Dungeons and Dragons owner Hasbro buys up D&D Beyond

engadget.com:

Wizards of the Coast owner Hasbro is buying D&D Beyond, one of the most popular digital toolsets for playing Dungeons and Dragons. In a press release spotted by Gizmodo, the publisher said on Wednesday it had agreed to pay $146.3 million to acquire the platform from current owner Fandom. In a post over on the toolset’s official forums, the D&D Beyond team said the purchase would not change how players use the toolset to run their campaigns. “Wizards of the Coast has no plans to stop supporting D&D Beyond. Ever,” the team said.

In a way, today’s announcement effectively sees D&D Beyond return home. The toolset came out of a partnership Wizards of the Coast announced in 2017 with Curse, a gaming company that was then best known for its World of Warcraft addon manager. In 2018, Curse, following its 2016 acquisition by Twitch, sold D&D Beyond, among other media assets, to Fandom.

Outside of the origin story, the acquisition makes a lot of practical sense for Hasbro. The company notes the royalties Fandom paid to operate D&D Beyond represented “a significant contribution” to the revenue it was making from Dungeons and Dragons. What's more, the deal puts Hasbro where many of its fans are already heading. In 2021, more than 80 percent of D&D fans played the game virtually, according to the company.