"Hasbro may sell D&D IP to Chinese Tencent Co." Topic

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Not good news. Hasbro/WotC's tenure over D&D has had its problems, but at least they wound up being responsive to fans of the game, and they still sell the original TSR lines in PDF and POD via DrivethruRPG.com. I would not expect a Chinese-owned holding company to continue that practice. Further, I would expect them to even more aggressively act against third party publishers like Paizo and Troll Lords, etc..

I think this could also have ripple effects outside of simply D&D and RPGs.

Anybody know a gamer type with a spare billion? D&D may be in need of a white knight.

They'd be fools to do so. Hasbro is essentially now a hugely profitable games company that also makes lots of marginally profitable toys.

The gaming division (which also includes Magic: The Gathering) far out performs the toy division in profitability terms, even though their toy revenue is several times higher than the games division. The reason is that games division is around 45-50% margin, whereas the toys is something like 4-5% margin (the accounts are online – you can easily check my figures).

Granted, most of the gaming revenue is due to MTG, but even selling the D&D IP as a cash grab is selling a highly profitable division to shore up the toy division that is struggling due to market volatility.

I'm also told it's just the video game rights as well.

Well, if the Chinese edition rulebooks are written like the instruction sheets in MiC products, it will be the final edition of D&D… ;-)

To be fair, some instruction sheets are easier to understand…

Hasbro drove it into the ground, pushed the video game aspect, and from what I am hearing this was pretty much what they wanted all along. So if DnD the ttrpg goes "poof" so be it. If they can print it cheap enough they may keep it just for easy money but doubtful a full blown thing with new editions and lots of other goodies.

I always thought Strength, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Charisma was pretty much public domain by now.

What a choice. Lefty scumbags or communists owning DnD.

It will now be called Xi and Xi

Good one, farnox!

My concern is the threat of "takedown" legal actions against third party publishers and other internet/social media efforts. We already saw Hasbro attempt this; it blew up in their faces, but Hasbro is an American company and at least has some concern about its customers attitudes (plus they lost a lot of money due to cancelled online subscriptions). A CCP-controlled holding company would have no such concerns. Remember, the CCP's primary objective is never profit— it is control.