Wizards of the Coast scraps games

The Hasbro subsidiary best known for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering has cancelled most of its game projects.

Wizards of the Coast, the entertainment company responsible for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering has cancelled much of its video game projects, both in-house and externally.

The news comes courtesy of Bloomberg, who reports that Wizards of the Coast has cancelled “at least” five video game projects, including those in development from external development partners. A spokesman for the company told Bloomberg that it was still “committed to using digital games”, but that there were changes being made to its upcoming portfolio.

“[Wizards of the Coast 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 also reportedly said that “fewer than 15” people at Wizards of the Coast will lose their jobs at the company as a result of the move, and that those laid off will get to apply to other roles within the company.

Dungeons and Dragons has been handled by Wizards of the Coast since 1997. Picture: Wizards of the Coast

The report also mentions two external development partners, Otherside Entertainment and Hidden Path Entertainment, suggesting those developers’ projects have also been scrapped. Hidden Path, who also worked on the popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), had been working on a ‘AAA’ Dungeons & Dragons RPG.

Wizards of the Coast is best known for its handling of tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which it acquired the publishing rights to in 1997. It also develops and publishes the Magic: The Gathering collectable card game, and published the Pokemon Trading Card Game up until 2003.

Bloomberg says that Wizards of the Coast has spent the last few years pouring money and resources into video games, with contracts signed with a number of video game developers alongside six of its own video game development studios.

The video game Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance was generally poorly received by the press and fans. Picture: Wizards of the Coast

In other video game cancellation news, EA recently cancelled the Project CARS series, after a lukewarm reaction to the most recent game in the series. EA said that the decision was “very hard”, but that the company would instead be focusing on other racing games in its portfolio, including Need for Speed.

EA also had to apologise for “rude” tweets, after its official Need for Speed Twitter account called a follower a “milkshake brain” and told them to “cry about it bro”.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.