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Hasbro CEO: "D&D is Really on a Tear"
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7668387" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>They came out with so many 3E books for the same reason why they came out with so many 4E books-- because they could and people bought them. But the length of BOTH lines got shortened overall because all their biggest sellers were front-loaded on their schedule. If the number of books you sell for a line steadily decreases over the length of that line... the further you push apart publication of each individual book the money you bring in gets spread out over a longer length of time. You can either sell 100 books in Year One, 20 in Year Two, and 5 in Year Three... or 40, 30, 20, 10, 10, 10, and 5 over Years One through Seven. And boom, your line has last more than twice as long. Which for a lot of people the shortened schedule was the "explanation" they would give as to why 4E "failed".</p><p></p><p>"4E was only on the shelf for a couple years and then they started working on 5E! Thus failure!"</p><p></p><p>Which begs the question whether the edition would still have been seen as a "failure" had it been on the shelves twice as long before 5E got started? Even if they ended up selling the same amount of copies over the lifetime of either release schedule?</p><p></p><p>Now all this being said... do I think WotC could sell another book or two in and around what has already been scheduled and released and *not* cut much of the tail off at the end of 5E's lifespan? Yeah, I think they probably could. Maybe they'd lose a year if they did that, and would have to release 6E in Year Eight rather than Year Nine. Maybe at that point not a big deal?</p><p></p><p>But considering none of us have <em>any idea</em> what the current publish paradigm will result in, and how long the line can remain viable for WotC before they feel the need to start work on 6E... I refuse to accept people's claims that the paradigm is WRONG, and that WotC is making a MISTAKE. Now maybe it is. But at the same time, maybe it isn't. We don't know. And WotC doesn't know. All they do know is that they don't want to do the same kind of release schedule they did for the two editions previous. And thus... all any of us can do right now is just ride it out and see where it take us. And then, come 2021 when 6E gets released, everyone can feel free to come back here and scream "I told you so!"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 7668387, member: 7006"] They came out with so many 3E books for the same reason why they came out with so many 4E books-- because they could and people bought them. But the length of BOTH lines got shortened overall because all their biggest sellers were front-loaded on their schedule. If the number of books you sell for a line steadily decreases over the length of that line... the further you push apart publication of each individual book the money you bring in gets spread out over a longer length of time. You can either sell 100 books in Year One, 20 in Year Two, and 5 in Year Three... or 40, 30, 20, 10, 10, 10, and 5 over Years One through Seven. And boom, your line has last more than twice as long. Which for a lot of people the shortened schedule was the "explanation" they would give as to why 4E "failed". "4E was only on the shelf for a couple years and then they started working on 5E! Thus failure!" Which begs the question whether the edition would still have been seen as a "failure" had it been on the shelves twice as long before 5E got started? Even if they ended up selling the same amount of copies over the lifetime of either release schedule? Now all this being said... do I think WotC could sell another book or two in and around what has already been scheduled and released and *not* cut much of the tail off at the end of 5E's lifespan? Yeah, I think they probably could. Maybe they'd lose a year if they did that, and would have to release 6E in Year Eight rather than Year Nine. Maybe at that point not a big deal? But considering none of us have [i]any idea[/i] what the current publish paradigm will result in, and how long the line can remain viable for WotC before they feel the need to start work on 6E... I refuse to accept people's claims that the paradigm is WRONG, and that WotC is making a MISTAKE. Now maybe it is. But at the same time, maybe it isn't. We don't know. And WotC doesn't know. All they do know is that they don't want to do the same kind of release schedule they did for the two editions previous. And thus... all any of us can do right now is just ride it out and see where it take us. And then, come 2021 when 6E gets released, everyone can feel free to come back here and scream "I told you so!" [/QUOTE]
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