this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Hasbro has no clue what to do with the game since their games-as-service, closed ecosystem plan went kaput after they backed down on the OGL revision (which would have been necessary to shut out other VTTs and ensure player & DM subscriptions). I think the recent lay offs of senior people in the D&D related teams suggests this as well. This article doesn't seem well sourced at all, but a shake-up would be very interesting at this point.
Side-stepping some of the speculation and impact on the traditional market/fanbase, I am curious about the interest in D&D in China, as a Tencent acquisition would presumably make it much easier to market the game there. From the searching I've done, there doesn't seem to be a ton of interest in D&D, and there's no official translation into Mandarin. The movie didn't do great at the Chinese box office, although Baldur's Gate 3 did fine? Obviously, if Tencent does put together a subsidiary to design a version for the Chinese market, I'm not sure if they'd want to start by translating/adapting existing books or using the ruleset to design a bespoke version (either with a fantasy setting or based on relevant Chinese IP.)
I was in China for two years and not once ever found anything related to actual role playing games ever. Anywhere. And I really looked. There is a market there, waiting to be created, and I'm not surprised one bit that Tencent would be interested in that. But as other people have mentioned, monetizing that stuff is gonna be a challenge. I sure am looking forward to it, though. Especially once I get good enough at Chinese. I dream of the day I have a level strong enough to help translating games there...
Haha, I may have exaggerated a bit for effect ;) I was on Taobao and found myself some reliable suppliers of dice and minis, which made sense since China produces everything for the rest of the world. I found some board games imports. There were a good few card games, too. But i dont recall finding any RPG boss in Chinese. This is very cool! I ended up finding gaming partners through the grapevine, but even they had difficulty finding suppliers and confirmed my suspicion that the hobby is still tiny. Nobody has any idea when I asked about rpg, boardgames, etc. Apart from a few card games board games. I found one gaming shop in the whole of Wuhan and it turns out it was a mini shop (again, no surprise when the manufacturing is all made in China). Anyway, it was 8 years ago, so it's no surprise things have changed. They do tend to do so very quickly, over there. Seeing translated versions is super encouraging! Thanks for taking the time, though.
Dude if you actually know a gaming shop in Wuhan, I'm interested! I'm going for a few weeks in April and it would be just fantastic to go to a real gaming shop :) The one I found was mostly military modeling, with a mezzanine where people were, I guess, painting (I didn't dare go up, my level of Chinese was abysmal at the time). And yeah, I noticed Cthulhu in your screenshots. I'm not totally surprised to see it, though. It's been I the top 3 in France for the last thirty years. Fate is definitely a surprise, though! I guess it all depends on who the "evangelists" are. I'm so getting a copy in Chinese when I get there, hahaha!
You've no idea how exciting it is to read all this! This is the kind of convo I was desperately trying to find, to no avail, while there. I'm gonna have to parse through that page and see if I can find a few keywords to hook on for future reference. At least I know what I'm gonna look for when I get there in April, haha! Thank you so much for taking the time to show all this! :)