https://youtu.be/6WR5GeEkiU8?si=vk8gsXOCGSDM-EUG Hmmm. Don’t want to speculate too much here. First I’ve heard of it. Not sure how to take it as I would agree the “new” edition has to be at the printer. Why sell when this close to publishing? Some of the comments are saying it’s for the video game rights only, as the original article was in Chinese. I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to keep an eye on this.
Strange how they’d sell the one product making them money and keep the ones that don’t. Must be some kind of corporate math thing before they go under.
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According to what I read a little while ago, and paraphrasing based on what I remember, they “talk a lot with Tencent” about various things and “are not looking to sell the brand.” Just an interesting bit of news based on the past year or so of WotC’s life. First DnD is under-monetized, then the OGL debacle, then the retraction, then the quiet, and now this. Tough to say what, if anything, is really going on in WotC Land. Them potentially wanting to dump off the printed end of things would make sense to me since they want to go digital with the game and the VTT they’ve been developing. They responded rather quickly to the rumors of the sale, unlike their silence on the OGL release. Time will tell.
‘We are not looking to sell our D&D IP’
To me this appears to be a case of unsourced & unverified circular reporting. Stephen Glicker of Roll for Combat / BattleZoo decided to post a speculative, clickbatey video on Youtube last Wednesday January 31 apparently only based on 'I have spoken with “topo D&D people” hundreds of times over the years’ [sic], ‘I have worked with Tencent in the past’, and ‘I know this industry pretty well’.
Later that same day Pandaily a Beijing-based tech news website posts a news story titled, ‘Hasbro seeks to sell IP “DND” and has had preliminary contact with Tencent’ seemingly based solely on the aforementioned Roll for Combat Youtube video.
The Internet being what it is this results in a bunch of other news stories, videos, blog posts, etc… about “Hasbro selling D&D IP to Tencent” none of which attempt to verify this supposition with Hasbro and Tencent.
Later Glicker himself admits, that his Youtube video was the potential source for the Pandaily news story.
‘However, there appears to be some ambiguity to what exactly Tencent is seeking, given the report’s focus on video game rights. Tencent’s typical course of business is to purchase ownership in a game studio as opposed to purchasing IPs outright. A purchase of the Dungeons & Dragons IP would be a first for Tencent, although the company has come under scrutiny from the Chinese government and saw its valuation plummet after a Chinese crackdown on online gaming. We’ll also note that the report is almost a point for point re-telling of a Roll for Combat video posted earlier this month, which also adds some suspicion to the report.’
Tencent Reportedly Seeking to Purchase Dungeons & Dragons Video Game Rights From Hasbro
Hasbro selling D&D IP? @ ENWorld
No, Hasbro Is Not Selling D&D @ ENWorld
Remember to keep in mind that a disproportionate amount of Youtubers, bloggers, supposed news websites, etc… are attempting to drive up ad revenue via increased clicks to the point that they rarely bother to attempt to verify the “news” that they post.
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Professor Dungeon Master (OP Video I posted) posted a second video (the update) after I posted an update stating that he may have gotten it wrong. Though with the nonsensical BS that’s gone on the past year with Hasbro/WotC, it wouldn’t surprise me if they dumped D&D (or most of it) on someone else.
I’m to the point of not my circus not my monkeys. They made it plain years ago that I was no longer welcome in their shiny world. I do my own thing.
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There is precedence. As you probably recall, the D&D movie did fairly well at the Box Office and within a few short months Hasbro sold off the subsidiary. If this is WotC being stripped down to its core, a gaming materials publishing company, then this move makes some sense. They may find themselves in a similar situation as Marvel Comics/Studios did with Sony, however, if they ever try to utilize their IPs once more down the road.
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