If you're WotC, what do you consider a "win" for 5e/D&D Next?

[innerdude]

If you're Mearls and Co., what, realistically speaking, do you consider a "win" (when it's all said and done) regarding D&D Next's product lifecycle?

Is it a specific "adoption rate" by groups? A revenue goal? Trailing sales indicators indicating its popularity relative to its closest competitor (Paizo / Pathfinder)? An overall increase in DDI subscriptions? "Mindshare" with players, however your marketing team defines it?

Is D&D Next a "failure" if it's not a runaway hit, a metaphorical home run?

Or is a more "modest" success okay, if it builds enthusiasm back up for a brand that has admittedly taken a lot of hits over the last five years?

 

[Obryn]

If the D&D line survives well enough to make a 6th edition in 5-8 years, Next was a success.

-O

 

[Ratskinner]

If you're Mearls and Co., what, realistically speaking, do you consider a "win" (when it's all said and done) regarding D&D Next's product lifecycle?

Is it a specific "adoption rate" by groups? A revenue goal? Trailing sales indicators indicating its popularity relative to its closest competitor (Paizo / Pathfinder)? An overall increase in DDI subscriptions? "Mindshare" with players, however your marketing team defines it?

Is D&D Next a "failure" if it's not a runaway hit, a metaphorical home run?

Or is a more "modest" success okay, if it builds enthusiasm back up for a brand that has admittedly taken a lot of hits over the last five years?

Very tough to judge, as I'm not sure what their long-term goals are as a company w.r.t. D&D.

I personally take the "faster than we originally wanted" edition cycle to indicate that, realistically, D&D is not a very viable product for a large company to produce. If Hasbro execs feel the same way,...this may be the "farewell" edition. That is, after a short run of the most profitable products. D&D will be shelved, except for reprints. The basic boxed set, being closer to Hasbro's wheelhouse, may see several versions with different setting/classes/adventures. Especially as this would require little (if any) rules development.

Barring that:

A Raging Success: The game once again absolutely dominates the ttrpg marketplace and playspace, expanding both in the process. Players of previous editions and their offspring have increasing difficulty founding new groups. New players pick up the boxed basic set(s) and get into the game at far greater rates than previous editions. The game does well enough to produce a 6e.

Mildly upset Success: The game sells very well. You can always find a D&D game, but Pathfinder and 4e (and its clone?) still retain large customer bases. The basic boxed sets are awesome, but somehow don't fly off the shelves and new-player acquisition is unimproved. This is most likely where my scenario above comes in.

Failure: The game makes money, but puts little or no dent in the splintered audience. Divided into three camps, its harder to get a game started without arguments about what system and houserules to use. Hasbro, gives up on it, deciding to let it simmer on a shelf, while producing movies and game with the IP.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

In the role of "Mearls & Co", i.e. development, D&DN is a success if it proves to be of robust construction. If the development team can publish new titles several years after the initial launch, and those titles still sell well - at least better than later titles of previous editions - they have made great contributions to the brand's wellfare.

 

[delericho]

200,000 DDI subscribers.

 

[Walker N. Waistz]

The thing is, what WotC considers a win, what Hasbro considers a win, and what any of the people working on the game consider a win are probably three very different things.

 

[Kaodi]

If D&D Next makes enough money that a proper new edition is not needed for ten years or more to keep it viable, then I think it will be a success.

 

[Umbran]

If D&D Next makes enough money that a proper new edition is not needed for ten years or more to keep it viable, then I think it will be a success.

I think the world has largely moved on from the idea that things last long. Careers? Folks working at one place for a decade is a rarity. A movie franchise? Folks start talking "reboot" after a third movie comes out. A game? Why should a game stay the same for a decade? Look at the world of comic books. Every couple of years, Marvel and DC have some major, cross-title shake-up event. Why? Because the average span a person reads comic books is a couple of years. There's some readers who linger, but my understanding is that the bulk of sales are to people with much shorter 'careers' in comic-reading.

I would expect RPGs to follow a similar pattern - edition lifespan should be and/or will tend to be on the order of a gamer career lifespan.

Moreover, the game rules themselves probably aren't the major controlling factor in long-term survival of a rules set. Remember, we are a niche market. We are easy to saturate with product. The only way to not saturate the RPG market is to grow it - and D&D is, first and foremost, a social game, which spreads more by an apprenticeship model than by corporate marketing. I think it is as much how we construct our groups, and how we approach new gamers, that will determine if the thing can last a decade.

Which I expect is rather annoying to the folks over at WotC. D&D is largely in the hands of people other than development and marketing.

 

[Kaodi]

I can only hope that a product cycle can exist for D&D that is separate from the rules cycle.