D&D 5E Would a 5E Kickstarter Fly?

[Sanglorian]

Kickstarter is great for distributing and reducing risk: instead of guessing how many books to print, a small publisher can find out how many customers they have and then print the books. It doesn't make sense for a publisher that is pretty sure it can quickly sell through its first printing.

It also is a bad idea for a publisher that wants to keep hobby stores alive, and has sometimes taken a financial hit to do so, to encourage people to buy books directly from Wizards.

Finally, soliciting content from people would delay the release of the core books. People would (and rightfully so) expect the new content to be rigorously tested.

Crowdfunding works great for small and agile projects, but not team-based, guaranteed best-sellers.

 

[Sunseeker]

WOTC may not be making the money Hasbro would like with D&D, but they're not hurting for it either. Kickstarter is great for Joe Blow who wants to get their new book or revolutionary mouse trap produced when they have little to nothing of their own to do so.

Making a D&D 5e Kickstarter would IMO, signal to people more than WOTC doesn't care if the product gets made or not, and has no interest in financially backing it. They'd be better off selling the license to someone else than doing a Kickstarter.

Kickstarter has gotten so popular these days people forget the origin of the name. A kick-starter was an old motorbike part used(and is still sometimes used) as a way of firing the engine without a battery. You literally kicked the starter to get your engine to fire. That's what Kickstarter should be about, getting things started that have no juice on their own.

D&D 5e has plenty of juice on it's own.

 

[Bedrockgames]

WOTC may not be making the money Hasbro would like with D&D, but they're not hurting for it either. Kickstarter is great for Joe Blow who wants to get their new book or revolutionary mouse trap produced when they have little to nothing of their own to do so.

Making a D&D 5e Kickstarter would IMO, signal to people more than WOTC doesn't care if the product gets made or not, and has no interest in financially backing it. They'd be better off selling the license to someone else than doing a Kickstarter.

Kickstarter has gotten so popular these days people forget the origin of the name. A kick-starter was an old motorbike part used(and is still sometimes used) as a way of firing the engine without a battery. You literally kicked the starter to get your engine to fire. That's what Kickstarter should be about, getting things started that have no juice on their own.

D&D 5e has plenty of juice on it's own.

I agree 100%

 

[Thalionalfirin]

But this amounts to lobbying for content. All it would take is a few really obsessed gamers with loads of money to tip the direction of the edition in their favor. This seems like a terrible way for wotc to launch am edition.

Yeah, and that works so well in the American political system.

But seriously, they should develop the game THEY think will best meet their objectives.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No. Kickstarter is to get small projects off the ground, not for big companies to work. If it's three men and a dog trying for a kickstarter for a retroclone that works. If it's WoTC/Hasbro (or FFG or Paizo for that matter) then no. Too irregular.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

No. Kickstarter is to get small projects off the ground, not for big companies to work. If it's three men and a dog trying for a kickstarter for a retroclone that works. If it's WoTC/Hasbro (or FFG or Paizo for that matter) then no. Too irregular.

It's being used more and more by big companies. The Pathfinder MMO is currently running a project on Kickstarter (and has been funded). While Goblin Works is technically a separate company, it has super close ties to Paizo.

I think WOTC could potentially raise some money through Kickstarter if they wanted to, though being as large as they are I don't think they're ready for the new business model yet. If crowdfunding is still as popular in five years, things may shift.