Dungeons & Dragons Owner Hasbro Is Buying D&D Beyond (polygon.com) 50
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: The parent company of Dungeons & Dragons developer Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, announced Wednesday it is acquiring D&D Beyond, one of the franchise's most popular officially licensed digital toolsets and online storefronts. Wizards said on its official website it has "no plans to stop supporting D&D Beyond," and all purchases made by consumers will be honored going forward.
D&D Beyond is the creation of Curse, and launched in 2017. The platform is, at its core, a web application and mobile app that provides players and Dungeon Masters (DMs) with the tools they need to play D&D in person or online. Features include a character builder, a character sheet, and a digital dice-rolling function. For DMs, it allows users to purchase official campaign books and other materials digitally for use inside the app. Prices for D&D books are traditionally more or less the same on D&D Beyond as they are on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at your local game store. D&D Beyond was purchased by Fandom in 2018 and, according to Hasbro, the relationship has been very lucrative since that time.
"Over the last three years, the royalty paid to Hasbro by D&D Beyond has represented a significant contribution to the fastest growing source of revenue for Dungeons & Dragons," Hasbro said. That is undoubtedly true, as financial disclosures show that Wizards -- and its attached digital properties, including Magic: The Gathering Arena -- earned more than $1 billion for the first time in 2021. [...] Wizards' new president, Cynthia Williams, has bigger goals in mind. "The strategic acquisition of D&D Beyond will deliver a direct relationship with fans, providing valuable, data-driven insights to unlock opportunities for growth in new product development, live services and tools, and regional expansions," Williams said in a news release. "As part of Wizards, the brand's leadership will soon be able to drive a unified, player-centric vision of the world's greatest role-playing game on all platforms."
D&D Beyond is the creation of Curse, and launched in 2017. The platform is, at its core, a web application and mobile app that provides players and Dungeon Masters (DMs) with the tools they need to play D&D in person or online. Features include a character builder, a character sheet, and a digital dice-rolling function. For DMs, it allows users to purchase official campaign books and other materials digitally for use inside the app. Prices for D&D books are traditionally more or less the same on D&D Beyond as they are on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at your local game store. D&D Beyond was purchased by Fandom in 2018 and, according to Hasbro, the relationship has been very lucrative since that time.
"Over the last three years, the royalty paid to Hasbro by D&D Beyond has represented a significant contribution to the fastest growing source of revenue for Dungeons & Dragons," Hasbro said. That is undoubtedly true, as financial disclosures show that Wizards -- and its attached digital properties, including Magic: The Gathering Arena -- earned more than $1 billion for the first time in 2021. [...] Wizards' new president, Cynthia Williams, has bigger goals in mind. "The strategic acquisition of D&D Beyond will deliver a direct relationship with fans, providing valuable, data-driven insights to unlock opportunities for growth in new product development, live services and tools, and regional expansions," Williams said in a news release. "As part of Wizards, the brand's leadership will soon be able to drive a unified, player-centric vision of the world's greatest role-playing game on all platforms."
That's not how it works (Score:1)
Wizards said on its official website it has "no plans to stop supporting D&D Beyond," and all purchases made by consumers will be honored going forward.
Sorry, that's not how this works. You are now owned by someone else. *THEY* are now making the decisions, not you. Maybe they won't change anything or maybe they will.
But whatever happens, if Hasbro decides to make changes, they *WILL* make those changes and you have no say in it.
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That companies have to assure us that our cloud-based purchases will be honored should be informative to as to the scaminess of buying electronic copies of games, films, and books without physical media.
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You get non-revocable PDFs, at least when buying straight from WoTC. Even if they go belly up, you'll still have that copy of the book. If D&D Beyond couldn't match that (which may be the case), then this is going to be an improvement for the user.
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It's the problem I have with D&D Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, D20pro, and HeroLab. I feel like I'm buying the same material for each platform, and when they go belly up that material is effectively dead. I at least got a lot of use out of HeroLab over the years, but I won't ever be using it again (my choice). So I have a few hundred $ of purchases going to waste now.
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Again, that's a different problem, and one what should actually get better with WoTC behind D&D Beyond. I don't even use those services, I run my games from Discord, with Google Sheets for both the character sheets and the tactical maps [google.com] (including initiative tracking and such). It's a hybrid of voice and text, and we throw real dice and trust each other. Anything that is being committed to the record has to be written down since there's no playback for the voice chat. But the point is, it costs nothing.
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No, it's the same problem that I pointed to in my original post. I'm sorry you don't get that.
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Why is it the same problem if buying the book from WoTC (where you have the PDF forever) also gets you the book on D&D Beyond, which is very likely to be the case? You want a book they can't take away, and they're giving it to you. A service may not last forever, but your PDF will.
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But whatever happens, if Hasbro decides to make changes, they *WILL* make those changes and you have no say in it.
Customer: You said they would be left in my library under my supervision
Hasbro: I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it further.
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Pfft, I'll be interested when D&D Beyond includes D&D Past It, and provides stuff for 3.5 and Pathfinder 1...
Until then, my Billy bookcase full of 1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, some 4E, PF1 and zero 5E will suffice.
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Pathfinder is owned by Paizo, why would it appear on a D&D site? It was created from the D&D SRD, but it is a derivative product of that and not owned by Wizards.
It would be nice to have other editions of D&D though, as well it would be good if we didn't have to pay for the books twice to be able to use content on DNDBeyond from physical books we bought already.
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"why would it appear on a D&D site?"
Because Pathfinder is basically 3.75E D&D?
D&D is an unspecified term, which for me, means 3.5E.
If they mean D&D 5E, say "D&D 5E", it's not hard.
And the absence of such specificity is quite annoying to me, having hard cover books from 1E D&D onwards... and now having to check the details of stuff for sale on the 'net as so many people just say "D&D" without stating which edition - it's irritating (to me at least) just how slack some sellers are!
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You know places like Roll20 are happy to have you, right? They aren't married to a single system.
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Yes, I know, but since the games I host (but don't run - yet) are in my games room, Roll20 is not actually needed.
And I paid for Fantasy Grounds instead, since that lives on my PC, not online, as does everything I download, and is very much similar to Roll20 (which is good, don't get me wrong, just that the reviews I watched indicated FG was more suited to what I want).
I've also got Realmworks, Dungeon Alchemist and Herolab, not that they are yet used.
So, I've basically got, I think, most if not all the fun
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To be honest, you don't need any of them. In person, Google Sheets and a tablet for everyone (so the character sheets can be kept up to date and the DM can see them without asking the players) will be sufficient. The mapping takes place at the table. Even without the benefit of playing in person though, it's not required to use any paid services. There are definite advantages to doing so, but it is NOT required. We drop our spell descriptions straight into the text chat (I've even arranged long spells to ha
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It will likely be by similar means as Microsoft manipulating Minecraft. It won't be all at once, it won't be sudden, but over the course of a decade or so, expect it to mutate somewhat. Who knows, it may still be pretty good -- there is more than one way [google.com] to do this correctly. And unlike Microsoft, Hasbro doesn't have a ton of different OS variants to support, so there won't be a need for weird spinoff versions all the time.
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If? It's when.
Hasbro is hurting for money. If you've been observing Magic The Gathering product coming out of Wizards of the Coast the past few years, you'll see they've been cranking up production to the point even seasoned players are saying "Slow down" because no one can keep up with everything that's coming out. The instant a set comes out, attention focuses on the next upcoming set because
ok. (Score:2)
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Hasbro already own all those things, why would the purchase of D&D Beyond (an end user assistance tool) be required to do that?
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Hmm, a Transformers expansion for 5e would be interesting, it could be something like d20 modern, but in the 5e system. I guess it would be kind of like a warforged druid?
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Carrington Game (Score:2, Insightful)
D&D is going to be a fun way to pass the after-farming time after the next Carrington Event.
Just make sure you actually have the books and dice.
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Carrington event?
If you don't know what it is, well, you know what to do...
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Just don't let our bosses know that the main reason we're doing this is to keep Roll20 online :) https://www.esa.int/Safety_Sec... [esa.int]
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I don't disagree with your conclusion, Hasbro will probably run MtG into the ground in the medium to long term. D&D could be similar, but
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I clicked the links to check if they had the authentic original crappy scuffed up covers, was not disappointed.
(One time at a thrift store I found an original AD&D DMG that had a pristine cover. I had to buy it just for that reason alone.)
Not D&D (Score:1)
What Hasbro produces is not D&D, it's just a shabby imitation watered down for people who think Disney is a great film studio.
This is D&D:
https://jeffro.wordpress.com/2... [wordpress.com]
See also:
https://bdubsanddragons.blogsp... [blogspot.com]
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Cool gatekeeping bro.
Yeah, yeah. Keep playing a watered down boring version if you want; I'm not stopping you.
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You know what's a watered down, soft role playing game? Adventure Tales (because it's targeted to 4-10 year olds). I play it all the time with my son and the stories and games are an absolute BLAST.
If your games are watered down, it's not the system or the version, it's your imagination.
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If you're styling your adventures after Adventurers' League modules, then it's going to be pretty watered down. They generally don't like killing characters at public games, plus there's a large span in allowed party power levels.
What I've found is that if you:
Count the party members, call this number "k".
Multiply the XP value of your encounters by the (k-1) root of the number of monsters. Three characters, square root. Four characters, cube root.
This gives an actual difficulty curve that is
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Sorry I should have clarified that you only count actual threats toward that root. If a dragon surrounds itself with twenty kobolds that get fried by an incoming Fireball in the first round, they shouldn't all be counted. Maybe none of them should, depending on how long they're able to stay on the field.
I generally use whatever CR level a cleric at that point can Destroy when turning to be the "mook threshold". Anything equal to or below it does not count for calculating the total difficulty of the encounte
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LOL, why do you even play? If you think playing DnD is watered down then that speaks more to your group of players and DM than anything else.
OK. You didn't understand the comment.
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"There is an Objectively Correct way to play Real D&D"
I don't think there's anything that needs to be added to that quote.
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Keep the inclusive people out!
You pulled that one out of your arse.
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Cool story bro, but utter horseshit.
Player since basic and expert.
5e is a definite step back towards the real origin and spirit of D&D, and is much more "real" D&D than most of the Johnny-come-lately 3.5 loudmouths think.
Sure, but you could just play 1e and have the spirit of D&D from the people who created D&D. Why use a substitute?
All I can say is, (Score:2)
So . . . (Score:2)
"The little shop rolls it's saving throw against corporatism . . . whoops!"