7 Years of D&D Stories? And a "Big Reveal" Coming?

When asked what he was working on, WotC's Chris Perkins revealed a couple of juicy tidbits. They're not much, but they're certainly tantalizing. Initially, he said that "Our marketing team has a big reveal in the works", and followed that up separately with "Right now I'm working on the next seven years of D&D stories". What all that might mean is anybody's guess, but it sounds like there are plans for D&D stretching into the foreseeable future! Thanks to Barantor for the scoop!

 

[Kramodlog]

Hmmm, unless Im mistaken, having slower/fewer product releases is exactly what we asked for in the D&D Next playtest. I think Wizards is giving us exactly what we want, so how can you fault them?

There is slow and there is what we are seeing. Another way to do it slow is to reduce the size of products. Instead of 300 pages, print 60 pages. It will cost us less to buy them too.

 

[Jester David]

If you actually read that link you provided you will see that Hasbro Films has produced none of their properties into feature length films. It is a subsidiary designed to deal with the legalities of licensing films to actual production companies. You'll not that it is also on the hook for unproduced films for a hefty sum.

If YOU had read the link, you'd see that Universal paid a fee to drop that agreement, so Hasbro is not on the hook. (They were only on the hook for movies that were made, and only two of the seven were made.)
And that Hasbro Studios is one of the production companies of [ulr=http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jem_and_the_Holograms_(film)]Jem and the Holograms[/url], which is only distributed by Universal.

Really, though, it is sort of a silly argument. None of us know what is planned and what may happen. My only assertion is that Hasbro will not successfully turn D&D into a top tier brand outside of gaming circles and that resources directed that way are wasted, but I freely admit I hay be totally wrong and 2018 might be the year of the billion dollar Dark Elf international blockbuster hit.

I think Hasbro is looking at all of their brands and wondering what can be turned into mega-franchises and big hits. They're going with board games (Battleship and Ouiji for some unfathomable reason) but they have a lot of other properties they might consider.

I think D&D has a better chance Glo Friends, Inhumanoids, COPS, or Visionaries.

The question is, even if that were to happen, do you think it would actually benefit the RPG?

Honestly, no. Not much.
Comic movies are dominating the theaters but that has not translated into the success of the actual comic magazines.

A big movie might help D&D more than comics. D&D has some advantages. The D&D books are found in most big book stores, while comics tend to be ghettoized into comic book stores (aside from a handful of trades). D&D has a clearer entry point, and seems like a single one-time cost rather than regular pricey purchase. And there's less continuity to worry about working around, and other problems like crossovers and gimmick covers.
And if you could theoretically bring 10,000 new readers into comics, those readers will spread out their purchases, increasing sales of a handful of books by 2-5000; if 10k people came into D&D they'd all buy the same couple products: the starter set and PHB, which maximizes profits.

But while comics can be an individual purchase, D&D does require some group buy in. So that's a disadvantage.

But the Lego Movie did amazing things for the Lego toys, and turned around the company's fortunes. So it's not impossible. Now there's a planned sequel and a Batman movie. D&D could easily follow that model and spin-off popular characters or explore different directions.

 

[Kramodlog]

They don't care to produce products that YOU want.

Sure they do. They want my money.

The jury is still out if minimal release schedule and an exclusive focus on APs is what the majority of players want. It's just too early to tell.

Where did you see a poll that said players wanted exclusive focus on APs?

For example, the minimal release schedule is something that I want and an exclusive focus on APs is a non-issue for me. So from my perspective, they are taking into account what I want.

They could produce an psionic handbook and a FR campaign setting and an AP and we would both be happy. Right now I will not buy the AP. They lost a client.

We cancel each other out, more or less.

That is not how business works.

 

[BryonD]

They don't care to produce products that YOU want. The jury is still out if minimal release schedule and an exclusive focus on APs is what the majority of players want. It's just too early to tell.

For example, the minimal release schedule is something that I want and an exclusive focus on APs is a non-issue for me. So from my perspective, they are taking into account what I want.

We cancel each other out, more or less.

Do you?

Does someone who doesn't want to buy something cancel out someone who does when looking at markets?
If you wanted to buy *something else*, then sure. But that isn't the case here.

Edit: I can see the internal memos now: In 2016 we were able to not sell products to 1,000,000,000 more people than we did last year.

Of course, being as roughly 99% of society doesn't buy D&D RPG stuff now, it will be hard to move that particular needle.
moving you from the 1% to the 99% side won't make the 99% appreciably larger.

 

[Jester David]

There is slow and there is what we are seeing. Another way to do it slow is to reduce the size of products. Instead of 300 pages, print 60 pages. It will cost us less to buy them too.

Umm... no. Math fail.

A 60-page softcover product would probably cost around $25. (Paizo charges $19.99 for their 64-page books, but hasn't raised prices in some time.) So buying the 5 needed to make-up the 320-page accessory would cost $125. Opposed to the $50-60 of the single 320-page book. It would be twice the price, not less.

Given the choice of smaller monthly softcovers or a large hardcovers twice a year, I think I'll go for the hardcovers. It's cheaper, more durable, requires less searching for content (all in one place), easier to finance around, makes store shelves less intimidating. And it's makes the content more anticipated as it's less regular, so it feels more special.
While it probably takes the same length of time to write, edit, ship, print, etc some of the content will have much more time to be playtested. They could prioritize the crunch and playtest that for an extra month or two and write everything else later. So the final product is more rigourously tested, rather than quickly tested for a monthly schedule.

But, if you *really* want new content every month, it's easy to buy the big book and only read 50-odd pages every month, saving the rest for later. You have the same experience, only it's cheaper.

 

[Jester David]

They don't care to produce products that YOU want. The jury is still out if minimal release schedule and an exclusive focus on APs is what the majority of players want. It's just too early to tell.

For example, the minimal release schedule is something that I want and an exclusive focus on APs is a non-issue for me. So from my perspective, they are taking into account what I want.

We cancel each other out, more or less.

That is not how business works.

Sorry [MENTION=55961]goldomark[/MENTION], but yes it does.

It's better to produce fewer better selling products that more products. It's better to sell 25,000 copies of a single book than 15,000 copies of two different books even though they have 30,000 total sales in the latter.

If they release two products, to reach you and [MENTION=261]Doc_Klueless[/MENTION], then they've doubled their production costs and have to double their sales. If they halve their products, so long as they do not halve their sales, then they've made more money. So if they sell an AP with some crunch content in it (like how Princes of the Apocalypse is expected to come with the content from the free PDF), and even a single extra person buys that book, then they've made more profit.

 

[Michael McGuire]

remember back in the 90s when TSR was forced to publish anything they could (meaning pumping out crap), just to pay the bills.. and still went bust. WOTC bought TSR and learned a little about how to have a steady, planned, release schedule... but by the second year of 4th edition, they were starting to fall into that trap again (remember releasing the core books all at once?). they couldn't sell enough to make the system really pay for itself. TODAY, they have a more popular product and a longer-term strategy. they're not trying to pump-out anything they can as fast as they can, they're planning to have quality (purchase-worthy) products for years.

 

[Jester David]

Heh, I sort of agree with that. Judging from the reactions about Realmefying adventures/NPCs who were stables of other settings and reclycling over and over the same adventures, I somehow think a psionic handbook and FR campaign setting would be more desired.

I kinda want psionics as well. But I think they'd want to release a product supporting the existing classes before expanding.

There's only a handful of writers on the D&D team and there's no way they'd outsource that stuff (psionics and the Realms). It takes a long time to write the amount of crunch that would be in a psionic book and even longer to test. Because I'd want it done as well as possible, I'd hope to see that book held back a year or two. The 3.0 Psionic book was really shaky because it was rushed out the door, and D&D had twice the staff then; we really don't need a repeat of that.
A public playtest would be cool though. I expect they'll do that.

 

[BryonD]

Sorry [MENTION=55961]goldomark[/MENTION], but yes it does.

It's better to produce fewer better selling products that more products. It's better to sell 25,000 copies of a single book than 15,000 copies of two different books even though they have 30,000 total sales in the latter.

But that isn't what he said.

Making player A happy by NOT selling them anything does not cancel out making player B happy by selling him something.

And if you Player A will buy 1 product a year and you make 3, with player A buying 0 or 1 and Player B buying 3, then Player A can't cancel out player B either way.

 

[Jester David]

But that isn't what he said.

Making player A happy by NOT selling them anything does not cancel out making player B happy by selling him something.

And if you Player A will buy 1 product a year and you make 3, with player A buying 0 or 1 and Player B buying 3, then Player A can't cancel out player B either way.

You want as many people as possible to buy all your products. Maximum sales. If that means fewer products then that's sound buisness. If more product reduces sales of individual products that means less profit and is problematic.