Seerow wrote:Voss wrote:infected slut princess wrote:
Sometime around 2006, the D&D team made a big presentation to the Hasbro senior management on how they could take D&D up to the $50 million level and potentially keep growing it. The core of that plan was a synergistic relationship between the tabletop game and what came to be known as DDI. At the time Hasbro didn't have the rights to do an MMO for D&D, so DDI was the next best thing. The Wizards team produced figures showing that there were millions of people playing D&D and that if they could move a moderate fraction of those people to DDI, they would achieve their revenue goals. Then DDI could be expanded over time and if/when Hasbro recovered the video gaming rights, it could be used as a platform to launch a true D&D MMO, which could take them over $100 million/year.
So the moral of the story is that D&D is worth jack shit, Hasbro remembered they absolutely fucked up the licensing rights for D&D computer games beyond all reason, and 4e was an abject failure that couldn't even breach the $50 mil mark.
Has any tabletop in history ever breached 50mil per year?
I really doubt it.
Eh, probably not. D&D probably had the best chance at it (of any TTRPG). But I was thinking of the argument from the passionate (and insane) 4e supporters who were translating hundreds of thousands of book sales into millions of books sold. And that was with two attempts at the 'movie thing' like Transformers, plus various license fees from the admittedly pathetic collection of current computer products (DDO and that horrible daggerfall thing), plus the novels, which probably account for a large chunk of what income they have. And in terms of sales (not profits), all that together should have added up to something. And keep in mind the Ryan quote was specifically annual
sales. Hundreds of thousands of books at $30+ a pop, plus the number of times they've reprinted shitty Salvatore novels (they get new covers and reprints almost once a year), plus all the other crap they do... if they did it right, it should have been a reachable goal.
What is more telling is someone has some serious bullshit abilities, when Hasbro corporate policy is essentially saying 'shelve this shit for a decade or two, and see if we can't polish this turd up for the 2025 market.' 4e really shouldn't have happened and 5e should have drawn a slap across the face for whoever was pitching it to the higher-ups.
Because, the thing is, Hasbro is a billion dollar company, and frankly at this point, D&D barely registers to them as a thing that exists- as far as they are concerned the only part of WotC that matters is Magic.
http://investor.hasbro.com/releasedetai ... eID=615309
From toys and games, to television programming, motion pictures, video games and a comprehensive licensing program, Hasbro strives to delight its customers through the strategic leveraging of well-known and beloved brands such as TRANSFORMERS, LITTLEST PET SHOP, NERF, PLAYSKOOL, MY LITTLE PONY, G.I. JOE, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY. The HUB, Hasbro's multi-platform joint venture with Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) launched on October 10, 2010.
The fucking shitty little website that replays MLP episodes matters more to Hasbro than D&D does.