D&D 5E Monte Cook Leaves WotC - No Longer working on D&D Next [updated]

[Kobold Boots]

Total pay for Hasbro Inc.'s HAS -1.70% President and Chief Executive Brian Goldner declined 67% to $7.6 million in 2011... that's a crap-ton of money. Do the math of what he earned the previous year and it's a RIDICULOUS amount of money. His drop in pay was due to stock/options losses of 77%. Regardless, that's crazy good money; the kind where you're set for life on half a year's salary. And I bet he pays less of a percentage of taxes than I do. Overall, since they pay the boss that much, I think they can afford to bankroll D&D Next and make sure it's a good product. Here's the source if you want to read more about it: Hasbro CEO&

You may want to start another thread for market analysis & corporate earnings.

Fair enough. I will start that thread when people stop using the corporate decision making as their basis for complaining about the current editions of D&D. The bottom line is (with respect meant) is business decision making is not done on the basis of fandom. We're a fan oriented site, so I respect your point of view and defer.

Back on topic, Monte's departure hopefully will not negatively affect the final product. But I would not be surprised if it meant a few delays. When you lose your Lead Designer (who is one of three, so 33.33% of the total design team). AND if it was a question of salary that was the catalyst for Monte leaving, well, the above numbers certainly show that they could have made it worth his while to stay on-board.

Monte was not one of three on the entire design team. He was one of three on his team. The point I'd like to make most fervently is that Hasbro is always going to make decisions on the bottom line only as they are a game company that happens to do RPGs in one of its product lines. D&D is never going to be a major concern for them as it would be to any other company that just does RPGs and books.

 

[Balesir]

From a purely business point of view, depending on the size of the firm, if I'm putting in say 150 million to make 200 million and that nets 50, then I'm ok. If I'm putting in 150 million to make 160 million and net 10.. that's almost not worth getting up in the morning for when I'm running a billion dollar firm and make more in salary and options than I'm netting on the product line and I could be investing in Bakugan or Pokemon or whatever and really making some serious money.

Right - if you are investing 150 million and netting 10, that's a problem with RoI and you have an opportunity cost to consider, no question. But if you are only putting in 30 million and netting 10 the business is just as good as the 50 million net on 150. You might want to subordinate the management of it, but to say "we don't want to be bothered with it" is at best stupid, at worst anti-competitive and domineering. At a base minimum, you could just sell it - business like that has a value, and just sitting on it wastes that value.

I am quite aware that there are corporations out there that take this sort of view - it amounts to "if we can't make as much money from it as we want we're going to take our ball and go home, and screw the lot of you". It's one of the most infuriating causes of IP wastage in existence, and it amounts to anti-competitive behaviour of the worst kind. TSR was to some extent guilty of it, and WotC is not totally free of the taint, either, although they have tried to be accomodative on occasion.

 

[Aehrlon]

The point I'd like to make most fervently is that Hasbro is always going to make decisions on the bottom line only as they are a game company that happens to do RPGs in one of its product lines. D&D is never going to be a major concern for them as it would be to any other company that just does RPGs and books.

Point taken; we may not like it but those in control decide when/where/if the money is spent on a new product and how its shareholders will be affected (which includes the bigwigs).

 

[Umbran]

and it amounts to anti-competitive behaviour of the worst kind.

Well, hold on a second. You've got a product that you don't think you can make enough on to satisfy your own business needs. You should then sell it to a competitor, or else you're being anti-competitive?

I can imagine that as a critique for "I just bought movie rights, but it turns out I can't make the business end work out, so I sit on it." But not for a property that your own people have put a lot into. If you've built up the brand and IP yourself?

No. I don't buy the logic. If I've built the IP up, I'm under no ethical obligation to hand that off if I don't want to use it right now. That'd be like telling J.K. Rowling, "Well, if *you* aren't going to write any more Harry Potter, you are being anti-competitive if you don't sell the rights to someone who will!"

 

[TarionzCousin]

That'd be like telling J.K. Rowling, "Well, if *you* aren't going to write any more Harry Potter, you are being anti-competitive if you don't sell the rights to someone who will!"

I will gladly write the next Harry Potter book for a mere ten percent of what J.K. Rowling would earn/charge.

 

[Kobold Boots]

At a base minimum, you could just sell it - business like that has a value, and just sitting on it wastes that value.

I am quite aware that there are corporations out there that take this sort of view - it amounts to "if we can't make as much money from it as we want we're going to take our ball and go home, and screw the lot of you". It's one of the most infuriating causes of IP wastage in existence, and it amounts to anti-competitive behaviour of the worst kind. TSR was to some extent guilty of it, and WotC is not totally free of the taint, either, although they have tried to be accomodative on occasion.

So, a few things -

1. I apologize if anything I wrote came off as if I was standing on a soapbox or speaking down to anyone. I have a generally strong writing voice and it comes off the wrong way at times.

2. Wasting IP can be a competitive advantage to a firm if they believe the property would do more damage to their firm in the hands of another firm. Case in point would be TSR buying DJ: Mythus or if (god forbid) Hasbro ever tried to buy Paizo outright to control the PF property.

3. You're never going to see a game company get hit with any kind of anti-competition lawsuit because of the ease of entry to the business. Competition is everywhere. (I know you didn't go as far as mentioning a lawsuit but I'm writing it in this context because businesses look at what's appropriate business through the lens of "will we be sued".)

Last, I do believe the D&D property has more value to the fan base than it does to the company that owns it and a lot of that value is intangible or goodwill value. The company that would do it best at the moment is Paizo, but they have no reason to do so as their own brand is doing quite well.

Oddly (and off topic), I find I enjoy each product/edition more when I've spent a bunch of time playing the other one. It's like they're both flawed but you only appreciate one when you've been exposed to the flaws in the other.

 

[GM Dave]

So, it has been over a week since Monte Cook has left WotC.

His own blog The Chapel Perilous

Now, he says that you shouldn't take his thoughts as an indication of anything (like his post on game design).

Still, it make you wonder on his posts on going to see Terminator films and looking at other RPG games (old and new for mechanics).

It certainly doesn't seem the work of a person that had a 'plan' when they left WotC. It does not appear that he had another offer and was headed towards something else.

I'm also curious on his post topic of playtesting and interpreting feedback.

I find it interesting as his 'drop off' in duties following the DDXP playtest (Mearles took over L&L). I find it further interesting that PAXE used the same playtest material and that Mearles has announced the playtest the May 24th playtest on the same day that Monte left.

Now, it could be coincidence that these all are related to playtesting and what comes out of the playtesting.

Still, given the 4e history and how WotC was given feed back (the early discussion of an open playtest being shut down) and then did not choose to use that feed back makes you wonder on what is happening inside the company with 5e.

I think it also makes an interesting discussion point on game design.

Who should be primary when crafting a game, movie, or book? Should the developer be the primary or should the fan that will purchase the product be primary?

The view of the developer/writer as primary is the view that if you produce a product then your audience will find you. If your product has enough people that like and resonate with the product then you will be called a 'Visionary' or similar term. You will also likely make money.

The view of the audience as primary is the view that if you survey an audience then you will find what they want and get the most resonance from the start. The greater the resonance from surveying the more likely that you will make money.

These two poles are often wrapped around with other words like 'Integrity' to express the writer's need to write or create what they want. 'Profitability' is often used as a reason for audience primacy.

Game companies often find themselves somewhere between the two points with 'playtesting' or 'product testing' being used as a term to express giving more say of the audience into the finished design.

I find it further interesting that most of the focus on 5e is on the mechanics and less is on the IP. This is an interesting element of Pen and Paper RPGs in that mechanics often leads IP instead of IP leading mechanics (Weiss Productions is one company that tends to be an exception with IP often leading the mechanics).

For example, when Blizzard announces a game like StarCraft or World of Warcraft it is led by IP development of 'What do we want this world to be like and what is the play experience going to be?' How the mechanics of this are to be achieved are secondary.

On the good side, WotC has been working on the Art of DnD 5e and giving people an indication of how they see the races and cultures of the next game. This IP work is following or parallel to the design process of the game. Again, an interesting point as it means it must attempt to follow what others have designed meaning the art is conforming instead inspiring.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

If you ever needed an example of why you shouldn't rely 100% on crowdsourcing to build a product, look no further than the episode of The Simpsons where an auto manufacturer asks Homer to design a car.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Whether or not anyone is annoyed by a product schedule has a lot to do with understanding what the cycle should be in the first place and what level of sales needs to be maintained to support the basic company functions such that the product can continue to be sold. When people talk about a 10 year lifecycle of the previous product in a non-Internet, non-videogame world where TSR was a much smaller concern than WoTC they're setting an unrealistic expectation.

So if they need to put out a new edition every three years such that the company can continue to put out the game at all.. well there you go. It's cool for Monte to be annoyed by it as it is for everyone else, but I don't know that the statement itself is worthy of the level of angst it generated all things considered.

I dont think the issue is our expectations, its hasbro's. If putting out an edition every three years (particularly with a game like D&D where that means a whole line of books need to be revamped) annoys their customers enough that people stop buying the produt, well that is bad business. They can gripe all they want about people not understanding their production cycle and sales needs, but that doesn't sell them any books. The truth is they need to find another approach that is less upseting to the fanbase or scale back their expectations and production costs. Some have proposed going back to the old module and supplement model of AD&D days. There are differences of opinions over whether this is viable, but they were able to keep it up for two decades. WOTC seems to be having a hard time sustaining their current model.

Also if you look at other games that do issue regular new editions to sell books, the changes for each revision are often quite small. This achieves two things: 1- it doesn't split the fanbase each time you release a new edition and 2- it allows for more backwards compatability (even with AD&D 2E you could easily run 1E modules....this is even more true of many other games).

 

[Kobold Boots]

I dont think the issue is our expectations, its hasbro's. If putting out an edition every three years (particularly with a game like D&D where that means a whole line of books need to be revamped) annoys their customers enough that people stop buying the produt, well that is bad business. They can gripe all they want about people not understanding their production cycle and sales needs, but that doesn't sell them any books. The truth is they need to find another approach that is less upseting to the fanbase or scale back their expectations and production costs. Some have proposed going back to the old module and supplement model of AD&D days. There are differences of opinions over whether this is viable, but they were able to keep it up for two decades. WOTC seems to be having a hard time sustaining their current model.

To an extent you're correct. Here's my thoughts:

1. The vocal fanbase that is upset is not necessarily correlated to a loss of sales. Certainly it's resulted in a sales loss to some repeat customers, but whether or not that's anything more than a drop in the bucket is unknown. I don't like all of the 4e changes, but I didn't like many of the 3e decisions either. I still bought both 4e and Pathfinder and I'm willing to bet I'm more in the center of the demograph of older gamers that WoTC is looking for than the people that are complaining.

2. Certainly the vocal minority is an important enough group that they're trying to quiet them. If I was running the company though I'd be quieting them not to increase sales; but to reduce the distractions to my teams that are making them less productive. Point being that the vocal group is obviously annoyed because they feel they're wasting cash. If they're "wasting cash" on a hobby.. they probably don't have enough disposable cash to be my primary targets.

3. To their model, yes you're correct. They can't make money on the core rules and rules supplement model over more than a three year span and the evidence points to this. They'll need to take a hard look at their operating expenses and cut them if they want to extend an edition past a few years given what they've got going at present.

Also if you look at other games that do issue regular new editions to sell books, the changes for each revision are often quite small. This achieves two things: 1- it doesn't split the fanbase each time you release a new edition and 2- it allows for more backwards compatability (even with AD&D 2E you could easily run 1E modules....this is even more true of many other games).

There are some reasons why this doesn't necessarily work in my opinion as far as D&D as a property is concerned. This has to do with who owns the property. If the property were owned by a company that did books as their primary business these issues wouldn't exist.

1. From 2e to 3e and 3e to 4e the game needed to shift to something that could leverage existing business competencies at WoTC in order to reduce production costs. Additionally, more product lines than books needed to be created for the game to offset production costs of the main line. To this end we saw card decks and miniatures added to the game and video game concepts added to the RPG when the MMO came online.

2. These changes make a stronger property able to extend into other media than the tabletop, but they also alienate long time fans that love their game. WoTC has to decide whether they want long term success across generations or short term success with who they already have and the longer they take to make changes the harder it is to turn the brand.

The major issues they have right now in my opinion are:

1. Staying the course: They've gone with 4e and they need to make sure that they don't go too far back with 5e that they hose themselves going forward. The 4e game mechanics are solid.

2. Putting together a solid OGL like legal platform that protects the brand and the rules set while opening up their total platform (including web and MMO gaming) to third party publishers such that it's both easy and cost-effective.

3. Paizo: There needs to be a working relationship. They're just really good at certain aspects of the trade and I'd almost be willing as a business line manager to give them the RPG license for books for D&D and focus on the tools and MMO if I were WoTC. I don't think WoTC has the resources or the buy in to run the entire line well and if they were smart about it the distraction of 5e D&D may be enough to take the steam out of the Pathfinder line or ensure that 5e has some great modular PF like rules.