D&D 5E Crystal Ball: A year in, how do you think 5E will unfold going forward?

[delericho]

Are you saying WotC missed the boat like Microsoft did the mobile device market?

That's also true - though it may well have been TSR that missed the boat, given that Everquest launched in 1999, must have been in development for a while before then, and wasn't the first MMO. And TSR were rather distracted at about that time...

 

[DaveDash]

Are you saying WotC missed the boat like Microsoft did the mobile device market?

No.

 

[delericho]

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think WotC is counting on sales being carried by attracting more people to the hobby through licenced products.

I'm not convinced WotC are all that bothered about sales of D&D RPG books at all. Sure, they'd rather sell lots of stuff than not, but I suspect they're more interested in getting people playing the game rather than buying the game. Because if they can say "we have 8 million regular players" that's a much more attractive licensing proposition than "we have 1 million regular players".

 

[delericho]

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think WotC is counting on sales being carried by attracting more people to the hobby through licenced products.

Actually, I'm not convinced WotC are particularly bothered about sales of RPG books at all. Sure, they'd rather have them than not, but I suspect they're more interested in getting people playing. Because if they can say "we have 8 million regular players", that's a much more attractive licensing proposition than "we have 1 million regular players".

Even if D&D the TTRPG sells really well, it's still becoming more and more niche. In the 90s, I'd say the majority of RPG gamers were playing a D&D product, be it the TTRPG or the excellent CRPG offerings, or whatever.
Today, only a tiny fraction of those who enjoy RPGs are playing D&D, because the market has exploded in other areas that WoTC did not have a good presence in.

Ah, but there's the rub - D&D is only more niche in percentage terms, and that only because the potential market is now so much bigger.

A few years ago, WotC did a presentation at which they gave a figure for their current player base (which was either 1 or 6 million), and at which they said there were ~20 million people who had ever played. D&D has always been tiny, even at the heights of the fad in the 80s.

The difference being that back then D&D was a major player in a tiny "geek culture", whereas now it's a tiny player in a "geek culture" that has somehow become huge, what with the success of the LotR films, the endless superhero films, "Big Bang Theory", WoW having 7 million monthly subscribers (down from 10m recently), and so on.

D&D isn't becoming more niche. It's staying the same size. It's just that the niche has become a huge gaping chasm.

 

[Relax]

I'm not convinced WotC are all that bothered about sales of D&D RPG books at all. Sure, they'd rather sell lots of stuff than not, but I suspect they're more interested in getting people playing the game rather than buying the game. Because if they can say "we have 8 million regular players" that's a much more attractive licensing proposition than "we have 1 million regular players".

I'm not saying I disagree, but how do you get players without sales? AL is not a good judge as a lot of people that play D&D do not play that way, so other than being able to say, "We've sold X million PHB," I'm not sure where the numbers will come from. Of course they may have data on how many players a typical PHB sale represents (2-4 would be my totally random guess) but they still need the sales numbers, don't they?

 

[delericho]

I'm not saying I disagree, but how do you get players without sales?

Well, there's the free Basic game, of course, but also there's the question of one-off vs ongoing sales - sure, to get a group going you probably want a set of PHB/DMG/MM plus one or more additional PHBs, but once you've spent that $150 you're set for life. And WotC have been extremely generous with additional free material to support their APs. Provided you're happy to create your own adventure material, you can play for life with $0 investment.

The one thing that's missing right now is free adventure material for home games (obviously AL games have their own adventures, and I think convention games use the same materials). So I'll be interested to see if WotC start making the AL adventures available for download by anyone (possibly with a 1-season lag behind the 'official' AL), or is they start producing a Dungeon+, or something.

Of course they may have data on how many players a typical PHB sale represents (2-4 would be my totally random guess) but they still need the sales numbers, don't they?

WotC do a relatively huge amount of market research, so they have a pretty solid idea of how many people play, and how that breaks down into AL games vs home games vs convention games. They don't share all those numbers, sadly, but they do have them.

 

[Celtavian]

That's also true - though it may well have been TSR that missed the boat, given that Everquest launched in 1999, must have been in development for a while before then, and wasn't the first MMO. And TSR were rather distracted at about that time...

I heard Verant wanted to use D&D, but couldn't work out a deal. No idea if it is true or not. Boy, if it is, did TSR miss out.

I still feel if D&D was done right as a MMORPG, it would blow everything else away. It has to be done like the first Everquest or World of Warcraft with individualized cities, tons of world bits, and development of raid level monsters. Neverwinter seems to have gone in a different direction. It's only an ok game.