D&D Beyond joins Wizards of the Coast in $146 million deal
D&D Beyond, the popular digital suite of tools for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game will be purchased by Wizards of the Coast, the game’s parent company. In a press release issued this week, the firm stated that it would purchase D&D Beyond from its existing owner, Fandom, for $146.3 million in cash. Hasbro acquired Wizards of the Coast in 1999 and turned it into a subsidiary.
In 2017, Fandom purchased D&D Beyond and the rest of the company’s media assets from Curse, a game mod and community tool that was about to be integrated into a deal with Twitch.
“We’re excited to bring their best-in-class talent onto our team,” said Wizards of the Coast and Digital President Cynthia Williams. “D&D Beyond has been one of our most valuable partners in the digital space for the past six years, and we’re excited to bring their best-in-class talent onto our team.” Together, the D&D Beyond team has created a fantastic digital platform, and together we will provide the best Dungeons & Dragons experience for gamers all over the world.
Big news to share! D&D Beyond will become part of the Wizards of the Coast family! You’ll continue to have all of the tools, features and content you know and love from the heart & home of Dungeons & Dragons. More to come – excited to join the party!
➡️ https://t.co/wop7ySEKXS pic.twitter.com/nxoJwCRxF6
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) April 13, 2022
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D&D Beyond
D&D Beyond is a digital game companion that is so common in the scene that you’d be forgiven if you assumed Wizards already owned it. The company’s website and app work as a digital Swiss Army knife for D&D gamers, with features ranging from character creation to encounter creation to digital dice (use these at your own risk of being judged by your table). More than 10 million people have downloaded the programme, which has premium membership tiers as well as basic free access.
Wizards and D&D Beyond had previously worked closely together before the agreement, with the latter providing exclusive digital access to all of the official D&D source books. This arrangement has long caused disquiet among players who are hesitant to repurchase a digital copy of a physical book they already own, and some are hopeful that matching digital access with paper source books will be possible with the purchase.
Wizards is conducting a special livestreamed event on YouTube and Twitch on April 21 at 9 a.m. PT, so we may learn more about its plans at that time. The teaser clip displays a game map, minis, and an oddly placed Xbox controller, so it’s possible we’ll learn about new gaming titles or a firm release date for Baldur’s Gate 3, the upcoming role-playing adventure from Larian, the creators of Divinity: Original Sin.
Wizards of the Coast, which also publishes the strategy card game Magic: The Gathering, is doing well. The Wizards appear to be boosting the role-playing game’s audience by an order of magnitude. Thanks to the epidemic driving people to get creative with long-distance networking. Also the widespread exposure from hit live-action games like Critical Role (Twitch’s top earner).
In 2021, The firm made more than $1.3 billion in revenue.
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What is Wizards of the Coast?
Wizards of the Coast (often known as WotC or just Wizards) is an American game publisher specialising in fantasy and science fiction. They popularised the collectible card game genre with Magic.The Gathering in the mid-1990s, after starting out as a basement-run role-playing game publisher.
Now they are publishing board games, collectible card games, and role-playing games, among other things. They are currently a Hasbro division.
In 1990, Peter Adkison and four pals created Wizards of the Coast. The company started outside of Seattle, Washington and their offices are still in Renton. Rich Kaalaas, who designed Wizards of the Coast’s first logo. Jay Hayes, Ken McGlothlen, and Steve Conard were also among the original founders. When Adkison’s company originally began, it was housed in his basement and everyone worked a day job. Initially, the firm mainly published role-playing games like Talislanta 3rd Edition and their own The Primal Order. Palladium Books sued after the release of The Primal Order because of references to their game and system.
However, it left a lasting influence on the industry when it launched Richard Garfield’s trading card game Magic: The Gathering at Gen Con in August 1993 under the guise of Garfield Games to avoid a legal dispute with Palladium. Magic’s popularity resulted in revenue that allowed the company to move out of its basement headquarters into its own premises.
