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

[variant]

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.

Wow, that's a seriously flawed leap of logic. I am not even sure where to begin. How many fallacies are in your post? An existential fallacy, fallacy of composition, fallacy of division, begging the question, circular reasoning, and confirmation bias. Am I missing some?

 

[doctorhook]

(Disclaimer: It's late and I didn't read the whole thread.)

Let's talk about WotC and Paizo.

It's flatly untrue to say that WotC and Paizo are not competing with one another. Each might be pursuing different market segments, but that's just a tactic to grow their businesses without wasting resources pursuing each others' fans. This situation will change as soon as it benefits one company to do so. Overall, I think the odds favour WotC making that move first, probably by early 2015 if 5E is well received.

At this point, the future landscape of the RPG market depends very much on how 5E performs. WotC is still only in the earliest stages of 5E's rollout, but the preliminary reaction is very positive--a lot more positive than 4E's release was. This is ominous news for Paizo, who have invested way too much into Pathfinder to ever go back to being just a third-party publisher for D&D, but it's not necessarily a death knell.

For the foreseeable future, Pathfinder is here to stay. By now it has penetrated the market too far and profited its publisher too much to just dry up in the next couple years, even in the worst possible business scenarios. That said, Pathfinder is still not the dominant brand, despite being the top-selling one, nor does Paizo have access to the same resources as WotC. Worse for Paizo, their own market niche was originally built on negative fan-reaction to the previous new edition of D&D, so there's a real risk that Paizo could accidentally chase away their own customer base if they try to grow or innovate too much, which significantly limits the types of products they'll want to publish. I expect Paizo will focus strongly on keeping its existing fans happy until they have solid data about 5E in a few quarters; they won't commit to any new directions until after they know exactly what effect their biggest threat is having on the market.

As for smaller RPG publishers, most don't have nearly as much to lose as Paizo does if WotC regains the top spot in the market with 5E. Most of those publishers will continue publishing their own niche product lines, and some will probably even generate new business with licensed content for 5E (GF9, Kobold Press, and Trapdoor Studios for example). At the end of the day, even if 5E turns out to be the edition to end all editions, people are going to keep playing their favorite games; dedicated PF fans will still play PF, dedicated C&C fans will still play C&C, and dedicated OSR fans will continue with OSR.

 

[Jake Johnson]

We have a couple of folks in our new 5E group who came from Pathfinder. One of them asked this evening if he could convert his character over to 5E. There has been no talk of running both systems. I know of another group that will be dropping Pathfinder in favor of 5E. I only intend to play 5E. I don't see value in running both. My sense is that WotC backed by Hasbro will throw massive amounts of money into securing a bright future for D&D. Whether Pathfinder sinks or swims, I suspect D&D will thrive, especially when almost everyone who expresses an opinion of 5E agrees that it's at least good if not great.

It would be interesting to compare financials for both franchises next year, after they've had a chance to compete in the market for a while. I wonder if that will be possible.

 

[DaveMage]

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.

What D&D games are you referring to?

As to your other point, are we still reflecting on D&D's popularity vs. Pathfinder in the 5E era or are we comparing Pathfinder to every RPG ever?

Paizo must be doing something right or Pathfinder would not have been the #1 game for the last year. It's popularity is just fine.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Okay, 5E is new and shiny, sales are going to do well for the PHB, the DMG and the MM but it all comes down to marketing and content. The question, then becomes support material and what will be produced and at what pace.

PF has a great support system in place with new content. WotC has a history of re-furbishing old material with limited new content, maybe this will change but if not, I don't think I need another FR campaign setting or another Underdark or Powers book.

 

[Gundark]

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).

To be fair video games weren't main stream (or even there with technology) enough to justify a video game until D&D was around 14 years old.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

In the mid term, Paizo will do well, regardless of what happens with 5E. Their bread and butter is subscriptions, and people who are committed enough to subscribe to a product line aren't very quick to jump ship. Paizo has earned a lot of loyalty.

If D&D 5E can provide modules that satisfy those who want a more complex game with more character options, then the Pathfinder rules system is probably in trouble, long-term. But, assuming the 3.5 to 5E conversion documents work well for Pathfinder as well, I suspect that the Pathfinder Adventure Paths and Campaign Setting will be rather popular across both games. Regardless of what happens, that's a valuable IP.

 

[DaveMage]

To be fair video games weren't main stream (or even there with technology) enough to justify a video game until D&D was around 14 years old.

True. However, the entire discussion is rather pointless since we're talking about a 40-year old brand vs. a brand in its early stages whose company is *growing* that brand in a very careful and deliberate way. And, whatever they're doing has apparently worked as they vaulted to be the #1 RPG.

D&D is very likely to take that back in the short term, but this is not a sprint - it's a marathon. (Although unlike a marathon, this race can have multiple winners.)


D&D 5E seems off to a very good start, and if they can keep up the quality of their marketing and products, they can be successful for a long time. D&D's main challenge, however, will likely continue to be WotC/Hasbro management rather than the game. WotC has shown no long-term ability to keep creative staff intact.

 

[Nebulous]

Wow, that's a seriously flawed leap of logic. I am not even sure where to begin. How many fallacies are in your post? An existential fallacy, fallacy of composition, fallacy of division, begging the question, circular reasoning, and confirmation bias. Am I missing some?

That's what i wanted to say but could not even fathom a response to what was said there.

 

[Reynard]

I won't bother to speculate on how 5E affects the business end, since I would be guessing without a whole lot of information or expertise. As to the community, though, I will speculate that 5E may very well reinvigorate not just the gaming community, but the D&D community.

A lot of us that "abandoned" D&D during 4E did really want to like and play the current edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Because our personal tastes or other preferences did not match up with 4E, though, we either went to pathfinder, joined the ranks of the OSR, found a variant, moved on to non-D&D related system, or quit gaming altogether. (I was one of the ones who preferred to go Old School but ended up sticking with Pathfinder due to the relative ease of finding players.) Some few of us even hung in there with 4E, even if we did not really like it -- I did so for about a year before finally throwing in the towel. But we wanted to like D&D -- not just the concept or the feel or even an old version of it, but the D&D that was on the shelves.

I think a lot of us -- lapsed D&D players for whom that game is their primary preference -- have been waiting for a new version of D&D and will come back in droves. Now, whether "we" will stay is a different issue. 5E may not be the game that *is* D&D to those lapsed players. But our reinvestment in the game, even if only initially, will reinvigorate the D&D community, I think.