Wizards of the Coast Appoints New VP of D&D Franchise
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Wizards of the Coast has appointed a new “Vice President of Franchise” to lead the Dungeons & Dragons team. The news comes just weeks after the departure of Jess Lanzilo, who had previously served as VP of D&D for the past year. The new position is being filled by Dan Ayoub, who was promoted internally after serving as the Head of Studios for D&D since 2022.
As VP of Franchise, Ayoub will oversee a major internal shift of the Dungeons & Dragons brand, which will be moving to a new model that puts all D&D books, films, TV shows, video games and merchandising elements under a single business structure at Wizards of the Coast.
So just what does this mean for the future of D&D as both a game and a brand? Below, we take a closer look at all the details.
Who is the new D&D VP of Franchise Dan Ayoub?
Dan Ayoub is a Canadian-born senior executive with Wizards of the Coast who has extensive experience in the video game industry. He previously worked for Microsoft for over 11 years, serving as an Executive Producer and Studio Head for 343 Industries, where he oversaw the popular Halo video game franchise. Prior to that, Ayoub served in various roles at a number of major AAA video game studios, including Ubisoft, Electronic Arts and Disney. In 2019, while still working as an executive, he also graduated from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he specialized in Artificial Intelligence; something which is likely of interest to Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, who remains extremely bullish on the application of AI in games.
In 2022, Ayoub joined Wizards of the Coast in the position of VP, Head of Studios, and was largely responsible for overseeing eternal collaborations and internal development on several Dungeons & Dragons video games. Notably, Ayoub has said he has been a D&D fan and player since the age of 12.
What does the new position mean for the future of D&D?
The new role of VP of Franchise marks a major change to how Wizards of the Coast approaches Dungeons & Dragons. In the past, the game was largely managed as its own entity, with other WotC stakeholders handling licensing of the D&D brand for video games, films, TV and merchandise. The franchise model now means that D&D will be viewed less as a game and more as a brand.
In a LinkedIn post shared on July 9th that discusses the new VP role, Ayoub notes: “We shifted our structure internally and D&D moved to a full franchise model, meaning everything: books, video games, film, and TV – everything touching the franchise lives under one roof. The impact here cannot be overstated; this is massive for D&D and will allow a strong, coordinated, and well-funded approach for the franchise, and most importantly, for us, the fans.“
This may be worrying to fans of the game itself and brings to mind a much-criticized quote from former VP Cynthia Williams who lamented that the D&D brand was “really undermonetized.” That being said, it’s not entirely clear how this this new position will impact D&D as a whole.
Final Thoughts
In the past few months things have been chaotic at Wizards of the Coast and the D&D team, with the departure of Vice President Lanzillo, the collapse of the Sigil VTT, the lay off of video producer Todd Kendreck, and the exits of D&D game design leads Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford (both of whom later left for Critical Roll publisher, and direct D&D competitor, Darrington Press).
It’s not clear if the promotion of Dan Ayoub and the new approach to D&D as a franchise will mean a more stable period for the game or if it marks yet another tumultuous period in Wizards of the Coast’s management of the brand, following missteps such as the OGL scandal.
That being said, it’s also an exciting time for the D&D franchise, with the new 2024 Core Rules now released, a Forgotten Realms TV series in the works at Netflix, and a variety of new D&D video games in various stages of development.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story as it develops and will update this page with more info as it’s available.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
