WotC Hasbro CEO Chris Cox, "I would say that the underlying thesis of our D&D business is all about digital,”

[Zardnaar]

You're the one talking about quality, not me. But, I find it hillariously funny that people keep harping on about how bad this module is, and how WotC must do better if they want to be successful, yet, this apparently bottom ranked module is making money for WotC hand over fist.

Funny how "good for the consumer" is yet another way of saying, "this is something I don't like, so it must be bad".

Hand over fist might be an exaggeration. It's sales fell off a cliff after a few weeks. Newer product isn't selling as well as the older stuff. At least the adventures. Bad word of mouth perhaps.

The income might be hiding it gee they're still making money but a lot of the big selling items are older product and rereleases with variant covets.

Sort of the Magic the Gathering approach. If you want to sell lots stick a dragon or vampire on the cover. Or player option books.

Culturally they may have peaked a couple of years ago now they're playing the greatest hits

Xanathars to Theros was roughly peak 5E quality wise for me ymmv of course.

 

[Hussar]

many reasons, I am just saying that SJ is not selling proportionally more than 2e did. Your ‘they must do something right for SJ to sell more now’ sounded like the something right also applies to SJ

Who cares about "proportionally"? I'm not even sure what that means.

See, it's the whole, "well, I don't like it, therefore it must be crap and anyone who disagrees just doesn't know what they're talking about."

Guess what? The criteria you are using? Doesn't matter to most people. They aren't playing at your table. They don't give the slightest rat's petoot why you don't like it. They do. Is it great gaming? I dunno. I couldn't care less about this nebulous definition of "quality" or "good for gamers" or whatever wrapper people want to wrap up their personal preferences and sell as some sort of objective quality.

The bottom line is, Spelljammer for 5e is a fantastically popular set. It's outselling virtually every other book right now. That's a YEAR OLD module doing that. Again, totally unprecedented before 5e. Before 5e? 6 months was 99% of your sales for anything other than a core book.

But, apparently WotC is totally incompetent and has no idea what players actually want.

 

[Zardnaar]

Who cares about "proportionally"? I'm not even sure what that means.

See, it's the whole, "well, I don't like it, therefore it must be crap and anyone who disagrees just doesn't know what they're talking about."

Guess what? The criteria you are using? Doesn't matter to most people. They aren't playing at your table. They don't give the slightest rat's petoot why you don't like it. They do. Is it great gaming? I dunno. I couldn't care less about this nebulous definition of "quality" or "good for gamers" or whatever wrapper people want to wrap up their personal preferences and sell as some sort of objective quality.

The bottom line is, Spelljammer for 5e is a fantastically popular set. It's outselling virtually every other book right now. That's a YEAR OLD module doing that. Again, totally unprecedented before 5e. Before 5e? 6 months was 99% of your sales for anything other than a core book.

But, apparently WotC is totally incompetent and has no idea what players actually want.

Your're strawmanning. No one's claiming 5E isn't doing well or it's failing.

The USA has a bigger population now than 30 years ago. That's what they mean by proportional.

Similar with inflation new movies will always break box office records. Adjust for inflation and Avatar 2 isn't the biggest selling movie ever.

Popular editions sell more product regardless of its quality. B2 cough cough.

 

[mamba]

Hoard of the Dragon Queen? You mean the number one best selling module of all time? That garbage adventure that everyone hates?

LOL.

it is consistently rated among the worst 5e campaigns when you look at stuff that compares them.

Either many people never check and go with the 4.7 Amazon rating, not realizing that that is also on the lower end, think ‘Dragons’ and do not check at all, or think they can fix the issues the reviews mention

Being available the longest also helps with absolute sales… don’t think it is the best selling module of all times though, I believe that is Strahd

 

[Hussar]

Hand over fist might be an exaggeration. It's sales fell off a cliff after a few weeks. Newer product isn't selling as well as the older stuff. At least the adventures. Bad word of mouth perhaps.

The income might be hiding it gee they're still making money but a lot of the big selling items are older product and rereleases with variant covets.

Sort of the Magic the Gathering approach. If you want to sell lots stick a dragon or vampire on the cover. Or player option books.

Culturally they may have peaked a couple of years ago now they're playing the greatest hits

Xanathars to Theros was roughly peak 5E quality wise for me ymmv of course.

What are you talking about? Spelljammer is RIGHT NOW, outselling every other WotC book except for core and Tasha's.

Playing greatest hits? WTF? The last five adventure releases for 5e have been Keys to the Golden Vault, Dragonlance, Witchlight, Rime and Decent to Avernus. How is that "playing the greatest hits"? Four original adventures and Dragonlance. Dude, at least make a slight effort to argue from facts.

 

[Zardnaar]

it is consistently rated among the worst 5e campaigns when you look at stuff that compares them.

Either many people never check and go with the 4.7 Amazon rating, not realizing that that is also on the lower end, think ‘Dragons’ and do not check at all, or think they can fix the issues the reviews mention

Being available the longest also helps with absolute sales… don’t think it is the best selling module of all times though, I believe that is Strahd

Strahd is also consistently either the top module or close to it.

Strahd and Phandelver are gonna be the fondly remembered ones. Make a good dragon adventure and yeah.

We're getting a Phandelver 2.0 adventure soon and I'm expecting Return to Phandelver type adventures in future editions.

And Strahds never really gone away since I6. Think the strawman ran out of straw lol.

 

[Hussar]

it is consistently rated among the worst 5e campaigns when you look at stuff that compares them.

Either many people never check and go with the 4.7 Amazon rating, not realizing that that is also on the lower end, think ‘Dragons’ and do not check at all, or think they can fix the issues the reviews mention

Being available the longest also helps with absolute sales… don’t think it is the best selling module of all times though, I believe that is Strahd

So we're back to people are just too stupid to know that this is a bad adventure and keep buying it?

Couldn't possibly be that the issues that some people have with the adventure are simply issues that other people just don't care about. Naw, that's unpossible. NO way it could be that. No, it's all those players that are out of touch. WotC releasing the module, what, three, four times now? That's totally off base. It's just a terrible module.

 

[cranberry]

Back to the OP question - WoTC is moving in a digital direction because they believe it will generate the most revenue.

That's what corporations do. WoTC is no different.

Whether they actually maintain the analog side of the business in the long run, no one knows. I suspect they'll maintain to be able to claim a connection to their roots, if nothing else.

 

[mamba]

Who cares about "proportionally"? I'm not even sure what that means.

apparently not people who are not sure what it means

It means that a higher percentage of the 2e player base bought it than of the 5e one.

See, it's the whole, "well, I don't like it, therefore it must be crap and anyone who disagrees just doesn't know what they're talking about."

where did I say that again? I do not care for the setting, did not in 2e, do not do so now. That has nothing to with quality, but it does mean I can only cite reviews etc., as I have no first hand knowledge (see the no ship combat bit)

When I say reviews were disappointing, does that mean I do not like it? Would they magically be better if I did?

Guess what? The criteria you are using? Doesn't matter to most people.

I have no idea what you are going on about. What criteria did I use again? That’s right, reviews, so literally not my own criteria…

The bottom line is, Spelljammer for 5e is a fantastically popular set.

I disagree, the sales do not reflect that, the ratings do not reflect that. If you did not compare to 2e sales, you’d know that too

It's outselling virtually every other book right now. That's a YEAR OLD module doing that.

that was drastically discounted a week or so ago, but I am sure that cannot have anything to do with it, why would it

But, apparently WotC is totally incompetent and has no idea what players actually want.

if that is what you arrive at… you are free to draw your own conclusions

If you want to criticize mine, show me where I said that

 

[deganawida]

OK, real talk: it has a ship combat system, same ship combat system as Ghosts of Saltmarsh, in fact, just you can imagine the combat in Space rather than at Sea. In both cases, it kind of an abstract, quick and dirty vehicle combat system. What those YouTubers mean is the the slipcase lacks a detailed, high octane mini driven combat system...which the 2E book facilitated. But there is a system in the 5E slipcase for simulating ship to ship combat. When they say "no ship combat system" read "not as detailed a combat system as I would prefer".

Thank you! I’ve been wanting to get it, but money is tight, and didn’t want to have to buy another book just to have ship-to-ship combat. This helps ease my concerns.