D&D 5E Could 5E Use A Branded Magazine In Stores (Again)?

[Umbran]

E-books bring in $2.2 billion and has zero market growth.

Folks, E-books may be the most directly analogous digital form you could use for digital delivery of magazine content... but it is not the intelligent digital form.

The print magazine of the past is more reasonably replaced with a website subscription.

Take, for example, America's Test Kitchen - publishers of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country, a couple of very successful and popular cooking magazines. They will not sell you an e-book of this month's issue. They will sell you a subscription to their website, where recipes and articles and videos are available, fully searchable, and printable for use in your home to make dinner.

 

[Dire Bare]

Apparently that is a widely held myth. Magazine sales and reader demographics are still very strong. Magazine sales are $27 billion annually and readership has grown since 2008.

Physical books bring in $22 billion annually. E-books bring in $2.2 billion and has zero market growth. Claims that electronic media is taking over is greatly exaggerated.

I was about to jump in to say exactly this! The idea that "magazines are dead" is a myth! Just as much as "(dead tree) books are dead"!

Magazines have definitely taken a hit, like print books did, but have also seen a resurgence, a backlash if you will to the push for everything to go digital. It's still possible to put out a quality, successful magazine these days. Not that it would be easy. Niche magazines were hard before "magazines are dead", and I would imagine it would be even more challenging now. For WotC to avoid that seems reasonable to me, which is different from saying it cannot be done.

I would love to see WotC provide a new "Dragon Magazine" that worked a lot like Paizo's monthly adventure path booklets. Have it be a thick, hefty product, include an adventure and supporting articles, and heck, even include advertising from 3rd parties and promotion of WotC's own products. It would be very different from the Dragon Magazine of old, but I'd buy it! I'm constantly tempted to subscribe to Paizo's offering, even though I don't play Pathfinder!

I'd also love to see an official WotC service similar to ENWorld's EN5ider series of articles. They are like the old articles in Dragon Magazine, just without the magazine!

I will say that WotC's current digital magazine, Dragon+, just doesn't do it for me. It lacks substance, in my view.

 

[Wiseblood]

How many D&D fans are out there? How many RPG fans are out there? I would target D&D players and DM’s in one magazine.
Next time you visit a grocery store count how many magazines hit a niche. Cars, Guns, Fitness, Guitar playing and so on. I wouldn’t buy every release of DRAGON REBORN but I would buy some. Some kid that thought the art was cool would too. $6-8 USD is a lot easier to pry out of my hand than $39-50 USD.

 

[Eltab]

D&D could use a branded magazine - for variety to read while flying, for instance, when you run out of things to do (and cannot look out the window). I am aware this is a rather small niche.

But even within the narrower parameters of hobby circles, it will never be the "see it everywhere" magazine that Time, Life, National Geographic, or Reader's Digest used to be in American culture.

 

[Henry]

Would I love to see it and buy it? Absolutely!

Would I want to see someone go broke trying to cater to me and a narrow group of others trying to do it? No. Other than nostalgia, I don’t think it would be worth it for someone to publish a print D&D magazine now.

 

[Hussar]

All forms of traditional media are struggling due to Google, Facebook, and Amazon hoovering up 70% of ad revenue. This does not mean a niche publication like a relaunched Dragon Magazine that avoided politics would not generate substantial money. Every article I've seen suggests the opposite. Niche publications are doing well.

I'm sorry, but the idea that politics somehow played any role in the demise of Dungeon and/or Dragon is pretty laughable. What politics? Eric Mona wanting to give gaming magazines to inmates in prison? That's about the only thing I can even remotely think of that might be political in either magazine.

Niche publications are dying like flies. Genre fiction magazines are gone.

 

[tommybahama]

I'm sorry, but the idea that politics somehow played any role in the demise of Dungeon and/or Dragon is pretty laughable. What politics?

Niche publications are dying like flies.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I've read is non-political periodicals including niche periodicals are doing well. So WotC should avoid inserting their political views if they want a magazine to succeed.

Your second statement just isn't true.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I'd get a Dungeon subscription in a heartbeat.
Stand alone adventures in a convenient to use at the table format is an underserved market. Throw in a foldable battlemap used in one of the adventures (and reusable in future ones) and you have the hook that can't be recreated electronically.

Dragon, however, I think is better served as individual web content. My favorite section was always the Sage Advice and that's pretty much EnWorld territory.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I've read is non-political periodicals including niche periodicals are doing well. So WotC should avoid inserting their political views if they want a magazine to succeed.

Your second statement just isn't true.

Really? The second statement isn't true?

How many print genre fiction publications are left?

How many video gaming magazines are left?

If periodicals are doing so fantastically, why is Marvel pushing it's online subscription model so hard?

On and on. @lowkey13 already pointed out the fact that we're half the size that we were 10 years ago. Virtually all the niche publications are gone these days.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm sorry, but the idea that politics somehow played any role in the demise of Dungeon and/or Dragon is pretty laughable. What politics? Eric Mona wanting to give gaming magazines to inmates in prison? That's about the only thing I can even remotely think of that might be political in either magazine.

Niche publications are dying like flies. Genre fiction magazines are gone.

I agree, the politics angle brought up a few times in this thread is perplexing. What politics? What exactly would WotC need to be careful of if they should publish a new magazine? I don't even know what these guys are talking about.