D&D 5E Will 5e D&D re-claim its campaign settings.

[CapnZapp]

No I think WotC considers "brand dilution" bad.

Even if they thought they could make a hundred supplements and recoup their money on every single one of them, they're not interested.

They're after bigger money. To Hasbro, D&D is a brand, a franchise.

They want to hone that brand for movies deals, action figures and what not. Board games. Markets that are tenfold if not thousandfold bigger than our hobby.

Focusing on one game world, one experience makes perfect sense when the audience isn't the hobby gamer.

Publishing Greyhawk or Eberron would interfere with that mission.

Perhaps later, though. Witness how the spectacular success of Marvel finally allows them to branch out. Each antman or deadpool is a Greyhawk and an Eberron (no other comparison . They're simply not produced in the ramp-up period, the period when you want to sell "Dungeons & Dragons the experience"

If you want a Birthright (and not just a 3PP kind of deal) I honestly think the way forward would be for this strategy to fail, and Hasbro selling off D&D to a small player only operating in our pond (no toys, no games, just rpgs)

Then and only then would I buy your theory that we can have TSR levels of support, if only they can control their costs.

 

[Azurewraith]

No I think WotC considers "brand dilution" bad.

Even if they thought they could make a hundred supplements and recoup their money on every single one of them, they're not interested.

They're after bigger money. To Hasbro, D&D is a brand, a franchise.

They want to hone that brand for movies deals, action figures and what not. Board games. Markets that are tenfold if not thousandfold bigger than our hobby.

Focusing on one game world, one experience makes perfect sense when the audience isn't the hobby gamer.

Publishing Greyhawk or Eberron would interfere with that mission.

Perhaps later, though. Witness how the spectacular success of Marvel finally allows them to branch out. Each antman or deadpool is a Greyhawk and an Eberron (no other comparison . They're simply not produced in the ramp-up period, the period when you want to sell "Dungeons & Dragons the experience"

If you want a Birthright (and not just a 3PP kind of deal) I honestly think the way forward would be for this strategy to fail, and Hasbro selling off D&D to a small player only operating in our pond (no toys, no games, just rpgs)

Then and only then would I buy your theory that we can have TSR levels of support, if only they can control their costs.

I think you are 100% correct. Lets just hope they can finally make a decent dnd movie. I don't see Hasbro selling off dnd as long as they can keep it running with a skeleton crew and make some nice cash to go with it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Judging from the "quality" of past D&D movies, that Birthright module is right around the corner... ;-)

 

[GreyLord]

No I think WotC considers "brand dilution" bad.

Even if they thought they could make a hundred supplements and recoup their money on every single one of them, they're not interested.

They're after bigger money. To Hasbro, D&D is a brand, a franchise.

They want to hone that brand for movies deals, action figures and what not. Board games. Markets that are tenfold if not thousandfold bigger than our hobby.

Focusing on one game world, one experience makes perfect sense when the audience isn't the hobby gamer.

Publishing Greyhawk or Eberron would interfere with that mission.

Perhaps later, though. Witness how the spectacular success of Marvel finally allows them to branch out. Each antman or deadpool is a Greyhawk and an Eberron (no other comparison . They're simply not produced in the ramp-up period, the period when you want to sell "Dungeons & Dragons the experience"

If you want a Birthright (and not just a 3PP kind of deal) I honestly think the way forward would be for this strategy to fail, and Hasbro selling off D&D to a small player only operating in our pond (no toys, no games, just rpgs)

Then and only then would I buy your theory that we can have TSR levels of support, if only they can control their costs.

If the market is really only 15 million right now, if it goes to almost any other company, it would go there to die.

Even compared to the Aughts (2000s) where D&D was a 20 to 30 million dollar industry, 15 million for the WHOLE industry marks an industry that is very much on the low end right now.

You sell D&D off and it's going to end up with most of the other RPGs right now, which is basically for VERY niche groups with the exception of pathfinder.

Dreaming of the D&D brand being sold off, isn't going to save D&D anymore most likely. The customer base just isn't big enough.

 

[CapnZapp]

Nah, you can do well with just thousands of customers.

I'm not disputing the claim there could be a successful Greyhawk or Birthright series of supplements.

You just would have to define "success" as something else than what satisfies WotC and their corporate masters.