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Rumours about Hasbro selling WotC are rife throughout the Internet

Gyor

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Rumours about Hasbro selling WotC are rife throughout the Internet.

It related to the lawsuits WotC is being hit with mostly.

I personally think the lawsuits are related more to WotC wanting to internalize more of the business, like miniatures, but I can think of only one company that makes sense if WotC does end up for sale.

Games Work Shop, Paizo, Kobold Press, Green Ronin, ect..., none of them have the capital to buy WotC so they can safely be ignored in this conversion.

Paradox Entertainment could afford it, if, barely, but they are busy with the nightmare the World of Darkness has turned into for them.

No the only company that I could see buying WotC is Amazon. Amazon has the money to pay top dollar for WotC, the will to do so, they can milk the IPs WotC holds to the max, Amazon makes movies, books, video games, tv shows, comic books, toys, and tons of other stuff, has to own retail machine in amazon.com/.ca/.uk, ect..., they can use every part of the buffalo (WotC being the Buffalo).

And unlike other companies Amazon isn't hemeraging money, it made a killing, and, WotC is exactly the kind of Aquistion Amazon would be willing to over pay for to further broader 4 dimensional chess goals, like getting a virtual monopoly in the RPG market while milking the IPs in every way imaginable, in ways Hasbro never dreamed of. Amazon has it's economic dick in the pussy of nearly every industry imaginable. Jeff Bezos is going to be the first Trillionaire. If he wants WotC he will have WotC.
 

Catacombs

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I personally think the lawsuits are related more to WotC wanting to internalize more of the business, like miniatures, but I can think of only one company that makes sense if WotC does end up for sale.
It's not just miniatures. The authors of the Dragonlance book series are suing because WoTC broke a contract with them.

The reason, according to Dicebreaker:

The court filing goes on to claim that the unexpected termination of the project and alleged breach of contract was linked to the public controversy surrounding accusations of “racism and sexism” in Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, as well as allegations of “misogyny and racist hiring and employment practices” within Wizards of the Coast itself. The documents allege that Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro, which owns the publisher, cancelled the trilogy to “deflect any possible criticism or further public outcry regarding Defendant’s other properties by effectively killing the Dragonlance deal”.
 

Scruffy

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the speculation is that they are prepared to settle lawsuits and breaking off contracts because a WotC without any pending engagement is more appetizing for potential buyers. It would definitely be a shitload of money to sell WotC though, without a doubt not a lot of potential buyers... perhaps Disney itself?
 

Bara

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I much doubt Hasbro going to let go of D&D or Magic any time soon. These rumors I remember hearing back in 2018.

Plus what they've said in the last financial report doesn't really add up with a sell off to me

Back from February of 2020


  • We delivered compelling gaming experiences, led by the work of our teams at Wizards of the Coast. Our positive results to date have us on plan to double Wizards of the Coast revenues over five years, from 2018 to 2023.
    • MAGIC: THE GATHERING revenues increased more than 30% in the year, behind double-digit growth in tabletop play and a strong first year for Magic: The Gathering Arena.
    • DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS revenues grew for the sixth straight year, and we are meaningfully investing in both brands to drive engaging storytelling, while developing new digital games with high margin profitable growth longer-term.
There are arguments that they're trying to push this revenue increase to demand a higher price when selling them off but I feel like this arguments just trying to keep the rumor alive and get clicks. Plus the fact that Hasbro has hired on another company to make G.I. Joe & Power Rangers games in the 5e system. I don't see why they'd do that while planning to sell off Wotc as they'd have to rely on the OGL and licensing rights.

We'll probably have a better idea how true that is come February 2021's financial reports for 2020.

If they do get sold off meh so long as they keep putting out reprints of the older editions or people preserve the scans of them online doesn't matter who owns the rights to the name. Fans will always be the real owners of D&D thanks to the OGL. God bless wotc for being foolish enough to do that.
 

Gyor

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I much doubt Hasbro going to let go of D&D or Magic any time soon. These rumors I remember hearing back in 2018.

Plus what they've said in the last financial report doesn't really add up with a sell off to me

Back from February of 2020


  • We delivered compelling gaming experiences, led by the work of our teams at Wizards of the Coast. Our positive results to date have us on plan to double Wizards of the Coast revenues over five years, from 2018 to 2023.
    • MAGIC: THE GATHERING revenues increased more than 30% in the year, behind double-digit growth in tabletop play and a strong first year for Magic: The Gathering Arena.
    • DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS revenues grew for the sixth straight year, and we are meaningfully investing in both brands to drive engaging storytelling, while developing new digital games with high margin profitable growth longer-term.
There are arguments that they're trying to push this revenue increase to demand a higher price when selling them off goneI feel like this arguments just trying to keep the rumor alive and get clicks. Plus the fact that Hasbro has hired on another company to make G.I. Joe & Power Rangers games in the 5e system. I don't see why they'd do that while planning to sell off Wotc as they'd have to rely on the OGL and licensing rights.

We'll probably have a better idea how true that is come February 2021's financial reports for 2020.

If they do get sold off meh so long as they keep putting out reprints of the older editions or people preserve the scans of them online doesn't matter who owns the rights to the name. Fans will always be the real owners of D&D thanks to the OGL. God bless wotc for being foolish enough to do that.

Lots of people have said much the same, the problem is they don't actually get corporate politics. Executives put their own short term interests over the long term interests of a company all the time. If say the CEO is planning on retiring or taking a job at another company in a few years, getting a nice spike in your yearly bonus because you've been pushing the companies assets harder then you should with long term negative consequences that won't be felt until your gone before you sell off major assets, will lead to a huge yearly bonus. This kind of scenerio happens all the time in the corporate world with the working class employees paying the price.
 

Gyor

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I much doubt Hasbro going to let go of D&D or Magic any time soon. These rumors I remember hearing back in 2018.

Plus what they've said in the last financial report doesn't really add up with a sell off to me

Back from February of 2020


  • We delivered compelling gaming experiences, led by the work of our teams at Wizards of the Coast. Our positive results to date have us on plan to double Wizards of the Coast revenues over five years, from 2018 to 2023.
    • MAGIC: THE GATHERING revenues increased more than 30% in the year, behind double-digit growth in tabletop play and a strong first year for Magic: The Gathering Arena.
    • DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS revenues grew for the sixth straight year, and we are meaningfully investing in both brands to drive engaging storytelling, while developing new digital games with high margin profitable growth longer-term.
There are arguments that they're trying to push this revenue increase to demand a higher price when selling them off but I feel like this arguments just trying to keep the rumor alive and get clicks. Plus the fact that Hasbro has hired on another company to make G.I. Joe & Power Rangers games in the 5e system. I don't see why they'd do that while planning to sell off Wotc as they'd have to rely on the OGL and licensing rights.

We'll probably have a better idea how true that is come February 2021's financial reports for 2020.

If they do get sold off meh so long as they keep putting out reprints of the older editions or people preserve the scans of them online doesn't matter who owns the rights to the name. Fans will always be the real owners of D&D thanks to the OGL. God bless wotc for being foolish enough to do that.

The JI Joe/Power Rangera/Transformers RPG would be fine with OGL, they want to use the underlying 5e system, not the specific assets like classes, subclasses, spells, monsters, ect..., none of which make sense in a modern settings like the above. If anything the fact that Hasbro turned to another company when they already own WotC and could have gotten them to do it suggests that they are planning on selling WotC, so they wouldn't want assets they plan on keeping like Avalon Hill and the Power Rangers/Transformers/GI Joe RPG in the hands of an asset they plan on selling.
 

Gyor

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perhaps Disney itself
Disney-ification of D&D would be worst-case scenario.

Amazon is way more likely then Disney, Disney has been losing money out it's ass this year and won't be looking to buy WotC right now.

Amazon has made an absolute fortune in 2020 on the other hand, can milk WotC more then Disney can, has the cash, and Amazon loves cornering markets when it can.
 

Catacombs

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Amazon is way more likely then Disney, Disney has been losing money out it's ass this year and won't be looking to buy WotC right now.
Disney has lost a lot of its revenue from near-empty theme parks because of the pandemic. The company is still making money from its media networks, film studios and layoffs, which, among other revenue streams, are holding up the company. You can see that in their second, third, and fourth quarter reports for 2020.

With a potential vaccine on the way, the company will eventually recoup its losses in parks. It's not like the pandemic brought the company to its knees.

Amazon has made an absolute fortune in 2020 on the other hand, can milk WotC more then Disney can, has the cash, and Amazon loves cornering markets when it can.

Yes, Amazon might have the cash on hand, but WoTC is so niche Amazon will need to expand on it greatly somehow for it to become a juggernaut. If Amazon really wanted to get into the toy manufacturing market, it would just acquire Hasbro.
 
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Ranselknulf

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They've been talking of selling WotC since at least January 2018 from what my quick search pulled up.

I don't believe WotC is something a large company would want to take on.

It's more likely a small group of investors will buy it if I had to make a guess.


https://icv2.com/articles/news/view...ase-possible-sale-wizards-coast-being-horizon

I received several emails regarding last week’s column, and a couple of them brought up yet another possibility (see "Rolling for Initiative -- Of Cauldrons and Lawsuits"). Hasbro might be cleaning up loose ends in preparation for selling off WotC. Consider the following points:
  1. Hasbro never really wanted to deal with Dungeons and Dragons or Magic: The Gathering. For decades, Hasbro has focused on either developing its own lucrative product lines (My Little Pony) or acquiring the licenses to hot or long lasting properties (Star Wars, Transformers). If you have been in the industry a long time, you will remember that WotC started off as a third party creator of fantasy RPG compatible supplements, most notably Primal Order. It launched the Magic line in the early 1990s, and then bought the assets of TSR in 1997 as well as secured the license to Pokemon in 1998, releasing the first coveted packs for the game in the US in January 1999. Hasbro saw how hot the Pokemon license was and wanted it. The easiest way to accomplish that:buy the license holder. Unfortunately, WotC’s license from Nintendo ended in 2003 and, rather than extending it, Nintendo opted to take the license back and take card production in house, more or less, creating the Pokemon Company to handle TCG sales, leaving Hasbro with D&D and Magic, neither of which lent themselves to building a strong toy brand. Granted Hasbro has done exceedingly well with the two brands but the company has not had much success developing either a second TCG or RPG brand.
  2. Hasbro knows board games. If you remember, earlier this year Hasbro opted to move the WotC board game lines from WotC to the parent company (see "Rolling For Initiative -- Exploring The Possibilities After Avalon Hill's Move to Hasbro"). At the time, I was more interested in the effect of the move on FLGS profit margins and distribution of the WotC portfolio of board games, the few of which WotC has successfully brought back to market. However, if Hasbro has plans to sell the company, keeping the part of it that Hasbro understands and has successfully sold for decades makes sense. Just look at the recent crowdfunding program for HeroQuest (see "'HeroQuest' Makes Its Triumphant Return to the Tabletop")
  3. Cleaning up the company. If Hasbro is wanting to shop the company around, it would be a much easier sell without any outstanding contracts into which WotC had entered. In both the Weis- Hickman (see "Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Sue Wizards of the Coast Over Cancelled 'Dragonlance' Books") and Gale Force 9 lawsuits (see "Gale Force Nine Sues Wizards of the Coast"), a cursory look at the cases indicate situations that the parties could have reached negotiated settlements regarding, instead of a hard and fast lawsuit to end the contracts. If word arrives of Hasbro/WotC breaking its contract with WizKids for the D&D line of miniatures and WizKids filing a retaliatory lawsuit, the idea that Hasbro plans to put the division up for sale becomes a lot more plausible.
  4. Who Would Buy? This is the part that always put me off about a sale of WotC by Hasbro. Who could buy the company? I can think of a number of companies that would like to buy WotC (Paizo, Goodman Games, Troll Lord Games and Kobold Press come to mind), but none, at least not that I know, have the cash flow available to fund such a purchase. Publishing RPGs is not a path to riches. However, the successful sale of Asmodee in 2018 to a private equity firm indicates that there is interest in investing in the game industry from companies outside it (see "Rolling for Initiative--Why You Shouldn't Worry About the Sale of Asmodee"). A similar private equity company might see significant value in acquiring both the top RPG and top TCG brands in one fell swoop.
 
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D&D was basically made for the Disney-dominated, Marvel-style approach to multimedia merchandising. It's one of the last great money pots a competent company that employs even somewhat creative people can plunder.

The stuff Netflix for example could do with the franchise, it's almost mind boggling.

In a general economic sense, not in terms of what the average Codexer would consider quality or worth doing aristically
 

Gyor

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D&D was basically made for the Disney-dominated, Marvel-style approach to multimedia merchandising. It's one of the last great money pots a competent company that employs even somewhat creative people can plunder.

The stuff Netflix for example could do with the franchise, it's almost mind boggling.

In a general economic sense, not in terms of what the average Codexer would consider quality or worth doing aristically

Netflix can't leverage D&D like Amazon, Netflix only doing streaming, Amazon can milk D&D for not only TV streaming, but books, comics, toys, minis, retail, and probably products I haven't concidered.

In a very real sense Amazon already makes money on D&D, this would just allow Amazon to take things to the next level. Amazon has already shown interest in one D&D setting, it's deal with Critical Role for Vox Machina TV show.
 

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