Confirm or Deny: D&D4e would be going strong had it not been titled D&D

[EzekielRaiden]

It IS not possible to dispute that 4e failed at least in the market. If you want to convince me it's still alive please, show me where I can get the latest 4e book that D&D put out this past year. The company isn't supporting the game, they moved onto another edition. The game as a whole failed. There is no dispute. You may still play it, and you might make stuff for it, but as a game that is profitable in the eyes of consumers paying money for it, it no longer exists as a game that is being supported by the parent company.

Discontinued =/= failure. The way the questions are written, you either have to agree that 4e was a bad game, or that it was a bad D&D. Neither one of those things is true.

The name contributed the most to the game not being currently supported anymore by Wizards.

Nah, I disagree. The name contributed to 4e being a D&D game. The primary reasons *I* think 4e was discontinued--not "a failure," which is a horribly loaded term and guaranteed to inflame tempers--is that its presentation was not at all like what people expected, it did not quickly establish a license and thus enabled its own worst competition, and it seriously botched both of the most critical kinds of support that it needed (partially due to external factors like the murder-suicide of the "online tools" project lead). I would even--cautiously--put them in that order of precedence.

The fact that it was called "D&D" had nothing to do with WotC discontinuing it, unless you count the trivial component (that is, both are the consequence of the game being made and owned by WotC).

 

[Evenglare]

In what possible world does discontinued NOT equal failure? If you don't fail you succeed. If D&D4e did not fail then it was a successful game. If its successful then it makes money. If it makes money the company would continue support because companies like to make money. I love 4e. I think it's a great game personally. But I think that it failed because the market did not see it as a great D&D game. I'm not talking about the opinions of one person, I'm talking about the community perception as a whole. This is more about analyzing a community's outlook on a game than it is really about the game itself. I can stick my fingers in my ear and yell to everyone that it didn't fail but the hard truth is that the game didn't make enough money. It seems to me It didn't make money because 4e was not like older editions. The D&D name carries certain aspects that the players have come to expect. 4e did not provide that. My evidence? 5e. 5e went back to looking at older editions. They main GOAL was to emulate older games because that's what people WANT clearly. D&D 5e is back on top because it gives people what they expect from D&D.

This... you just can't argue this. It's what has actually happened the last few years. There is just no debate on this. 4e didn't make money, it failed as a product that would generate funds for a company. The company went forward with 5e by looking BACK at "traditional" D&D. I'm not trying to convince you of my view point with this. It's what happened. It's fact you can look all of this up. Look at the trend of the game through it's 4e run, it's all there. If the game were called something else, anything else I personally believe it would still be alive. Maybe not huge, but it would still be supported along the lines of 13th age, castles and crusades, dungeon world etc. Those games are officially supported by their parent companies, they are alive.

Yes if you are a fan accepting that a game failed sucks. In the failure point im driving home is a financial one competing in the market. 4e simple did not succeed in that aspect. If you want to talk about if the game is still loved, and its not failed because hundreds of die hard fans still play it, etc. That's great. That's also another topic that has nothing to do with this one.

 

[pemerton]

Why did the consumers stop buying the game?

Because it is no longer published? That said, consumers continue to subscribe to DDI. So some still are buying the game. You can also buy PDFs of the game from DriveThru RPG - I bought a PDF of the Rules Compendium a few weeks ago.

It IS not possible to dispute that 4e failed at least in the market.

<snip>

as a game that is profitable in the eyes of consumers paying money for it, it no longer exists as a game that is being supported by the parent company.

<snip>

The consumers voted with their money.

In what possible world does discontinued NOT equal failure?

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There is just no debate on this. 4e didn't make money, it failed as a product that would generate funds for a company.

With respect, this all seems a bit confused.

There is no evidence that WotC lost money by publishing 4e. In fact, given that they were able to support 2 years of playtesting with minimal product releases during that period, there is plenty of evidence that 4e made money for WotC. (Generally, business units that have failed don't get given a two-year, profit-free grace period to have another go.)

There is no doubt that WotC reached the view that it could make better returns publishing something other than 4e. It may even have been the case that, come 2012, continuing to publish 4e at a profit rather than a loss was not possible, although I think that is doubtful.

But this doesn't show that it was a failure. Companies change product lines all the time in response to changes in demand. When I was a kid, my parents bought me the original Lego yellow castle set. Now when I go to a toy store to look for presents for children, the classic Lego castle is no longer on the shelves. That doesn't meant that it was a failure.

Remember, WotC decided in 2008 that it was no longer financially feasible for them to continue to publish 3.5. But it would be odd to say that 3E D&D was a failure!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In what possible world does discontinued NOT equal failure?

By that logic, every past edition of D&D- as well as any game with multiple editions or sequels- is a failure. Halo? Final Fantasy? Pac-Man?

As is the VW Beetle. Or Chrysler's PT Cruiser (discontinued when it was their #1 seller).

The X-Files.

The Beatles.

Etc.

"Failure" is more than mere discontinuation- the context of "Why?" matters greatly in that calculus.

 

[billd91]

Yes if you are a fan accepting that a game failed sucks. In the failure point im driving home is a financial one competing in the market. 4e simple did not succeed in that aspect. If you want to talk about if the game is still loved, and its not failed because hundreds of die hard fans still play it, etc. That's great. That's also another topic that has nothing to do with this one.

Not making money was probably not the problem. The problem(s) probably had a lot more to do with expectations and goals set by the company. 4e probably didn't make enough money - an internal goal of Hasbro/WotC - though it probably did make more money than it cost to produce (at least at first). But 4e probably also didn't convert enough players, something that should have been (and probably was) embodied in a goal of WotC's. Both of those are enough for 4e to be considered a failure for not meeting the goals set for it and set the stage for a shortened product run and publicly announced, extended R&D on 5e.

You may also notice that has no bearing on how well 4e does as an RPG compared to other RPGs. It may have outsold Dogs in the Vineyard or Fate by thousands of units... and still not met internal goals, and thus failed. D&D is probably expected to live up to a far different standard than any other RPG because it's part of Hasbro and because it's the dominant game. 4e had to face the expectations of Hasbro's core brand requirements ($50 million in sales) and the expectations of being the heavily dominant RPG.

 

[SirAntoine]

4th Edition has never been a failure in the market, objectively. It may have fallen short of where Wizards hoped it would go in that regard, but it was a commercial success for a product in its genre.

 

[SharnDM]

Fully Confirm

I have always been of the mindset that the core rules for 4e held a solid tactical RPG game. Had we seen those rules applied to an RPG brought to the table under a different company, without the D&D label it would have been lauded as a new take on RPG gaming. Granted these rules had some quirks that could have been corrected (game grows really complex at high levels mainly) but had it been under a different developer they’d be able to bring new editions out that cleaned up some rules.

I’ve yet to meet an RPG I can’t eek fun out of and find that this community often concerns itself with labels far too much sometimes. I really enjoyed 4e and had some great fun. Sorry to see it go.

 

[SirAntoine]

It is D&D, though. It would have to lose all of that, besides just the title obviously, which makes it D&D and then maybe not so many would have liked it.

 

[Balesir]

I have always been of the mindset that the core rules for 4e held a solid tactical RPG game. Had we seen those rules applied to an RPG brought to the table under a different company, without the D&D label it would have been lauded as a new take on RPG gaming.

Possibly true, but for some (myself included) the fact that 4E gave us all the worlds and tropes of D&D with a system that finally fulfilled decades of promise (and that we had been searching for with system hacks, outright homebrews and experiments with different systems - I have extensive notes on Mindflayers and other D&D beasties in DragonQuest, for example) that earlier editions had never delivered on.

For those for whom 4E "wasn't D&D", I genuinely sympathise, but consider that I had years beforehand of seeing so much promise in this concept while thinking "oh, boy, I wish I could find a system that really did this justice..." In 4E, I finally found that system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

D&D is probably expected to live up to a far different standard than any other RPG because it's part of Hasbro and because it's the dominant game. 4e had to face the expectations of Hasbro's core brand requirements ($50 million in sales) and the expectations of being the heavily dominant RPG.

Even 'dominant RPG' doesn't add up to 50 mil. IcV2 has the TTRPG market at 15 mil recently. Prior to the recession, industry insiders estimated it at 20 mil or so.