this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Honestly? This doesn't necessarily sound like a bad thing. Hasbro has been fucking up DND left and right because they simply don't understand it. At the same time, it's a valuable IP with quite a bit of potential in the right hands, and they haven't killed is through mismanagement yet or even close to. If they sell it for a fair value to someone who won't fuck it up, and use that money to specialize in some things they know what to do with, then it could be win-win for the business guys and for the players.
(Of course the question of what they could specialize in that they do know how to make money with is a whole different elephant in the room.)
(Edit: And yes, the chance that Tencent will find a way to ruin it in the name of microtransactions income, and just do a more competent job with that than Hasbro has, is a pretty good one.)
Yes because a Chinese multinational corporation is going to any better...
Micro transactions, battle pass, dlc
The Terrible Three
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Not every big conglomerate is just a relentless fuckup machine. Baldur's Gate 3 was made by (edit: ~~a Tencent subsidiary~~) a studio partly owned by Tencent. I'm not saying they won't fuck it up, just that there's no reason to assume out of the gate that they automatically will. And, it's legitimately a little hard to see them doing worse than Hasbro has been so far.
Tencent has a minority stake in Larian. That's very different from being wholly owned and managed by them.
And Tencent has a minority stake in, like, every functioning software company that's ever done an investment funding around at this point. They make it a point to diversify their holdings across basically the entire software industry at this point.
They're fairly hands-off in those endeavours, since they're doing it to protect themselves against shifts in the market.
Their in-house made stuff, though, is... Well, let's just say it's efficiently monetized.
Do you have any examples?
I mean, just a quick glance at this list shows some things that seem at least competently managed. They're not a relentless crew of counterproductive own-dick-trippers-over like Hasbro.
That said, the point that they may turn it into a microtransactions bonanza that makes them money but in no way resembles what DND should be is a pretty good one, yes. I was envisioning this future where they realize that the way to make money with it long-term is to just let it be its own thing, but I think there's a pretty good chance that that idea is as absurd as everyone here seems to think it is.
Most of those are just minority investments rather than directly ran by Tencent
Hm, you are right. The story described it as "owns and has huge holdings," but that is wrong -- for Blizzard it's 10%, Bluehole 5%, etc.
Tencent owns ~~3%~~ 30% of Larian shares. This does not make them a subsidiary, or fully owned.
It's 30%. The point is pretty valid though, and I did have it wrong in saying subsidiary -- I edited my comment to reflect my learning.
Yah, my fat thumb dropped the zero. Oops.
Found the person that has never heard of TenCent before.
Most of my knowledge of them comes from this video which I found to be pretty in-depth for a clickbaity Youtube watch. But yes, I've heard of them.
I notice that the culture here is that everyone's an expert on everything, surrounded by people who need to be enlightened by their knowledge. I feel out of place, I'm the only one who's not that, I guess.
You seem nice
Moving to an even larger company that has less experience with physical "fun" products isn't likely to be good for the core game. D&D is already at odds with the hardcore community despite the success of the movie and BG3.They don't need more licensed content, they need to rethink their creative process and how they interact with the core tabletop community. I just don't see how Tencent is the place for that.
Tencent will microtransaction the hell out of it.
They are the worst thing in the gaming industry and absolutely need to be taken out back and legislataively shot.
Hasbro selling it is in theory not a bad thing. Them selling it to Tencent is an awful idea.
Yeah, probably so. The people in this thread convinced me.
Yeah but ten cent?
Yes, it is a bad thing. D&D needs to be back in the hands of a responsible company and steward, and neither Hasbro nor Tencent are it.