Hobby Is ‘Under Monetized’ Compared To Video Games

Image: Wizards of the Coast/Kotaku

Dungeons & Dragons is so synonymous with his hobby that, like many people who play TTRPGs other than D&D, I often refer to these games as “D&D” for short. But apparently that kind of name recognition and dominance in the field isn’t enough for publisher Wizards of the Coast. Based on comments made during an investor call with the CEOs of Wizards of the Coast and its owner, Hasbro, the companies want to find ways to increase monetization strategies related to the “world’s greatest role-playing game. “, similar to the one we all know. and love in video games: microtransactions and subscriptions.

As reported by Dicebreaker, Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro, and Cynthia Williams, CEO of Wizards of the Coast, are looking to grow the future of Dungeons & Dragons through “the kind of recurring spending you see in digital games.” Highlighting the fact that Dungeon Masters (or “game masters,” the players who “run” the game and control all non-player characters and monsters) spend the most on the hobby through rulebooks and services digital, Williams lamented that gamers (those who only play individual characters) simply aren’t spending enough to play in the company’s fantasy world. She described the current state of D&D as “under-monetized”.

Many who are familiar with the hobby might find these comments somewhat odd. As the most popular tabletop role-playing game in the world, Dungeons & Dragons offers a variety of ways for players and game masters to purchase official hardware and spend money on the game, which from l self-confession of Williams, “has never been more popular”.

It’s true that buying the core rulebooks costs around $100 and can provide you with a lifetime of material to play with, if you wanted to save some money and use your imagination as some kind of monster. A hundred dollars ain’t nothing, but it’s barely the amount that, say, a long-time gamer is likely to spend on new video games in a year, and many video game players spend much more than that just about microtransactions in their favorite titles. However, some might say that this ability to spend around $60-100 and then let your imagination guide you the rest of the way is the appeal of the hobby. It’s accessible, affordable, and has a personal, “unplugged” feel. But again, this doesn’t match the kinds of spending patterns we see in “digital games”.

So from one angle, it’s perhaps easy to see why the executives of WOTC and Hasbro might lament that someone could just buy a few books, get some dice, and spend the rest of their life happily gambling without spending a penny more. There are also plenty of great supplemental sourcebooks that, for $30-$60, offer new options for character creation, new magical items and abilities, and more. There is also a digital service called D&D Beyond, which offers online access to various rules tools and reference materials, all available at different levels of free and paid options, including microtransactions for individual classes, magic items , monsters, spells and more.

In that sense, “digital game” style spending patterns are already here, and Dungeons & Dragons has reached a new level of pop culture awareness in recent years thanks to TV shows like Stranger Things and the streaming phenomenon. what is Critical Role. get into D&D like never before, and there’s no shortage of DMs happy to put together a game for new players who aren’t sure of the time or financial commitment. Sometimes the magic of D&D is realizing how much fun you can have just sitting around a table with friends, or on a Zoom call, telling a story and rolling dice. Sometimes it’s not even so much about the game as hanging out with fun and entertaining people. Wizards, it seems, want people to pay more for the experience, and more often too.

These comments come as D&D is currently undergoing a transition from its wildly popular fifth edition ruleset released eight years ago to its upcoming revised ruleset with the so-called One D&D. This new frontier promises a whole new digital play space and tighter integration with D&D Beyond’s suite of online tools. What we have seen of new digital tools it really looks like a video game, and it’s depressing to think that at the heart of the pastime’s next-gen development are the c-sequel’s dreams of a pay-per-view extravaganza. And when you look at D&D Beyond, it feels like the financial infrastructure is already in place to make that happen, though some of WOTC’s plans to capitalize on that infrastructure may not have been revealed yet.

Next time you start working on homebrew rules and stories, won’t you think about the poor CEOs who lose sleep because you don’t pay enough to do it? And don’t you dare consider playing another game like Pathfinder or 13th Age.