It Begins

I got an email today from Wizards (from my D&D Beyond account that I never use) stating:

Big changes have come to Wizards Accounts

It now runs on a new account system, giving you more digital access across Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast brands.

Sign in to check out your account profile and make sure everything looks up to date.

If you have social accounts connected to your profile, you'll need to relink them the first time you sign in.

Your Wizards Account is an all-access pass to the Hasbro + Wizards Family of Brands.

So it is not really a D&D Beyond or Wizards account anymore; it is a Hasbro "all-access pass." Notice they put Hasbro first. We will look back on this moment as the first signal of the next major change in D&D and every other game they make.

When I log in, will I get Transformers, MTG, and GI JOE news pushed to my feed before I have to dig for the D&D section? I get why they did this; why let new products fail to reach an audience when you have a huge platform here that isn't helping them? But I also don't want Transformers spam before I set up a D&D game. This also solves the problem of platforms like YouTube not pushing their live-play shows, and having those wither and die because nobody knows they exist.

This is clearly a "my audience is mine" sort of play, and also a statement that social media platforms aren't doing their job pushing the hobby they once were (or the price to feature content as a premium partner has skyrocketed). YouTube telling D&D creators to "find something else to make videos on" seemed very sus at the time, and I always wondered if the checks stopped coming in and YouTube started pulling D&D videos off people's recommended lists.

If that is the case, I can't blame Wizards for taking their audience and running. If Wizards can get D&D YouTubers to create over there and share revenue, that would be good. I doubt it, though.

From the FAQ:

Which brands, websites, and products are included?

You can use your Wizards account to log in to a variety of existing and future Wizards and Hasbro products. Current products include:

• Magic: The Gathering Arena
• Magic: The Gathering Companion App
• EventLink
• Wizards Play Network (WPN)
• Store & Event Locator
• SpellTable
• Secret Lair
• Dungeons & Dragons Beyond App
• Dungeons & Dragons Beyond Website
• Dungeons & Dragons Store Website

When future games such as Exodus release, you will be able to sign in with your Wizards account as well.

So this unifies the MTG and D&D logins, which is a bit surprising it took this long. This feels like they're trying to become a more generic "gaming platform" rather than a collection of games with different sites and audiences. With new releases coming out (such as Exodus) that people have low confidence in, this gives them a channel to farm interest and push the IP, and the same could be said for some of their video games, though AAA gaming is dead and dying.

If the next Xbox and a good video card cost close to two grand, then yeah, consoles and AAA gaming are dead. People will run games off CPU graphics for the next 10 years. Video cards will slowly die, and will the silicon be affordable enough to replace them? It is a good time to be a retro gamer, though, and even the retro RPG space is better than many current offerings. Cutting-edge PC gaming is facing an extinction-level event. As PC gaming gets more expensive, Wizards and D&D will have less money.

So, survival is job number one. If Wizards has to pay through the nose to get its new products out there, fewer channels are covering them, D&D YouTubers are quitting and cutting back, and YouTube isn't recommending D&D, it might as well consolidate its market and push new games directly to its customers. What else can they do? I don't blame them.

This also feels like something a company does before it preps itself for a merger or sale.