While Hasbro profits are up, it is showing mostly in the Toy sales area, and in their game licenses for things such as Trivia Pursuit and Battleship. Also, great sales in Transformer and other action figure toys.

HOWEVER

Hasbro's report shows a large LOSS in the area of Wizards of the Coast. There's a section on it, discussing the re-organization of Wizards of the Coast, and possibly the cutting of a top licensed product that started losing money in October of 2008 (which is not named).

So, all 4e enthusiasts should probably be slightly prepared that something ugly may happen to D&D as it is now. Or - 3.x supporters be happy - possibly the OGL will be revised to disregard the forced move from 3.x to 4e to draw 3rd party support back to D&D.

Or it could be they are totally dropping Heroscape, although I'm not sure how that ties into anything happening in October. Maybe it's MtG related, I dunno. I do know that was a critical point for D&D, though.

The way they worded the section on Wizards of the Coast has been disappointing in terms of their new releases, including the new Star Wars SAGA and 4e D&D products. Which have both sold less copies than anticipated (or their previous incarnations), and 3rd party support has basically evaporated. Brian Goldner even seems to chime in that areas in Hasbro that are under-performing will be re-evaluated and dropped if necessary to preserve the Hasbro profit margin.

(I'd cut and paste the original text into this thread, but there's a disclaimer on the last page of the shareholder booklet saying that reproduction of report is not allowed, so I summarized)

Thanks for that McClaud. I would almost forsee D&D as a brand dying the phoenix's death for a number of years before it's rekindled.

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

I think it's an obscure way to warn all the fans of every IP that WotC holds that something's getting dumped soon. Or two or three somethings are getting dumped soon.

I know that we have several 4e fans, 3.x fans, Heroscape fans and the like, so I didn't know if anyone else was a stock holder in Hasbro who would warn the rest of the forum.

How big is the loss from WotC???

The reason I'm asking is because as discussed in enworld, Hasbro is still writing off some of the expenses that they took on to buy Wizards.

If I understood that thread correctly, this is about 23 million for last year.

So unless the loss is large, this is probably just an accounting issue.

Personally considering that Wizards just reorganized last month, I would be very surprised if any major changes happened again this soon.

Though October would be about the time to start expecting returns from the chain bookstores. I know that the local Borders was planning on returning two cases of each of the three core books.

At least locally 3.5 sold better (when new) in regards to actual, rather than anticipated, sales than 4e.

Mind you, I suspect that 4e sold better than the current sales of 3,5, but sales are only going to go down as time passes.

The Auld Grump

WOTC made the Faustusian deal.
Now the bill collector Himself has come to collect.

WOTC should have set themselves up like GW did; not that I have any great love for GW.
At least that way the only piper they would have had to dance to would have been a bank, not a major worldwide toy corporation interested in nothing at all but profits.
Did not anyone tell them that war is hell, but the toy market is the very core of the inferno?

Just had a chat with Scott Rouse, who submitted the revisions to the GSL and SRD in regards to 3.5 and 4e D&D. The Rouse is the man, really.

While he said nothing concrete, I do believe that the GSL is being eased to allow 3rd party vendors to make products in both the 3.x and 4e licenses. One example that leads me to believe this is the case is that the unrelenting Green Ronin Publishing is now moving quite happily into the 4e realm. They plan to rename their d20 3.x stuff into 3rd Era (since WotC is retiring the d20 logo and name).

I've also noticed a flicker of interest in companies like Atlas Games and Paizo, which have now mentioned to the playtesters and editors that there may be a forray into the 4e license.

If this is true, then I may relent a little and play 4e D&D the Boardgame* on weekends when my regular gaming group can't get together to play our old Pathfinder barbarians campaign.

And this may actually HELP D&D not die on their end (which is the first smart thing I've seen WotC do for D&D since they picked it up).

* Honestly, it's a lot like Warhammer Quest, and could probably benefit from doing things in that fashion - the ability to run the game DM-less and to be able to create one shot encounters for casual games for the evening that allow the RP Lite crowd who have taken a great liking to this game to enjoy the product even more as it is. Now, let's hope that WotC doesn't go a step further and just make the game play itself or unbalance it any further.

Actually the first smart thing WotC did for D&D was the OGL - it brought a lot of the older players back. The GSL, by comparison, was a kick below the belt.

At this point I doubt that I would pick up 4e, even if the gods themselves came to me from the island of the forever young to tell me that it was the best game they ever played.

What is really sad is that so much of my negative view is from WotC's own descriptions, and making out that older versions were bad wrong fun. Mearls in particular was downright insulting. (If I recall properly something along the lines of 'D&D is not a game where you talk to the fairies' - badmouthing roleplaying, and how combat was what RPGs were all about.) The fiasco with having to errata every single skill check in the game did not warm me to the game either.

The Auld Grump

Gump,

You actually might be pleasantly surprised by 4E. After the initial learning curve for battles, we have actually found that we do more role playing in 4E then we normally do in 3.x...

It's a small change, but the the introduction of the concept of the skill challenge has pushed my 4E group (which in 3.x was far more tactical heavy) to have much more interest in role playing...

IMHO 4E does do more to encourage role playing then 3.x out of the box ever did. 3.x didn't stop you from role playing, but the only mechanical reward in the system was if the DM gave you the nebulus "story rewards" that were so often ignored by new DMs.

With skill challenges, there is now a mechanical structure where you can hook your role playing into codified skill checks and the rewards (experience/treasure) system. Plus when building the challenge it forces the DM to sit down and give your role playing sections of the game at least as much planning/forethought as your combat encounters.

Believe me, I'm not saying the new version of the game does not have flaws... (every version of D&D has some serious flaws) but your concern is not one of them.

PS: as for the change in skills... We actually have intentionally dropped that errata.... They talked about why they did the change. As I read it: Their original concepts was that people who focused on a skill should be challenged by the DCs set. Lots of people complained because DMs ran bad skill challenges that didn't take into account that the some players wouldn't have any of the needed skills. So they shifted all the DCs to make it so that anyone who focused on the skill basically auto succeeded, and those untrained had a chance.
We found that it too all the "Challenge" out of the "Skill Challenge" and so we rolled back to the original DCs. You know what, they work just fine as long as the DM or players think in character and spend a bit of time focusing on skills rather then just customizing the characters to be straight combat machines....

Nope - I did look at it, and decided that it looked like about as much fun as the second bite out of a tarantula sandwich. I will stick with a skill system that actually works, thank you so very much.

And with the above mentioned quote from Mearls, I very much doubt that I would bother - add that to the GSL and WotC can go whistle. I have had every edition of the game since the 1975 beige box, but I am giving this one a pass. Had they not gone with the GSL I might have at least picked up the game, but they did, so I am not.

Between Pathfinder and the upcoming Fantasy Craft I am pretty much covered.

The Auld Grump

Wow i saw a lot of movement in this thread, so i poped in and darn it all it went form an interesting look at WotC/Hasbro's relationship, the possible ramifications of a loss and other things into Yet Another 4th debate..

As a stickler, I would just like to say this:

.

I'd like to place myself halfway here. I haven't played 4E yet, but I like what I've read so far, and I don' think any rule set in the world hinders actual role play with the right DM and/or players. Well, admittedly, when it gets bogged down in entirely unnecessary detail (old Aftermath comes to mind), it can be a hindrance, but 4E seems to be built to flow fairly well.

One thing that surprised me in the above is XP awards mid-game. Is that explicitly stated in 4E? Because that's something I would take right out. To me, XP comes at the end of the game session(s), not as a score during play.