Confidence in WotC

Darrin Drader · Jul 10, 2012

It's worth mentioning that while WotC's record on electronic D&D products isn't so great, they did manage to get Magic Online off the ground, and it was good. In fact, I was there for the launch. I haven't checked in on it for a long while, so I don't know if it's still good, but in my mind it has long been their unsung success in the digital market.

Jack99 · Jul 10, 2012

Confidence is fine. Just because they sometimes make business decisions where YOU and I do not know of all the variables and thus struggle to understand the reasons why they make those decisions doesnt mean that I lose faith.

Herremann the Wise · Jul 10, 2012

This may seem counter-intuitive but scrapping the VTT actually gives me more confidence that they are focusing on what they do well. While in most electronic projects they have bumbled from one failure to the next, the core of their business: the actual game itself and how they are building 5e from the ground/core up/out fills me with confidence that the pendulum has swung from its extremity back to a more inclusive middle.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

delericho · Jul 10, 2012

The sky is falling.

Pen and paper RPGs have had their day, and although there is still a market out there for small companies to make decent money on them, a company the size of WotC (with the demands made by Hasbro) simply cannot make enough money from them.

And so they've been trying various things to keep them afloat - a new Red Box to recapture lapsed players, a new 5e to recapture old-edition players, a DDI to bring in lots of subscription money, Fortune Cards to introduce a CCG element to the game.

I expect 5e to be a good game. I expect it to fail to recapture any significant number of old-edition players, to fail to end the Edition Wars, and thus to fail to do significantly better than 4e did.

By 2015, D&D will be effectively dead as a pen-and-paper RPG, at least by that name. It will live on in the form of Pathfinder, the various retro-clones, 3rd party support for 4e, but not as "Dungeons & Dragons" as we know it.

(And I'm not even sure WotC have done anything fundamentally wrong along the way. They certainly made some missteps with the DDI, and were desperately unlucky in some other regards, but they were probably on the right track. I think they've just been hit with impossible expectations for a product that has simply had its day.)

Oh, and yes, I really hope I'm wrong.

ComradeGnull · Jul 10, 2012

I've liked the things I've heard and seen so far about 5e, which is the most significant single thing for me. The VTT decision is too new to see the actual impact of yet- their online offerings have been a very mixed bag, but there is a lot more data and options for them to work with now. As @Morrus;pointed out, no company has done a lot of this stuff before, so flubs at the outset don't necessarily mean that aspect of the game is doomed. I'll wait and see what they've learned from 4e and their previous digital offerings before making up my mind.

I will say that the directions and comments that they have made indicate to me that, whatever you feel about 4e, they recognize that the loss of some of the continuity with the older game needed to be addressed. That was my #1 concern coming off of 4e, and they've already given a number of indications that they are taking it strongly into consideration.

Scrivener of Doom · Jul 10, 2012

I think D&D as a tabletop RPG is not suited to a large corporate. It's a niche hobby and' I suspect a shrinking one.

Overall, I have little faith in WotC's ability to manage the D&D brand and I suspect that that the next round of lay-offs will also have other people questioning their ability to deliver Next on-time and on-spec, let along any of the digital support products that will be eventually announced.

I wish them well because I want D&D to succeed. I just don't think they can do it.

Yora · Jul 10, 2012

Define "success".

Fifth Element · Jul 10, 2012

Dannager said:
On a context-less level, do I have a lot of confidence in WotC's ability to create stellar digital products? Not especially; they've made fantastic decisions and they've made poor decisions. But, in context, do I believe that WotC has a better chance of pulling off successful digital products than any other tabletop RPG company out there? Yes, because they're the only ones who have.

Good point.

TerraDave · Jul 10, 2012

Its easy to rip on WotC. Mistakes have obviously been made.

But the 1E and 3.5 reprints, the directs of 5E, and maybe even cancelling the VT. These could all be things that should increase confidence, not reduce it.

Alzrius · Jul 10, 2012

Dannager said:
On a context-less level, do I have a lot of confidence in WotC's ability to create stellar digital products? Not especially; they've made fantastic decisions and they've made poor decisions. But, in context, do I believe that WotC has a better chance of pulling off successful digital products than any other tabletop RPG company out there? Yes, because they're the only ones who have.

This depends on what you define as "digital products." As many have noted elsewhere, there are already others out there that are as good or better than WotC's ever was.

Likewise, in regards to PDFs, they're (almost) the only ones who have none (oh snap!).