I had previously written about Hasbro and its ability to kill golden gooses. No sooner had I finished that article than it looks like they’ve done so once more, this time to one of their most lucrative franchises – Dungeons & Dragons.
Per his own post on X, Christopher Perkins has announced that he will be retiring from his role as Creative Director at Wizards of the Coast, the subset of Hasbro Inc. that is responsible for the sprawling Dungeons & Dragons IP.
Dungeons & Dragons – the Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977 (2024), Wizards of the Coast
Why does this matter? Because he was one of the last few remaining “originals” who had been involved with the franchise for nearly 28 years. He first got his start writing for Dungeon Magazine back in 1988 before becoming promoted to editor-in-chief of Wizard’s periodicals a few years later. He then moved on to working on the development of the D&D game directly, first as senior producer, then as story manager for the fourth edition in 2007 before becoming the senior story designer in 2018.
He was promoted to Game Design Architect some time after, before his final promotion up to Creative Director. During his long run with the franchise, he also published a blog for over two years entitled “The Dungeon Master Experience” and worked on various stand-alone adventure modules.
Dungeons & Dragons – the Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977 (2024), Wizards of the Coast
Now, it is entirely possible that Chris’s announcement is just what it is—28 years is a long time, and maybe he just got tired of DnD and decided he wanted to spend more time with his family.
Conversely, with how the folks at Wizards of the Coast have been doing their level best to ignore, erase, and push away just about anyone associated with the game from “the old days,” such as its creator Gary Gygax, his son Ernie G. Gygax Jr., and Rob Kuntz due to their “problematic natures,” it’s possibe Chris was pushed out of Dungeons & Dragons by Hasbro as well.
If true, this would be unfortunate not just for the many players he inspired over the course of nearly three decades, but for the franchise itself.
Rows of Rainbow Pride Star Wars toys at Disney’s Cast Connection
As we’ve started to see with other once-successful IP’s, jettisoning the driving creative forces who have successfully built these franchises up more often than not leads to disaster (Star Wars, I’m looking at you…).
It’s unclear whether Hasbro and Wizards are still keeping Chris on as some sort of creative consultant, but if they aren’t and they value making money from one of their last remaining lucrative properties, they’d better do so quickly.
On its face, Chris’s situation with Dungeons & Dragons seems very similar to that of John Warden, another “golden goose” Hasbro recently unceremoniously laid off.
A screenshot from Transformers One (2024), Paramount Pictures
If the name isn’t familiar, John was appointed as the design lead on the Transformers toy franchise in 2014, after having first worked on Hasbro’s Star Wars and G.I. Joe lines. He is credited with re-invigorating the Transformers toy franchise with the wildly popular War for Cybertron trilogies, whose design philosophy continues to this day. He was also responsible for the successful launch of Hasbro’s first-ever crowd-funded Transformer, the giant planet-eating Unicron.
To reward his success, Hasbro moved him over to their floundering Power Rangers and Ghostbusters IP’s as Global Design Lead hoping he could salvage them. Hasbro then pulled him back to Transformers and G.I Joe in 2024 as Director of Product Design in a further attempt to re-ignite the popularity of both brands.
He reportedly created a shared strategy incorporating both Transformers and G.I. Joe together into a cohesive roadmap which likely tied into the recent announcement of the Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie that was recently announced by Hasbro.
Robo Rita Repulsa in Power Rangers Once & Always on Netflix – YouTube, Netflix
And then, for his 25 years of efforts, Hasbro promptly fired him last October during their most recent round of layoffs. Per Warden himself: “There was not a lot of warning and we were kind of blindsided.”
While these types of moves track with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks’ stated goal of counter-intuitively moving Hasbro away from toy-making, both Warden’s firing as well as Chris Perkins’ departure are absolutely the corporate version of cutting off your nose to spite your face, and it’s almost certain that these brands will start to flounder once more in their absence.
A screenshot from Transformers One (2024), Paramount Pictures
In the wake of his firing, Warden set up a GoFundMe for help with his family’s medical expenses, which loyal fans helped drive to success. In even better news, he seems to have landed on his feet as he is now working with The Loyal Subjects on their recently announced Mobile Armored Strike Kommand (M.A.S.K.) toy line, the production of which has, ironically, been licensed from Hasbro themselves.
Where will things go from here with Hasbro? It is hard to say, but their recent actions do not inspire confidence.
Can Hasbro survive while eliminating chief creative forces from IPs like Dungeons & Dragons and Transformers/G.I. Joe? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
Hasbro is the next on the chopping block and it was long time coming. Hasbro is floundering for a long time, their popularity is collapsing, their toys are a joke of Chinese quality and their conduct is atrocious especially against fans and their own distributors.
They won’t go bankrupt, but will be forced to sell ips to Chinese and others the same way as Ubisoft.
You’re assuming China will even be around by the time that happens. The flood of Chinese propaganda on sociopathic media platforms and efforts to get people to buy directly from companies like Shein and Temu tells me that the country’s desperate thanks to the trade war. A climax to what’s been building over the past five years.
Hasbro has been sick for decades and they’ve been reduced to chasing trends to try and stay relevant. This trade war with China promises to destroy them if Winnie the Pooh doesn’t send someone to the negotiating table, which is looking less likely each day.