Wizards of the Coast has a long and storied history with both physical and digital trading card and tabletop games. Think Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Axis & Allies — well, you get the picture. If you’re even casually familiar with any of those, you know Wizards of the Coast.
Company President Chris Cocks has spoken to Rolling Stone to reveal more about his leadership style and WotC’s big plans moving forward. The TLDR version is that there are plans afoot for bringing new ways to play well-known “castles” like D&D and Magic: The Gathering, as well as to develop “boats”, new IPs that are sort of tests for the company.
Wizards has BIG Plans – TV, Movies, Games, Books & More
“The boat is more of a test. It’s very fast, very flexible. If a boat doesn’t succeed, that’s OK; you can launch a new one. D&D and Magic are both castles for us. And a game like the upcoming Transformers title is a boat. With the Transformers trading card game, we can be nimble,” he says.”
Speaking of the Transformers card game, it’s being developed for younger gamers and is designed to be “cool” with unique mechanics. It should only take one or two times playing to figure it out.
But what should be exciting for any WotC fan is this: “Beyond Arena (a new Magic computer game), we have a series of other games that are on the drawing board or we are actively working on. Magic is a really cool fantasy franchise and we haven’t given people a good opportunity to explore it.”
When asked about other ways to expand the Magic universe, Cocks said that movies, books, comic books and video games are all on the “possible” list. “They include everything from trading card games to battlers to role playing games to strategy games”.
For D&D, WotC is targeting a totally different audience, sort of the 35-45 crowd that grew up playing D&D and became inspired storytellers.The company has big plans for D&D as well:
“We are looking at TV series or movie deals as well as more web-based content and actively pursuing a larger slate of video games for D&D. Right now we have a slate of four to five coming in 12 to 18 months and five or six set for 2020 and beyond across a variety of genres.”
It sounds like WotC fans have a lot to look forward to — and not just in D&D and Magic, but in new IPs and old favorites as well. Be sure to read Rolling Stone’s entire interview.
