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Monte Cook Leaves WotC - No Longer working on D&D Next [updated]
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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 5893066" data-attributes="member: 3400"><p>I agree that the 4e design/dev team were proud of what they had build with 4e, but I think there's a nuance here that deserves mention. Did they genuinely believe it would hold the vast bulk of the gaming community together? I'm not so sure. Mearls, I believe, had a blog post out there a while ago talking about the stress he and members of the team felt when 4e was hitting the streets. They <strong>knew</strong> it was a significant departure and I think that stress came from worries that 4e wouldn't do so well because of that. He also went on to say he didn't feel that stress when 4e's PH2 hit the streets because sales for 4e had actually turned out to be pretty good. But at the time of 4e's release, I think there was a level of doubt.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think you're right here in a number of ways. But I also think there are changes in the environment that may weigh in. We recently learned that 4e most likely lived under a $50 million revenue requirement or run the risk of not being a core line and thus being shelved. I don't think we've gotten any confirmation 5e is being held to those terms. Plus, we have learned that Magic has surged recently. As a result, WotC may have been able to leverage a little more freedom from Hasbro's expectations and metrics on their overall strength. And we also know now that some video-gaming rights to D&D have come back from Atari. That also changes the playing field a little, though if Hasbro continues to hoard the revenues from that sort of licensing without letting it account to WotC's D&D line, that won't be the help it should be.</p><p></p><p>There are a lot of contexts to this whole topic that we only have partial pictures of, and that WotC has a more detailed perspective on than us. They've made decisions I would consider bad in the past, bad enough to help put them in the position they are in now (assuming our picture of it isn't rosy), but I don't think they would have made a decision as momentous as cutting planned support for 4e short in favor of another big gamble on a new edition, even one intended to be a unifying edition, without some pretty serious thought and analysis of the trends.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="billd91, post: 5893066, member: 3400"] I agree that the 4e design/dev team were proud of what they had build with 4e, but I think there's a nuance here that deserves mention. Did they genuinely believe it would hold the vast bulk of the gaming community together? I'm not so sure. Mearls, I believe, had a blog post out there a while ago talking about the stress he and members of the team felt when 4e was hitting the streets. They [b]knew[/b] it was a significant departure and I think that stress came from worries that 4e wouldn't do so well because of that. He also went on to say he didn't feel that stress when 4e's PH2 hit the streets because sales for 4e had actually turned out to be pretty good. But at the time of 4e's release, I think there was a level of doubt. I think you're right here in a number of ways. But I also think there are changes in the environment that may weigh in. We recently learned that 4e most likely lived under a $50 million revenue requirement or run the risk of not being a core line and thus being shelved. I don't think we've gotten any confirmation 5e is being held to those terms. Plus, we have learned that Magic has surged recently. As a result, WotC may have been able to leverage a little more freedom from Hasbro's expectations and metrics on their overall strength. And we also know now that some video-gaming rights to D&D have come back from Atari. That also changes the playing field a little, though if Hasbro continues to hoard the revenues from that sort of licensing without letting it account to WotC's D&D line, that won't be the help it should be. There are a lot of contexts to this whole topic that we only have partial pictures of, and that WotC has a more detailed perspective on than us. They've made decisions I would consider bad in the past, bad enough to help put them in the position they are in now (assuming our picture of it isn't rosy), but I don't think they would have made a decision as momentous as cutting planned support for 4e short in favor of another big gamble on a new edition, even one intended to be a unifying edition, without some pretty serious thought and analysis of the trends. [/QUOTE]
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Monte Cook Leaves WotC - No Longer working on D&D Next [updated]
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