Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a massively common tabletop position taking part in recreation. Whereas the sport has been round because the Nineteen Seventies, it has just lately exploded in recognition with podcasts, TV exhibits, video video games, and flicks making the sport extra mainstream. Annually, the mental property alone generates hundreds of thousands in income for father or mother firm Hasbro (for the sake of ease, I will likely be referring to the company as D&D, though Wizards of the Coast is the writer and Hasbro is the father or mother. Thus, I’ll generally attribute choices to D&D even when they had been made by Hasbro).
Initially, D&D printed bodily rulebooks and sourcebooks to assist information gamers and set up the principles of the sport. There have been additionally modules gamers might purchase: pre-made tales to ease new gamers into the system or problem skilled gamers. Gamers usually “homebrew” content material as nicely: they create their very own tales, magic gadgets, and so forth. Utilizing a bodily character sheet, gamers would observe their character’s progress, skills, stock, spells, and many others.
Some character courses can get very sophisticated to trace by hand, particularly spellcasters (wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, bards, and clerics). Gamers must roll die, add numbers, calculate chances on the fly, and decide outcomes of actions. I prefer to name D&D “Homework: The Game” due to how sophisticated it could get. To assist gamers handle more and more complicated characters, the net recreation streaming firm Twitch created a web site referred to as D&D Past which automated a variety of the method. Gamers might merely purchase the D&D rulebooks on the web site, arrange their characters, and the web site would observe and roll all the things for them. In 2022, D&D acquired D&D Past as a part of a quest to convey all content material beneath one roof (theirs) and capitalize on the transfer to digital gaming that had accelerated through the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
On paper, it appeared like D&D was turning into a monopoly. By proudly owning a preferred IP, the agency might management giant facets of the tabletop gaming world. Most homebrew content material creation beneath the corporate’s Open Sport License allowed for gamers to make use of giant swaths of D&D content material for their very own makes use of, and even restricted industrial makes use of, without having to pay royalties. This settlement had been round since 2000 and gamers handled it as a matter after all.
Nonetheless, in August 2022, D&D introduced they might be transferring towards a brand new content material settlement with gamers referred to as One D&D. Gamers initially feared the brand new One D&D would restrict their freedom to create with out paying royalties to D&D. Whereas initially denied by the corporate, as extra particulars emerged, participant fears had been confirmed. The fanbase revolted by canceling subscriptions to D&D Past and looking for (or creating) new tabletop video games. By January 2023, D&D backed off, even placing a lot content material beneath an irrevocable Inventive Commons license. D&D tried to flex their monopoly muscle mass and failed.
Extra just lately, D&D tried to flex their monopoly muscle mass once more. Following an announcement of a brand new version of the rulebook, they introduced on August 22, 2024 that something tied to the earlier rulebook wouldn’t operate in D&D Past (or different digital content material) except gamers homebrewed the fabric or purchased the brand new rulebook. In different phrases, D&D was making an attempt to remove content material folks had already purchased and drive them to purchase new content material. Once more, the fanbase revolted. Not one week later, on August 26, D&D introduced they “heard fan feedback loud and clear” and had been canceling the deliberate change to D&D past. Gamers will have the ability to use content material beforehand bought on the digital platforms.
There’s an essential lesson right here, one which the late mentor and good friend Steve Horwitz used to repeat on a regular basis: “monopoly” doesn’t equal “big.”
Firms could also be massive, they usually could even personal numerous IP and content material, however they aren’t essentially monopolies with the flexibility to set market costs. Any monopoly energy they’ve will closely rely on the supply of substitutes for his or her product. If there are a lot of substitutes, the agency, no matter their dimension, could act very similar to a aggressive agency.
Mistaking dimension for monopoly energy is an error that runs in a number of instructions. Corporations usually overestimate their monopoly energy and, because the case with D&D, are pressured to again down. Likewise, antitrust regulators usually overestimate the monopoly energy of companies and find yourself turning environment friendly markets inefficient. Metrics like agency dimension, market share, revenue, or revenue margin don’t precisely describe the monopoly energy of a agency. Typically, we could not know the way little (or a lot) monopoly energy the corporate has till they do one thing boneheaded like D&D.
P.S. This can be a image of my D&D group. My character, Vargen, is second from the precise.
