There’s a potentially big business deal happening in both the world of tabletop gaming and video gaming: Insider sources reporting to Chinese news site Speed Daily have confirmed that Hasbro is looking to sell off the massive Dungeons & Dragons IP… and one of the possible buyers is Chinese megacorp Tencent.
Negotiations for any deal are still in the very early stages, and neither side has agreed to any transaction terms, but sources familiar with the matter say that Tencent is the primary buyer of interest, and a person from Tencent’s interactive entertainment business group says that the purchase is primarily “with the intention of acquiring a series of rights including D&D’s video game adaptation rights” according to Google Translate.
Incidentally, Larian Studios is reportedly working as the intermediary between Hasbro and Tencent, which may come as a surprise if not for the fact that Tencent owns 30% of the Baldur’s Gate 3 developer. Larian Studios was first seen as a potential buyer by Hasbro, but Larian was unable to afford the transaction, so it’s passed the deal over to Tencent.
As for why Hasbro is selling its biggest cash cow, the company has experienced over $500M worth of losses from Q4 2022 to Q3 2023 and was even in a negative free cash flow situation in the second quarter of last year. Losses are being attributed to Hasbro’s lagging toy sales and come even as the D&D IP has been a revenue generator.
What this means for D&D games across the board is naturally unclear, but we’ll obviously be watching carefully as there are multiple MMOs in the D&D franchise – including Neverwinter and DDO.
