Speaker 1: Hi, it's West Kosova. We're taking a break for the
Speaker 1: Labor Day holiday in the US, so here's one of
Speaker 1: our favorite episodes you might have missed and an update.
Speaker 1: Since the show first aired, the movie Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: Honor among Thieves was released and became a hit with critics,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a Barbie sized mega blockbuster at the
Speaker 1: box office. Fans have no fear though. The makers say
Speaker 1: a sequel is still possible.
Speaker 2: So are going to use spells or well?
Speaker 1: We were working on this episode. Our supervising producer, Vicki
Speaker 1: Virgolina told us her twelve year old son, who loves
Speaker 1: video games, was having friends over for a game session.
Speaker 1: But the game they were excited to play didn't require
Speaker 1: a VR headset or even a controller. It wasn't Fortnite
Speaker 1: or Destiny or Minecraft. No, they wanted to play a
Speaker 1: fantasy game that's almost fifty years old and all you
Speaker 1: need to play is a pen, a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: and many sighted dice. Yeah, you got it. They were
Speaker 1: playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 3: When you're playing video games, you can't really see your
Speaker 3: friends and actually like interact interact with them, and with
Speaker 3: D and D you can like look at your friends
Speaker 3: and you can like talk the situation out and like
Speaker 3: what you're gonna do to like save your friend or
Speaker 3: like slay a monster or something.
Speaker 4: It's like an open world, like you can go wherever
Speaker 4: you want, and like I like like some of the
Speaker 4: monsters and like, yeah, it's fun most.
Speaker 2: Of the time. I'm the DM, so I really like
Speaker 2: making the stories. But about playing DUD.
Speaker 3: I really like working with my teammates and just like
Speaker 3: finding ways to beat the monsters and like clever wise,
Speaker 3: it's freedom, the way that you can just go wherever
Speaker 3: you want, make any decisions you want, and the fact
Speaker 3: that like the decisions you make, you're just free completely.
Speaker 2: In literally, look, I got a war, I got in your.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's the big take. I'm
Speaker 1: west Kasova today. Dungeons and Dragons is a massive game.
Speaker 1: Can it become a massive business too? Generations of players
Speaker 1: old and young, as we just heard, there has spent
Speaker 1: untold hours playing D and D. Now, the game's company,
Speaker 1: has Bro, is hoping to cash in on that popularity
Speaker 1: with a big budget movie and an array of D
Speaker 1: and D products intended to hook players and keep them
Speaker 1: paying for more. Business Week correspondent Felix Gillette is here
Speaker 1: to explain why that might be a risky bet.
Speaker 4: This did not go over well with the D and
Speaker 4: D world. I mean, people felt like, oh, this is
Speaker 4: so greedy on the part of this huge toy company.
Speaker 4: You're trying to stifle innovation. You're going to end the
Speaker 4: whole thing.
Speaker 5: And later in the show, you know, you'll sit down
Speaker 5: at a table with them, and the entire conversation you're
Speaker 5: going to realize is going to be stories and experiences
Speaker 5: that they had in their game.
Speaker 1: We hear from a store owner who caters to the
Speaker 1: D and D crowd, Felix, Today, we're talking about something
Speaker 1: I never thought we do an episode about. But in
Speaker 1: the Business Week story you've written with Thomas Buckley, you
Speaker 1: say people are looking to make Dungeons and Dragons of
Speaker 1: all things, into a big moneymaker. Why now after all
Speaker 1: these years?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Dungeons and Dragons is kind of the
Speaker 4: classic role playing game that was invented in nineteen seventies,
Speaker 4: so it's coming up on its fiftieth birthday. For those
Speaker 4: who haven't played before. You basically create a character according
Speaker 4: to the set of rules and then you sit around
Speaker 4: with a group of friends. One person serves as the
Speaker 4: dungeon Master, and they kind of guide the players through
Speaker 4: these group adventures. A lot of it is based on
Speaker 4: your imagination, and then there's these books that have endless
Speaker 4: rules for like how you fight and the monsters and
Speaker 4: how you engage with them, and spells you can use.
Speaker 4: And it's really fun. And it's going through this enormous
Speaker 4: resurgence in the last couple of years where it's probably
Speaker 4: more popular now than it's ever been, and that's because
Speaker 4: of a number of different factors. I think part of
Speaker 4: it is a generational thing. There's all these people like
Speaker 4: myself who played it as a kid who are now
Speaker 4: grown up and have more spending power and have gotten
Speaker 4: their kids into it. It's been very prominent on the
Speaker 4: Netflix hitch show Stranger Things, which has introduced a whole
Speaker 4: new group with people to this game.
Speaker 3: Shadow girls on the wall behind you, swallowing you in darkness.
Speaker 3: It is almost here.
Speaker 6: What is it?
Speaker 7: What if it's the Demogorgan, Look Jue this, We're so screwed.
Speaker 3: If it's the Demogorgan, the demo Gorgon.
Speaker 7: An army of trouble, that's charge into the chamber truggle
Speaker 7: that's told you.
Speaker 4: And there's also this whole new crew of D and
Speaker 4: D influencers. So if you go on YouTube you can
Speaker 4: watch shows, there's D and D podcasts, TikTok, the whole thing.
Speaker 4: And it's a game that lends itself very well to
Speaker 4: live streaming. It's kind of a mix of fantasy imagination, storytelling, improvisation,
Speaker 4: and comedy, and if you have a bunch of funny
Speaker 4: people doing it, it's pretty entertaining to watch.
Speaker 1: And so the thing behind it really is this story
Speaker 1: that the story is unfolding in real time. You don't
Speaker 1: really know which direction it's gonna go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's just a bunch of obstacles that come out.
Speaker 4: Usually players will have a adventure module that will kind
Speaker 4: of provide a setting and a large goal and some
Speaker 4: of the monsters that you might encounter along the way.
Speaker 1: But it's very much up to.
Speaker 4: The dungeon master to turn that loose structure of a
Speaker 4: campaign into a linear series of events and challenges, and
Speaker 4: it's up to the players to try and solve the
Speaker 4: problems and get their characters to the end.
Speaker 1: And there's an element of chance in.
Speaker 4: This yes, and a lot of it. It's all basically
Speaker 4: determined through rolling of dice, and the classic D and
Speaker 4: D cultural icon is the twenty sided die, which, if
Speaker 4: you have ever played it just has a certain feel.
Speaker 4: That twenty sided di is amazing. I just love it,
Speaker 4: even to this day. I haven't played Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 4: myself for more than thirty years, but even so, you
Speaker 4: pick up one of those twenty sided dice and it's
Speaker 4: just it's sweet.
Speaker 1: So you were at Dungeons and drag Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4: We had this great babysitter when I was in late
Speaker 4: elementary and early junior high school. We had this babysitter,
Speaker 4: Pippa Pipa Potter, who introduced me and my brother and
Speaker 4: our best friend to it. And she was an amazing
Speaker 4: dungeon master, and we played for years every time she
Speaker 4: came over to babysit us. Eventually, Pipa went to college
Speaker 4: and then we realized we would have to do it ourselves,
Speaker 4: and my brother, who was older than May, became the
Speaker 4: dungeon master, but me and my friend Daniel, really could
Speaker 4: never accept his authority and it fell apart from there.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, I mean, I remember when I
Speaker 1: was a kid I was not a D and D kid,
Speaker 1: but I had a lot of friends who played in Like,
Speaker 1: some of their parents thought this was a terrible influence
Speaker 1: on their lives.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in the nineteen seventies, as this was gaining popularity,
Speaker 4: there was all this stuff about don't let your kids
Speaker 4: play Dungeons and Dragons, it's going to ruin their brain.
Speaker 4: On the one hand, I think it actually drew players
Speaker 4: in and increased the popularity of the game among teenagers
Speaker 4: in particular. On the other hand, it made it difficult
Speaker 4: for Dungeons and Dragons owners, the businesses that we're trying
Speaker 4: to make money from this game. I think over the
Speaker 4: years it really has hurt D and d's ability to
Speaker 4: kind of branch out and become a broader, more mainstream,
Speaker 4: family friendly brand, which has kind of been the goal
Speaker 4: of its owners for like almost a half century now.
Speaker 1: And now all these years later, that's exactly what some
Speaker 1: big companies are trying to do, try to take this
Speaker 1: game that was once seen as edgy and now kind
Speaker 1: of looks a little wholesome and make it into a
Speaker 1: really big brand.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So Dungeons and Dragons is now owned by Hasbro, which
Speaker 4: is one of the largest toy companies in the world
Speaker 4: that have monopoly. They have scrabbled, they have toggled, they
Speaker 4: have you know, transformers, all these different toys and games
Speaker 4: in their portfolio of brands. And during the last couple
Speaker 4: of years, as there's been this huge surge in interest
Speaker 4: in playing Dungeons and Dragons, Hasbro has looked at this
Speaker 4: and they've said, Wow, this is like a great opportunity
Speaker 4: to really make a lot more money from this brand.
Speaker 4: And last year, Hasbro set this aggressive growth goal and
Speaker 4: they said, we're going to increase our profits by fifty
Speaker 4: percent over the next three years. And as they laid
Speaker 4: out their strategy for doing this, they pointed to Dungeons
Speaker 4: and Dragons. They said, that's really an under moonetized brand
Speaker 4: and we see it as a big potential growth sector
Speaker 4: for us. So what's kind of fascinating now is we're
Speaker 4: really at the forefront of Hasbro's blitz to really make
Speaker 4: more money from Dungeons and Dragons. So over the next year,
Speaker 4: you're going to see all these D and D brand
Speaker 4: extensions coming down the pipeline. And the first really big
Speaker 4: one is Hasbro's E one Studio and Paramount Pictures recently
Speaker 4: premiered Dungeons and Dragons Honor among Thieves, which is this
Speaker 4: big cgi Leyden blockbuster movie, comedy adventure movie. Chris Pine,
Speaker 4: Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant all star in this movie.
Speaker 1: Exactly that you bring to this.
Speaker 6: I'm a planner. I make plans.
Speaker 4: You've already made planned.
Speaker 6: So if the existing plan fails, I make a new plant.
Speaker 7: So you make plans that fail.
Speaker 8: He also plays the.
Speaker 5: Loot not relevant.
Speaker 4: So this is one of their big investments. There's also
Speaker 4: Balder's Gate III, which is a video game based on
Speaker 4: Dungeons and Dragons that's coming out later this year. They've
Speaker 4: announced that Paramount Plus, the streaming service, is working on
Speaker 4: a live action D and D series, and next year
Speaker 4: they're going to be rolling out one D and D,
Speaker 4: which is the next iteration, the next edition of the
Speaker 4: classic tabletop game. In addition to new rule sets and
Speaker 4: new books, they're also promising fans that this is going
Speaker 4: to be a more digitized experience, and it's going to
Speaker 4: come with all these new digital add ons, including a
Speaker 4: virtual tabletop, which is basically a three D environment. Has
Speaker 4: Bro really for years has been looking at Dungeons and
Speaker 4: Dragons and thinking how can we make this more of
Speaker 4: a digital experience, because frankly, the classic tabletop role playing
Speaker 4: industry is pretty small. It's one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 4: dollars of retail sales in the US and Canada, which,
Speaker 4: when you think about it, is less than the studio
Speaker 4: can make from a single hit movie or a single
Speaker 4: video game.
Speaker 1: So part of the effort.
Speaker 4: To grow Dungeons and Dragons is, Okay, what can we
Speaker 4: do that's something in between a game you play around
Speaker 4: a table with your friends and not quite a video game.
Speaker 4: And when the pandemic hit in twenty twenty, it sort
Speaker 4: of accelerated the process, right because suddenly you couldn't get
Speaker 4: together with your friends and sit around a table, and
Speaker 4: so you started seeing a real uptick in you know, okay,
Speaker 4: let's get together over zoom or discord. Traditionally, you would
Speaker 4: keep track of your character's evolution on a piece of
Speaker 4: paper with a pencil. Well, we can't really see each
Speaker 4: other's characters, like, maybe there's an app. There was an
Speaker 4: app called D and D Beyond that.
Speaker 1: Allowed you to do this digitally.
Speaker 4: People started playing a lot of times with D and
Speaker 4: D Beyond open on their phone and that service, which
Speaker 4: at the time was independent, that got a lot of
Speaker 4: growth upsurge during the early months of the pandemic. So
Speaker 4: Hasbro was watching all of this and they were thinking, Okay,
Speaker 4: the evolution is happening. We want to get involved in this,
Speaker 4: we want to get ahead of this. So last year
Speaker 4: they went out and they acquired D and D Beyond.
Speaker 4: They paid close to one hundred and fifty million dollars,
Speaker 4: and now they're essentially saying they're going to make this
Speaker 4: the center of the D and D experience. I think
Speaker 4: what they ideally would like is for D and D
Speaker 4: players to use the D and D Beyond app while
Speaker 4: they're playing the game. They'd like people to go on
Speaker 4: to the D and D Beyond forums to chat with
Speaker 4: their friends, and even more so, they would like people
Speaker 4: to start gathering virtually in this virtual tabletop that's coming out,
Speaker 4: and once they're there, I think their idea is, Okay, well,
Speaker 4: how are we going to make more money for the game,
Speaker 4: And they're kind of looking at this model that's very
Speaker 4: popular in the video game world, which is like, we'll
Speaker 4: give away the digital experience, either for free or for
Speaker 4: a low cost, but once you're in there, We're going
Speaker 4: to lure you with all these potential add ons for
Speaker 4: your characters, so you can get a cool outfit for
Speaker 4: your wizard, or like a new spell that lights up
Speaker 4: the screen or something, and you'll pay us like a
Speaker 4: couple dollars here and there. And they're hoping that all
Speaker 4: these micro transactions will add up to a lot more
Speaker 4: money over time.
Speaker 1: When we come back. Can Hasbro get people to pay
Speaker 1: for a game that's been nearly free for decades.
Speaker 6: My name is Eric, and I am from Cincinnati, Ohio.
Speaker 6: I think the beautiful thing about D and D is
Speaker 6: that it's a game where you can see yours and
Speaker 6: the other players at the tables. Decisions and choices impact
Speaker 6: the world, the story, and the characters. In another medium,
Speaker 6: like video games, you can really only solve a problem
Speaker 6: in a way that the designer planned for you to
Speaker 6: be able to solve, whereas in D and D you're
Speaker 6: able to address problems in these creative, out of the
Speaker 6: box solutions that maybe you're the only person that would
Speaker 6: have thought of to try it that way, but then
Speaker 6: you're able to see that scenario play out and how
Speaker 6: that would impact the world and the story.
Speaker 1: Felix Hasbro is trying to turn what's always been is
Speaker 1: very face to face analog game into some more digital,
Speaker 1: which makes sense. But you had mentioned earlier that there's
Speaker 1: been this resurgence in playing D and D and a
Speaker 1: lot of that, as you write, was based on the
Speaker 1: fact that it wasn't digital. It was almost like proudly
Speaker 1: anti digital. Are people going to accept what Hasbro is
Speaker 1: trying to get them to do. I think it's going to.
Speaker 4: Be a tough sell. I think that part of the appeal,
Speaker 4: as you said, of Dungeons and Dragons, is that it
Speaker 4: is this analog experience, and I think it's a way
Speaker 4: of getting together with friends where you don't have to
Speaker 4: deal with all the trappings of digital life, social media feedback,
Speaker 4: you know, cameras, microphones, like it's a really great feeling
Speaker 4: to get back and just sit around at table with people,
Speaker 4: and I think that's been part of the appeal.
Speaker 7: Then.
Speaker 4: I think it's also been really fascinating to watch now
Speaker 4: because the concern of parents almost universally is like, our
Speaker 4: kids are spending too much time on the screen, right
Speaker 4: They're just always playing video games, looking at social media,
Speaker 4: watching their streaming shows, and this huge desire to get
Speaker 4: them off the screens and to do anything else. And
Speaker 4: I think D and D has been great and very
Speaker 4: appealing for that very reason. So now you see parents
Speaker 4: really wanting their kids to go play.
Speaker 7: D n Z.
Speaker 4: Go down the basement, Hey, get the dice out. You know,
Speaker 4: you guys will have fun. And I think ironically that's
Speaker 4: been part of the multi generational boom that D and
Speaker 4: D has been experiencing in popularity is its appeal as
Speaker 4: an analog product. So I think that's part of the
Speaker 4: challenge that Hasro is going to have. The other big
Speaker 4: part of the challenge is that historically, part of the
Speaker 4: reason that Dungeons and Dragons has been a difficult business
Speaker 4: for its various owners over the years to monetize is
Speaker 4: because of something about the fan base itself and anything
Speaker 4: that reeks of kind of unfettered commercials or dumbing down
Speaker 4: the game. They get very very vocal that like, this
Speaker 4: is not a good thing. Hasbro actually found themselves in
Speaker 4: this huge controversy with its fan base. Basically what happened
Speaker 4: is that twenty three years ago, the original company that
Speaker 4: owned Dungeons and Dragons, they sold the business to Wizards
Speaker 4: of the Coast, which was this hobby company outside of
Speaker 4: Seattle which had this hit game called Magic the Gathering,
Speaker 4: and they were flushed with cash. They go out, they
Speaker 4: buy D and D and so what they did, and
Speaker 4: this was very smart. Probably the best decision that's been
Speaker 4: made in the fifty year history of Dungeons Dragons is
Speaker 4: they said, we're going to adopt this open game license.
Speaker 4: And it was essentially saying, if you're a fan of
Speaker 4: the game, if you like to play it, and you
Speaker 4: want to create a little add on feature, you want
Speaker 4: to write an adventure module that you could take your
Speaker 4: friends through and it's really fun, and you decide you
Speaker 4: want to sell it, that's great. You don't have to
Speaker 4: ask us for a permit and go start selling it yourself.
Speaker 4: It's kind of been taken for granted that that's how
Speaker 4: the D and D world works. And the other thing
Speaker 4: that was great about this open licensing framework is it
Speaker 4: really broadened the types of people the groups of people
Speaker 4: that were playing Dungeons and Dragons. Initially, it was a
Speaker 4: lot of boys in the Midwest, men in the Midwest
Speaker 4: playing This is kind of the community that grew out
Speaker 4: of Now you suddenly you have more women coming in.
Speaker 4: You have more people of color and allowed people to
Speaker 4: make characters and adventures that appealed to them and their friends.
Speaker 4: And it was this great diversifying effect on the broader
Speaker 4: Dungeons and Dragons community.
Speaker 1: Feelix, why do I feel like there's a big butt
Speaker 1: coming here? Yeah.
Speaker 4: But then late last year, Hasbro started reaching out to
Speaker 4: people in the role playing game community and saying, oh,
Speaker 4: you know what, we have this new contract that's going
Speaker 4: to replace the open game license. We're going to update it.
Speaker 4: And when people took a look at it, all, hell
Speaker 4: broke loose. I mean, people were so pissed off because
Speaker 4: essentially what it signaled, in many small ways was that
Speaker 4: the open Dungeons and Dragons era was coming to an
Speaker 4: end and it was going to be replaced with something else,
Speaker 4: in which Hasbro was much more tightly controlling the ecosystem
Speaker 4: around Dungeons and Dragons. If you were a publisher and
Speaker 4: you were making more than fifty thousand dollars a year
Speaker 4: from D and D related products, you'd have to go
Speaker 4: to them and say exactly what it was you were selling,
Speaker 4: and to who If you were making more than seven
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, then it would
Speaker 4: kick in a licensing fee, and this did not go
Speaker 4: over well with the D and D world, huge controversy
Speaker 4: in that world. So by the end of January Hasbro
Speaker 4: essentially capitulated. They apologize we're going to keep the open
Speaker 4: gaming license in place and we want everyone to participate.
Speaker 4: They did not really say too much about the future.
Speaker 4: So to what degree third party creators are going to
Speaker 4: be able to create supplemental materials in this new hybrid
Speaker 4: digital Dungeons and Dragons world. It's very much something that
Speaker 4: D and D fans and creators and community members are
Speaker 4: wondering about.
Speaker 1: In all of this, there's nothing that keeps people from
Speaker 1: just using the old books they use when they were kids.
Speaker 1: Are the ones that are still out there and just
Speaker 1: doing their own games. It's not like you have to
Speaker 1: be part of the Hasbro ecosystem now to play Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons.
Speaker 4: Correct. You could go back and play the original Dungeons Dragons.
Speaker 4: You could play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. You could play
Speaker 4: the second edition, the third edition, the fourth edition. There
Speaker 4: are all these books circulating, rule sets circulating over the years.
Speaker 4: I think the difference is that, especially you're kind of
Speaker 4: watching the Dungeons and Dragons influencers on Twitch, and you're
Speaker 4: you know, going on YouTube and watching people talk about
Speaker 4: the game, and you're listening to D and D podcasts.
Speaker 4: I think all of that has added an element of
Speaker 4: currency and wanting to be part of the new version
Speaker 4: because you know, the old versions work, but the rules
Speaker 4: are different, and this is really just there's no board
Speaker 4: game involved with Dungeons Dragons. It's really the rules. And
Speaker 4: so I think, if anything, this broader ecosystem of Dungeons
Speaker 4: and Dragons fans that's built up has put more emphasis
Speaker 4: on being part of the current era. And like I said,
Speaker 4: I think that's part of the reason that the current edition,
Speaker 4: which is the fifth edition, is the most popular in
Speaker 4: the game's history. I think the question becomes how many
Speaker 4: of those devoted, happy fifth edition players is has Bro
Speaker 4: going to be able to move over to this new
Speaker 4: version and is there some risk of as you're trying
Speaker 4: to broaden this, as you're trying to make it more digital,
Speaker 4: as you're trying to make it more appealing to non players,
Speaker 4: do you lose something and do you potentially risk alienating
Speaker 4: this group of existing fans that are playing it happily now.
Speaker 1: So what do you think the answer is? Hesbro is
Speaker 1: putting a big bet on this game. It's still a
Speaker 1: really complicated game, is still sort of a niche game.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they can build this into a
Speaker 1: mass market success.
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be really difficult. I think
Speaker 4: the nature of Dungeons and Dragons is that the most
Speaker 4: important element is the imagination of the people who are
Speaker 4: playing in the group, and that's a very hard thing
Speaker 4: to turn into a product.
Speaker 1: So, Felix, after writing the story, has it rekindled your
Speaker 1: childhood love of D and D? Are you going to
Speaker 1: start playing again?
Speaker 4: It has. I'm very gamed to start playing again. I
Speaker 4: want to get my kids into it. We've been playing
Speaker 4: a stripped down role playing game that's much simpler, that's
Speaker 4: kind of geared for younger kids called Hero Kids, that
Speaker 4: similarly uses a lot of the conventions of Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 4: But I think it's a feeling like it might be
Speaker 4: time to graduate them up to Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 1: Felix, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 4: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: After the break, we meet a store owner who makes
Speaker 1: a living serving these gamers.
Speaker 7: My name is Raven and I'm from eastern Pennsylvania growing
Speaker 7: up in a religious community. D and D was something
Speaker 7: that I had heard foreign tails of, this strange game
Speaker 7: that people would partake in, and I didn't really know
Speaker 7: or understand a whole lot about it, only that I
Speaker 7: was dissuaded.
Speaker 1: From playing it.
Speaker 7: So as an adult, coming to D and D was interesting.
Speaker 7: I'm a person who's very involved in the arts, so
Speaker 7: the idea of being able to make up a story
Speaker 7: and live in that story was very appealing.
Speaker 1: We wanted to talk to someone who's deeply familiar with
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons and the people who play it, and
Speaker 1: also what it takes to make D and D a business.
Speaker 1: Our producer, Michael Falerro, called up Lauren Bolonco. She's the
Speaker 1: co owner of twenty Side that's a board game retail
Speaker 1: store and event space in Brooklyn.
Speaker 8: Can you describe how you would explain your business to
Speaker 8: folks if they asked, like, what do you do? What
Speaker 8: is twenty sided do? How do you'd explain it?
Speaker 5: Twenty Sided Store and twenty Sided event Space has been
Speaker 5: going on for twelve years. The retail side of things,
Speaker 5: we sell games on the secondary market, so we sell
Speaker 5: a lot of board games, everything from party games to
Speaker 5: heavy strategy games. We started off as an event space,
Speaker 5: and the retail kind of grew out of that. When
Speaker 5: we started, we were running magic gathering events and then
Speaker 5: started you know, picking up Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons
Speaker 5: and Dragons, organized play kits, all kinds of ways for
Speaker 5: people to come together and meet other people. I think
Speaker 5: over the twelve years we've really realized that that's been
Speaker 5: kind of the key is, you know a lot of
Speaker 5: people are looking for other people who are into this
Speaker 5: hobby and they want to find other people to play with.
Speaker 5: What we do at twenty Sided is we create an
Speaker 5: environment where people can come and learn how to play
Speaker 5: as they're playing. So we started off right away with
Speaker 5: that kind of being the foremost of it. We would
Speaker 5: have pre generated characters that you could play, and then
Speaker 5: as you sort of got a little bit more familiar
Speaker 5: with it, we'd have opportunities for our participants to create
Speaker 5: their own characters and bring those characters back. But then
Speaker 5: there's also now these experiences where you know, people want
Speaker 5: to watch other people play games. Because there were people
Speaker 5: who constantly were like, I'm new to this, I'm really
Speaker 5: afraid to try this out. Is there any way that
Speaker 5: I could watch? But then eventually I thought, oh, you
Speaker 5: know what if we have people that are willing to
Speaker 5: be on stage and want to perform this for other people,
Speaker 5: then this is a way that we could have an audience.
Speaker 8: For somebody who walks off the street. You've described kind
Speaker 8: of this learning how to make a character, learning how
Speaker 8: to start playing, which can be in overwhelming but very
Speaker 8: fun experience. If someone walks in during one of these
Speaker 8: nights where we have any these events going on, what
Speaker 8: are they most likely to see? Are they sitting down
Speaker 8: at a table with other folks like paint us a picture.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it all starts off with you know, you just
Speaker 5: pre register on our website for either one session or
Speaker 5: I like to kind of group it into smaller, more
Speaker 5: palatable ways for people to register for an event. You know,
Speaker 5: we're all adults and it you know, lives are busy.
Speaker 5: So if we do campaigns, I will have people sign
Speaker 5: up maybe for four weeks at a time, and so
Speaker 5: there's always an opportunity to kind of take a break
Speaker 5: or come back. And then for the individual sessions, we
Speaker 5: try to write things in a way where each of
Speaker 5: the storylines can have an end even if they're just
Speaker 5: a one shot. But if you keep bringing that character
Speaker 5: back for a series of one shots, they are all
Speaker 5: still sort of set in the same world where you
Speaker 5: can keep bringing that character back. And I've started creating
Speaker 5: my own world for this experience. Even though we've got
Speaker 5: a huge, huge selection of role playing games that we
Speaker 5: sell and different games that we run at the store,
Speaker 5: Dungeons and Dragons is still probably our best seller and
Speaker 5: the one that most people want to play and learn
Speaker 5: how to play.
Speaker 8: You've had this business for twelve years. You just had
Speaker 8: your anniversary recently. Just describe in a few words, like
Speaker 8: how has the D and D scene at your store
Speaker 8: changed in those twelve years.
Speaker 5: It's changed a lot, you know, for the most part,
Speaker 5: now almost everybody has a better idea of how to
Speaker 5: play and what it is. And I think that's because
Speaker 5: they're watching other people play. There's a lot more resources
Speaker 5: out there for people to watch, right, Like, can I
Speaker 5: just see how this is done? How do people do this?
Speaker 5: So back when we were first running games, I think
Speaker 5: a lot of it was people came to it realizing
Speaker 5: that they were an equal participant in the process. And
Speaker 5: I think now there's more of this expectation of this
Speaker 5: entertainment value.
Speaker 8: So for an audience like hours that I would imagine
Speaker 8: most of them haven't played D and D, could you explain,
Speaker 8: you know, what is the appeal of the game for everyone?
Speaker 8: What can the appeal be?
Speaker 5: You know, we get to develop a world and create
Speaker 5: a character and play in this fantasy environment that is
Speaker 5: super fun. And I think for people who play in
Speaker 5: ongoing campaigns, you know, you'll sit down at a table
Speaker 5: with them and the entire conversation you're going to realize
Speaker 5: is going to be stories and experiences that they had
Speaker 5: in their game. They're memorable, you know, these things that
Speaker 5: happened because you are part of the storytelling process that
Speaker 5: you create something. The support and the encouragement from everybody
Speaker 5: around you helps you create things that you never thought
Speaker 5: you could do, to come up with ideas that you
Speaker 5: never thought you could ever have, And that's where I
Speaker 5: think you get these memorable experiences that stick with you
Speaker 5: for life. So you know, it's wild.
Speaker 8: Lauren Blanco, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was
Speaker 1: a pleasure. Thanks for listening to us here at the
Speaker 1: Big Take it's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. And we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Email us questions or comments at Big Take at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is
Speaker 1: Vicky Virgolina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. Our producers
Speaker 1: are Michael Falleerro and Moberrow. Raphael m Seely is our engineer.
Speaker 1: Our original music composed by Leo Sidron. I'm west Kosova.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Day