D&D 5E Is long-term support of the game important?

[ShadoWWW]

The more I am thinking about long-term support of the game the more I think it is important for the game. We already know it was a big mistake of WotC to abandon support of 3.5 edition and release a brand new 4th edition instead of some kind of 3.75 edition. Pathfinder exploits particularly from the support of 3.x edition.

And there are more such examples. Castles & Crusades exploits from long-term support of old-school, Fate exploits from long-term support of the game as well.

So, isn't it more important to support the game in long-term than to constantly correct presumable errors of the game in new editions and, in fact, to constantly split the fun base? Isn't it already the main drawback of Next that players suppose the end of the editon in 5 years already, and thus stick with their current game, which would be supported longer? Isn't it the main drawback of the new D&D generally?

What do you think?

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes I expect 10 years from a D&D edition, 7 or 8 at the bare minimum.

 

[Hussar]

Yes I expect 10 years from a D&D edition, 7 or 8 at the bare minimum.

Why would you expect something that you've actually never gotten? No edition of DnD has gone so long without a major revision.

What baffles me is why people expect to go so long in the first place. With a system as complex as DnD how is it reasonable to expect it to go ten years without major revisions?

 

[delericho]

The only way I can see D&D going more than 5 years without a new edition being published is if Hasbro pull the plug and a new edition is never published. (Even if someone picks up a license, I expect the very first thing they'll do is a new edition.)

Why would you expect something that you've actually never gotten? No edition of DnD has gone so long without a major revision.

Nitpick: 1st Ed was completed in 1979 with the release of the DMG, and 2nd Ed released in 1989 - exactly those 10 years. Although there was a new set of core rulebooks in that time, the "orange spine" versions were simply a matter of new covers - the interior contents were unchanged (apart from errata). Likewise, 2nd Ed released in 1989 and 3e in 2000, giving 11 years, again with a new set of core rulebooks that were just a matter of reprints.

In both cases, there were some "game changer" supplements - UA for 1st and "Player's Options" for 2nd, but in both cases they could quite happily be ignored. It would be like declaring "Book of Nine Swords" to be 3.75e.

 

[Umbran]

I'm on the other side - nope, I don't think long-term support is terribly important, either for me as a player, or for the business.

Recently, I've been playing a lot of stuff that is out of print, or has little support beyond its core rules, and having a lot of fun. Ergo, the support isn't that key to me.

I'm also coming to think that the generation time of gamers is shorter than a decade. There may be what is sometimes referred to as a "long tail" of folks who stick with a game for a decade, I strongly suspect the bulk of players swap off to other games or dip into and out of the hobby enough that support of a game for a decade simply isn't all that necessary.

 

[frogimus]

They have a good chance to test their playerbase with this edition change. Leave 4e in DDI. As long as subscribers are accessing the 4e side of DDI, it is generating revenue ( likely at a better margin than a physical book). As 4e campaigns wind down, some usage will drop.

The recent adventures with 3.5, 4e, and DDN stat availability points to this being a possibility. If it makes them money, there's no need to force mortality on any edition.

And DDN will sell with a living 4e.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I think it's important from a community standpoint, particularly for fifth edition. New editions usually damage a brand's reputation, and D&D could do without that for a while.

 

[Jester David]

Why would you expect something that you've actually never gotten? No edition of DnD has gone so long without a major revision.

What baffles me is why people expect to go so long in the first place. With a system as complex as DnD how is it reasonable to expect it to go ten years without major revisions?

1e lasted from 1977 to 1988. 2e lasted from 1989 to 1999. People thought 3e was being cut short at only 2000-2007. And 4e was only 2008-2012.

You can have a revision, but a full new edition is a bit much. A revised printing would be fine. Although it should probably come later than the 2 1/2 years between 3.0 and 3.5, and likely just contain some errata, updates, and rules tweaks and not a complete revision of everything.

 

[Jester David]

So, isn't it more important to support the game in long-term than to constantly correct presumable errors of the game in new editions and, in fact, to constantly split the fun base? Isn't it already the main drawback of Next that players suppose the end of the edition in 5 years already, and thus stick with their current game, which would be supported longer? Isn't it the main drawback of the new D&D generally?

What do you think?

I think a longer edition is a healthier edition.

To me, the matter comes down to the cost of making books. Aside from publication costs you have the time it takes to write, develop, playtest, edit, layout, and format the book. Plus the art, which is huge.
Books are expensive. While you need to pay the printing cost every time you only need to pay the design cost of a book once. So the first print run has to sell a large number of copies to turn a profit while the second print run has to sell far, far fewer.
So the longer it is in print, the more times you reprint and get it back on the shelves, the more money you make.

As such, it's healthy for the game to have a series of core books that are always on the shelves. There can be lesser books that come, go out of print, and vanish. But the big books, the tentpole books, should always be available and should always be in stock at stores.
But, the company cannot get greedy and have too many expected books. That's hard on retailers. A couple every year is fine.

Making a new edition is costly. D&D5 didn't take much longer to make, being started in 2011 and finished in 2014 compared to the 2005 to 2008 of 4e. However, serious work on 4e didn't really begin until 2006 and 2007 when they started relying on freelancers to generate books. And there were books the entire time rather than the lengthy dead stretches of this development period. There was almost a whole extra year of paying staffing costs with almost no money coming in. Big debt, which is something the core books also have to pay off before they can be considered "profitable".
Making a new edition on a regular basis means getting into debt again and again.
But the longer an edition can last, the longer the staff is working on stuff that generates immediate profit, the better the company should be doing.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think a longer edition is a healthier edition.

To me, the matter comes down to the cost of making books. Aside from publication costs you have the time it takes to write, develop, playtest, edit, layout, and format the book. Plus the art, which is huge.
Books are expensive. While you need to pay the printing cost every time you only need to pay the design cost of a book once. So the first print run has to sell a large number of copies to turn a profit while the second print run has to sell far, far fewer.
So the longer it is in print, the more times you reprint and get it back on the shelves, the more money you make.

As such, it's healthy for the game to have a series of core books that are always on the shelves. There can be lesser books that come, go out of print, and vanish. But the big books, the tentpole books, should always be available and should always be in stock at stores.
But, the company cannot get greedy and have too many expected books. That's hard on retailers. A couple every year is fine.

Making a new edition is costly. D&D5 didn't take much longer to make, being started in 2011 and finished in 2014 compared to the 2005 to 2008 of 4e. However, serious work on 4e didn't really begin until 2006 and 2007 when they started relying on freelancers to generate books. And there were books the entire time rather than the lengthy dead stretches of this development period. There was almost a whole extra year of paying staffing costs with almost no money coming in. Big debt, which is something the core books also have to pay off before they can be considered "profitable".
Making a new edition on a regular basis means getting into debt again and again.
But the longer an edition can last, the longer the staff is working on stuff that generates immediate profit, the better the company should be doing.

This makes sense until you add in the expectation of constant profits resembling those gained immediately after launch. When the revenue demand from a product type is far out of whack for that product type, you get crazy stuff going on such as attempts to shorten the product lifecycle.

Making a profit is good but greed kills games.