I wondered if we could use the report to figure out D&D revenues because later in the report it breaks things down by segment. It calls out Magic by itself and Tabletop Gaming as a whole. It's just simple subtraction, right? This is 4Q 2023.
Page 32 - Magic the Gathering = 258.3
Page 33 - Tabletop Gaming = 265.6
So Tabletop (265.6) minus Magic (258.3) = D&D at 7.3 million dollars for 4Q 2023?
I'd need a link to the report, but I'd suspect that Magic and TTRPGs are considered separate items and so it's far more likely to be...
MtG $258.3 million + TTRPG $265.8 million = $524.1 million combined sales.
Remember, this would be the quarter when all the BG3 video game royalties came in (reportedly $90 million for WotC based on other reports) so the idea that D&D only made $7 million when it had a $90 million windfall is extremely unlikely.
That would put TTRPGS at $175.8 million without the BG3 royalties... and a chunk of that is D&DBeyond subscriptions (no hard numbers, but if 10% of its users were subscribers that's $40-60 million annually before content purchases).
You're now sitting at a bit over $100 million with books at $35 each at Walmart and you're looking at maybe 3 million units sold (most of which are probably PHBs for new players, replacements for lost/destroyed ones or a few looking at the 2024 release and wanting some backups in hard copy form).
Here's a screenshot of the financial report (not the powerpoint). All of WotC's tabletop gaming combined was $265.6 million. So the OP's initial math is correct and D&D as a brand pulls in $7.3 last quarter or about $28-$30 million a year. For a long time people have speculated what percentage of WotC's tabletop game revenue is D&D and now it looks like it is just 3%. No wonder Hasbro doesn't care.
And it's crazy to think that one D&D video game makes more money for Hasbro than tabletop D&D does in three to four years combined. And every cent of the Baldur's Gate money is profit whereas most of the revenue from tabletop D&D is countered by the cost to write and print the books.
https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2023-financial
(https://i.imgur.com/ueWTqF6.jpeg)
Does D&DBeyond have about 2 million users? That, at least, is suggested by the following video, which also shows how far BG3 surpasses D&DBeyond. It remains to be seen how many of these users, most of whom aren't subscribers, will be willing to pay for WotC's upcoming VTT.
Late last year, Teos Abadía (of Alphastream) had a post studying some other stats about D&D, notably BookScan data, and a Forbes estimate that D&D earned $100 to $150 million in 2022. That seemed high based on the book data, but the international market was a big unknown.
https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/10/13/estimating-dds-revenue/
The book sales will have dropped a lot with the announcement of the next edition. It's a given that at the tail end of an old edition, sales will be low. The huge question is what fraction of current players will adopt the new edition. Even relatively unsuccessful editions like 2nd and 4th are a huge windfall, but the big question is what effect it will have on the brand.
Quote from: jhkim on February 15, 2024, 12:58:02 PM
Late last year, Teos Abadía (of Alphastream) had a post studying some other stats about D&D, notably BookScan data, and a Forbes estimate that D&D earned $100 to $150 million in 2022. That seemed high based on the book data, but the international market was a big unknown.
The problem is the way Hasbro reports their revenue. They sometimes combine D&D tabletop with MTG tabletop to get WotC's revenue. Other times, they break out the revenue by "Brand Portfolio" which includes all licensed products including t-shirts, board games and video games. So it is a huge problem to assume that revenue from D&D as a brand (which is what Forbes is talking about) comes entirely from sales of tabletop gaming books.
In the final paragraph of the linked report from alphastream, they say, "The above estimate that D&D's revenue for all of 5E is $510-693M or $28-38M annually." Those annual number match almost exactly to the per year estimate we get from looking at the recent quarterly report.
But, if Forbes is right in that D&D earns $100 million per year as a brand but only $30 million a year as a tabletop game, you can see just how unimportant the RPG portion of D&D actually is. This is something I've been saying for a long time.
That's very surprising to me if true without any hidden caveats unknown to us... especially so once you consider that they are far and away the big dog in the industry at the peak of their popularity since the 1980s and practically the only ones with mainstream recognition as a game (as opposed to an already mainstream title from another industry like LOTR licensing out a game). They've got a long way to go then to get to their vaunted "billion dollar brand" goal they stated a while back.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on February 15, 2024, 11:53:43 AM
Here's a screenshot of the financial report (not the powerpoint). All of WotC's tabletop gaming combined was $265.6 million. So the OP's initial math is correct and D&D as a brand pulls in $7.3 last quarter or about $28-$30 million a year. For a long time people have speculated what percentage of WotC's tabletop game revenue is D&D and now it looks like it is just 3%. No wonder Hasbro doesn't care.
And it's crazy to think that one D&D video game makes more money for Hasbro than tabletop D&D does in three to four years combined. And every cent of the Baldur's Gate money is profit whereas most of the revenue from tabletop D&D is countered by the cost to write and print the books.
https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2023-financial
(https://i.imgur.com/ueWTqF6.jpeg)
Thanks for the link/data.
I stand corrected; they put the digital revenue into its own category and the MtG number and TTRPG number were from two separate tables.
So, not only is the $7.3 million for D&D tabletop correct, we know from other sources that the BG3 royalties account for $90m of the $97.6m in sales. Given the prior year was $72.3m; that suggests also a MASSIVE falloff in the digital revenue from other sources as well (i.e. cancellations of D&DBeyond over the OGL disaster last year probably hit them MUCH harder than they've admitted... explaining their complete cave on that initiative with the 5e SRD now under Creative Commons).
ETA: to explain my initial thoughts; $7.3 million seemed impossibly low given the $90 million in royalties and an assumption that the OGL debacle might have shaved 10% off D&DBeyond's estimated $60+ million per year in subscriptions and purchases which together would be $150+ million for the year... with the assumption that all of that was lumped under "TTRPG revenue" showing roughly $100 million in revenue from the rest of the line.
With the actual data now in hand this instead paints a devastating picture where D&DBeyond lost 90% of its subscribers and book sales collapsed down to modern comic book circulation numbers.
No wonder they laid practically everyone off, won't even get a new MM out until next year, and made a VTT distribution deal with Foundry (something they have zero reason to do if they their "walled garden" was going to work). This is pushing into the "put out a single commemorative product every five years to keep the trademark fresh" territory if it isn't there already.
As a follow-up to the initial post take a look at what happens if you do the same thing with the full year numbers on the next few pages of the report:
Page 35 - Full Year 2023 - Magic the Gathering = 1085.8
Page 36 - Full Year 2023 - Tabletop Gaming = 1072.5
So if we subtract Magic (1085.8 ) from Tabletop Gaming as a whole (1072.5) we should get D&D's net revenue for the year = negative 13.3 million dollars!
Negative? Yes. Please check my math. See if I'm reading the report correctly.
It looks to me like D&D (the tabletop game) LOST $13.3 million in 2023.
Quote from: Bones McCoy on February 15, 2024, 11:35:36 PM
As a follow-up to the initial post take a look at what happens if you do the same thing with the full year numbers on the next few pages of the report:
Page 35 - Full Year 2023 - Magic the Gathering = 1085.8
Page 36 - Full Year 2023 - Tabletop Gaming = 1072.5
This is what I was talking about. Hasbro releases these numbers in a way that it is impossible to decipher what's happening. The number for Magic The Gathering is the revenue by brand, so it includes MTG: The Arena. The number for Tabletop gaming is just the physical products and doesn't include MTG: The Arena nor does it include D&D Beyond (see the note at the bottom of page 18).
This means that my calculations were incorrect.
The best we can do is compare the total for WotC total for 2023 which is $1,457.6 and subtract the total for MTG which was $1,085.8 which leaves $371.8 but this includes all products for WotC that aren't MTG, so things like Baldur's Gate, D&D Beyond, and all the various D&D boardgames on top of whatever the tabletop RPG number actually is.
In addition, we don't know if the brand revenue for MTG includes items that aren't considered revenue for WotC such as t-shirts or action figures.
Latest earnings call:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hasbro-q1-2024-earnings-call-164518554.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZW53b3JsZC5vcmcv&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHAQVO30snNQCJm4GSToRptm2zCiWDl5PtdcExukSViXZsez77nAC9_qFOxXXXoNlJ-C1g3LkpG1OqKaQ_-_O9kHHV6teOWfjsKyb9SuqT2xg5-VsuviwkSCQGvecU1n_XYQwT27-p0TqlLcxRrXQRS6z8KHRbZFnPvZM7lNi5xU
The Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment's revenues totaled $316.3 million, up 8.2% from $339 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted operating margin was 38.8% compared with 26% in the year-ago quarter.
Hasbro's overall revenues: -24%
Digital and licensed game sales: +14%
Overall tabletop gaming: +5%
Magic the Gathering: +4%
Further:
(https://i.ibb.co/bBWyt1h/1713978994871-png.png)
In the presentation it states that D&D franchise sales (so tabletop+digital+licensing) was up 3% from Q1 of last year. That isn't much data to go on as we don't know if that money is from game sales or Baldur's Gate.
Speaking of, D&D was mentioned briefly in the remarks by Kern Kapoor, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations.
While the success of Baldur's Gate 3 is in a league of its own, we see a long-term opportunity to
leverage the richness of D&D across more games – in Q1 we signed new licensing agreements
with Resolution Games, best known for the VR game Demeo, as well as Gameloft, makers of
Disney Dreamlight Valley, both to build within the D&D universe.
And to celebrate D&D's 50th anniversary we executed new partnerships with Lego, Converse,
and Blackmilk apparel. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Red Dragon's Tale is a 3,700 piece fan favorite
that combines the building fun of Lego and the rich world building of D&D. I can't wait to build my
own.There is no mention in any of the reports of 6e or the re-release of 5e and the only mention of the 50th anniversary is in reference to licensed clothes and a Lego set.
As far as the new video game licenses, "Disney Dreamlight Valley" is shovelware crap, but Demeo is 90% VR D&D session already. So that seems like a good fit. Here's some gameplay I found (skip the first couple minutes):
Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 25, 2024, 10:12:14 AMIn the presentation it states that D&D franchise sales (so tabletop+digital+licensing) was up 3% from Q1 of last year. That isn't much data to go on as we don't know if that money is from game sales or Baldur's Gate.
Speaking of, D&D was mentioned briefly in the remarks by Kern Kapoor, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations.
While the success of Baldur's Gate 3 is in a league of its own, we see a long-term opportunity to
leverage the richness of D&D across more games – in Q1 we signed new licensing agreements
with Resolution Games, best known for the VR game Demeo, as well as Gameloft, makers of
Disney Dreamlight Valley, both to build within the D&D universe.
And to celebrate D&D's 50th anniversary we executed new partnerships with Lego, Converse,
and Blackmilk apparel. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Red Dragon's Tale is a 3,700 piece fan favorite
that combines the building fun of Lego and the rich world building of D&D. I can't wait to build my
own.
There is no mention in any of the reports of 6e or the re-release of 5e and the only mention of the 50th anniversary is in reference to licensed clothes and a Lego set.
As far as the new video game licenses, "Disney Dreamlight Valley" is shovelware crap, but Demeo is 90% VR D&D session already. So that seems like a good fit. Here's some gameplay I found (skip the first couple minutes):
The jerking on the camera makes me want to vomit. Fucking kill that shit with a fire.
Has tabletop gaming as a whole declined? How many gamers are there and what are they playing?
Between RPGs, board games, and war games, there's a lot of players. There's a messing thing going on right now where the blue hairs are trying to turn game stores into lefty coffee clubs but home games are on the rise. People want the game and the social contact through the game, they just don't want the sanctimony.
Take a look at what is going on with Battletech with their community rep and the player base. In short, the player base has had it with Catalyst Game Labs and have started to boycott buying new BT stuff. Instead, BT piracy us way up, EBay is selling old BT stuff all the time, and home brew mechs are all the rage in many BT local meet-ups.
This is a thing that's happening all over. Many games are selling well and many people are in great games but the big publishers are shitting on their customers. Of course they are seeing dips in revenue. OTOH, look on Drivethru and look ate what is hot.
Even 5e is doing well, just not WOTC. The amount of third party stuff that's selling is staggering.
Quote from: Mistwell on April 25, 2024, 09:58:15 AMLatest earnings call:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hasbro-q1-2024-earnings-call-164518554.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZW53b3JsZC5vcmcv&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHAQVO30snNQCJm4GSToRptm2zCiWDl5PtdcExukSViXZsez77nAC9_qFOxXXXoNlJ-C1g3LkpG1OqKaQ_-_O9kHHV6teOWfjsKyb9SuqT2xg5-VsuviwkSCQGvecU1n_XYQwT27-p0TqlLcxRrXQRS6z8KHRbZFnPvZM7lNi5xU
The Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment's revenues totaled $316.3 million, up 8.2% from $339 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted operating margin was 38.8% compared with 26% in the year-ago quarter.
Hasbro's overall revenues: -24%
Digital and licensed game sales: +14%
Overall tabletop gaming: +5%
Magic the Gathering: +4%
Wait a minute...
$316.3 million < $339 million
So how can they be "up 8.2% from the year-ago quarter"?
Books ARE expensive, WotC wants to switch to digital only, and as Professor Dungeon Master says, I would be greatly surprized if they don't make a phone game you can play casually on the subway.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 25, 2024, 02:41:19 PM$316.3 million < $339 million
So how can they be "up 8.2% from the year-ago quarter"?
I don't know what the OP was posting, but according to the quarterly report I got directly from Hasbro.com, Q1 2023 revenue for Wizards of the Coast + Digital Gaming was $295.2 million
Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 25, 2024, 02:41:19 PMQuote from: Mistwell on April 25, 2024, 09:58:15 AMLatest earnings call:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hasbro-q1-2024-earnings-call-164518554.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZW53b3JsZC5vcmcv&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHAQVO30snNQCJm4GSToRptm2zCiWDl5PtdcExukSViXZsez77nAC9_qFOxXXXoNlJ-C1g3LkpG1OqKaQ_-_O9kHHV6teOWfjsKyb9SuqT2xg5-VsuviwkSCQGvecU1n_XYQwT27-p0TqlLcxRrXQRS6z8KHRbZFnPvZM7lNi5xU
The Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming segment's revenues totaled $316.3 million, up 8.2% from $339 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted operating margin was 38.8% compared with 26% in the year-ago quarter.
Hasbro's overall revenues: -24%
Digital and licensed game sales: +14%
Overall tabletop gaming: +5%
Magic the Gathering: +4%
Wait a minute...
$316.3 million < $339 million
So how can they be "up 8.2% from the year-ago quarter"?
LOL good point. No idea. Looks like Orwellian double speak but I am just pasting someone else's summary so maybe there is a logical explanation like a typo.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 25, 2024, 02:45:05 PMBooks ARE expensive, WotC wants to switch to digital only, and as Professor Dungeon Master says, I would be greatly surprized if they don't make a phone game you can play casually on the subway.
WOTC does not want to switch to digital only and anyone claiming they heard that from WOTC is lying. People keep guessing they want that, but the actual people in charge there keep saying that's not the intention at all and follow that up with more hardcopy books.
As for a phone game you can play casually, I highly recommend Marvel Snap. Seriously, really very good game and highly addicting. And free - no idea why anyone pays them for additional in-game stuff as almost all of it is meaningless and no advantage.
Quote from: BadApple on April 25, 2024, 02:28:20 PMTake a look at what is going on with Battletech with their community rep and the player base. In short, the player base has had it with Catalyst Game Labs and have started to boycott buying new BT stuff.
Catalyst (the heirs to FASA) gets what it deserves in my opinion. Their sanctimonious attitude and their empowering those fuckers at Piranha to backdoor steal the
Macross designs again has been detrimental to
Robotech's brand for almost 40 years now, so fuck them.
Quote from: Mistwell on April 25, 2024, 06:15:17 PMAs for a phone game you can play casually, I highly recommend Marvel Snap. Seriously, really very good game and highly addicting. And free - no idea why anyone pays them for additional in-game stuff as almost all of it is meaningless and no advantage.
That's a whole nother topic, but basically there's a tiny number of people who, for various reasons, spend a huge amount on microtransactions. They essentially pay for the game while everyone else plays for free.
This has been described as predatory on people with behavioral issues. Somewhat like targeting people with gambling addiction with ads for online casinos.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on February 15, 2024, 11:53:43 AMAnd it's crazy to think that one D&D video game makes more money for Hasbro than tabletop D&D does in three to four years combined. And every cent of the Baldur's Gate money is profit whereas most of the revenue from tabletop D&D is countered by the cost to write and print the books.
But Baldur's Gate would not exist without the TTRPG.
My concern, and I think many people share this concern, is that they can miss TTRPGs as a small business in itself that can generate huge sales in spin offs. But the TTRPG has to exist and thrive to be generating those spin offs.
Corporate doinks can and do kill off golden geese trying to maximize profits, not understanding why things are profitable. And D&D could easily be a casualty of that kind of narrow thinking.
Has anyone made an alternative to BattleTech? I don't imagine that it's sustainable to not buy from the publisher anymore.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 25, 2024, 07:32:00 PMHas anyone made an alternative to BattleTech? I don't imagine that it's sustainable to not buy from the publisher anymore.
Are you talking rules sets or minis?
There are a LOT of TTWG rules sets that could make for a solid drop in for BT rules. Some could even be argued as being much better. With the advent of 3d printers, I think it's only a matter of time before This becomes the go to option.
As far as minis, there are several producers. There's even a company that still makes some of the old metal BT minis.
The only full package replacement for BT that I'm currently aware of is CAV by Talon Games. It's not as fleshed out as BT but it's a full one-stop shop for a mecha war game.
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on April 25, 2024, 06:39:27 PMQuote from: BadApple on April 25, 2024, 02:28:20 PMTake a look at what is going on with Battletech with their community rep and the player base. In short, the player base has had it with Catalyst Game Labs and have started to boycott buying new BT stuff.
Catalyst (the heirs to FASA) gets what it deserves in my opinion. Their sanctimonious attitude and their empowering those fuckers are Piranha to backdoor steal the Macross designs again has been detrimental to Robotech's brand for almost 40 years now, so fuck them.
I agree with you.
Catalyst has been so poor and lazy in making product for so many years that this is way overdue. >:(
Quote from: BadApple on April 25, 2024, 10:59:04 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 25, 2024, 07:32:00 PMHas anyone made an alternative to BattleTech? I don't imagine that it's sustainable to not buy from the publisher anymore.
Are you talking rules sets or minis?
There are a LOT of TTWG rules sets that could make for a solid drop in for BT rules. Some could even be argued as being much better. With the advent of 3d printers, I think it's only a matter of time before This becomes the go to option.
As far as minis, there are several producers. There's even a company that still makes some of the old metal BT minis.
The only full package replacement for BT that I'm currently aware of is CAV by Talon Games. It's not as fleshed out as BT but it's a full one-stop shop for a mecha war game.
And what about multimedia? Books, video games, cartoons?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 26, 2024, 07:13:46 AMQuote from: BadApple on April 25, 2024, 10:59:04 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 25, 2024, 07:32:00 PMHas anyone made an alternative to BattleTech? I don't imagine that it's sustainable to not buy from the publisher anymore.
Are you talking rules sets or minis?
There are a LOT of TTWG rules sets that could make for a solid drop in for BT rules. Some could even be argued as being much better. With the advent of 3d printers, I think it's only a matter of time before This becomes the go to option.
As far as minis, there are several producers. There's even a company that still makes some of the old metal BT minis.
The only full package replacement for BT that I'm currently aware of is CAV by Talon Games. It's not as fleshed out as BT but it's a full one-stop shop for a mecha war game.
And what about multimedia? Books, video games, cartoons?
You mean like 400 bazillion anime, manga series, and light novels?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 26, 2024, 07:13:46 AMQuote from: BadApple on April 25, 2024, 10:59:04 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 25, 2024, 07:32:00 PMHas anyone made an alternative to BattleTech? I don't imagine that it's sustainable to not buy from the publisher anymore.
Are you talking rules sets or minis?
There are a LOT of TTWG rules sets that could make for a solid drop in for BT rules. Some could even be argued as being much better. With the advent of 3d printers, I think it's only a matter of time before This becomes the go to option.
As far as minis, there are several producers. There's even a company that still makes some of the old metal BT minis.
The only full package replacement for BT that I'm currently aware of is CAV by Talon Games. It's not as fleshed out as BT but it's a full one-stop shop for a mecha war game.
And what about multimedia? Books, video games, cartoons?
Battletech's videogame rights are owned by Microsoft (by way of Activision), their written fiction outside of the old Stackpole stuff is pretty mid (when in doubt they all fall back to genocide and all the factions are guilty of something basically irredeemable by this point), there hasn't been a cartoon since the 90's.
Arguably, a generic mecha game has much better support to extent it makes it easy for fans to create the mecha from their favorite anime series. Then they have basically all the related anime and manga and model kits (plus 3d printing; which is what a LOT of the BT players do now).
In general though, the actual BT fans have done a pretty thorough review and the differences between the rules c. 1990-ish (when the Clans got introduced) and today is about 4% and most of those are clarifications or cleanups (ex. originally an Anti-Missile system consumed 1d6 ammo to shoot down a variable amount of missiles... to speed play up they just reduced the number of shots it had and how much effect it had to the average result).
The core rules for Mechs have been very consistent since the first edition, so there's more than enough floating around to just play Battletech. They've never been like Warhammer with its WYSIWYG requirement for minis... as long as you can tell facing, you can use it as a mini.
The only place that has wildly changed over the years has been their associated RPGs (i.e. Mechwarrior, except it's 4th Edition which was instead "A Time of War"). The only compatibility between those would be that all except the most recent* default to the Battletech rules once you hop in your vehicles (which is invariably lethal or puts the PCs into an irreversible fail state).
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the Battletech fanbase already exists DESPITE the official material and support more than because of it. The latest row with Catalyst (which has as much to do with the limits the actual rights holder Topps has placed on them as their own issues) doesn't really matter because anyone with a passion for the game doesn't rely on them for anything important to actually playing the game.
* Mechwarrior Destiny, the most recent edition, finally broke that mold and geared it's Mech combat rules for playing the equivalent to one of the novel protagonists instead of a random pilot, with a corresponding increase in pilot and personal mech survival.