@
Trickster Spirit
I think your theory is especially supported by the decision to farm out the D&D board games to WizKids. If WotC is not even willing to produce top selling D&D items in-house, we should certainly not expect much from them in terms of RPG accessories.
I think you're right. The game will never again see pre-2010 levels of support.
I think we'll continue to see what they've been putting out so far - two big adventure paths a year and accompanying supplements taking the form of hardcover Player's Companions or free online PDFs. Plus a monthly Unearthed Arcana article with first passes of new rules, which they'll likely playtest, revise and compile into a hardcover sourcebook after a year or two.
Short of canceling the product line entirely, there's only room for that schedule to grow. There are 9 and a half months left in 2015 - assuming product announcements six months in advance, that gives them three and a half more months to announce a non-adventure path product to be released in Q4 2015, whether that is a campaign setting guide, monster book or player's option book with feats and sub-classes.
I'm betting that such a product will be announced, though I wouldn't quit playing 5E just because it doesn't. I like supplements, they add new things to the game to keep it fresh and fun, but everyone has a different bar for how long it takes for a game to become "unfresh" and "unfun". I see myself as several years away from that point and conceivably they could take that long to produce a supplement for the game before I lose interest in 5E as a whole. For others, the sheen of a new edition wears off more quickly, and without ongoing support they're feeling lured away by other games.
Unfortunately for said players, Wizards doesn't appear to have much interest in the game supplement business anymore, so if 5E as it stands right now isn't enough to keep you onboard, you should go ahead and look at alternatives.
My dream is that they manage to invest enough manpower into setting up Dungeon and Dragon again. They could rely on primarily user submitted content and even have a third party publisher manage it again if the size of the D&D team means editing in-house is infeasible. A monthly fix of D&D content at a fraction of the cost of monthly hardcovers? I'd play D&D forever with that alone.
I guess it's good news for people who like CRPGs set in the FR, however. And by "CRPG" I am of course referring to an iPhone app.
Eh, I dunno - I've not followed Sword Coast Legends or the MMO development (seriously, why are people still making MMOs?), but they're both proper games so I think saying all we'll get is iPhone apps is a tad uncharitable.
If they were smart, they'd work something out with Beamdog, the studio that recently put out the remastered and expanded Baldur's Gate games. Those have gone over fairly well and they've expressed interest in making BG III.
I'm just praying they don't let Electronic Arts get their claws in a D&D video game franchise. Nothing good can come of that.
