As a D&D Dungeon Master, a lot of the skills Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks utilizes on a daily basis are relatively transferable: Leading teams into new territory, storytelling, and taking down mimics (of a very different sort). However, despite Cocks' dedication to his role as a DM in one of the best tabletop RPGs around, his opinions seem to be at odds with the Dungeons & Dragons franchises' official statement around the use of artificial intelligence.
As the former lead of Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast unit, Cocks has been playing D&D for 40 years at this point. In his most recent campaign playing with his sales team, he's currently dabbling in a Scooby Doo-style adventure complete with an elaborate, SFX-infused powerpoint presentation. This he reveals in a recent interview with Semafor (The CEO Signal), in which he talks a little about the responsibilities that come along with being both a DM and a CEO.
"Leading a campaign in D&D, the players have to trust that you have an outcome in store for them, and you’re not going to do a total party wipe, as fun as that might be for a DM." The same can be said for leading any teams involved in the creation of some of the best board games around – they need to know that you're not just out to get them. This is something that Hasbro's D&D brand has exemplified in its anti AI statement from two years back, which was put in place to protect artists from having their work stolen by web-scraping AI. The statement reads:
"For 50 years, D&D has been built on the innovation, ingenuity, and hard work of talented people who sculpt a beautiful, creative game. That isn't changing. Our internal guidelines remain the same with regards to artificial intelligence tools: We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the D&D TTRPG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final D&D products. We work with some of the most talented artists and creatives in the world, and we believe those people are what makes D&D great."
Almost in complete opposition to the statement, Cocks makes it clear that he believes AI is "a great leveler for user-generated content," having used it extensively in his own D&D campaigns. While using AI generated content for your own private games is generally permissible in the D&D community, his praising of it as a tool will undoubtedly concern many a fan. "It’s supercharging fandom," Cocks notes around player and DM use of AI tools. "I think that’s just net good for the brand."
In speaking about certain AI platforms' failure to compensate creators, Cocks says "I think that’s solvable." He notes that he could see AI models becoming more prominent for Hasbro, through D&D campaign-enriching subscription services for DMs, for example.
In the interview, Cocks speaks a little around Hasbro's "Pivot back to play" – his plan to refocus after he admits the company had been pushing "the pendulum way too far towards the storytelling side". He says the refocus was one of his best moves since the company's concentration on storytelling "badly defocused us on investing in design and innovation [...] and developing our talent." The pivot involved cutting content spending by 95% thanks to a capital-light licensing strategy.
Wizards of the Coast's official statement around artificial intelligence strictly positions the brand as a no AI zone, but with Hasbro's own CEO singing its praises and tossing around the potential for AI integrations for DMs, there's a lot of potential for the former Microsoft marketing exec's pivot toward play to take a far more tech-fuelled direction in the future.
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