D&D 5E Mike Mearls interview - states that they may be getting off of the 2 AP/year train.

[Charles Rampant]

When it's always the same two-four people complaining about how the edition is terrible and how the release rate isn't good enough, I tend to suspect that they don't represent a real ground-swell of popular feeling. It's fairly obvious from all other indicators that 5e is working and selling very well.

The bigger question, to me, is what Wizards will publish other than the 2 APs / 1 Crunch book a year. Do we expect books that tilt further towards Settings than Adventures, like Storm King's Thunder only moreso?

 

[Corpsetaker]

When it's always the same two-four people complaining about how the edition is terrible and how the release rate isn't good enough, I tend to suspect that they don't represent a real ground-swell of popular feeling. It's fairly obvious from all other indicators that 5e is working and selling very well.

The bigger question, to me, is what Wizards will publish other than the 2 APs / 1 Crunch book a year. Do we expect books that tilt further towards Settings than Adventures, like Storm King's Thunder only moreso?

Like Enworld really represents the vast majority of gamers out there who play D&D.

 

[Charles Rampant]

Care to provide a different sample, one in which your views are more represented?

 

[Mistwell]

Like Enworld really represents the vast majority of gamers out there who play D&D.

Sales numbers as reported by WOTC. Sales numbers as reported by independent groups like ICv2 and Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Best Seller lists like NYT and Amazon. Tracking of which RPGs are being discussed on the internent. Reviews by critics. Reviews by verified product purchasers. Coverage of D&D in FCC regulated Hasbro quarterly reports.

All of these are additional metrics which all agree that D&D 5e is doing exceptionally well. You'd have to argue that's all some amazing coincidence or that all of those could be doing much better, though there is zero evidence for either argument.

We have lots of data, and none of it supports your positions. Where is any evidence that what you want from the D&D release schedule is actually what's best for D&D, given what they're doing right now seems to be doing exceptionally well?

 

[Dausuul]

I still want to know what you mean by work (long term) because 2e lasted long term and 3e/4e book a month lasted long term and yet somehow a book every 6 months, which for the record has not lasted long term, is now the new success story.

2E did not work long-term. The first and most crucial requirement for "working" is that the company stays in business. If the company was reasonably healthy at the start of the edition, and had to be rescued from bankruptcy by the end, that edition did not "work." It failed - the kind of failure that leads to sudden respiratory ailments if your boss is a Sith. And people involved have confirmed that the frantic pace of new releases was central to 2E's failure: TSR pumped out far more product than the market could bear.

3E slowed down the publishing schedule dramatically, and was indisputably a success. At the same time, its success depended on much faster edition turnover. 3.5E may not have been a full edition, but it gave Wizards a way to reprint the core books and issue a slew of new splatbooks. If we count 3.5E as half an edition, then the lifespan of an edition putting out 1 book/month is about 5-6 years.

4E had... issues... but I don't think we can blame 4E's woes on its release schedule. In any event, its 6-year lifespan (or 4-year if you count Essentials as another half edition) is consistent with what we saw in 3E.

I don't think the relationship of release schedule to edition lifespan is linear - 5E is not going to last for 20+ years - but there surely is a relationship. Splatbooks and supplements don't sell nearly as well as the PHB, DMG, and MM. Those three books are D&D's bread and butter, which means that profits start high with the release of a new edition (when everyone rushes out to buy them) and taper off over time (once everyone has them). Putting out a lot of supplements requires a large staff, which means WotC needs that infusion of cash more often.

So, it's not really about what "works," so much as about what kind of an edition cycle you want. If you're fine with a five- to six-year cycle, then the 3E/4E release schedule is great. If you prefer a little more stability, then a slower schedule is called for. 2E demonstrates that there is, in fact, such a thing as releasing too much content for any edition cycle, but no post-TSR edition has approached that threshold that we know of.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

When it's always the same two-four people complaining about how the edition is terrible and how the release rate isn't good enough, I tend to suspect that they don't represent a real ground-swell of popular feeling. It's fairly obvious from all other indicators that 5e is working and selling very well.

Yeah I agree. There were a lot more complainers back in 3rd and 4th ed times, and more diverse complaints too! Just one more area where 5E has fallen behind the older editions. Sad!

 

[Shasarak]

2E did not work long-term. The first and most crucial requirement for "working" is that the company stays in business. If the company was reasonably healthy at the start of the edition, and had to be rescued from bankruptcy by the end, that edition did not "work." It failed - the kind of failure that leads to sudden respiratory ailments if your boss is a Sith. And people involved have confirmed that the frantic pace of new releases was central to 2E's failure: TSR pumped out far more product than the market could bear.

3E slowed down the publishing schedule dramatically, and was indisputably a success. At the same time, its success depended on much faster edition turnover. 3.5E may not have been a full edition, but it gave Wizards a way to reprint the core books and issue a slew of new splatbooks. If we count 3.5E as half an edition, then the lifespan of an edition putting out 1 book/month is about 5-6 years.

4E had... issues... but I don't think we can blame 4E's woes on its release schedule. In any event, its 6-year lifespan (or 4-year if you count Essentials as another half edition) is consistent with what we saw in 3E.

I don't think the relationship of release schedule to edition lifespan is linear - 5E is not going to last for 20+ years - but there surely is a relationship. Splatbooks and supplements don't sell nearly as well as the PHB, DMG, and MM. Those three books are D&D's bread and butter, which means that profits start high with the release of a new edition (when everyone rushes out to buy them) and taper off over time (once everyone has them). Putting out a lot of supplements requires a large staff, which means WotC needs that infusion of cash more often.

So, it's not really about what "works," so much as about what kind of an edition cycle you want. If you're fine with a five- to six-year cycle, then the 3E/4E release schedule is great. If you prefer a little more stability, then a slower schedule is called for. 2E demonstrates that there is, in fact, such a thing as releasing too much content for any edition cycle, but no post-TSR edition has approached that threshold that we know of.

See and thats where your logic loses me. 2e lasted from 89 to 00 and "did not work" where as 3e lasted from 00 to 08 and "did work".

Which makes it even more strange to say that the current release schedule is "working" after just 3 years during which time every new edition sold gang busters from just core book sales alone.

 

[darjr]

Saying 2e did not work in some objective, general, way for everyone is not congruent with the facts.

I didn't appreciate it much. But that's a whole level different.

2e even kept a deeply mismanaged company going for years after it should probably have train wrecked.

 

[Dausuul]

See and thats where your logic loses me. 2e lasted from 89 to 00 and "did not work" where as 3e lasted from 00 to 08 and "did work".

An edition works if it makes enough money to sustain the company producing it (or, from 3E onward, to justify the division's continued existence to the parent company).

2E failed to sustain TSR. 3E did quite nicely for WotC. Therefore 3E worked and 2E did not. 3E's shorter edition cycle doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the business model.

 

[Shasarak]

An edition works if it makes enough money to sustain the company producing it (or, from 3E onward, to justify the division's continued existence to the parent company).

2E failed to sustain TSR. 3E did quite nicely for WotC. Therefore 3E worked and 2E did not. 3E's shorter edition cycle doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the business model.

Surely we can agree that Magic sustains WotC?

And the failure of TSR can hardly be laid at the feet of DnD either, after all there must be a limit to what a successful property can support between over printing of modules, selling products for less then the cost of making them and spectacular failures like Dragon Dice.