Chris Cook, CEO of Hasbro, has revealed what the new policy for Dungeons & Dragons is in a recent interview with GamesRadar. Stating that the future of the game lies in resembling video games and their business model, he has asserted that players must come to terms with the fact that “Dungeons & Dragons is a game as a service” and that this will be the policy they will follow from now on with the game.
A man with a business model in mind
While Cook does not clarify in the interview what he exactly means by thinking of Dungeons & Dragons as a game as a service, it seems he is referring exactly to this. Instead of having to wait for the release of the books, we can receive small periodic updates that keep us engaged and consuming constantly without having to wait a year and a half or two years until the book is ready. Thus articulating the game both in large seasonal events and smaller, more constant updates.
Something that fits perfectly with the two new initiatives from Wizards of the Coast, the developer of Dungeons & Dragons. On one hand, a seasonal release model focused on a particular event. On the other hand, weekly drops of new rules, different items, or digital cosmetics for your D&D Beyond account.
This aligns perfectly with both Cook’s policies and the decisions they have made for the near future of the game. When Cook took office, the first thing he did was declare his ambitions for Dungeons & Dragons to be digitized and to have a greater presence in the digital realm over the physical, emphasizing the need to give greater value to the computer and online game. Something that has only increased over time.
According to Cook, “books will always be an important part of Dungeons & Dragons,” but it seems he wants to change that process. Making books less important.And if that’s the case, and if games as a service like Fortnite and its microtransactions are any example, it is to be feared that he also wants to start charging us for things that until now he hasn’t been charging us for.
