Re: Hasbro's D&D

On Thu, 22 Aug 2024 13:47:19 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Senior VP at Wizards of the Coast cheerfully states, "There are a lot of
ways to express Dungeons & Dragons beyond RPGs".*
 
'Cause god forbid you focus and invest on the core of your brand; if
you're not spreading the license everywhere, recklessly slapping the
brand on every piece of tat you can, it's just not worth it, right?
 
There was a lot to dislike about the TSR era (and they weren't immune
from making the lure of crap D&D tchotkes flooding the market), but at
least they also created a lot of content for the table-top RPG. It was
their bread-n-butter; everything else was in support of the books.
 
The tabletop game, to Hasbro, is just a small aspect of the brand, one I
often get the impression they wish they could do without. Hasbro's CEO
happily announced that they are "all in on becoming a digital play
company." They have 90 live games  contracts in the games market,
pushing the IP as hard as it can go, as far as it can go, regardless if
it fits. Just so long as it brings Hasbro more money, I guess.
 
Blech.
t
 
* source:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/wizards-of-the-coast-there-are-lots-of-

ways-to-express-dungeons-dragons-beyond-rpgs

Here we have the problem of having the main part of the hobby tied to a
brand name. It would be better if DnD as a term ended up genericized. Of
course Hasbro would go after anyone using the term in a generic way to
keep that from happening. So we are left with using the unappealing
roleplaying games moniker that also got coopted by video games by now.

Frankly,the best that could happen is Hasbro going out of business,
leaving everyone else to use DnD as a term willy-nilly, until nobody could
argue for it being a brand name anymore. I doubt that ever would happen
though.