D&D 5E (2014) Speculating about the future of the D&D industry/community in a post-5E world

[Quartz]

As long as people continue to play and have fun, we all win.

 

[Mark CMG]

The pie analogy doesn't quite work, because it leaves out the issue of player acquisition - something traditionally done by the leading RPG in the industry. D&D is the only mainstream brand the industry has of its own (no matter what the difference in sales between the leading games are), and WotC is in a position to leverage that to grow the industry in ways that other companies can't, although Paizo has made some inroads into that with its Beginner Box and various branding initiatives like comic books, toys, and so on. So a successful D&D means a bigger RPG industry with more players in it.

Plus, of course, actual competition makes people bring their A-Game. Neither company can coast. This benefits everybody!

It is true that the D&D brand name is still the one that brings new players and payers into RPGing than any other. I have no doubt of that (and don't ask me for numbers). It might bring them in to D&D or PF or any number of games that people describe at the table as D&D or D&D-like, but it is their brand name that does the heavy lifting. Frankly, I doubt that will ever change either.

I also don't think the owners of the D&D brand will ever stop having an RPG in production for any significant period of time because I think that would harm the brand, which in turn would harm the licensing of the brand for all manner of things (electronic games, movies, board games, etc.).

I think it is safe to say that the RPG itself, while crucial to the continuation of the brand, is not the majority of the revenue stream for the brand. That essentially ended when they moved away from the OGL, for whatever the reasons and however you assess the fallout of that move. They coincide, no matter if you want to argue direct causality, indirect causality, or even coincidence.

Does the brand owner need to reverse that situation? I don't think they do nor do I think it matters for the larger portion of their revenue pie, nor still do I think currently wish to do so.

There may come a time when someone looks over the market and thinks that the owner of the D&D brand should also be getting the vast majority of the RPG revenue, as they seemingly were doing under 3.XE. At that point we might see something less coy than a GSL or some other bastardization of the OGL, and actually get a straight up OGL game again. Until that time, I personally don't believe we'll see the D&D brand truly dominating the RPG market again, on its own, with no real competition.

 

[variant]

Pathfinder, despite it's success, isn't D&D. D&D simply has a lot more name recognition and brand appeal. Paizo never did a good job at expanding their brand outside of the pen and paper market, but then 'Pathfinder' isn't the most appealing name either.

I know when it was announced, the first thought was they named it after a Ranger prestige class or feat and why in hell would they do that. It's probably why the only Pathfinder videogame we will ever see is created by a company operated by Paizo and funded by a Kickstarter.

Between the poor branding and the perception that Pathfinder is just a 3rd party off-shoot of D&D 3.5e, I can't imagine it does that well in the 5e era.

 

[dd.stevenson]

But Hasbro is giving them less staff to work with than Paizo can scrape together? That's just sad. (snip)

I think that the size of the D&D team relative to Pathfinder's is sad only if you think that wotc should follow the same in-house development strategy as Paizo.

 

[DaveMage]

Pathfinder, despite it's success, isn't D&D. D&D simply has a lot more name recognition and brand appeal. Paizo never did a good job at expanding their brand outside of the pen and paper market, but then 'Pathfinder' isn't the most appealing name either.

I know when it was announced, the first thought was they named it after a Ranger prestige class or feat and why in hell would they do that. It's probably why the only Pathfinder videogame we will ever see is created by a company operated by Paizo and funded by a Kickstarter.

Between the poor branding and the perception that Pathfinder is just a 3rd party off-shoot of D&D 3.5e, I can't imagine it does that well in the 5e era.

You do realize that Pathfinder is 5 years old, and D&D is 40, right?

You also realize that D&D didn't have it's first video game until it was 14 years old, right?

Seems like you just don't like Paizo/Pathfinder - which is fine, but don't compare apples and oranges and say oranges failed because they're not apples (and orange is a stupid color).

 

[variant]

You do realize that Pathfinder is 5 years old, and D&D is 40, right?

You also realize that D&D didn't have it's first video game until it was 14 years old, right?

Seems like you just don't like Paizo/Pathfinder - which is fine, but don't compare apples and oranges and say oranges failed because they're not apples (and orange is a stupid color).

The first D&D game was released in 1975, one year after the original boxed set came out. It was followed by another game released a year later, and another the year after that. Shadowrun was released in 1989, it had its first video game by 1993. Vampire the Masquerade was released in 1991 and had a TV show in 1996.

 

[Rygar]

I think there's a very strong possibility that nothing will change from the market during 4th edition.

If you look around, it seems that 5th edition's customer base is 4th edition's customer base. The poll at the top of the forum shows ~70% "Current players", which I believe represents 4th edition players. Many of the topics are 4th edition oriented, especially on WOTC's forums. On WOTC's forums there's virtually no indication of pre-4th edition players returning, and an overwhelming trend towards 4th edition oriented takes/discussion.

If these areas represent the edition's customer base as a whole, then 5th edition isn't doing much more than continuing to sell to the 4th edition market.

Its interesting to note that Mearls left them an "Out" in the form of "Listening to the people a year from now", which indicates to me that they don't have a lot of faith in the ability of the edition to gather customers and they plan on doing a deep assessment with an eye towards changing directions at that point. It also telegraphs to me that it is very likely 5th edition today is the product of significant internal arguements that ended up in an agreement to "Try it" and "Change if it doesn't work", indicating you intend to do course-corrections before the product is even on the shelves tells me that the producers feel the product is going to underperform.

5th edition has made the fatal error of being very polarizing. If you dislike certain features of 4th edition that were ported to 5th edition, you have no recourse as it is a base assumption. If you prefer things like using XP, you have no recourse (That doesn't involve substantial work). These things that people tended to feel strongly about have taken a position that forces people to either accept what they don't like or play some other product. That was very much the wrong approach to take. The xp thing is an excellent example, if you prefer to have players level when you say it's time, it is trivial to take an adventure designed with xp in mind and do that. If you prefer to have players level based on xp, you now have to spend significant time finishing the adventure before you can play it. Playgroups who preferred xp and depended on pre-written material due to time constraints are completely excluded, whereas if they'd done it the other way there's virtually no time investment for the "Level when I say you level" crowd.

So I suspect the post-5th edition world is:

-D&D does well in the 3rd and maybe 4th quarter of 2014
-Pathfinder retakes the number 1 spot in 4th quarter 2014 or 1st quarter 2015
-The D&D playerbase is predominantly the portion of 4th edition that was "Moderate" in commitment to it.
-The 4th edition hardcore and the pre-4th edition players largely stay where they are.
-In 2nd to 3rd quarter 2015 WOTC announces a major change in direction: Going edition neutral or announces that they're releasing "3.75" an update to the 3.5 ruleset to correct its issues and meant to make it usable with 5th edition product like the Monster Manual (Likely while porting over a few of 5th edition's features), possibly the same with 4th edition.

 

[Branduil]

So I suspect the post-5th edition world is:

-D&D does well in the 3rd and maybe 4th quarter of 2014
-Pathfinder retakes the number 1 spot in 4th quarter 2014 or 1st quarter 2015
-The D&D playerbase is predominantly the portion of 4th edition that was "Moderate" in commitment to it.
-The 4th edition hardcore and the pre-4th edition players largely stay where they are.
-In 2nd to 3rd quarter 2015 WOTC announces a major change in direction: Going edition neutral or announces that they're releasing "3.75" an update to the 3.5 ruleset to correct its issues and meant to make it usable with 5th edition product like the Monster Manual (Likely while porting over a few of 5th edition's features), possibly the same with 4th edition.

I would definitely quit buying WotC products if they went back to 3.x next year. I really doubt that happens though.

 

[dd.stevenson]

If you look around, it seems that 5th edition's customer base is 4th edition's customer base. The poll at the top of the forum shows ~70% "Current players", which I believe represents 4th edition players. Many of the topics are 4th edition oriented, especially on WOTC's forums. On WOTC's forums there's virtually no indication of pre-4th edition players returning, and an overwhelming trend towards 4th edition oriented takes/discussion.

If these areas represent the edition's customer base as a whole, then 5th edition isn't doing much more than continuing to sell to the 4th edition market. (snip)

I think the wotc staff has made it excruciatingly clear with both words and actions that messageboard forums are not representative of the market. Whether you want to believe them is another matter, of course.

 

[77IM]

If these areas represent the edition's customer base as a whole, then 5th edition isn't doing much more than continuing to sell to the 4th edition market.

4E did reasonably well at launch -- only after people had tried it did sales taper off, creating a downward spiral as players left. And even despite that decline, Encounters continued to do well for bringing in new players.

It's D&D; a lot of people want it to succeed. They'll give it a try, give it the benefit of the doubt. Some of them will go back to Pathfinder... but some won't.