Iosue
Legend
The Dancey panel really changed my perception of D&D's place in the RPG and larger entertainment industry. It was like, I knew that D&D was the 800 lb. gorilla, but I didn't realize by how much. With first White Wolf and then Pathfinder, it seemed that some other popular games were at least withing striking distance.
Take, for example, the ICv2 results. Mearls made a good point that it pretty much tracked with release of supplements. Dancey suggested that top end for a core game for everything aside from D&D and Pathfinder was around 20,000 units sold. This tracks with Evil Hat's numbers for Fate Core, which has sold 14,906 units lifetime, and the whole line with all supplements comes to 80,000 units. And this is for a game that has been consistently in ICv2's top 5, almost always behind D&D and Pathfinder. D&D's numbers, for 4e Player's Handbooks alone dwarfs Fate's entire line by at least 2 orders of magnitude, possibly 3. Thus WotC can release a minimum of product (much of it retro) for two whole years, and still stay in the top 4.
So, the RPG is fine, relative to other RPGs. I suspect Pathfinder is well-ahead of the other games on that list, but I wonder if even Pathfinder Core has broken 1 million units sold. At that level of dominance, further growth to the $50 million Core Brand goal on the RPG alone is like getting blood from a stone. So by far the best course of action is to let the RPG be the RPG (with an easy on-ramp for new players to grow the market), and let licensing deals and ancillary products get them the rest of the way there. And getting there is hugely beneficial to the RPG, because it means the D&D brand gets financial resources undreamed of in the RPG industry.
Now, regarding WotC's track record, it would make sense to say, "They were successful before, so they'll be successful now," or "They've screwed up before, so they'll screw up again" IF it was the same core group of people making the decisions. But the group of people implementing the 5e strategy are different from those implementing the 4e strategy, who were themselves different from those implementing the 3e strategy. Past failure by different groups is not indicator of future failure by the present group.
By way of example, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a huge success and almost universally favorably reviewed. Captain America: The First Avenger also did very well. But if you judged by past efforts by different people (this and this), the judgment would be that a successful Captain America move could not be done. With WotC, it's a new group pursuing a new strategy, and one that, IMO, makes sense.
Take, for example, the ICv2 results. Mearls made a good point that it pretty much tracked with release of supplements. Dancey suggested that top end for a core game for everything aside from D&D and Pathfinder was around 20,000 units sold. This tracks with Evil Hat's numbers for Fate Core, which has sold 14,906 units lifetime, and the whole line with all supplements comes to 80,000 units. And this is for a game that has been consistently in ICv2's top 5, almost always behind D&D and Pathfinder. D&D's numbers, for 4e Player's Handbooks alone dwarfs Fate's entire line by at least 2 orders of magnitude, possibly 3. Thus WotC can release a minimum of product (much of it retro) for two whole years, and still stay in the top 4.
So, the RPG is fine, relative to other RPGs. I suspect Pathfinder is well-ahead of the other games on that list, but I wonder if even Pathfinder Core has broken 1 million units sold. At that level of dominance, further growth to the $50 million Core Brand goal on the RPG alone is like getting blood from a stone. So by far the best course of action is to let the RPG be the RPG (with an easy on-ramp for new players to grow the market), and let licensing deals and ancillary products get them the rest of the way there. And getting there is hugely beneficial to the RPG, because it means the D&D brand gets financial resources undreamed of in the RPG industry.
Now, regarding WotC's track record, it would make sense to say, "They were successful before, so they'll be successful now," or "They've screwed up before, so they'll screw up again" IF it was the same core group of people making the decisions. But the group of people implementing the 5e strategy are different from those implementing the 4e strategy, who were themselves different from those implementing the 3e strategy. Past failure by different groups is not indicator of future failure by the present group.
By way of example, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a huge success and almost universally favorably reviewed. Captain America: The First Avenger also did very well. But if you judged by past efforts by different people (this and this), the judgment would be that a successful Captain America move could not be done. With WotC, it's a new group pursuing a new strategy, and one that, IMO, makes sense.
