If you just click the links to the actual press release with the presumably SEC required boilerplate about "forward looking language" you'll see that end of q2 or q3 are most likely when the sale will actually close. And even then, I wouldn't expect to see dramatic changes in the operations of DDB at that point. It's unclear whether DDB is to be maintained as a separate and distinct and autonomous entity from the WotC D&D studio (though I don't think that's likely) or will be integrated over time with the D&D studio (more likely). Notice DDB celebrates the sale as a partnership while WotC language mostly celebrates it as an acquisition (it sort of reminds of when Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler). And I guess you could say Fandom is saying "thanks, and good luck!"
There will likely be some efficiencies/redundancies to be made but unlikely to happen on Day 1 of the sale's closing. It makes a lot of sense for WotC to buy DDB, but what to do with DDB beyond owning it will evolve over time, especially as the "next evolution of D&D" starts to take shape.
that's what's confusing me, one side is speaking as if it's all done and there's nothing left. so yeah, technically speaking Fandom still owns DNDB as of this second. But they're probably checked out until WoTC takes over in Q2/3.
Ok the announcement happened right before the end of financial year, I imagine that was done because wizards have included the 140 million in last years tax returns as planned future capitol expenditure, which means they don't have to pay tax on it. It would have appeared in the public financials so someone would have picked up on it. If they had instead waited then they would have paid tax on that 140 million this year.
In reality by announcing it it is done and agreed, but, there is paperwork, there is the actual time it takes to liquidate 140 million and transfer it over, there will be agreements and negotiations with the existing staff (I imagine golden handcuff deals on the dev team at least, in an acquisition like this you are buying the talent as much as the code base). There is also the time that Fandom need to handle things on there side.
Wow, 140 mil is a lot for WIZARDS to spend.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
If you just click the links to the actual press release with the presumably SEC required boilerplate about "forward looking language" you'll see that end of q2 or q3 are most likely when the sale will actually close. And even then, I wouldn't expect to see dramatic changes in the operations of DDB at that point. It's unclear whether DDB is to be maintained as a separate and distinct and autonomous entity from the WotC D&D studio (though I don't think that's likely) or will be integrated over time with the D&D studio (more likely). Notice DDB celebrates the sale as a partnership while WotC language mostly celebrates it as an acquisition (it sort of reminds of when Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler). And I guess you could say Fandom is saying "thanks, and good luck!"
There will likely be some efficiencies/redundancies to be made but unlikely to happen on Day 1 of the sale's closing. It makes a lot of sense for WotC to buy DDB, but what to do with DDB beyond owning it will evolve over time, especially as the "next evolution of D&D" starts to take shape.
that's what's confusing me, one side is speaking as if it's all done and there's nothing left. so yeah, technically speaking Fandom still owns DNDB as of this second. But they're probably checked out until WoTC takes over in Q2/3.
Ok the announcement happened right before the end of financial year, I imagine that was done because wizards have included the 140 million in last years tax returns as planned future capitol expenditure, which means they don't have to pay tax on it. It would have appeared in the public financials so someone would have picked up on it. If they had instead waited then they would have paid tax on that 140 million this year.
In reality by announcing it it is done and agreed, but, there is paperwork, there is the actual time it takes to liquidate 140 million and transfer it over, there will be agreements and negotiations with the existing staff (I imagine golden handcuff deals on the dev team at least, in an acquisition like this you are buying the talent as much as the code base). There is also the time that Fandom need to handle things on there side.
Wow, 140 mil is a lot for WIZARDS to spend.
Hasbro, the parent company, put up the cash, not Wizards, the subsidiary. Wizards is one of Hasbro’s most profitable divisions, especially its digital platforms of Magic Arena and D&D Beyond licensing fees. They looked at how much Beyond was making with them getting just a cut of it, and realised it would be a strong investment for them to receive the full proceeds.
It still is a lot of money for Hasbro to put up - Wizards has been growing and their board game products saw a massive sales increase due to the pandemic, but their company has been having some financial woes due to the collapse of Toys-R-Us and brick-and-mortar retail generally. Wizards’, particularly digital, profits have caused Hasbro to put more emphasis on Wizards and its products (even going so far as to appoint the former president of Wizards as CEO of Hasbro itself), expanding the scope of Wizards products, allowing them to work on new IP, and investing large amounts in their digital infrastructure.
So, while a lot of money, it’s a pretty sound, safe investment that fits logically with Hasbro’s current priorities.
Does this mean that DDB is going to make UA content again? And are they going to let us homebrew Classes?
I'm guessing they will make UA content again, but not in the near future, as they want to get their new General Features System working and make sure the official content is more fully supported first.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Does this mean that DDB is going to make UA content again? And are they going to let us homebrew Classes?
It neither means they will, nor that they won't; the acquisition does not significantly change their incentives to do so, which means the answer is the same as it would be without the acquisition: 'probably not' and 'low priority'.
There will likely be some efficiencies/redundancies to be made but unlikely to happen on Day 1 of the sale's closing. It makes a lot of sense for WotC to buy DDB, but what to do with DDB beyond owning it will evolve over time, especially as the "next evolution of D&D" starts to take shape.
I don't see a need for much in terms of redundancies, certainly at the coal face so to speak, but also DnD digital is a very different beast to DnD beyond. I imagine in actuality Wizards will be offering DnD beyond staff improved contracts and possible golden handcuff deals, because the last thing any tech company wants when it makes an acquisition, is the devs who maintain and know the code base all heading off to new roles. I have been there, and it worked out really well for me financially, I got a nice pay bump and guaranteed bonus paid out at 6,12 and 18 months after the acquisition, just for sticking around.
I don't think there are any redundancies in the people who actually work on developing DnD Beyond's tools, etc. But I think there will be redundancies in Content. I mean Todd Kendrick was the Creative Manager for DDB from 2014-2019. He is now the creative manager consultant for WotC's D&D studio. I would be very surprised if the articles and videos here don't get subsumed by main D&D inside a year if not as a first cosmetic order of business. D&D is doing Liveplay promos for Spelljammer, is D&D Beyond in on that action too? I honestly don't know but I'd be surprised if we continue to see WotC produce "D&D content" and "D&D Beyond" content under different labels. I am also curious about how/what shape the community here and Discord and other social may be in by 2024.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
There will likely be some efficiencies/redundancies to be made but unlikely to happen on Day 1 of the sale's closing. It makes a lot of sense for WotC to buy DDB, but what to do with DDB beyond owning it will evolve over time, especially as the "next evolution of D&D" starts to take shape.
I don't see a need for much in terms of redundancies, certainly at the coal face so to speak, but also DnD digital is a very different beast to DnD beyond. I imagine in actuality Wizards will be offering DnD beyond staff improved contracts and possible golden handcuff deals, because the last thing any tech company wants when it makes an acquisition, is the devs who maintain and know the code base all heading off to new roles. I have been there, and it worked out really well for me financially, I got a nice pay bump and guaranteed bonus paid out at 6,12 and 18 months after the acquisition, just for sticking around.
I don't think there are any redundancies in the people who actually work on developing DnD Beyond's tools, etc. But I think there will be redundancies in Content. I mean Todd Kendrick was the Creative Manager for DDB from 2014-2019. He is now the creative manager consultant for WotC's D&D studio. I would be very surprised if the articles and videos here don't get subsumed by main D&D inside a year if not as a first cosmetic order of business. D&D is doing Liveplay promos for Spelljammer, is D&D Beyond in on that action too? I honestly don't know but I'd be surprised if we continue to see WotC produce "D&D content" and "D&D Beyond" content under different labels. I am also curious about how/what shape the community here and Discord and other social may be in by 2024.
On the other hand, if Wizards have just increased their membership base by a significant amount (I imagine there are more DDB members then Wizards) I imagine the teams may well merge and grow, it depends if wizards maintain the wizards DnD website as a single resource, or want to draw more people to DDB and so have separate content. There are arguments for both just have to wait and see.
Does this mean that DDB is going to make UA content again? And are they going to let us homebrew Classes?
It neither means they will, nor that they won't; the acquisition does not significantly change their incentives to do so, which means the answer is the same as it would be without the acquisition: 'probably not' and 'low priority'.
Yep, the reason they stopped in the first place was the amount of effort it took to implement rules that then either got scrapped, or changed, within months. This on top of everything else was making it impossible with the resources to maintain. If Wizards consider UA content important they will need to recruit devs simply to maintain and manage that content.
As for Homebrew classes, I don't see that ever being a thing, simply because the code required to allow people to make up anything is just an impossible mess to maintain and manage, start with a blank piece of paper and list out the tree of options from all the known rules in game. Then add on top of that an infinite list of ideas that people could have, how do you allow mechanics and abilities, etc for that?
If you just click the links to the actual press release with the presumably SEC required boilerplate about "forward looking language" you'll see that end of q2 or q3 are most likely when the sale will actually close. And even then, I wouldn't expect to see dramatic changes in the operations of DDB at that point. It's unclear whether DDB is to be maintained as a separate and distinct and autonomous entity from the WotC D&D studio (though I don't think that's likely) or will be integrated over time with the D&D studio (more likely). Notice DDB celebrates the sale as a partnership while WotC language mostly celebrates it as an acquisition (it sort of reminds of when Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler). And I guess you could say Fandom is saying "thanks, and good luck!"
There will likely be some efficiencies/redundancies to be made but unlikely to happen on Day 1 of the sale's closing. It makes a lot of sense for WotC to buy DDB, but what to do with DDB beyond owning it will evolve over time, especially as the "next evolution of D&D" starts to take shape.
that's what's confusing me, one side is speaking as if it's all done and there's nothing left. so yeah, technically speaking Fandom still owns DNDB as of this second. But they're probably checked out until WoTC takes over in Q2/3.
Ok the announcement happened right before the end of financial year, I imagine that was done because wizards have included the 140 million in last years tax returns as planned future capitol expenditure, which means they don't have to pay tax on it. It would have appeared in the public financials so someone would have picked up on it. If they had instead waited then they would have paid tax on that 140 million this year.
In reality by announcing it it is done and agreed, but, there is paperwork, there is the actual time it takes to liquidate 140 million and transfer it over, there will be agreements and negotiations with the existing staff (I imagine golden handcuff deals on the dev team at least, in an acquisition like this you are buying the talent as much as the code base). There is also the time that Fandom need to handle things on there side.
Wow, 140 mil is a lot for WIZARDS to spend.
Hasbro, the parent company, put up the cash, not Wizards, the subsidiary. Wizards is one of Hasbro’s most profitable divisions, especially its digital platforms of Magic Arena and D&D Beyond licensing fees. They looked at how much Beyond was making with them getting just a cut of it, and realised it would be a strong investment for them to receive the full proceeds.
It still is a lot of money for Hasbro to put up - Wizards has been growing and their board game products saw a massive sales increase due to the pandemic, but their company has been having some financial woes due to the collapse of Toys-R-Us and brick-and-mortar retail generally. Wizards’, particularly digital, profits have caused Hasbro to put more emphasis on Wizards and its products (even going so far as to appoint the former president of Wizards as CEO of Hasbro itself), expanding the scope of Wizards products, allowing them to work on new IP, and investing large amounts in their digital infrastructure.
So, while a lot of money, it’s a pretty sound, safe investment that fits logically with Hasbro’s current priorities.
The timing is also interesting with the new DnD movie landing in 2023, assuming the sale completes july/august this year it gives a year for wizards to start implementing plans to try and cash in on the hoped for influx of new players that no doubt they are hoping for come the new movie.
I expect to see lots of tie ins, for instance a stream of the cast playing DnD, interviews etc on the Wizards website, maybe even a DnD add in the movie trailers (if you love the movie, why not continue the adventure at home, log into DnD beyond to start your own quest).
The timing is also interesting with the new DnD movie landing in 2023, assuming the sale completes july/august this year it gives a year for wizards to start implementing plans to try and cash in on the hoped for influx of new players that no doubt they are hoping for come the new movie.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, powered by D&D Beyond. 🙃
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Does this mean that DDB is going to make UA content again? And are they going to let us homebrew Classes?
It neither means they will, nor that they won't; the acquisition does not significantly change their incentives to do so, which means the answer is the same as it would be without the acquisition: 'probably not' and 'low priority'.
Yep, the reason they stopped in the first place was the amount of effort it took to implement rules that then either got scrapped, or changed, within months. This on top of everything else was making it impossible with the resources to maintain. If Wizards consider UA content important they will need to recruit devs simply to maintain and manage that content.
As for Homebrew classes, I don't see that ever being a thing, simply because the code required to allow people to make up anything is just an impossible mess to maintain and manage, start with a blank piece of paper and list out the tree of options from all the known rules in game. Then add on top of that an infinite list of ideas that people could have, how do you allow mechanics and abilities, etc for that?
They could just make it like the subclass thing, add in subclasses for them later, have them also keep adding on to it over time. Eventually, it will get pretty good. I do see how hard it would be to do that, I wouldn’t mind making a class without subclasses, and I wish I could just basically use the subclass creator to make a class, so it doesn’t have the other base class feature. When I was trying to create my first “subclass”, I thought that I would have it be making a class bases off the one I chose, so I started adding features for every level, until I found out it was only for subclasses. And it was going along exactly how I liked it.
Also, for the UA, why does WotC even make it if it isn’t important, and they re-do it later, why make it at all?
Also, for the UA, why does WotC even make it if it isn’t important, and they re-do it later, why make it at all?
The problem with UA is that adding stuff to the character creator can be a bunch of effort (depending on whether it's an adjustment of pre-existing functionality or something entirely new), and doing it for stuff that's very unlikely to be published in its initial form isn't a great use of dev resources.
Unearthed Arcana used to be a way for D&D's developers to acquire playtest data for content that was in a rough state, helping them through the design process.
This is no longer the case.
Unearthed Arcana is, these days, essentially a public taste test. Wizards releases a UA doc and sees what the public's gut first reaction to it is. If that gut reaction is negative, as it was for the initial Psionics test, the first UA release of the Genie warlock patron, and the Strixhaven subclasses? The content is either reduxed or binned. At no point does any additional design work happen based on more nuanced feedback - UA is purely a means of testing whether the public will swallow something long enough to fuel a profitable New Book Rush. Extremely valuable - for corporate people. Of essentially zero value to players.
Unearthed Arcana used to be a way for D&D's developers to acquire playtest data for content that was in a rough state, helping them through the design process.
This is no longer the case.
Unearthed Arcana is, these days, essentially a public taste test. Wizards releases a UA doc and sees what the public's gut first reaction to it is. If that gut reaction is negative, as it was for the initial Psionics test, the first UA release of the Genie warlock patron, and the Strixhaven subclasses? The content is either reduxed or binned. At no point does any additional design work happen based on more nuanced feedback - UA is purely a means of testing whether the public will swallow something long enough to fuel a profitable New Book Rush. Extremely valuable - for corporate people. Of essentially zero value to players.
Well, I believe D&D stuff is actually play tested with some nuanced feedback, but not at the scale UA. I mean I think the books list play tester credits.
On the other hand, the revised Krynn UA left me feeling "well, I actually feel heard) in re: The Kender and the sorcery and knight backgrounds and feats, and the "heroes of Krynn" feats option too. I also don't think my insight into the first UA was unique, but the moves and new content Krynn v2 made shows some incorporation of feedback.
Unearthed Arcana used to be a way for D&D's developers to acquire playtest data for content that was in a rough state, helping them through the design process.
This is no longer the case.
Unearthed Arcana is, these days, essentially a public taste test. Wizards releases a UA doc and sees what the public's gut first reaction to it is. If that gut reaction is negative, as it was for the initial Psionics test, the first UA release of the Genie warlock patron, and the Strixhaven subclasses? The content is either reduxed or binned. At no point does any additional design work happen based on more nuanced feedback - UA is purely a means of testing whether the public will swallow something long enough to fuel a profitable New Book Rush. Extremely valuable - for corporate people. Of essentially zero value to players.
Well, I believe D&D stuff is actually play tested with some nuanced feedback, but not at the scale UA. I mean I think the books list play tester credits.
On the other hand, the revised Krynn UA left me feeling "well, I actually feel heard) in re: The Kender and the sorcery and knight backgrounds and feats, and the "heroes of Krynn" feats option too. I also don't think my insight into the first UA was unique, but the moves and new content Krynn v2 made shows some incorporation of feedback.
I wouldn't say "zero value", if a player likes something in UA, and the DM agrees (DM should look at the thing to make sure it's not OP first), then the player can use it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
That example you used is kinda funny. There were many times you purchased blu-ray and got the DVD and a digital copy for really cheap with it. This is kind of what I'm hoping. Buy the physical and get a code for 50% off the digital version.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Wow, 140 mil is a lot for WIZARDS to spend.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Hasbro, the parent company, put up the cash, not Wizards, the subsidiary. Wizards is one of Hasbro’s most profitable divisions, especially its digital platforms of Magic Arena and D&D Beyond licensing fees. They looked at how much Beyond was making with them getting just a cut of it, and realised it would be a strong investment for them to receive the full proceeds.
It still is a lot of money for Hasbro to put up - Wizards has been growing and their board game products saw a massive sales increase due to the pandemic, but their company has been having some financial woes due to the collapse of Toys-R-Us and brick-and-mortar retail generally. Wizards’, particularly digital, profits have caused Hasbro to put more emphasis on Wizards and its products (even going so far as to appoint the former president of Wizards as CEO of Hasbro itself), expanding the scope of Wizards products, allowing them to work on new IP, and investing large amounts in their digital infrastructure.
So, while a lot of money, it’s a pretty sound, safe investment that fits logically with Hasbro’s current priorities.
Does this mean that DDB is going to make UA content again? And are they going to let us homebrew Classes?
It pronounced Den Sake. It is not Japanese.
Website character sheet not working fix (Hopefully)
Semi-Expert at homebrew, just ask for my help.
I'm guessing they will make UA content again, but not in the near future, as they want to get their new General Features System working and make sure the official content is more fully supported first.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
It neither means they will, nor that they won't; the acquisition does not significantly change their incentives to do so, which means the answer is the same as it would be without the acquisition: 'probably not' and 'low priority'.
I don't think there are any redundancies in the people who actually work on developing DnD Beyond's tools, etc. But I think there will be redundancies in Content. I mean Todd Kendrick was the Creative Manager for DDB from 2014-2019. He is now the creative manager consultant for WotC's D&D studio. I would be very surprised if the articles and videos here don't get subsumed by main D&D inside a year if not as a first cosmetic order of business. D&D is doing Liveplay promos for Spelljammer, is D&D Beyond in on that action too? I honestly don't know but I'd be surprised if we continue to see WotC produce "D&D content" and "D&D Beyond" content under different labels. I am also curious about how/what shape the community here and Discord and other social may be in by 2024.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
On the other hand, if Wizards have just increased their membership base by a significant amount (I imagine there are more DDB members then Wizards) I imagine the teams may well merge and grow, it depends if wizards maintain the wizards DnD website as a single resource, or want to draw more people to DDB and so have separate content. There are arguments for both just have to wait and see.
Yep, the reason they stopped in the first place was the amount of effort it took to implement rules that then either got scrapped, or changed, within months. This on top of everything else was making it impossible with the resources to maintain. If Wizards consider UA content important they will need to recruit devs simply to maintain and manage that content.
As for Homebrew classes, I don't see that ever being a thing, simply because the code required to allow people to make up anything is just an impossible mess to maintain and manage, start with a blank piece of paper and list out the tree of options from all the known rules in game. Then add on top of that an infinite list of ideas that people could have, how do you allow mechanics and abilities, etc for that?
The timing is also interesting with the new DnD movie landing in 2023, assuming the sale completes july/august this year it gives a year for wizards to start implementing plans to try and cash in on the hoped for influx of new players that no doubt they are hoping for come the new movie.
I expect to see lots of tie ins, for instance a stream of the cast playing DnD, interviews etc on the Wizards website, maybe even a DnD add in the movie trailers (if you love the movie, why not continue the adventure at home, log into DnD beyond to start your own quest).
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, powered by D&D Beyond. 🙃
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
They could just make it like the subclass thing, add in subclasses for them later, have them also keep adding on to it over time. Eventually, it will get pretty good. I do see how hard it would be to do that, I wouldn’t mind making a class without subclasses, and I wish I could just basically use the subclass creator to make a class, so it doesn’t have the other base class feature. When I was trying to create my first “subclass”, I thought that I would have it be making a class bases off the one I chose, so I started adding features for every level, until I found out it was only for subclasses. And it was going along exactly how I liked it.
Also, for the UA, why does WotC even make it if it isn’t important, and they re-do it later, why make it at all?
It pronounced Den Sake. It is not Japanese.
Website character sheet not working fix (Hopefully)
Semi-Expert at homebrew, just ask for my help.
The problem with UA is that adding stuff to the character creator can be a bunch of effort (depending on whether it's an adjustment of pre-existing functionality or something entirely new), and doing it for stuff that's very unlikely to be published in its initial form isn't a great use of dev resources.
Unearthed Arcana used to be a way for D&D's developers to acquire playtest data for content that was in a rough state, helping them through the design process.
This is no longer the case.
Unearthed Arcana is, these days, essentially a public taste test. Wizards releases a UA doc and sees what the public's gut first reaction to it is. If that gut reaction is negative, as it was for the initial Psionics test, the first UA release of the Genie warlock patron, and the Strixhaven subclasses? The content is either reduxed or binned. At no point does any additional design work happen based on more nuanced feedback - UA is purely a means of testing whether the public will swallow something long enough to fuel a profitable New Book Rush. Extremely valuable - for corporate people. Of essentially zero value to players.
Please do not contact or message me.
Well, I believe D&D stuff is actually play tested with some nuanced feedback, but not at the scale UA. I mean I think the books list play tester credits.
On the other hand, the revised Krynn UA left me feeling "well, I actually feel heard) in re: The Kender and the sorcery and knight backgrounds and feats, and the "heroes of Krynn" feats option too. I also don't think my insight into the first UA was unique, but the moves and new content Krynn v2 made shows some incorporation of feedback.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I wouldn't say "zero value", if a player likes something in UA, and the DM agrees (DM should look at the thing to make sure it's not OP first), then the player can use it.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.That example you used is kinda funny. There were many times you purchased blu-ray and got the DVD and a digital copy for really cheap with it. This is kind of what I'm hoping. Buy the physical and get a code for 50% off the digital version.