DnDBeyond.com is one of the most prevalent digital toolsets for the ubiquitous tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, and was owned by fandom until just a few days ago. A recent Business Wire press release has confirmed that Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast, owner of Dungeons & Dragons, is in the final days of talks to acquire DnDBeyond.
The press release states that the “strategic acquisition … will further strengthen Hasbro’s capabilities in the fast-growing digital tabletop category while adding seasoned talent to the Wizards of the Coast team.” The site has around 10 million users and was bought for almost $150 million in cash. This purchase was spurred by the fact that “over the past three years, the royalties paid to Hasbro by D&D Beyond have contributed significantly to the development of the game.” [their] fastest growing revenue stream.”
It’s no surprise that the pandemic has made DnDBeyond one of the most valuable unowned pieces of the Wizards of the Coast digital bundle. release states that by 2021, 80% of D&D fans will have played the game virtually. This number is likely to increase as virtual tabletop or VTT services become more accessible and user-friendly.
On the one hand, I can see that acquiring DnDBeyond could be a good thing for players – Fandom had to pay Wizards of the Coast a lot of money to get their product on their website. If WotC fully owns DnDBeyond, they may offer some sort of cross-ability with digital products across multiple sites, toolkits, and VTTs, making gameplay capital barriers less nagging.
But also the uniform bundling of digital tools under the banner of a single company is not good for competition and therefore results in the player having fewer gaming opportunities. Although WotC was able to indirectly price their products on the fandom’s own DnDBeyond, it’s now even more obvious where the money is going. If fans are still having to pay double or triple for a module, class or item description for both WotC products and DnDBeyond, a sustainable market is unlikely to emerge.
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