this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)

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Baldur's Gate 3 has made bank for Hasbro, significantly contributing to a 40 percent increase in digital revenue for the company.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (25 children)

I didn't realise Hasbro were the publisher, now I feel a little dirty. Those bastards ruined Super Soaker.

[–] lzbz 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They didn't publish it, but they licensed the DnD brand to Larian

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Wait, Hasbro owns DnD? It feels weird to me that a company can own DnD rights.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) was originally incorporated by Gary Gygax in 1973. It went bankrupt and got bought out by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 1997. That purchase gave us D&D 3.0 and the original OGL, which was intended to encourage third-party publications of a game set WotC wasn't overly confident in. This, after a decade of aggressive litigation by TSR's VP Lorraine Williams who'd engineered Gygax's ouster from the firm.

Hasbro acquired WotC two years later, in 1999, but was generally apathetic towards its administration outside of it being another revenue source. So WotC ran more-or-less independently until 2020 when the CEO noted on an earnings call that WotC was something like 40% of the company's overall revenue. This triggered a sizable realignment of focus onto the various WotC brands (Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon card games being two other big players).

Now we're seeing a much more traditional corporate refocusing on the WotC product line (movies and cross-promotions), a return to aggressive litigation against competitors, and a sharp increase in the price of WotC products to justify the increased expenses.

[–] lzbz 5 points 1 year ago

That is a great attitude towards everything DnD stands for, don't lose it. Theres been a great deal of controversy this year, because the executives at wotc/hasbro believe that owning a popular brand like DnD means they're entitled to shitloads of money, so they're attempting to turn it into a cash cow, completely alienating the long standing community

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Technically, Wizard of the Coast owns D&D, but they are a subsidiary of Hasbro (and have been since like ‘99).

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