Will 2011 be the last year of Wizards D&D?

[The_Gneech]

Erf ... well, Merric, uh welcome(?) to the state of mind many of us have been in for two years now. I'm sad to see the Obstinate Optimist having such a crisis of faith (as it were), but I think I can pretty honestly say I know how you feel.

That said, I don't think D&D is going anywhere any time soon. It's survived a lot worse things than 4E. But if it ends up being in a state that you don't care for, just pick some other system and keep on rollin'. WotC needs us -- but we don't need WotC.

-The Gneech

 

[Dragonhelm]

...and Merric: please change your tagline from ENWorld Optimist.

Sorry, Merric, but I have to agree. The last few posts I've seen from you have been far more negative.

My guess is that you've gotten so into this that it's affecting you in a negative way. Been there and done that. My advice is to step away for a while. Read a good book, watch some Stargate: Universe, but get away from the game and, more to the point, from message boards. They have a way of bringing you down. I know I get the same way at times.

The truth of the matter is that people have predicted the end of D&D since it began. People have predicted the end of WotC's run with D&D since WotC gained it. And yet it persists.

Has WotC made mistakes? Sure. But so have other companies. It's just more pronounced with WotC since they own the D&D brand and are the big boys on the block.

Gaming should be fun. It shouldn't be about corporate politics. So maybe it's time to put aside all this anti-WotC animosity, and play the game our way. If they deliver, great. And if not, there are options.

 

[renau1g]

Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are still DIFFERENT companies. WotC is simply OWNED by Hasbro. or a subsidary.

Either way, the reason why only Hasbro stuff was listed in the Hasbro releases is because Hasbro only has to peddle Hasbro products.

WotC products gets peddled by WotC, not by its parent company.

And OP, of course D&D is ending in 2011. That's why we only know a lot of the releases for the first six months of next year. Obviously that means they're not interested in D&D whatsoever, and will give it up next summer! I mean, if they can't plan everything out forever, that means it's done!

Please read the post I quoted. I was responding to CasvalRemDeikun about their comment that Hasbro (yes Hasbro, not WotC) would never sell off D&D, and then likened it to Transformers or My Little Pony. I corrected that as for investors (read owners of said company) & analysts don't give two hoots about D&D as it has little to no effect relative to their major lines. To liken D&D to Transformers is wrong. Hasbro makes boatloads of money from that line, so therefore it is material to their financials and therefore analysts discuss them. D&D is not. MTG is marginally so, I've seen it mentioned a couple times here and there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they will sell off the brand, but rather that it's not one of their core pillars like the aforementioned brands are.

Does it even include any information on Magic in that analysis? It would probably be better to analyze DnD's place within Wizards more so than Hasbro as a whole, since odds are that Wizards as a whole is only a small part of Hasbro's line. And if nothing else, MTG's IP is arguably not as strong as DnD's (there has yet to be a MTG movie or cartoon, and much fewer video games based on the MTG liscense, etc). The whole Wizard's division is targetting a niche market compared to most of the rest of what Hasbro does, so they obviously have different goals.

D&D has also been around far longer than MTG and yes they made a disastrous movie, which almost broke even at the box office...

I have to concur with renau1g. The analysis I have read DOES include references to Magic. But as far as I can tell Dungeons and Dragons is a complete nonissue for investors. I suspect, it it is only my opinion, that Hasbro bought WOTC for Magic and a vague hope of somehow monetizing the D&D brand through film, cartoons, toys etc. So long as it is not a meaningful money/administrative drain I'd bet they are happy to just mark time.

This. MTG has been mentioned in info about the company, not so much D&D.

 

[Dausuul]

No, it should be both.

And we should drive cars that get 100 miles to the gallon and cost $1,000 with no loss of speed, acceleration, safety, or passenger capacity.

It would be an absolute nightmare to build two parallel apps and keep them both up-to-date and compatible with each other. There would have to be major demand to justify such a thing, and I seriously doubt that kind of demand exists. How much extra are you willing to pay for this functionality?

 

[MrMyth]

I'm going to chime in with... no, 2011 won't be the end of WotC D&D.

Nor, honestly, do I see any evidence remotely along those lines. Despite the few speedbumps, Essentials seems to have been a success.

DDI has certainly had issues. But I think most of those have stemmed from the transition - I would not be surprised if, 6 months from now, we have a smoothly working online Character Builder and Monster Builder, along with a successful release of the VTT. Possibly with other tools (finally) on the way. The complaints now are entirely merited, of course - but having weathered the period of complaints and refunds and cancellations, I think DDI has nowhere to go but up.

In addition, we've seen the success of Dark Sun, Gamma World, the Ravenloft board game - and we've got more board games coming, as well as a 4E CRPG. No idea how decent those products will be, but they all offer more chances to build the brand and bring in more players.

And even if none of these elements pan out, I don't WotC has done anything so disastrous as to cripple the brand. Hopefully their mistakes have been just enough of a problem to get them to notice the response and improve those issues in the future, but I can't see any reasonable scenario that possibly results in D&D being sold off or shut down.

 

[MrMyth]

And we should drive cars that get 100 miles to the gallon and cost $1,000 with no loss of speed, acceleration, safety, or passenger capacity.

It would be an absolute nightmare to build two parallel apps and keep them both up-to-date and compatible with each other. There would have to be major demand to justify such a thing, and I seriously doubt that kind of demand exists. How much extra are you willing to pay for this functionality?

Actually, I think they could have done this - note the next few months with a significant slow-down in D&D products. That would have given a solid period to maintain the old CB while running actual beta-testing of the new one. And, 4 months from now or so, finally launch the new one and cease updates on the old.

But they chose to do otherwise, and I think at this point reversing course would end up even more of a disaster. I think the new CB will be decent eventually, but yeah... right now, it is not in a great state, and I think they had a better way to go about it.

I'm not sure what the heart of the problem was - did orders come down from on high that they couldn't argue with? Were they simply overconfident in how smooth their new CB would run? Some combination of the two?

Either way, they've made their decision, and that's that.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

I want to add my 2 eurocents

essential, boardgames, adventure with cards/tiles and monster vaults are a move to keep the game, and the players, in the shops (maybe you can get the rules from the insider but not the tiles/card/boxes)

on the web side they are trying to get subscriptions with digital content and tools

they are trying to move the game beyond it's actual niche (boardgames, videogames)

what can we expect in the future?

I would expect more boardgames, more rpg like Gamma World (after the ravenloft rpg they should come out with a "classical" box rpg... now it's too early after the essential launch)

so less books, more stand alone games, a few more box/adventure/supplement

 

[Shemeska]

On the optimistic side: we haven't heard about the regular Christmas Wizards layoffs yet, have we?

With several other rounds of layoffs during the year, and some resignations, I'm not so sure that they can lay off anyone else and still function. There's lots of speculation that they're seriously understaffed in the D&D area, and if so it really wouldn't surprise me if there aren't any layoffs this year for Xmas because staff seems to be so lean already.

 

[Aegeri]

I am extremely unhappy with Wizarrds right now in terms of their DDI offerings and decisions myself. But I am still going to be playing DnD well into 2013 even if I decided not to buy anything else. That's very unlikely given how much is coming out that I am actually still excited about.

 

[Dausuul]

Actually, I think they could have done this - note the next few months with a significant slow-down in D&D products. That would have given a solid period to maintain the old CB while running actual beta-testing of the new one. And, 4 months from now or so, finally launch the new one and cease updates on the old.

Oh, I agree that they should have continued support for the old one until the new one was ready for prime time. The rollout of the new CB was badly mishandled.

What I'm objecting to is the idea of supporting both apps in perpetuity. WotC has made some missteps, but their end goal of having a web-based Character Builder (and only a web-based one) is quite sensible.