MCV: It’s been a pretty good year for Hasbro with Monopoly Go!, Baldur’s Gate 3, and the new D&D rulebooks coming out soon… Eugene Evans: It’s actually shipping. It began shipping around Gen Con in Indianapolis a few weeks ago, and it’s amazing to think that in this 50th anniversary year, GenCon, which was created by TSR [the original publisher of D&D], has been running for almost as long. So it was the most obvious place to launch. We had a big liveplay event on stage where we pulled in a couple of cast members from Baldur’s Gate 3, and we also used it to show our new, as yet unnamed, fully 3D virtual tabletop for D&D.
...It allows you to see graphically, in an engine that’s
built on top of Unreal, this beautifully rich version of D&D. It ‘s not meant to supplant the way that people love to play with pen and paper while sitting at a table with friends. It’s meant to automate and enhance the experience if that’s how you choose to play. We always want people to have choices in how they play.
MCV: Virtual tabletops are nothing new. How does this one take things to the next level? EE: We acquired D&D Beyond a few years ago, which was originally a licensed partner. They had been building very effective D&D tools for many years that were much loved and used by everybody who finds it useful to have their character sheet on their phone, keep track of stats, and have access to the content. So we acquired that studio, I think, two and a half years ago, and the app has 18 million registered users right now. It’s really grown and it gives us tremendous access and that digital social connection with our fan base that prior to [the acquisition] we didn’t have. And it really is an example of us leaning into digital while still remaining true to our roots.
MCV: Part of that digital strategy involves creating your own games, of course. How many studios do you have now? EE: We have five studios. Our strategy you can think of going in two directions. One - I’ll call it third-party,
“Our IP is only going to get stronger over the next few years, which is why licensing and digital is such an important part of our strategy”
October/November 2024 MCV/DEVELOP | 23
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