TableTop's BIGGEST Company Just BROKE UP...Are WotC And Hasbro NEXT? 

My easy answer is yes, because then they could focus on things that would matter more to them and being better with their public. Of course, that's overlooking the business side of things, and I know nothing about that

on paper it would be good in reality?

@@HeirofAzaran If by business, you mean "where will the money come from", the easy answer to that is MTG. As long as they don't do stupid things with Magic. In fact, using MTG to bankroll WotC while they quietly develop D&D was the old business model that Hasbro interfered with.

@@schemage2210 oh yes, I'm aware of that. I've been compiling a history of the game, and I'm well aware that Wizards of the Coast was able to buy out TSR with the money they were making for their card game. So I know it's possible, but given how big has gotten, I wonder if it would be as simple as that. But I freely admit I know nothing about business

@@HeirofAzaran Between MTG and Larian (the studio that made Baldars Gate 3) quality video games, likely WotC would be fine. Maybe they might have to scale back on some of the absurd stuff Hasbro/WotC has been doing, but I think it's still possible.

It’s Disneyfilm all over again.

Might be the point. Like how Disney is trying to split its self into more companies for different parts like for film for games and so on. Odds are they just wanna put all the debt into one company and let it go under so they can say their assets aren't available for seizing because its a different company. All scams and we the people are left to suffer for others choice's.

I agree. Sounds more like Asmodee being sacrificed, doomed to fail, while the parent company clears its books.

Asmodee: Is that… legal? Embracer: _i will make it legal_

There were fears something along these lines could happen with GW under the old ownership as well, so it will be interesting to see if Asmodee can thrive as a solo company again

The sad irony is that the founder and CEO of Embracer/Nordic is an old school gamer who was fulfilling his childhood dream after he'd already made a crapton of money in another field. (Hence also why they've been committed to DRM-free releases.) But at the end of the day, if you get that rich, to begin with, chances are that you care about getting even richer more than you care about anything else. And even if he doesn't, he serves at the pleasure of the shareholders (with him AFAIK still owning more stock than anyone else, but not most of it), the vast majority of which couldn't care less about games, are pathologically short-sighted, and have been spooked by recent developments. That they've apparently cancelled most if not all games that aren't close to being finished is going to bite them in their collective arses big time in a couple of years. That said, the last several years I'd been growing increasingly worried about their rapid expansion inevitably imploding, and then sighed in tentative relief when their acquisitions seemed to finally slow down, only for everything to fall apart when those gigantic financing deals fell through.

@@TheCharacterSheet Let's not forget that Asmodee under its previous venture capitalist owners was truly living up to its name, buying smaller companies left and right, only to scuttle them despite no crisis in the industry whatsoever, so that they could sell a "leaner" company for a higher price. Say what you will about Embracer's recent actions, but unlike the various little video game fish finding themselves getting sacrificed, Asmodee's subsidiaries still have it better now than before Embracer.

Saudis, amiryt? *runs*

Yeah, it would take a LOT to put D&D down for the count at this point!

Like Tycho of Penny Arcade said after the OGL fiasco: _Dungeons & Dragons isn't really a brand - it's a culture, which is a million times better than a brand._

@@mbg4681 That's a very good point. In the years to come, WoTC will produce The Brand, but the culture will be maintained by the player base, even if we have to abandon 5e (or the new edition coming this year), we can always fall back on older editions or produce our own stuff. WoTC could go under, D&D books may no longer be produced, but the player base will continue to play the game.

@@jules-pierremalartre7800 Hasbro must be worried that people will discover OSR, DCC, and PF2e, let alone the hundreds of non-D&D non-fantasy RPGs!

@@mbg4681 My personal theory at this point (after spending months reading about everything that's going on with D&D) is that WoTC doesn't really care about the existing player base. They set their eyes on the VIDEOGAME players base and hope to bring them over to D&D. That explains why WoTC representatives say things like they can't wait for "players like me to leave the game" - I think WoTC wants to attract a fresh crowd, and it makes sense given that both the CEO of Hasbro and the CEO of WoTC come from a videogaming background. I think their thinking is flawed because D&D is NOT a video game. They can force players to go to DnD Beyond and their VTT as much as they want, but it's not going to draw the crowds that videogame juggernauts like FF, Fortnite, etc. can attract. Baldur's Gate 3 is a good exemple of the success that D&D can have in the cRPG industry, but tabletop D&D is a different beast, and its target market is not the same as videogame players. WoTC, i feel, will learn this, at their cost.

Yeah, D&D is so digital heavy now that it should make it pretty flexible in terms of having to spinoff and all the relocations and other issues that come with it, but being saddled with a huge amount of existing debt could force them into some drastic decisions early

As with any company undergoing late stage capitalism, subscriptions seem to be their only hope to generate “yearly revenue + 5%”, but I have no faith in them leaving just that model be, not when short stocks and golden parachutes exist.

But that posits what made Star Wars fail at Wizards in the first place. The three years between Revised and Saga editions aren’t a healthy indicator. I’m still open to the possibility that Edge could go the 5E route, like they did with _Adventures in Rokugan,_ and make _Adventures in Rebellion._

@@commandercaptain4664 There is no supposition on my part about anything related to the WOTC editions of the Star Wars game, so I'm not sure where you think I am positing anything. If three years between Revised and Saga was not a healthy indicator for those editions then: four years without any new product, five years without a new sourcebook, and ten years without a new corebook aren't exactly signs of life.

“It’s a really nice system. Would be a shame if something was to happen to it…” - Embracer

Yeah, a lot of odd deals kinda of fell through for Embracer Group last year

“And because of those reasons, I’m out.” - vulture capitalism at its populist

board games are becoming a bigger hobby but its stil kinda niche. think d&d pre critical role

I suspect the current shareholders would get shares for the new company being spun off, otherwise they are just losing value with nothing to show for it. In WotC's case, the spun off company is much healthier than the rest of Hasbro.

Correct. Current Shareholders get shares spun off into the new company. We didn't wanna go into the full minutia of the deal.

@@j0nasbs No, not if they did it like the board game company. The company would be willing to trade an asset (WOTC) if they were able to unload some of their debt as well. Its the tradeoff, and I'm sure they have some sort of algorithm based on future earnings and interest rates etc that would show how much debt they would have to unload to be willing to let go of WOTC.

@@TheCharacterSheet Not necessarily. It would depend on how much capital the individuals could raise to spin themselves off and how much debt they were saddled with as a trade off. They could potentially be an entirely separate entity depending on how the details are ironed out.

@@averagegatsby The creditors would have to agree to have their debt with Hasbro be transfered to a much smaller, albeit better perfoming company. I doubt there's an amount of debt that would make the deal worth for shareholders and creditors alike.

Which is ironic considering the D&D movie tanking.

@@commandercaptain4664 Unfortunate time to release it had more to do with it. All things considered it did ok, more or less breaking even from what I understand and I for one thought it was a good effort and while not great, it was above average and miles better than its predecessor lol

Hasbro literally had to fight off investors doing EXACTLY this 2 years ago...and last year they DID spin off eOne, their entertainment company, in exactly this fashion...so not really a stretch at all to be completely honest.

not really. Asmodée is the biggest table top game indeed

@@nope7832 How? They sell board games, card games and roleplaying games. and their total profit is less than what magic the gathering alone brings. In fact the portfolio is prety much what Hasbro does, just at a quarter the size in each category. That puts them at 2nd biggest table top company at best.

@elana1463 But before the split and debt, they held the most licensees of any game conglomerate, making gains in small ways through each venture. Embracer just got greedy and tried to expand with shady clientele, and it snapped back in their face. Gathering Magic and Dragons’ Dungeon are the only properties keeping Hasbeen numero ichi. Would be a shame if something was to happen to them… (Pelor knows Hasbeen screwed the space pooch with Star Wars for a while)

@@commandercaptain4664 Number of licenses means absolutely nothing, I could generate you in a year ten times as many games that are unsellable garbage ;) Also if something happened to D&D it would be bareable noticeable. Trash like Monopoly Go makes in a quarter more money than D&D in two years(profit wise, not revenue)