Good post, Merric. As I said some months ago, D&D Insider is the new core game - everything else is just a snapshot of a living river. The interesting thing is that this changes the nature of editions and edition cycles. We will certainly see some kind of "5th edition" but it will probably be almost entirely available on D&D Insider before it is printed in a new set of core rulebooks; the game can gradually evolve through DDI and its updates and then get periodic new "editions" every two or three years in new print runs of the core rulebooks or the Essentials line or whatever they decide is the core set of game books. Of course this revised printing will also include something new to encourage subscribers to purchase the print copies as well, but it is unlikely that we will ever get a distinctly new edition again. To put it another way, DDI is the new (and maybe final) edition of D&D that will be updated in continual micro-changes and occasional revised printings of core books.
We will never see the hundred-odd hardcovers of 3.x again or the dozens upon dozens of 2E handbooks. The days of crunch-heavy splat books like the "Power" series is likely gone.
Speaking for myself, I have always bought your 1st and 3rd tier and pick-and-choose the 2nd tier products. When Character Builder came out I stopped buying
any 2nd tier products because they have less value for armchair browsing (actually, I bought
Martial Power but then traded it on RPG.Net); their only purpose, really, was for actual game play - character creation, tabletop reference, etc, whereas with
The Plane Above or
The Dark Sun Campaign Guide you can cozy up with a glass of Zinfandel and read it in your favorite armchair for a couple hours. With DDI, the Compendium, and excellent products like
Rules Compendium there is no need to own half a dozen or more Power books (or "Complete" books).
I see two roads going forward for the shape of D&D:
Best-case Scenario
The vast majority of crunch is published in DDI, which becomes increasingly profitable as more and more people subscribe to keep up-to-date with the rules and to enjoy new tools that are offered periodically, like further Builders: Encounter, Adventure, Campaign, World, Class, etc a whole toolbox of DMing goodies.
DDI subscriptions might have different tiers, like so:
- Copper Tier ($5-7/month) - the "player's version" - would give access to Character Builder and Dragon magazine
- Silver Tier ($10-15/month) - as above, plus DM's Tools like Monster Builder and other Builders, as well as Dungeon magazine
- Gold Tier ($20-25/month) - as above, plus a monthly print copy of Dragon and a bi-monthly print copy of Dungeon
- Platinum Tier ($30/month) - everything above plus exclusive content, new material before it is updated elsewhere, etc.
Printed books will still exist as revised core rulebooks every few years, as well as settings, theme books, and new products that we haven't even thought of before (for example, imagine a deluxe box set that is a detailed location or region with sandbox guidelines, adventure seeds and even an adventure or two, that includes all the tokens of all the monsters that you might encounter, with a few miniatures of key villains and new monsters. It would be an expensive, $50-75 product, but it would provide hours and hours of play; I'm thinking of a combination of
Castle Ravenloft, a focused setting book, a small monster manual, and a sack of tokens, minis, and maps...hmm, I'm wondering if
Shadowfell will be along these lines...).
In other words, and this is the key to why this is a "best-case" scenario, it is
because WotC is publishing all of their crunch in DDI that room is made for the possibility of more creative and innovative products - those based on story, setting, and ideas, as well as stuff we haven't imagined. We'll still get our books and box sets, but not as many, but they will be fluff-heavy and/or innovative. Quality over quantity. To put it another way, DDI allows D&D to break out of the vicious edition cycle and focus on innovation and quality.
If I were to get greedy, in this scenario WotC decides to start printing
Dragon Magazine again and place it in major chain bookstores in order to increase visibility and try to make D&D a household name again.
In this scenario, the online and print domains would fuel each other; there would be no "robbing Peter to pay Paul" like there was with the Power books and DDI.
Worst-case Scenario
Because the 3rd tier books (settings, themes, adventures) are more specific and less profitable, they will largely cease to be made. D&D becomes almost entirely digital except for a line of evergreen products like Essentials that is updated every couple years in revised printings. Quality of content goes down as the money trickles away. WotC decides to focus on D&D the MMO or D&D the video game series, where the "real money is." In a few years the D&D tabletop branch of WotC becomes little more than a handful of geeks in a couple rooms at headquarters that keeps the website running, occasionally writes articles, and monitors the sales of the "evergreen" line of products.
What do I think will happen? I hope the first, fear the second. I think it entirely depends upon WotC and how they decide to go forward, especially how they choose to interface with their fan-base - especially the diehard core. Given their track record it is hard to be optimistic and I fear that they just don't have the right staff to lead D&D forward in an optimal way. The end result may be more of a hybrid of the two scenarios above, but I'm guessing more towards the latter. Let's hope that I'm wrong!
