Dear Wizards of the Coast blog post...

[an_idol_mind]

I don't think rereleasing old editions would do much without new supporting products, which is pretty resource-intensive.

If WotC made their back catalog print on demand, I'd probably buy the Rules Cyclopedia. I'd maybe buy AD&D 2nd edition's core books. But I'm not going to be a long-term customer of theirs unless there are new adventures and supplements coming out to support those games. Yeah, old editions of D&D have a long back catalog, but A) I've already purchased, read, and played a lot of that old stuff and B) my sensibilities have changed, so a D&D module from 1991 isn't nearly as appealing to me now as it was then.

Selling old products as PDFs is a good idea, and there might be a market for print on demand, but if D&D is going to continue evolving, it will need a stream of new support, which means that WotC has to pick and edition and run with it. 5th edition is an attempt to figure out where most of their potential customers lie, and I think tailoring the game to trying to please most of the people most of the time is the best way for them to go about things right now.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Well, I think I don't. I think you overestimate sales figures for anything in the RPG industry that's not a PHB of the current D&D version.
For most indie products, 10.000 is a massive success.

But yeah, we'll see in July. If WotC sells enough of reprinted AD&D 1st we may see more reprints. Too bad WotC sales figures are so hard to get; it would be quite interesting.

Last years Gencon schedule says different.

2011 Gencon game schedule:

1st ed: 110 games
2nd ed: 17 games
3.5: 73 games
Pathfinder: 251 games
4th ed non-RPGA: 43 games
4th ed. RPGA: 188 games

There's a pretty hefty chunk of AD&D going on there. Imagine if it was actually in print and supported.

 

[billd91]

I second this post. This was the most appropriate response to the hubris expressed by the blog post.

I'm guessing that the blogger prefers 4th edition...

Click the link to the blog and look around. Your guess appears to be way off.

 

[B.T.]

That feel when some guy writes out his TL;DR thesis about D&D and tells an uncaring, unfeeling corporation how to run their business.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The article takes far too long to make its point, but I found it convincing, once it got there.

One potential problem is that WotC may have already lost the 3e support market, which seems like the juiciest plum right now, to Paizo.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

In fact, I have to agree at least with the point about planned obsolescence, which seems to be the model adopted by WotC at least since 3.5.

Right now, it appears that Paizo used exactly the backslash pointed by the blogger to steal (or at least challenge) WotC's domain over fantasy RPG market.

Cheers,

 

[stratagem]

I'm quite a long time lurker but I wanted to pop in and speak to something that may have been completely missed by the blog and perhaps others. WotC themselves touted 4e as an 'evergreen' edition before its release. Obviously it won't be. The whole point of having an evergreen D&D product, to me, is having one set of simplified rules that everyone can hang their hat on and which they can build upon. 4e was a good way to do that, IMO, solely on the approach to how the rules were strictly codified. It didn't work regardless so we're off to 5e.

Now they haven't said a word about it being evergreen but it perhaps is a far better way to attempt such. A simple, clear set of rules that is designed to appeal to a great variety of play styles (the part that 4e seems to have gotten wrong) by attaching various 'modules' to the sides of the rules.

So what does this have to do with the blog? I dare say WotC is doing exactly what the blog is telling them to do (not counting e-publishing). It's just a different approach that won't hurt them as badly as the blog's approach. I'm betting on WotC having better market research than her. They are pushing a potential evergreen product that, hopefully, the majority of D&D gamers will adopt sooner or later. Then they can keep the core books in print and continue to print alternate 'core' modules. These core modules can be changed and altered for a better experience over time but you keep the rule core the same. These alternate modules still have everyone as a potential customer as groups will probably want to play D&D in a variety of ways after they tire of a specific module. ("I'm tired of high fantasy.. let's try a gritty version with the next campaign"). I do admit there is still the chance of splintering the base but less so than TSR's plethora of campaign worlds.

More simply and to borrow the tech analogy in the thread, they will be able to keep the same iOS and have many different products for sale without necessarily competing with themselves. I really thought they would try this with 4e after the PHB2 came out and I saw they were trying different things with the rules. The Wizard articles and interviews make me believe they are aware and are going to try this. I think the blog is shortsighted about what is really going on; especially since re-printing AD&D core books looks like an obvious testing of the waters to continue making money on old product while they move forward to gather everyone.

Or I could be fantastically wrong. It wouldn't be the first time

 

[variant]

They had said they are going to be utilizing the D&D brand in more stuff than before and have already started with the boardgames, so the pen and paper game isn't solely carrying the D&D brand on its shoulders.

 

[n00bdragon]

I second this post. This was the most appropriate response to the hubris expressed by the blog post.

I'm guessing that the blogger prefers 4th edition...

I hope you're not implying that people who prefer 4th edition are somehow inherently or more likely to act like that.

 

[nnms]

because the fanbase is a lot smaller.

D&D is prone to beeing fractured more easily is because of the critical mass. If there are 5 people in a region palying call of cthulu, they sit together and talk about which way to play.
If there are 100 people at one place, those with similar opinions find each other and look down at people playing D&D like diablo, wow, harry potter and whatever... and they feel better... this sadly is the way it works.

But they didn't even try the "remake the rules from the ground up so everyone who likes the game will buy it again" approach once. You can take a random Call of Cthulhu adventure from some magazine from the early 80s and run it, with no changes, with the latest printing of the rules.

They did not, in any way, rely on the more communicative nature of a smaller community to agree on what version to play because they never, ever replaced their game with another.

Just because D&D has always had the approach of replacing the previous edition with a drastic redesign and taking the previous system out of print doesn't mean it has to work that way.

"Editions" in books don't mean a complete rewrite with the basic information changing. They're usually just a clarification or an expansion, often only done because a new print run allows for the opportunity.

RPGs can be that way too.