WotC has no one left who could even try fix things, even if they wanted.

There you go - get rebuilding that D&D garbage as it is these years.

Crawford and Perkin's quit, oh really?  It has all the signs of a corporate lay off of executives who greatly failed to deliver.

When the fuck is Hasbro going to realize there is no new customer, those red fucks don't have jobs they only want to beat the fuck out of conservative brown people and kill CEO's of companies like Hasbro.

Go Woke, and Go Broke.

Crawford couldn't fix 5e that he helped create.

He was absolutely notorious for giving the worst advice possible for 5e. The running gag was to do the exact opposite of whatever his advice was.
wotc losing him was probably a blessing. And he's likely going to be a blight on whomever he latches onto next.

Eventually the OSR will latch its claws into 5e and we will end up with JeffroCrawfordian elitist halfwits.

I think you need to recheck your math.  It being zero now that Crawford left implies that it was in the negatives before that event.  Admittedly, that might be correct.

I still think Hasbro is getting ready to sell off WOTC, or at least some of the IP

the challenges Hasbro has been running into include:

1. Declining sales
2. Underperforming film
3. Failure of the VTT and connected-projects (monetizing, micro-transactions, etc.)
4. Brand damage: 5E has become a punchline among many gamers, and certainly among older gamers--who spend money

The IP is still quite valuable, but as long as WOTC owns it, that value will diminish

The executives at Hasbro probably paid WOTC a visit and saw blue-haired, entitled brats running the office, lack of organization and accountability, poor focus, etc. and said "we need to clean this up"

Hasbro simply isn't a TTRPG company, doesn't know how to navigate the VTT video game space, and doesn't know how to market D&D. The company makes games and toys for young people, and D&D is a hobby for a select audience of barely-middle-class, older gamers (teachers, baristas, graduate students, low-level office workers ...)

yes, some young people play D&D, but they are fickle, and will move on to the next distraction very quickly. Stranger Things is old news now, and Critical Roll is winding down.

Zero? They were zero years ago. They hit -10. C'mon man, that was easy. It was right there.

Heh. WOTC will never learn

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 16, 2025, 10:40:57 AMI still think Hasbro is getting ready to sell off WOTC, or at least some of the IP

the challenges Hasbro has been running into include:

1. Declining sales
2. Underperforming film
3. Failure of the VTT and connected-projects (monetizing, micro-transactions, etc.)
4. Brand damage: 5E has become a punchline among many gamers, and certainly among older gamers--who spend money

The IP is still quite valuable, but as long as WOTC owns it, that value will diminish

The executives at Hasbro probably paid WOTC a visit and saw blue-haired, entitled brats running the office, lack of organization and accountability, poor focus, etc. and said "we need to clean this up"

Hasbro simply isn't a TTRPG company, doesn't know how to navigate the VTT video game space, and doesn't know how to market D&D. The company makes games and toys for young people, and D&D is a hobby for a select audience of barely-middle-class, older gamers (teachers, baristas, graduate students, low-level office workers ...)

yes, some young people play D&D, but they are fickle, and will move on to the next distraction very quickly. Stranger Things is old news now, and Critical Roll is winding down.

Very, very interesting. Lots of companies and even the American government is downsizing right now so yeah, that makes sense. They're gonna dump all the woke on their asses and you can't help but feel a little bad for them.

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 16, 2025, 10:40:57 AMI still think Hasbro is getting ready to sell off WOTC, or at least some of the IP

Any thoughts on who might be in a position to buy WOTC?

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 16, 2025, 04:37:28 PM

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 16, 2025, 10:40:57 AMI still think Hasbro is getting ready to sell off WOTC, or at least some of the IP

Any thoughts on who might be in a position to buy WOTC?

My hunch is "no one."

If the 5e fans are lucky, Hasbro will keep D&DBeyond running so long as it's profitable and keep some set of core books (unfortunately probably the 2024 version) available in the same way there's always Monopoly on the shelves.

But beyond that, they'll probably just let it die and maybe use the IP/trademarks to brand something else (i.e. action figures or a board game) down the line.

Or they'll license it out to third parties the way they're doing with their other properties (most Transformers aren't made directly by Hasbro anymore, but by various licensees selling effectively models/statuettes to adult collectors).

In the latter case, as demonstrated by other RPGs based on IP licenses, expect short edition runs each time a new licensee signs up, but then has to end the run because they can't keep up with the fees (or Hasbro bumps it at renegotiation to the point it's no longer profitable to continue) and then it sits fallow for a few years until someone else gives it a go with their own edition.

>paizo buys wotc

Lol while poetic, Paizo would probably double down on every bad political idea.
Granted, they'd probably make a better game at least, but I dunno. 
One of the things Paizo did that I have huge respect for was their ORC license.  I'm less thrilled about all the renames to walk away from OGL things, but if you want to put stuff under your own license you probably have to do something like that.

Either way, Paizo has their own serious modern RPG contender, a legit 5e competitor for those who are into that sort of thing.

I don't really think we'll get anything hilarious like WotC being spun off to some international conglomerate, or the D&D rights being bought by some big game company (that might just mostly want to make video games with it).  I mean we could- I wouldn't be SHOCKED if it happened- I just don't think there's enough evidence to gloat that much. 

Still, it's good vibes in here.

Quote from: D-ko on April 17, 2025, 03:49:08 AM>paizo buys wotc

Or, or...here me out on this...Troll Lord Games.

TLG buys out the game rights to D&D, completely puts the Woke edition into the garbage, and rebrands C&C as D&D.

Wouldn't that be karma?

I mean, it will never happen, but a guy can dream...