. The whales that get horribly addicted and get so stuck in a sunk cost fallacy they never leave and get angry when people talk shit about DnD That's how it's been in the video gaming world anyway so I don't forsee much difference. Another thing to consider that they won't is that we're about to hit another great depression. At least all the economists that aren't being paid off by corporations say so. So that'll destroy a lot of these big tech ambitions and a lot of people will be forced to play in person if they get to play at all and cheaper options or even free options will be a lot more popular. I can't afford the new $60 DnD book I'll just make my own DnD with blackjack and wenches or use older versions I already had.
The Austrians, while right on most things, often are wrong on predicting doom. They money will keep flowing until there's a better alternative. Right now, the US dollar is better than every other currency. Maybe the techies will make crypto viable, but until then, the US seems to be able to continue inflating without much consequence.
While I would like WotC to be independent from Hasbro, this would likely be a bad move to make at this time. We have yet to see how the new management handles the IP and there is a growing division within the fandom that could lead them to abandoning the current D&D market altogether. Doing this could break both companies and staying together would be the best move for now. It might be worth revisiting the subject in 5 years if everything works out, but for now it seems to big of a risk.
I would LOVE you to do some reaction to the D&D show on youtube from Special Effects Specialist that had 3D creation aspects; I think with VR and digital is some possibilities of D&D's future! 🙂 We Made the BEST D&D Show on the Internet (here it is) 1.2M views 4 months ago by Corridor Crew
So I went to Alta Fox's website and skimmed their PDF of their proposal. They make a good argument that if WOTC was spun off, the stock price would spike and investors could cash in...but for how long? Many of their arguments are cherry picked examples which create a rosy picture of their proposal. They do make a good argument that Hasbro is milking WOTC for cash (hiding that WOTC generates 46% of their revenue) and then squandering it in "empire building" measures...by buying expensive IPs (like power rangers) and then doing nothing with them, in effect hoarding the IPs and sitting on them for future exploitation. This keeps the stock price artificially down. Their analysis of WOTC has some real flaws though -- they say that Magic (mostly) and D&D (only briefly mentioned) have long term growth potential, because: 1) They both have a rampant fan base, which is viewed as an evergreen source of revenue. - This ignores the potential that fan bases can be fickle, or the potential to split the fan base for D&D regarding the recent censorship/sanitizing the IP for mainstream "non-offensive" branding of the line while simplifying the mechanics. The older "rabid" fanbase Alta Fox sites as the main source of evergreen income doesn't like this stuff, and my stop buying WOTC products in the long term. There are also issues of digitizing the game and nickel and diming the fanbase with micro-transactions and licenses instead of book ownership. 2) They use Games Workshop's recent high stock performance as a benchmark to compare WOTC by, because they are both "Game Companies"--without delving into the differences between their products, or how GW has been pricing themselves out of the market to generate quick cash and inflate their stock value at the risk of losing long term players. Less players = long term loss of market share (controlling the market share is how GW grew and dominated miniature gaming). 3) They complain that Hasbro bought a company for 4.6 billion to develop their IPs into TVs and Movies in 2019, but failed to produce a Magic or D&D movie the following year. They don't mention that there IS a D&D movie now, and that a little thing called the Pandemic prevented movie production in 2020! They make some compelling arguments that a WOTC spinoff would allow full transparency on how profitable they are (hiding this has kept HAS stock down), and this would lead to a big spike in stock IN THE SHORT TERM. Whether WOTC can sustain their profits long term is anybody's guess. Also Alta Fox is a Hedge Fund, and this could be an attempt to manipulate the market, cash in on a short term stock spike, and then allow them to cash out once they've made their profits for the Hedge Fund.
until the digital space can accommodate table talk and communication through looking at each other, it's not going to be the same as being at a physical table.
I voted for Hasbro's slate of directors. Chris Cocks just assumed the CEO role. He needs time to implement his own vision, not that Goldner wasn't a terrific and beloved CEO, and Hassenfeld before him.
I definitely think having DnD stand on its own legs would make it stronger. My underlying hope is that it might then be led by people who actually care about roleplaying, not just the profit. Pecause once the passion for the actual game is doused by blatant greed the game will be dead. (And hopefully the community goes on to something else.)
This is why I'm glad that Indie Games Press are thriving and there's so many options for table gaming out there.
1000%
Yep!
A friend of mine from work says WOTC will be bought by Disney if this happens. If that happens I cant imagine the state of the game getting any better
Yeah... that will get people to play Pathfinder. If Microsoft buys it... that *could* be fun, keyword *could* as it would go vastly more digital but the digital part would get a *vast* and I mean *vast* upgrade and it is already pretty good. The video games would be nice, at least some would be but who knows what it would do to the TTRPG.
Agree, Disney has had a rough track record with their video games, and especially Star Wars licensing, although they seem to be doing a little better than in the past (not saying much). But so far Hasbro developed D&D video games have been either terrible or canceled. They need to get good developers behind their games like with Baldur's Gate.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. But if Disney buys WOTC I'll never buy a product from them again myself.
Secret Lair: Mickey Mouse Club
@@redpillow7221 I'm already there.
Being forced to play DnD thru a microtransaction saturated meta-verse is an absolute hellscape. Kinda the opposite of what makes role playing fun (a relatively inexpensive social experience that actively engages the imagination).
People like rolling dice; people like collecting dice; digital dice suck.
Digital dice do suck. That deserves to be mentioned twice.
I don't even play table-top games and I agree. The whole concept behind the game is for it to be a social experience.
Foundry is your friend
PBST! You don't need WOTC to play D&D. You don't even need D&D. It is a role playing game. All you need is an imagination. Even the dice are optional, but who would skip dice.
WOTC/Hasbro can do what they like. I vote with my dollars. I've voted a couple hundred times this past month, and every vote has been for other RPG systems.
Likewise.
I don’t really care what happens to the words “Dungeons & Dragons”. That’s all Hasbro really controls. The idea-friends telling a fantasy story together using dice, pencil, and paper-can never be owned.
A couple hundred times in one month? Lmao OK 🤔
@@user-gj7lp5iz6k I assume he meant he spent around $200, not that he bought 200 different products.
@@taragnor I would hope so, if not I hope his wallets ok lol
Who needs d&d when u got icrpg
It’s a great game.
Hahah I was going to say that 😂
I bought six shares this morning. I'll see you on the board!
Great analysis PDM! Thanks for staying on top of these topics.
Honestly, the complete digitization of D&D sounds like a nightmare scenario. Books are expensive but I can imagine how much more costly the hobby would be if the consumer is nickel-and-dimed with microtransactions for essential portions of the game or given loot box mechanics for expansion material.
Dont forget you lose just about ALL resale value.
A D&D book in its physical form, even to somebody who doesn’t play D&D, has an inherent worth of about $30-40 used…
Whats a digital, nontransferable file of the dame thing worth to that same person?
If somebody who doesn’t need it wants to sell a book because their done with the game, they can.
A digital file, you’re stuck with.
You gonna sell a cellphone logged into D&D beyond for a markup price on ebay?
How many people do you think are chomping at the bit to buy THAT used instead of buying the physical books?…..
I rest my case.
@@nicks4802 Power goes out and back up battery is low, or worst EMP.
Books have .. value.
Everything is going this way for the same reason video games did: it’s wildly profitable.
You will still be able to play D&D normally. People will make the content available elsewere.
@@apotheosis21 I play D&D because it's D&D not because it's a video. Video games and D&D are wildly different and as such business models are not directly comparable. If you turn D&D into an mmo or platform like roblox or secondlife to create limitless MMO's, it will just be that, an MMO, not D&D!
You have to remember that all this growth from Wizards don't really comes from d&d or Magic cards, but Magic Arena. When they say "replacing the brand blueprint strategy for one focused on consumer products and entertainment" they mean stop thinking like a media company (like Disney for example) and start thinking like a game company (like Activision for example). It would probably include, like you said, investing in a bunch of d&d games for mobile (and other things like streamers and e-sports) instead of investing in a movie and cartoon series
Arena is a fascinating product in itself. Addicting modality... like a casino. Hidden opponent matching algorithm. Semi predictable randomizer.
@Anne O'Nymous I see your point but I believe if these writers took a more show don't tell approach and have a good story that accurately portrays a typical D&D scenario (a group of fantasy adventurers/do-gooders/ne'er-do-wells going into dungeons, fighting monsters and claiming long lost treasures) you don't need to explain everything. If you look at Star Wars, Lucas barely told you anything. All you knew is the guys in the little ship stole something and a bad guy in a black cape in a bigger ship was there to get it back. He pretty much assumes you'll figure it out. I'm not optimistic that these films and shows will be good but I do hope they are.
@Anne O'Nymous Ultimately, the problem with a "Dungeons and Dragons" movie is that D&D is a set of rules. It isn't a setting (though it does have some assumptions), it isn't a story, there's absolutely no lore guaranteed to be the same from one table to another. There is absolutely nothing about D&D that one could write a film about while separating it from generic fantasy nonsense. Now a fantasy noir movie set in Eberron, or a fantasy series set in The Frozen North? That could work.
@@Parker8752 very not true, dnd has more books written than any other setting out there, besides possibly comic books, and comic movies have worked out great, dnd movies can also do this
Finkel is an an interesting fellow. Well over a decade ago he came into the public eye after he had a few dates with a journalist who, after she learned he was not just an MTG player, but a pro with his face on a card, she went on a final date with him to gather some background, and then wrote a whole "Eww, gross, an Internet dating site set me up with a NERD!!" editorial that blew up in her face. The blowback for being biased against geeky guys was a surprise. A lot of people saw it as the turning point when geek culture became mainstream.
Finkel handled himself like a true class act, in spite of being publicly humiliated by a journalist acting like a highschool mean girl on a major news outlet.
No idea if that makes him any more qualified for a executive role on WotC, but we definitely know that he knows what it's like to be a geeky outcast on a global scale.
Yeah, This is one of my favorite channels, I love it. Keep up the good work. You'll be hitting 500k soon, don't worry.
Lol. Hope so!
This is a good summary of the topic. The document form Alta Fox has a lot of interesting information about how Hasbro got to this point, and what is actually happening there, now. Well worth reading if you have any stock in Hasbro, or interest in the future of WOTC.
The move to digital in the future worries me. I see micro-transactions and memberships. Lets not forget the locking out of the third party content, and to be fair is far better then the official content. Wizards being separate from Hasbro could be a good thing but then again it all depends on whos running the show.
I wanna know the politics of this "Alta Fox" group. It feels like they are hiding it behind some rookie grade business jargon for some reason.
Microtransactions and memberships. Good call. Mind you, pen & paper will always be around, but digital D&D will be bigger.
Microtransactions is the word on my mind as well. Luckily indies and smaller companies are creating better products nowadays.
@@d34dbolt20 It's still not quite the same as extremely addictive mobile games with one click goodies.
Domains of delight was a scummy move. It should have been in beyond the witch light.
Thank you for an Interesting video on a less-than-sexy topic. Every day I feel more confirmed in my decision to effectively move all my play experience to “D&D” games like BFRPG, OSE, and OSRIC.
This is where I am now, too. If I wanted microtransactions and digital assets I'd go play Apex. The biggest hurdle is getting my gaming group to try the OSR. I know they'd like it but anything that doesn't have a recognized brand name attached to it is persona non grata to them.
OSE hex crawls and domain building. That stuff didn't have names back in the day.
If the spin off resulted in less Candy Land D&D I am all for it.
Except an actual candyland setting would be kinda sick. Although I agree with your sentiment
5E IS Candyland. No one dies.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Pikachu surprise face when there is a reason why they have over 60 characters for 5e.
Dimension 20 did a Candyland/Game of Thrones mashup setting. Lots of PCs died in epic ways. It was rad.
That would be fascinating if WotC actually did spin off from Hasbro and went IPO. As someone who plays dnd and mtg, it would be hard to not buy that stock.
The professor is right. They ARE going to next-level digital metaverse this. He's also right about remembering that it's not a mom and pop game - it's an IP controlled by corporate interests. People can rail and complain about how the game is not "perfect" for them after the latest change from Wizards made to better align the game with the current zeitgeist. (Which is obviously a sound financial strategy based on the numbers shown here). Or people can just run the game they want to play because D&D is at it's core a modular sandbox game. Buy paper books.
You can't homebrew Pokemon Go. And Wizards will want you to focus yer time and money on D&D Go. The paper version is gonna go away.
@@vincejester7558 I think that’s a stretch. The paper version is very profitable.
@@bettsdn Nothing like browser game profitable. And print will be in direct competition with a "Meta" experience. All the little 5e heads will follow like sheep if WotC goes 100% online. They are already begging for it. Then comes the big homebrew crackdown on the "legacy" pen and paper version of 5e. 5e is almost completely design to skirt OGL.
As a kid, I read Avengers comics. My friends and I would talk about how cool and fun the stories were. We'd see movies get made that weren't one tenth as interesting or meaningful as the stuff we read in the comics. Why couldn't we get a cool movie derived from this much better material? We felt the same about the Lord of the Rings. Was it just effects? It did seem like there was a lot of disdain for the comic or genre novel among the elites producing films. And you know what we also thought was cool and fun and similarly had fantastic potential if only someone would pay attention and invest in it?
Dungeons & Dragons.
Now I am older and have money to spend. My nostalgia is material for artistic endeavors looking to part me from my gold pieces. So, any minute now, someone is going to figure out I and millions of others really like D&D. And try to sell us on it.
@@ericjome7284 In regards to .. nostalgia.
Any person that is self-aware enough to notice self .. maturity ... and personal independent growth. After 44 years of life I have seen people fall into arrested development with no critical thinking in religion, politics, or imagination. This is coming from someone that remembers the " Satanic Panic," which harassment of gaming shops didn't end in my area till around the early 2000's. Other than the azz backwards mentality I have seen in my home town in the pass thirty years.
2.) My home town two RPG, MtG gaming shop, ..
a.) First shop I went to as an adult in 1998 at 21 years old before WotC buy out played AD&D2ndE, WEG west end games Star Wars d6 system, TMNT, White wolf/World of Darkness. The place was also a paint blast aero soft gun shop with a weight bench so players can dead lift for their PC's strength score stats. Since the first gaming shop was in a basement, at times we played all night. Then WotC brough out their Star Wars rpg in my area before the D&D updated system came out. So we had no problem mixing WEG with the WotC d20 system.
Few of the fun nights we watch both Conan movies and counted all the enemy hits and ability checks step by set and played AD&D set to the action of the Conan movies. Along with the " Wizards," cartoon movie. It was a more advance style of play than what I did with my cousins & friends in the early to mid part of the 1990's as teenagers.
b.) My second game shop in my mid to late 20's, .. which end around 2012.
My second shop group " 4am in the morning club, cause by 4am every fell asleep in the gaming shops chairs and floor."
basic had to break and rewrite WoD/ Vampire the Masquerade d10 system to play through all the " Blade " movies step by step.
Bumping thirty and playing with people in the forties and early fifties have a real different style of play and problem solving. Along with mixing things from AD&D into 3.5e with WEG for a diversity in play.
c.) Nostalgia moments, ..
Game shop owner 8yo daughter wanted to join our game played by 26 to forty yo. Everyone eye each other at the table silently thinking for a moment on how to drop her into mid game. I drop her into the game as a child fire genie that could grant Wish once per day. She was a riot to watch in play.
Three 12 yo girls were brought to the game shop, they wanted to play baby red dragons .. and .. I was the one to write up their PC sheets. Those three pre teens ruthlessly underhanded stomp the mid 20 yo in sneaky tactics.
My grandpa first taught me dice RPG in the early 1980's playing under the dinning room table tented over with bed sheets. Playing with He-Man action figures. It was Craps ..
Roll 2d6 to hit or dodge, highest roll wins and hp counter was a 1d6 for six hits. Then there was green army men.
( Five year old little boys arguing that I hit you follow with no you didn't ! Grandma told my grandpa to deal with it.)
3.) Comic book game of the multiverse,... Death trap house during a high class party.
Jimmy Olsen and Peter Parker were called in to photograph the event.
Clark Kent got stuck in a closet as a joke amongst the robbers.
Bruce Wayne without his bat suite.
After a hour of play, Superman, Flash, and Wonder Woman spent 45 minutes or so doing math to see if they could just dismantle the whole building and get everyone out moving faster than the explosive could overtake the building.
b.) It was common for some DMs to start a 3.5e game then move it through D&D into Star Wars along with DC into Marvel alternat reality multiverse. We had index cards which were randomly drawn to see which PC we would play at a given moment. One guy got both Spider Man & Dead Pool, it was fun watching him insult himself in three different voices.
Having a fun up coming weekend gaming with friends & family.
If what I've heard is accurate comics, movie and TV are going awful due to the rights for those characters.
Where d&d is concerned they need to ditch that idiotic message to avoid the mess Lucasfilm and Amazon are in because that message isn't profitable.
As a DM myself, I can personally attest that I am not looking to turn my D&D campaign into some virtual reality experience "IN THE METAVERSE". Virtual table tops allow us to play our favourite games with people, we never would have been able before. And even through that, make friends we never would have before... If you start trying to push beyond that framework and into "metaverse" concepts (Which have absolutely no place in D&D), I will tell you exactly which level of the nine hells you can take yourself!!!!
I love this channel! I hope you continue to grow :-)
Thanks! Please share it!
Please start uploading to Rumble, the app is so much better than RUclips free and there are hardly any nerd channels as of now.
Honestly I don't think Hasbro has ever had any idea of what to do with WotC, the simple fact they took so long to do a M:tg/D&D crossover book speaks volumes to this. Had I been running the show we would have gotten a campaign setting for M:tg based on the early lore and background 20 years ago. The current run of 5e is mediocre at best. The almost random-topic all hardcover releases has turned off a lot of fans. They still play D&D but don't really buy any of the books; exactly what Hasbo doesn't want. They can only see online as the future, which is like a car company saying only cars that can turn into boats is the future. Sell the print D&D to Goodman games and retain all other rights until you run those into the ground and sell them too.
You'd think a company that specializes in making what are essentially boxed sets (board games) would be all over that, but no...
Due to my location i play D&D all online on Discord. But when i used to run games at a table there is nothing like it. I'm gonnah eventually start up a D&D club for like minded Caribbean players.
When it seemed Hasbro didn't understand D&D, many of us felt they should break off or buy WOTC from Hasbro. But now that we know WOTC is the most profitable part of Hasbro, they'll never let it go.
I actually like the idea behind the Death Saving throw mechanic, even though it is abused to hell and back. The rules around it just need to be reigned in a bit. I like it because in my mind it's the idea that someone on the battlefield is injured, unconscious, and out of the fight, but this doesn't mean that they're dead. They very well could regain consciousness later on. I like the idea, but the implementation is admittedly messy. Especially if the DM allows that person to regain consciousness at 1 HP, get up and start fighting again without any outside aid. I think the real problem comes in with Cleric revive abilities after the fight has concluded. Resuscitation during or immediately after battle I can get behind, but full revivification way after the battle is over(I'm talking days or even years in some cases) is a bit ridiculous imo. If it can't be done within 10 in game minutes of the death then it shouldn't be possible to do.
That's cool. If you like it, rock on!
Congrats in 83k subs. You were the best d&d channel in RUclips back when you has less than 10k. And you still are today.
VTT are an important part of the future of ttrpgs, it's cool for the players and designers but it has some problems:
- VTTs are not flexible if you don't pay for them and spend time to code or prepare your sessions, and even with that in mind there are certain things you can't do: it means that d&d and other rpg are becoming less and less compatible with house rules or homebrew content.
- Most VTTs are designed for d&d and rpg designers have to think of game systems compatible with VTT tech.
- VTTs tend to focus on grid combat and cosmetics.
- VTTs simplify the use of complicated game mechanics by the press of a button, this is especially true for mainstream games, and it offers no incentive for designers to fix bad game mechanics.
So, to sum up, VTTs tend to promote a version of rpg that is a tabletop grid with heavy mechanics, not easly customizable, evolutive and limiting original game design. One could say that the rigid constraints of VTTs favor monopolistic control of the market and purchases, that is to say a better IP control and revenues for the the industry,
The biggest issue with VTTs at the moment is the time DM has to sink in to prepare their adventures, that's why we see more and more pay-to-play ttrpgs sessions and 'professional DMs" online. If wotc wants to make d&d mainstream (like coffee is), they'll have to address this by making the game easier for DM and simplify VTTs terrible interface and ease of use. They already have started this mutation with functionnalities imbedded in d&d beyond usable by third parties, however it means that they control the game engine, making any change, house rule or improvement difficult to implement for the players. So by making their game easier to use online, they might not fix issues the game has and make it even more complicated for non d&d beyond/VTT users which in turn will limit the access to the game.
Very true.
As a DM who's invested a few hundred dollars into a VTT set-up, it is currently quite the endeavor to prep initially. House/custom rules are currently the biggest challenge, which sucks because that's part of what really makes a game shine in my opinion, making the game your own.
Once set-up and play, including custom rules and a low barrier to entry is achieved, is when I think VTT will explode.
I really enjoy your discussion videos, your insights and opinions are always thought provoking
You have every right to shape the game you wanna run. Have at it!
Hasbro's video games so far have been DoA if they arrived at all. Hope that pattern gets better soon. Honestly, I think if someone made a vanilla Forgotten Realms D&D video game vs a Vox Machina video game. The VM game would outsell it by a mile. New BaldursGate (not Hasbro developed if I am correct) looks fantastic, but I think VM would outsell even that.
You have never made a video that put me to sleep until today. But thanks for keeping me in the loop.
What gives you the right?
You're the Dungeon Master, that's what!
Neverwinter Nights was ahead of it's time with the game-building and DM server tools
It is certain as Death itself.
Just wanted to comment on your last point that you get flak when you change a rule. Even when I disagree with some of your choices, that's for me and my games. You do what you want for your groups. It is your right. Ultimately we all play the game we want to play and that is how it should be. Vive la différence. Cheers.
I think you're right about the relative decline in physical toys, however, it should be noted that this isn't what killed Toys R Us, rather the rise of Walmart, Target, and Amazon shifting shopping habits away from specialty stores to discount, single stop, and online shopping.
Nah it was the debt load forced on Toys R Us to pay distributions to the Private Equity Firm that took them over. They were my borrower. They got f'd.
@@sumdude4281 they incurred that debt fighting a losing battle against low price megastores otherwise they wouldn't have been ripe for that takeover. You're giving us the mechanics of their dissolution, I merely pointed out the reason they found themselves in that predicament.
Enjoyed this vid. As usual I think you make some very good points and your analysis seems well supported with data.
So my question for you is, without access to billions of $$, how can we get rid of those deplorable "death saves"?
I mean besides just houseruling them away, or playing an older version of D&D, or maybe playing another FRP all together? ;-)
Best reason to like and subscribe I ever heard!
D&D will always be a social game. That's what makes it good. Anything that pulls people away from the table is not good for D&D. Video games have their place, but they are not social enough, and are not D&D.
Egg Zachary
Something to note: Hasbro selling toys is not completely at risk since it is not just the children that are the sole target of toys anymore but rather collectors and this is why there has been an evolution of better quality toys at higher prices and more points of articulation. With regards to Wizard's of the Coast the Magic the Gathering card decks are also set up deliberately for collectors by only issuing small numbers of specific cards and the random aspects of that just plays into the addictive nature of buying more cards to get the set that you are looking for. Wizard's only produces D&D books but most likely they gain royalties off official supplementary products that are produced by third party companies such as Wizkid's. Holding the rights to the D&D produces passive income with little effort or resources of the company themselves. The Critical Role books are an example of profits that they make off not producing the product but rather publishing it. This also goes for GI Joe since Hasbro does not need to actively seek out people to make a movie for them but rather people are approaching them for movie rights. Passive income from ip rights is wonderful which is why Disney started buying up comic book companies that had nothing to do with their overall image since the royalties alone can bring in far more income than the comic books themselves so when people complain about the quality of the stories in comic books today it could be because Disney doesn't actually about the profits from them.
Good video and breakdown
Professor, the corporatization of DnD will have good and bad effects. Good - as more people will move towards the game and play it, raising awareness and making it even more mainstream. This will attract talented people to it. Net plus. Bad because it very well will lead to a Fortnight-ified, microtransactional version of the game where access is limited and pay to play will be in full effect.
The best we’ll be able to hope for is that the game stays more sand-boxy so that individual spins on the game will still be the norm and not a sterilized corporate shell trying to shill everyone for $.
I don't see a proliferation of the hobby as a net positive if that proliferation comes at the expense of the very core character of the hobby itself.
Luckily there are alternatives to D&D 5E. And luckily the availability of older and OOP game materials through DTRPG has been increasing as well.
@@Jayce_Alexander I agree. I play a home-brewed 1/2e DnD. I have even re-written large portions of the rules (especially the 1e PHB) to suit. I love that it’s reaching a wider audience but fear that the flavor of the game will be wrung out in the interest of making a $ on it.
Prof. DM notes that people complain when he suggests rule changes ("What right do you have?") and then notes that the rules are set based on what WotC think will sell. Of course this is true. The game isn't owned by lifetime gamers who want to make a living doing what they love. It's a business. But this is EXACTLY why every gamer should embrace the fundamental truth that no company can tell you how to play. You don't like Death Saves? You can get rid of them. Modding the game and playing it the way you want to has always been a core idea in RPGs.
Modding the game and playing your way has always been a core concept of D&D, pretty much every version has basically said "the rules are an outline/framework for you to use as you see fit. Take what you want, toss what you don't, it's YOUR game."
Unfortunately you have rules purists who feel the need to dictate how you play your game, even when they aren't your DM, let alone even playing at your table.
I think I’m glad I’ve kept all my old D&D books from previous editions.
Running a campaign on roll 20 in the Covid era, I'm constantly looking for digital assets and maps for my campaign. I'm creating them myself, but I think there is a market for these kinds of handouts. I think the acquisition of D&D beyond is a step in this direction. Roll 20 may be next.
Subscribing in solidarity as a dad.
The only word of any descriptive value in the entire proposal is, *_"activist."_* That literally tells you all you need to know about their motivations.
Remember that "activist" investors are the ones involved in the company's decisions, compared to passive investors. But yes, WotC have a woke problem and is getting worse.
People should find out if they buy shares whether or not they are voting shares. Some corporations have non-voting shares and the voting shares may or may not still be traded. So if you do plan to buy a share to vote on some sort of corporate decision, make sure it actually enables you to vote. Do your research.
Interesting analysis. Truth be told there is no turning back from the direction the game is going. But I can run the game I want, which has always been the point.
Interestingly, I used Hasbro and WotC for a project in my marketing class last year. Ultimately, i argued that their marketing strategy is doing fine so far as profit goes. It seems clear they are forward-thinking and addressing stakeholders from many avenues. So it is that I cannot argue for spinning off the brand. WotC, without Hasbro's capital and direct management cannot sustain itself in an increasingly globalist and technocratic market. Maybe someone with a better understanding of corporate business could address my opinions?
Actually WotC spinning off from Hasbro would only be a good thing. It should have no problem sustaining itself, as Hasbro has been leeching off of Wizards for the past 20years. Any problems Wizards has had since Hasbro bought them is due to Hasbro corporate interference with properties they didn't understand how to manage by trying to force old world boardgame thinking onto rpg tabletop and TCG genres.
I say this as someone who was hired by Wizards a year prior to the acquisition and was there for another 5.
When you look at the way Hasbro has bungled many of it's other properties, for me personally it's GIJoe, I'm not surprised it's stock has dropped, I'm more surprised it hasn't dropped more.
You dont understand the product.
@@jameslevesque9720 Care to elaborate? This sounds like a trolling statement, but I'd like to assume positive intent. Maybe you just want to educate me on something I'm missing?
There are already video games out there where you buy stuff that nickels and dimes you to death. That's not the same as dungeons and dragons at the table.
The thing I love about RPGs is that you as a player can do whatever you want if the group they play with collectively agrees to it, and if you are the GM, you can impose the rules you want for your own campaign. The owners of the IP have no say in what you want to do in your own campaign. Want 12 foot blue elves that are the basis of your campaign? You go for it! Want to avoid death saves and just have your characters die when they hit zero hit points? Go for that! I've never understood why people demand official blessings to their home campaigns. You do you! If WOTC declared tomorrow that all gnomes are now twenty feet tall hairless creatures with six eyes, there's no reason you can't just ignore that and drive on. That's why some people still play OD&D and 1st Ed AD&D. I love what 5E brings to the table, but the truism that players decide how to play has never stopped.
Great analysis - I wish I had found it earlier.
Thanks for finding it and watching!
Funny, everyone complained about 4th edition going this direction and now 6e is.
The spin-off thing sounds good, if only because it would make WoTC a bit more “independent”, which may allow for some more creativity to surface
There's no way of knowing that.
@@jayexonauts5587 Hence the "may" in my statement.
If all my rolls were 20 my players would just stop showing up
I don't think there breaking apart but it also sounds like there makeing a separate Branch.🤔 To what end I'm not sure?
When I saw this in the WSJ my first thought was “Can’t wait to hear The Professor’s take on it.”
When it comes to voting on these issues in a company, there is always a lot more going on then alta's business proposal. This restructuring would appear to benefit wizards but I don't see it as being beneficial to hasbro's corporate structure. Note this is only beneficial as long as wizard's is always making solid growth & Nothing always grows. The real question is has dnd peaked or when will it peak?
It's already on the decline doggie.
You just summed up the problem with capitalism lol
Hasbro also needs perpetual growth.
@@JohnBrown-wk4io if it was human nature and not an external force, people wouldn't make RPGs and RPG related materials for free. Which they do.
@@anthonynorman7545 most of them aren't making it for free it is a byproduct of their games & their chosen reward is social as long as we are assuming that publishing their works is not an attempt to get noticed by paying entities. Offer those people a writing deal & their free content will be gone. BTW you do know that without capitalism most things that we take for granted would not exist including DND. When you respond be sure to include what capitalist entity produced whatever item that you are using & how you, or others, paid for it.
@@JohnBrown-wk4io 🙄 capitalism is not as old as humanity so claiming it as the only means in which we'd have items is asinine. Also, the exclusion of any internal reward means that you're aware that there are more driving forces than just capital.
Shareholders could vote to make higher environmental standards for Hasbro? Yes! More elves, druids, dryads & treants in D&D! Less steampunk and dwarf mines! 😉
D&D 5E's refusal to develop campaign settings is a massive mismanagement of D&D. It is all predicated on this insane belief that business decisions made in the 1990's would work the same way in the 2020s. Technologies like Kickstarter exist and as such there is virtually no risk to WotC to write and publish a campaign setting with extensive support like the campaign settings of old. You don't end up with warehouses full of books if you pre-sell the books before you print them. If people want more, then just kickstart a re-print. Also, the reason the movies and video games all suck is because the wishy-washy generic fantasy setting developed in response to this irrational fear of printing books that they will print too many of makes them try and force EVERY product into being core and compatible is BORING and nobody cares about it. Further, they need to go back to AD&D and D&D, and by that I mean 1/2E and 4E. The only editions with clear visions of what they were. The 2E based version as the theater of the mind oriented in person system that is highly flexible because you are playing with your real friends and 4E based version is the gamified tactical miniatures focused game played in roll20 and other VTT. The two play environments are very different and two versions of D&D can co-exist because the two environments will never be the same. WotC D&D is pathetic as a product line, it would be a massive struggle for them to allow a customer to even spend the cost of a jetski. I'm pretty sure my table costs more than the D&D product line. It doesn't help that the people running the company appear to be bending over backwards to appease weird people on Twitter that can barely make rent because they spend their time being weird people on Twitter instead of productive people with disposable income that would throw several hundreds of bucks at a 5+ book kickstarter with maps and STLs for a cool setting because it looks cool. A nurse straight out of school is pulling like $40-50 an hour, so if your company can't offer a Kickstarter on a quarterly basis that makes them willing to pull just one extra shift to go all in on a $500-600 pledge, then you are doing it wrong. Especially since you can then sell the PDF versions as essentially pure profit from now until the end of time. What is even more nuts is that the same company sells Magic cards where a single box of boosters will run people $100, so they clearly know what kind of pockets people with real jobs have.
If Wizards of the Coast is spun off, then am I correct it will still be part of the Hasbro Corporation but will have its own independent board?
So only rpg and card game people will be on the board, it won't be diluted by other members from Hasbro's toy & boardgame divisions.
That's a very glass half full outlook.
I would love to play d&d in person. But i have never had a more constant weekly game then we have now online. I have 7 players and we have a weekly game witch nearly always has a full house. It makes me happy and also sad when i look at the minis and terrain on my shelf. 😭
I am a minimalist and I am happy not to be burdened by flipping through so much physical media
My games have never run better!
Do people really say "What gives you the right to change the rules?" I think those comments must be few and far between, because I never see them -- but I don't read anywhere near ever comment on a video. RUclips comment sections are so badly implemented it is a pain to read more than a handful.
Speaking of which -- suggestion: make your own reddit. For each video, make a thread in your reddit. Then disable comments in youtube and provide a link to the reddit thread in the description. Much better platform for discussion.
I remember when Disney bought Marvel and all the articles were making fun of them: What are they going to do? Make a Thor and Black Panther movie.”
Disney at the time had the talent to do that. I’m not so sure you can do that nowadays
In a Call of Duty world, Hasbro never made a GI JOE FPS.
@3:29 absolutely, prof. I would subscribe again if I could.
interesting take on the situation
As long as the split doesn't result in #NuclearWar, I don't mind.
I am a Columbia game personally. They have historic games and Harn.
Sounds like some investors believe WoTC is profitable, and Hasbro has been using those profits for things other than expanding WoTC. They want a spinoff to protect and further invest on WotCs future
That's exactly how I'm reading it. Especially as a former WotC employee, for the six + years I worked there (pre and post Hasbro acquisition), Hasbro was suckling off our teat the whole time. From info gathered from others still there over the years, that's pretty much been the case ever since.
I really hope D&D 5.5e is not pay to win.
You are so correct on almost every single point you made here. Okay you are 100% correct but I didn't want to yield easily. . .
Pokémon Go DnD version skin eta 18 months . . .
Hasbro would want an absurd amount of money.. even though they do not even care about the product.. but they do care about making a ton of profit.
You sir, are the living example of why you shouldn't listen to your kids regarding RUclips video making.
Keep up the awesome work!
Jon Finkel, the greatest Magic player of all time - “Has played card games professionally”
As my main homie Mike Shae says, wizards ain't DnD, the only thing that matters is what you bring to your table. They can take the official products down whatever toxic microtransaction driven hell hole they want, but they should remember that the players don't need them. AT ALL.
I don't think you mean that but at 5:07 you say "it's the same vote if you have 1 share or 100 shares..." - I think you mean to say that each share entitles you to one vote (unless things are different there which I would be surprised at), which means that large shareholders will always have more say than small ones. On the spinoff, the way I see the presentation from Alta Fox, it would not be a sale as some people in the comments below seem to be suggesting but rather a spinoff into an independent business where Hasbro shareholders would remain shareholders of WotC. Could definitely be interesting and would allow the stocks to develop independently of one another! I will keep my eyes open for the investor letter as I am a Hasbro stockholder. Oh - it's oversimplifying a little of course to suggest that being on the board at Hasbro would give you creative rights for D&D but hell yeah, let's drop those %&%$$$## death saves! I've instituted a rule in one campaign where if you go into death saves and survive, you permanently lose one death save - so in the future you only have 2 to roll and so on...
No need to spend $96 to get their annual report. It's freely available.
i bet one big reason kids don't play with toys as much is that they are not home as much. Most kids are in daycare after school theses days and that means different types of toys for communal use.
I really hope they do split, because Magic the Gathering has been sh¡t for about 5 years now.
So there's a few issues with the direction that WOTC is looking to go in.
On the one hand with the growth of the gaming and video gaming industries post covid it makes complete sense to start trying to move into having more digital representation.
I could totally see something along the lines of a mashup of VRchat, Tabletop Simulator or something more in depth like Talespire, and DnD Beyond going over really well and being a huge hit, but maybe not the hit they're hoping it will be.
Secondly, here post-covid (side note by that I mean we're over the initial worries and most people are kinda done worrying about it aside from big events and such), we're starting to see a bit of backlash against screen time. Screen time during covid increased a lot and people are starting to move away from all of it and become more analog for lack of a better term. If these come at the wrong time it would be a huge blow to WotC especially if they split.
Thirdly, a lot of tech stuff is greatly overvalued and is definitely in a bubble of some kind that's begging to be popped. VR is still too expensive for most people and the only people currently that have one are big tech enthusiasts and content creators. Not a huge casual market for it right now and especially not Metaverse, crypto, or NFTs which are generally seen as a bunch of scams by most people.
Plus a lot of digital storefront stuff is usually super predatory and there'll be a huge backlash against it, but it'll still be rolled out and probably make the company a lot of money at the risk of alienating a lot of their current fanbase, especially those like me who mostly gave up video gaming for all the predatory aspects of it.
There'll be three groups:
1. The people who don't care and will just buy the new DnD stuff because it's popular
2. The people that run for the hills to help the indie scene flourish and become more popular and likely also full on stop buying WotC products and protest the awful monetization
3. The whales that get horribly addicted and get so stuck in a sunk cost fallacy they never leave and get angry when people talk shit about DnD
That's how it's been in the video gaming world anyway so I don't forsee much difference.
Another thing to consider that they won't is that we're about to hit another great depression. At least all the economists that aren't being paid off by corporations say so. So that'll destroy a lot of these big tech ambitions and a lot of people will be forced to play in person if they get to play at all and cheaper options or even free options will be a lot more popular.
I can't afford the new $60 DnD book I'll just make my own DnD with blackjack and wenches or use older versions I already had.
The Austrians, while right on most things, often are wrong on predicting doom. They money will keep flowing until there's a better alternative. Right now, the US dollar is better than every other currency. Maybe the techies will make crypto viable, but until then, the US seems to be able to continue inflating without much consequence.
@@grandarchon6969 for now. The only thing we can do is wait and I'm always the pessimist. Helps me keep from being disappointed lol
I think that splitting off WoTC would be bad for the multimedia initiative.
Love these videos - thanks! Is it just me or is it kinda cute that the WSJ writer still considers D&D a cult following?
Been watching for a while, but finally subscribed purely to contribute to your 'In Your Face' goal. Show those zoomer kids who's boss, Prof!
While I would like WotC to be independent from Hasbro, this would likely be a bad move to make at this time. We have yet to see how the new management handles the IP and there is a growing division within the fandom that could lead them to abandoning the current D&D market altogether. Doing this could break both companies and staying together would be the best move for now. It might be worth revisiting the subject in 5 years if everything works out, but for now it seems to big of a risk.
nice job on the channel growth! Go DeathBringer!
PDM telling the corporate truths as they are!!! Is he exchanging his battleax for a briefcase???
Love your videos. Keep it up.
I would LOVE you to do some reaction to the D&D show on youtube from Special Effects Specialist that had 3D creation aspects; I think with VR and digital is some possibilities of D&D's future! 🙂
We Made the BEST D&D Show on the Internet (here it is) 1.2M views 4 months ago by Corridor Crew
So I went to Alta Fox's website and skimmed their PDF of their proposal. They make a good argument that if WOTC was spun off, the stock price would spike and investors could cash in...but for how long? Many of their arguments are cherry picked examples which create a rosy picture of their proposal. They do make a good argument that Hasbro is milking WOTC for cash (hiding that WOTC generates 46% of their revenue) and then squandering it in "empire building" measures...by buying expensive IPs (like power rangers) and then doing nothing with them, in effect hoarding the IPs and sitting on them for future exploitation. This keeps the stock price artificially down.
Their analysis of WOTC has some real flaws though -- they say that Magic (mostly) and D&D (only briefly mentioned) have long term growth potential, because:
1) They both have a rampant fan base, which is viewed as an evergreen source of revenue.
- This ignores the potential that fan bases can be fickle, or the potential to split the fan base for D&D regarding the recent censorship/sanitizing the IP for mainstream "non-offensive" branding of the line while simplifying the mechanics. The older "rabid" fanbase Alta Fox sites as the main source of evergreen income doesn't like this stuff, and my stop buying WOTC products in the long term. There are also issues of digitizing the game and nickel and diming the fanbase with micro-transactions and licenses instead of book ownership.
2) They use Games Workshop's recent high stock performance as a benchmark to compare WOTC by, because they are both "Game Companies"--without delving into the differences between their products, or how GW has been pricing themselves out of the market to generate quick cash and inflate their stock value at the risk of losing long term players. Less players = long term loss of market share (controlling the market share is how GW grew and dominated miniature gaming).
3) They complain that Hasbro bought a company for 4.6 billion to develop their IPs into TVs and Movies in 2019, but failed to produce a Magic or D&D movie the following year. They don't mention that there IS a D&D movie now, and that a little thing called the Pandemic prevented movie production in 2020!
They make some compelling arguments that a WOTC spinoff would allow full transparency on how profitable they are (hiding this has kept HAS stock down), and this would lead to a big spike in stock IN THE SHORT TERM. Whether WOTC can sustain their profits long term is anybody's guess. Also Alta Fox is a Hedge Fund, and this could be an attempt to manipulate the market, cash in on a short term stock spike, and then allow them to cash out once they've made their profits for the Hedge Fund.
yeah, going full indie or quality boutiques such as Free League, Arc Dream publishing, Green Ronin and many others.
until the digital space can accommodate table talk and communication through looking at each other, it's not going to be the same as being at a physical table.
I voted for Hasbro's slate of directors. Chris Cocks just assumed the CEO role. He needs time to implement his own vision, not that Goldner wasn't a terrific and beloved CEO, and Hassenfeld before him.
Bwhahaha waving a phone and killing a beholder is exactly the kind of thing that keeps beholders up at night.
As long as they make quality products , l am all for it.
I definitely think having DnD stand on its own legs would make it stronger. My underlying hope is that it might then be led by people who actually care about roleplaying, not just the profit. Pecause once the passion for the actual game is doused by blatant greed the game will be dead. (And hopefully the community goes on to something else.)
What? I take ALL my financial advice from RUclips Dungeon masters!
More DCC less money grubbing over saturated DnD
My vote for Hasbro's boardroom is for Deathbringer
Professional MtG player. Didn't know that was a thing.
Play games how you want. You don't like death saves, get rid of them. That is the fun and customizable power of RPG