Speed Daily exclusively learned that the American toy company Hasbro is seeking to sell its well-known IP “Dungeons & Dragons” (referred to as “DND” below), and Tencent is one of the potential buyers.
At present, the negotiations are still in the early stages and both parties have not yet reached an agreement on the details of the transaction.
According to informed sources, the financial crisis faced by Hasbro is the main reason for considering the sale of DND, and Tencent Investment’s Larian Studios is acting as an intermediary in this transaction. Larian Studios’ game “Baldur’s Gate 3” won the TGA Game of the Year award in 2023 and is considered one of the most successful adaptations of DND. As a result, it was seen as a potential target buyer by Hasbro. However, due to insufficient funds, Larian ultimately introduced this deal to shareholder Tencent.
Hasbro was founded in 1923 and has a history of over a hundred years. In 1935, the company gradually became a world-class toy company with its Monopoly series games. It owns well-known IPs such as Transformers, Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, and My Little Pony. However, this century-old enterprise is currently facing a huge crisis due to losses. Its stock price has dropped from a high of $108 in 2019 to $51 (closing data on January 26th).
According to the financial report, as of the third quarter of 2023, Hasbro has been experiencing consecutive losses for four quarters due to its main business of toy sales. The accumulated loss from Q4 2022 to Q3 2023 exceeds $500 million USD, and in Q2 2023, there was even a negative free cash flow situation. According to Forbes reports, in response to the crisis, the company underwent significant layoffs last year, with a total reduction of over 1,900 employees accounting for more than 20%.
Although the company as a whole is in a loss situation, its DND-related IP is a high-quality asset and has achieved considerable success in video game adaptations. Last year, the release of “Baldur’s Gate 3” by Larian Studios was both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. It not only won six TGA awards, including Game of the Year but also generated revenue of $657 million, surpassing the Harry Potter IP adaptation game “Hogwarts Legacy,” making it the most profitable PC exclusive game last year.
The success of “Baldur’s Gate 3” is also reflected in the financial data of Hasbro. The financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2023, driven by “Baldur’s Gate 3” and another Monopoly IP game called “Monopoly Go!”, Hasbro’s electronic gaming and licensing-related business achieved a contrary year-on-year growth of 40%, reaching $423 million.
Outside of electronic games, DND is also one of the most popular tabletop games in Europe and America. It has appeared multiple times in American TV shows such as “The Big Bang Theory” and “Stranger Things”. A large fan base has formed around its related culture, making it a top-tier IP.
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.
According to the aforementioned IEG insiders, Tencent currently holds the game adaptation rights for many top-tier IPs. However, due to the licensing model mostly not being a one-time buyout, Tencent not only needs to bear high copyright fees and long-term revenue sharing but also frequently faces restrictions from its partners in terms of development and operation. Previously, the mobile game adaptation of “NieR” developed by Tencent TiMi Studio was unable to be launched even until the project was cancelled.
If this acquisition is successful, it will enable Tencent to gain dominant control over the IP of Dungeons & Dragons, which will largely avoid the aforementioned issues.
Companies in Europe and America attach great importance to the value of intellectual property (IP), while Chinese companies have limited opportunities to acquire top-tier IP from overseas. For Tencent, the opportunity to acquire the Dungeons & Dragons IP from Hasbro due to financial considerations is a rare chance.
China has some odd cultural hangups around skeletons and such that I think would eventually work its way into the IP (see old video game releases and the state approved model changes they have to make for their versions). Thats not nessessaraly a bad thing, but it would be weird to see what gets changed.
I would be concerned if I cared for the IP. The thing is that Hasbro broke the public's trust with the attempted OGL change along with many other bad decisions and my groups fully abandoned the IP for Pathfinder. BG3 really is only my last connection to the current edition, and even then its really only set dressing over the video game mechanics.
As someone who deeply cares for D&D as a collaborative story telling tool, an excuse to RP with friends and just play fun games. I dont care who owns it, ive got my old books and can use any framework to tell a fun adventure. As Hasbro proved in 2023, the hobby is too popular to kill and people will make rules forks if they feel like the owner has too much influence over it.
"Eventually"? They already force wotc to change art in DND and mtg for their market. If they owned it, those things would never be seen in the games again.
BG3 isn't made in China. Larian Studios is a Belgian developer and publisher.
Yes, but if you want to sell your game in China you need to follow those rules. At least that's how it was 15 years ago. Things could've changed.
You can't even show skulls in Chinese media
Is that some sort of weird superstition thing, or are they just scared of spooky skeletons?
That's kinda where I'm at with it. There are loads of other systems at this point which honestly probably do more interesting things with certain mechanics. Just a matter of finding which one works for your group.
Im more curious to see what this does to a group like Critical Role. Most of the appeal there is the RP anyway so it seems like they'd be fine barring any weird contract stuff.