D&D ruleset could be applied to more brands and IP, just like Magic
Hasbro is considering using the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset as the foundation for games that explore more brands and intellectual property, the company said Tuesday. CEO Chris Cocks said in a call with investors that Hasbro’s newly acquired digital toolset, D&D Beyond, could become the main hub for that kind of expansion.
When asked about the due diligence that Cocks and his team performed prior to the acquisition of D&D Beyond from Fandom, he transitioned quickly into discussing growth opportunities created by that purchase. One of them was the expansion of Universes Beyond.
“We have a number of international growth opportunities,” Cocks stated. Cocks said that there is a lot more exclusive content available. You know, we’ve talked a lot about Universes Beyond in Magic, which is this concept of thinking about Magic as a play system and bringing in outside brands or outside IP into that play system. We see potential for that with D&D as well, and we think D&D Beyond can be a primary hub for that.”
Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond was announced in 2021. It’s a series of partnerships with outside companies that puts their characters and their worlds onto Magic cards. The first batch of partners includes Games Workshop, which is working with Wizards to create a Warhammer 40,000-themed collection of Commander decks. Following that launch, a partnership with Middle-earth Enterprises (formerly Tolkien Enterprises), will put characters from The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy into play. A previously released collection of The Walking Dead-themed cards is also grandfathered into the program.
What would Universes Beyond look like when applied to Dungeons & Dragons? Well, it would probably look a lot like the other licensing partnerships that Wizards has already published for the 5th edition ruleset. They include a Stranger Things-themed starter set, a Rick & Morty-themed starter set, and the co-branded books featuring the cast and characters from Critical Role. The only difference here is that Hasbro sees D&D Beyond — a 100% digital platform — as the central hub for those kinds of products.
Cocks also invoked the Hasbro Pulse initiative, which has been a driving force in creating limited edition, high-end Star Wars and Transformers toys starting with Jabba’s Sail Barge from a few years back. It also played a roll in rebooting the HeroQuest franchise and the third edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill. You can easily see a Beadle & Grimm’s collector’s edition of a Universes Beyond D&D Campaign being offered for sale in this area. D&D Beyond would be the test bed to find the largest fanbase, while Hasbro Pulse would help to market and execute on the high-end offering.
“We see a lot of e-commerce and direct opportunities working in partnership with our Hasbro Pulse team to have physical-digital tie-ins that are unique to the [D&D Beyond] platform,” Cocks said. “It’s a fantastic learning opportunity for us and, to your point, very similar to what we’ve seen with [Magic: The Gathering] Arena, where we build this relationship with our customers. It’s a great incremental business opportunity and a fantastic learning platform for us to understand how people are playing our games, what do they want to purchase, and how can we make our products better. This has been an integral part of the segmentation process for Magic over the past couple years .”