Mercurius
Legend
We seem to be in uncharted territory due to the popularity of the current version of D&D. It isn't so much that 5E is popular, but that D&D is, in the form of 5e. This is not to downplay the importance of the edition itself in the game's current popularity, but to point out that for the new "boomers" coming into the game over the last five years, "5E" and "D&D" are one and the same. I would imagine that some of them don't even know that D&D is in its fifth edition.
Now maybe there is some similarity to the boom of the 80s, which busted later in the decade. But there are two factors that I think makes things different today: One, the decline of the 80s was partly fueled by scandals (religious fundamentalists, Gygax being ousted, etc); two, the internet and social media, which has the net effect of creating an extended community which didn't exist in the 80s.
There was also the surge of 3.x back in the 00s, but WotC was handling the property quite differently, glutting the market with product. WotC has been very careful about not repeating that this time around.
It would seem that D&D continues to grow. Now we can only assume--and I'm guessing WotC expects--that eventually the market will stop growing, maybe contract a bit, and stabilize. But if it stabilizes at a much larger number than in past generations, or even continues to grow as more new players join the game than leave, it may be counter-productive to do a 6e. It is easier to change things up when you have a relatively small fan-base, but if your base numbers in tens of millions, it becomes more difficult, especially if a large percentage of those fans are pretty casual and thus less likely to want to learn a new ruleset.
The only way we see a truly new edition, in my opinion, is if disaster strikes: Let's say 5e continues thriving for another few years, but then growth slows and the community contracts a bit and then collapses, perhaps fueled by a poorly received movie and some kind of virtual reality game that sees many people leaving their imaginations behind. Possible, but we can be optimistic that this won't happen, at least for the foreseeable future (who knows what the 2030s will look like).
Now this doesn't mean we won't see a "revised" edition: core rulebooks with new covers, art, formatting, and maybe a few odds and ends here and there. In fact, I fully expect this - probably for the 50th anniversary in 2024 (which is also the 10th anniversary of 5E). But it will be backwards compatible, meaning not a 6th edition, probably not a 5.5...more like a 5.1 or 5.2.
All that said, some contraction is probably inevitable, at least at some point. The boomer generation of the late 70s to early 80s supposedly went up to around 20-25 million at one point, but the vast majority of those folks didn't continue playing beyond middle or high school, or maybe college. Maybe 10-20% continued on, forming the core of long-time D&D players: mostly Gen Xers, although with a few Boomers. the Millenial boom of the OGL era was comparatively a "micro-boom," and coupled with the fracturing of the fanbase and the diversifying of RPGs in general, and I don't think D&D gained as many diehard fans from Millenials as it did from Gen Xers.
But the current wave might be different, at least to some extent. We're seeing true "digital natives"--younger Millenials and older "Gen Z"--enter the hobby, and it is almost like it is a panacea to the smart technologies and video games that they've been raised on, although this might be a bit of a tangent. But the point is, D&D doesn't seem to be a graying hobby anymore, and that also means that they don't have to cater to older diehards as much as they used to.
What do you think? Is 5th edition too big for there to be a 6th edition? What are some of the possible futures you see?
Now maybe there is some similarity to the boom of the 80s, which busted later in the decade. But there are two factors that I think makes things different today: One, the decline of the 80s was partly fueled by scandals (religious fundamentalists, Gygax being ousted, etc); two, the internet and social media, which has the net effect of creating an extended community which didn't exist in the 80s.
There was also the surge of 3.x back in the 00s, but WotC was handling the property quite differently, glutting the market with product. WotC has been very careful about not repeating that this time around.
It would seem that D&D continues to grow. Now we can only assume--and I'm guessing WotC expects--that eventually the market will stop growing, maybe contract a bit, and stabilize. But if it stabilizes at a much larger number than in past generations, or even continues to grow as more new players join the game than leave, it may be counter-productive to do a 6e. It is easier to change things up when you have a relatively small fan-base, but if your base numbers in tens of millions, it becomes more difficult, especially if a large percentage of those fans are pretty casual and thus less likely to want to learn a new ruleset.
The only way we see a truly new edition, in my opinion, is if disaster strikes: Let's say 5e continues thriving for another few years, but then growth slows and the community contracts a bit and then collapses, perhaps fueled by a poorly received movie and some kind of virtual reality game that sees many people leaving their imaginations behind. Possible, but we can be optimistic that this won't happen, at least for the foreseeable future (who knows what the 2030s will look like).
Now this doesn't mean we won't see a "revised" edition: core rulebooks with new covers, art, formatting, and maybe a few odds and ends here and there. In fact, I fully expect this - probably for the 50th anniversary in 2024 (which is also the 10th anniversary of 5E). But it will be backwards compatible, meaning not a 6th edition, probably not a 5.5...more like a 5.1 or 5.2.
All that said, some contraction is probably inevitable, at least at some point. The boomer generation of the late 70s to early 80s supposedly went up to around 20-25 million at one point, but the vast majority of those folks didn't continue playing beyond middle or high school, or maybe college. Maybe 10-20% continued on, forming the core of long-time D&D players: mostly Gen Xers, although with a few Boomers. the Millenial boom of the OGL era was comparatively a "micro-boom," and coupled with the fracturing of the fanbase and the diversifying of RPGs in general, and I don't think D&D gained as many diehard fans from Millenials as it did from Gen Xers.
But the current wave might be different, at least to some extent. We're seeing true "digital natives"--younger Millenials and older "Gen Z"--enter the hobby, and it is almost like it is a panacea to the smart technologies and video games that they've been raised on, although this might be a bit of a tangent. But the point is, D&D doesn't seem to be a graying hobby anymore, and that also means that they don't have to cater to older diehards as much as they used to.
What do you think? Is 5th edition too big for there to be a 6th edition? What are some of the possible futures you see?
