Report: Wizards of the Coast Cancels At Least Five Video Game Projects - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 January 2023 / 2,872 Views
Wizards of the Coast has reportedly cancelled at least five video game projects as it looks to scale back its ambitions in the video game industry, according to a report from Bloomberg.
A Wizards of the Coast spokesman said the company is still "committed to using digital games" and the company has "made some changes to our long-term portfolio to focus on games which are strategically aligned with developing our existing brands and those which show promise in expanding or engaging our audience in new ways."
The spokesman stated that fewer than 15 people at Wizards of the Coast will be laid off with this change and will be given the chance to apply for new roles at the company.
The cancelled games will impact independent studios including Otherside Entertainment and Hidden Path Entertainment. Both were working on games for Wizards of the Coast.
The next bigger game from Wizards of the Coast is Baldur’s Gate III, which will leave Early Access and officially launch for PC via Steam and GOG in August 2023.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Were the 5 cancelled games comprised of being turn based or card based?.
I ask this, because their wiki literally just shows them being 2 trick pony for years after being nabbed by Hasbro. Either Hasbro isn't letting them be creative, or the studio has pigeonholed itself into just card games and turn based, there's so much more you can do as a studio by branching out to different genres.
Neve heard of wizards
I'm surprised that you haven't heard of them they basically started out in card games in the 90's with Magic the Gathering later on they bought the Dungeon and Dragons company TSR For $25 million they then published the Pokémon Trading Game, the Pokémon card game was so popular and profitable that the day after the licence ran out Nintendo printed sets were set for delivery but Wizards sued claiming Nintendo took advantage of Wizards years of experience in card games and infringed on propriety printing and packaging patents they had developed over the years unsurprisingly it was quickly settled by Nintendo, they are now owned by Hasbro
I thought pokemon cards were started by a japanese company
My bad meant NA . Magic the gathering was the worlds biggest card trading game with over 22 billion cards sold, and big in Japan it was still the No1 card game in Japan for 3 years after the Pokémon Trading game released, Pokémon on the card side of the Pokémon franchise took obvious inspiration from Magic the gathering so Wizards were the obvious choice for the NA market but Media factory an anime publisher now owned by Kadokawa Published the card trading game in Japan, all the publishing and printing is now done by Pokémon co itself, this was early around 96 to 01.
Boy, WotC seems to be in hot waters right now. Between this and the new controversies about their licenses, they are not getting any good fan goodwill lately.
Apparently they were once a fairly autonomous part of Hasbro but no longer, so it may be down to Hasbro management.
That is sad in a way, but considering the number of people impacted they either were small scale game or were still on initial planning phase.
Not surprised, those games were likely doomed to fail anyway. The narrative lead they have for their gaming division right now is a total disaster.
