Roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons have been a part of my life, on and off, since I was about 12. Like most players, I have played with multiple versions of the rules as well as completely different rulesets for different games in different settings, like Top Secret, Spirit of 77 and most recently, Call of Cthulhu.
The financial status of the multiple owners of the fabled D&D trademark has likewise waxed and waned over the nearly five decades it has been around. It was an initial success and flagship for a tiny company called TSR, who eventually sold everything to Wizards of the Coast after nearly bankrupting themselves in the late '90s. Two years later, in 1999, WOTC itself was bought by major toy and game company Hasbro.
In 2008, Hasbro-owned WOTC released its 4th edition of the D&D rules, which, although it was a real departure in many ways from previous editions and rankled many fans, did give the game quite a bit of exposure to new audiences. Wizards did extensive playtesting for its follow-up 5th edition, published in 2014.
5E is a robust ruleset to be sure, and quite a bit of fun to play, and as a result of this and the added exposure of popular live-play shows like Critical Role (and its animated spin-off Legend of Vox Machina) on YouTube and Twitch, D&D has never been more popular. Playtesting has only recently begun for the 6th edition anticipated in 2024 (to coincide with D&D's 50th anniversary).
Even prior to the pandemic, the business side was looking solid; D&D was showing growth for its seventh consecutive year, while sister-product Magic the Gathering grew almost 30%. During the pandemic, online play of D&D increased by an estimated 86% - surely the sign of a healthy brand.
And yet, this level of sustainability and growth is not enough for some people.
New Wizards & Digital CEO (the Hasbro division that controls D&D) Cynthia Williams recently described D&D as severely "under-monetized" and lacking in the kind of "recurrent spending" seen in video games.
And I suppose she's right; even the person running the game (called a Dungeon Master or DM) only needs 2-3 books and a set of dice to play for hours and hours if they want to make up their own adventures, and a published campaign like Tyranny of Dragons costs $50-$70 and kept eight of us online playing pretty regularly for two years.
It is a bit surprising to see a games company like Hasbro bemoaning slow growth and monetization; after all, classic boardgames like Risk and Monopoly only require one person to buy a copy for less than $50 and 4-6 players can enjoy it forever!
And a lot of D&D's cultural cachet in recent years has come from their willingness to play nicely in the sandbox with the gaming community and smaller publishers making approved content for 5E using something called the Open Gaming License, or OGL. But now a leaked copy of a new "1.1 version" of the OGL gives far more rights (and for the first time, royalties) to WOTC, and many publishers have expressed reluctance to make D&D-compatible adventures and sourcebooks if it turns out to be accurate. Still others are threatening legal action, as the new arrangement could fundamentally threaten their very livelihoods and viability as businesses.
And while many players and DMs are suggesting they too might take their polyhedral dice and play elsewhere in order to support the smaller publishers, more of them are concerned about the possibility that D&D, a game that should only require paper, pencils and dice in order to play, could in the future require an account or subscription or some digital component in order to play. Hasbro recently purchased the website D&D Beyond, an online "toolset" which features character generators, game rules and information, as well as online play experiences similar to competitors like Roll20 and Fantasy Ground. Could those online games be put at risk or shut out of future releases as well?
It's entirely too early to say with any certainty where all these changes might lead, especially the OGL - it was a leak, so it is entirely possible that they can walk it back. But with more players than ever before, a level of awareness frankly unimaginable even a decade ago, the 50th anniversary of the game looming and a big-budget motion picture coming out this March, it is truly disheartening to hear a corporate executive complaining that their goose isn't laying bigger golden eggs more often.
In the end though, I take heart that, despite the fact that I sometimes play in three different D&D campaigns within a week, there is probably already more D&D content out there for 5e than I could reasonably complete in my lifetime, and that is before I even take into consideration the huge number of alternative systems and settings that might be fun to try.
Still, though... you never forget your first, and I would be reluctant to explore underground labyrinths without the comforting lexicanery of things like"armor class" and "saving throw," so I hope that the people at Hasbro recognize how hard Dungeons & Dragons fought, creators and players alike, to get to this point, and how quickly it could all disappear if mishandled.
No comments:
Post a Comment