It's not unbelievable (Hasbro does have money issues, Larian does have connections with both tencent and D&D) but you're not likely to get anyone here who has insider information on whether it's actually true.
Given that D&D is supposed to have been one of Hasbro's few consistent moneymakers over the last few years, trying to sell it would seem like an odd decision. But who knows. I've never heard of that website before and have no idea how trustworthy it is.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I could go on about how this does not make any financial sense to Hasbro, but let’s just look at the glaring omission in the article - they’re talking about buying just D&D… when D&D is not even its own subsidiary. The article does not once mention Wizards of the Coast; does not once mention anything about how Wizards also owns Hasbro’s largest brand; does not even mention that splitting D&D from the rest of Wizards would be a logistical nightmare.
This looks like a hack job, and not even a particularly good one.
Which, of course, means a whole bunch of D&D players will take it at face value and spread this questionable and unsubstantiated information as fact.
Notes: Political opinions are not an appropriate topic
Roll for Combat a while ago made a video about "if hasbro were to sell DnD, who would they sell it to? Probably Larian studios or Tencent", this article is likely either a mistranslation from something else or they just used stephen glicker's video as a source when it was his speculation. As a crosspost from arr DnDNext about this article:
This title is clickbait. And also just factually not what the article says. What Tencent is looking to purchase is:
“A Tencent IEG (Interactive Entertainment Group) insider revealed that Tencent, represented by its overseas business department IEG Global, is in negotiations with the aim of acquiring a series of rights including the adaptation rights for electronic games such as DND.”
They aren’t looking to buy the game, and Hasbro isn’t looking to sell. They are looking to purchase rights to make games and possibly other rights.
Edit: I’m not saying the OP made the title clickbait, as the article itself has a clickbait title.
Edit 2: a lot of people seem to be taking this as firm “this is not happening” debunking. That’s not what I was saying. My point is that the article does not back up the headline. This might be because of translation problems, or might be because of the need for breathless speculation. Tencent might be looking to buy DND entirely. Or Hasbro might be looming to sell. My ONLY point is that the information presented does not support the headline.
So until we see more info and confirmation from Hasbro themselves, this is a bunch of bull from bad supposed journos.
The article is confused. It doesn't seem to understand the difference between buying and owning an IP and receiving a license to produce works within an IP. Most of the takes I've seen are reacting to the headline and not the substance, as muddled as it is, of the article. I mean Hasbro is always looking for ways to get more out the D&D brand, including licensing. It seems like the rush to "Hasbro's selling D&D" was predicated on introductions Larian may have made between Hasbro and TenCent. But there's no sensation to business as usual outside of a few more reputable outlets.
Well if Larian got to create the books and modules for D&D, we'd get a much better product than what the current IP holders are able to produce. That was the gist of the article, Larian wanted to buy the D&D IP, they didn't have the funds they went to their 30% owner Tencent and are trying to get them to buy it. Larian has love of the game, always have with their products, what we see out of the current IP owners, I haven't seen it since 3.5E and then there was the first 3 years of 5E, other than that, not great frankly.
Well if Larian got to create the books and modules for D&D, we'd get a much better product than what the current IP holders are able to produce. That was the gist of the article, Larian wanted to buy the D&D IP, they didn't have the funds they went to their 30% owner Tencent and are trying to get them to buy it. Larian has love of the game, always have with their products, what we see out of the current IP owners, I haven't seen it since 3.5E and then there was the first 3 years of 5E, other than that, not great frankly.
Larian make video games. They do not have the appropriate body of employees to handle a big IP in an entirely different industry. If that was the gist of the article, then the article is nonsense.
And as much as I enjoyed BG3, every rules change they made for it made the game worse.
Got me, the additional effects to weapons in BG3 is being copied by D&D 6E now. Putting in the potion use as a bonus action is what majority of tables do use now to encourage potion use during combat. I don't have any issue with the rule updates for BG3, I use their weapon rules in my two campaigns I'm running now for the melee classes and they love it, while giving the fighter class more uses compared to the other classes to beef them up. I mean there is only so many times you can swing for damage before fighter types pull their hair out.
There's still nothing in there from Hasbro or WotC themselves. Just the same conjecture repackaged, and likely based on Roll For Combat's own conjecture.
There's still nothing in there from Hasbro or WotC themselves. Just the same conjecture repackaged, and likely based on Roll For Combat's own conjecture.
Well, there's a big change there: "video game rights" is by no means the same thing as buying D&D, it just means they're discussing producing one or more D&D-based video games. Which is entirely plausible but not all that big of a deal.
There's still nothing in there from Hasbro or WotC themselves. Just the same conjecture repackaged, and likely based on Roll For Combat's own conjecture.
The noise around this appears to be growing. Personally, until Hasbro announces something themselves or there's a more credible leak I don't have much to say, but Tencent owning it could mean another Larian project sooner rather than later since TenCent owns a sizeable chunk of them too.
The rule I live by when it comes to these types of things is to never, ever trust . . . well, the media. Sadly enough, pretty much every D&D-related news site and most D&D YouTubers are far more interested in clicks than facts. Until there’s official word from one of the two companies, there’s no reason to believe any of this speculation to be true.
As others have said, this is almost certainly the result of a bunch of “journalists” fishing for content. If WotC comes out and confirms the rumors, I’ll eat my words, but I sincerely doubt that’s happening any time soon.
The noise around this appears to be growing. Personally, until Hasbro announces something themselves or there's a more credible leak I don't have much to say, but Tencent owning it could mean another Larian project sooner rather than later since TenCent owns a sizeable chunk of them too.
The "noise" is every other site that touches on DnD sees a one article, which is just rewriting a prior sites article getting clicks and running their own report on the report, a few like Dicebreaker are doing the "service journalism" of actually reading the article's basis and seeing that this seems to really be about licensing and acquiring rights, not ownership of D&D outright.
I mean, sure there have been shareholder drives to spin WotC off from Hasbro, but if that was the angle, we'd likely have heard about it since those activists investors can't act too stealthily, otherwise the proxies don't accumulate.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Been watching the news on this across seven different sites today, and laughing my ass off the entire time.
There is no way in hell that Hasbro is going to sell off D&D. The investors would have a cow. And I don't mean little folks like me, i mean the big folks.
Straight up, Hasbro is more likely to sell off their board games unit than D&D.
But Hasbro and TenCent are both very big on IP, and have an existing relationship around MTG as a digital game. So, of course TC is going to do something with it (and odds are iffy that will include seeing D&D content in League of Legends, since they own that).
But people don't understand stuff like this, and with so many folks spending a chunk of their time bashing Hasbro (in part by calling it WotC, lol) it doesn't take much to start a crapshow of spectacular proportions.
And analysis so far show that there is, in fact, a political aspect to it.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Which, of course, means a whole bunch of D&D players will take it at face value and spread this questionable and unsubstantiated information as fact.
I mean, it's been about a year since we had a scandal based on sketchy, misleading, or objectively false info that lasted for more than a week or two, so clearly we were overdue.
WotC stated they aren't selling so this was most likely a Chinese financial company pushing stock prices for profit it my not financial expert opinion.
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This has been making its rounds on the internet. Someone doing propaganda for a stock pump and dump or does this look to be true, any one know?
https://pandaily.com/hasbro-seeks-to-sell-ip-dnd-and-has-had-preliminary-contact-with-tencent/
It's not unbelievable (Hasbro does have money issues, Larian does have connections with both tencent and D&D) but you're not likely to get anyone here who has insider information on whether it's actually true.
Given that D&D is supposed to have been one of Hasbro's few consistent moneymakers over the last few years, trying to sell it would seem like an odd decision. But who knows. I've never heard of that website before and have no idea how trustworthy it is.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I expect this is complete nonsense [REDACTED]
I could go on about how this does not make any financial sense to Hasbro, but let’s just look at the glaring omission in the article - they’re talking about buying just D&D… when D&D is not even its own subsidiary. The article does not once mention Wizards of the Coast; does not once mention anything about how Wizards also owns Hasbro’s largest brand; does not even mention that splitting D&D from the rest of Wizards would be a logistical nightmare.
This looks like a hack job, and not even a particularly good one.
Which, of course, means a whole bunch of D&D players will take it at face value and spread this questionable and unsubstantiated information as fact.
Roll for Combat a while ago made a video about "if hasbro were to sell DnD, who would they sell it to? Probably Larian studios or Tencent", this article is likely either a mistranslation from something else or they just used stephen glicker's video as a source when it was his speculation. As a crosspost from arr DnDNext about this article:
So until we see more info and confirmation from Hasbro themselves, this is a bunch of bull from bad supposed journos.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
The article is confused. It doesn't seem to understand the difference between buying and owning an IP and receiving a license to produce works within an IP. Most of the takes I've seen are reacting to the headline and not the substance, as muddled as it is, of the article. I mean Hasbro is always looking for ways to get more out the D&D brand, including licensing. It seems like the rush to "Hasbro's selling D&D" was predicated on introductions Larian may have made between Hasbro and TenCent. But there's no sensation to business as usual outside of a few more reputable outlets.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well if Larian got to create the books and modules for D&D, we'd get a much better product than what the current IP holders are able to produce. That was the gist of the article, Larian wanted to buy the D&D IP, they didn't have the funds they went to their 30% owner Tencent and are trying to get them to buy it. Larian has love of the game, always have with their products, what we see out of the current IP owners, I haven't seen it since 3.5E and then there was the first 3 years of 5E, other than that, not great frankly.
Larian make video games. They do not have the appropriate body of employees to handle a big IP in an entirely different industry. If that was the gist of the article, then the article is nonsense.
And as much as I enjoyed BG3, every rules change they made for it made the game worse.
This post has some clarifications: https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/dungeons-and-dragons-5e/news/dungeons-and-dragons-hasbro-in-talks-with-tencent-over-video-game-rights
Got me, the additional effects to weapons in BG3 is being copied by D&D 6E now. Putting in the potion use as a bonus action is what majority of tables do use now to encourage potion use during combat. I don't have any issue with the rule updates for BG3, I use their weapon rules in my two campaigns I'm running now for the melee classes and they love it, while giving the fighter class more uses compared to the other classes to beef them up. I mean there is only so many times you can swing for damage before fighter types pull their hair out.
There's still nothing in there from Hasbro or WotC themselves. Just the same conjecture repackaged, and likely based on Roll For Combat's own conjecture.
Well, there's a big change there: "video game rights" is by no means the same thing as buying D&D, it just means they're discussing producing one or more D&D-based video games. Which is entirely plausible but not all that big of a deal.
Fair enough.
The noise around this appears to be growing. Personally, until Hasbro announces something themselves or there's a more credible leak I don't have much to say, but Tencent owning it could mean another Larian project sooner rather than later since TenCent owns a sizeable chunk of them too.
The rule I live by when it comes to these types of things is to never, ever trust . . . well, the media. Sadly enough, pretty much every D&D-related news site and most D&D YouTubers are far more interested in clicks than facts. Until there’s official word from one of the two companies, there’s no reason to believe any of this speculation to be true.
As others have said, this is almost certainly the result of a bunch of “journalists” fishing for content. If WotC comes out and confirms the rumors, I’ll eat my words, but I sincerely doubt that’s happening any time soon.
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
The "noise" is every other site that touches on DnD sees a one article, which is just rewriting a prior sites article getting clicks and running their own report on the report, a few like Dicebreaker are doing the "service journalism" of actually reading the article's basis and seeing that this seems to really be about licensing and acquiring rights, not ownership of D&D outright.
I mean, sure there have been shareholder drives to spin WotC off from Hasbro, but if that was the angle, we'd likely have heard about it since those activists investors can't act too stealthily, otherwise the proxies don't accumulate.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Been watching the news on this across seven different sites today, and laughing my ass off the entire time.
There is no way in hell that Hasbro is going to sell off D&D. The investors would have a cow. And I don't mean little folks like me, i mean the big folks.
Straight up, Hasbro is more likely to sell off their board games unit than D&D.
But Hasbro and TenCent are both very big on IP, and have an existing relationship around MTG as a digital game. So, of course TC is going to do something with it (and odds are iffy that will include seeing D&D content in League of Legends, since they own that).
But people don't understand stuff like this, and with so many folks spending a chunk of their time bashing Hasbro (in part by calling it WotC, lol) it doesn't take much to start a crapshow of spectacular proportions.
And analysis so far show that there is, in fact, a political aspect to it.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I mean, it's been about a year since we had a scandal based on sketchy, misleading, or objectively false info that lasted for more than a week or two, so clearly we were overdue.
WotC has officially responded, as per Christian Hoffer from The Character Sheet: https://twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1753058841191674359
Move along folks, nothing to see here.
WotC stated they aren't selling so this was most likely a Chinese financial company pushing stock prices for profit it my not financial expert opinion.