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[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, there's no way that the folks who only read D&D novels is anything more than a tiny fraction compared to the 5E fanbase. I can see novel readers being a big group in the days of Dragonlance's peak or something, but now? There are barely any D&D novels anymore period.

The "Where's Elminster" thing seemed to be more about folks wondering where the character most associated with Ed Greenwood was. Which is fair, although Ed has himself said he prefers other characters, including Mirt.

That doesn't mean the fans died because WotC botched the novel line, they are still there. For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things. Again you underestimate the amount of FR novel readers

 

[Urriak Uruk]

That doesn't mean the fans died because WotC botched the novel line, they are still there. For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things. Again you underestimate the amount of FR novel readers

So? I'm very doubtful there is a big audience of folks who only read D&D novels, but do not play D&D, but do play Magic the Gathering.

And believe me, if there was a big readership of D&D novels, WotC wouldn't have stopped publishing. If they were making crazy $ off of this huge readership, they would have kept pumping out those books. Instead, they shut it down... so it seems like the readership wasn't large enough to merit the investment.

 

[Bolares]

That doesn't mean the fans died because WotC botched the novel line, they are still there. For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things. Again you underestimate the amount of FR novel readers

It's not about fans dying. The novel fans are still there... there were just no more new novel fans (in big part on WotC's fault, sure), while there were A LOT of new 5e fans. so the numbers changed, the market space represented by novel fans got tinier and tinier, and so new things became importante. That's why I think there was no oversampling. The sampling was correct... just maybe their product strategy wasn't (if you want there to be more novel readers)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Since they hardly support their novel readers, that wouldn't be a surprise.

Given that Hasbro is a toy company, not a publishing house, that's hardly surprising.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things.

That's because they botched the RPG, and that was selling badly.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

That's because they botched the RPG, and that was selling badly.

No it was because novels had high sales.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No it was because novels had high sales.

The novel sales where certainly high compared to the game. Which caused WotC to focus on the novels instead of the game, causing game sales to decline further. However, declining sales of the game hurt the D&D brand, eventually having a knock on effect on novel sales. WotC have now realised they need to focus on the core business - the game - since that drives the sales of all peripheral merchandise.

 

[Scribe]

The novel sales where certainly high compared to the game. Which caused WotC to focus on the novels instead of the game, causing game sales to decline further. However, declining sales of the game hurt the D&D brand, eventually having a knock on effect on novel sales. WotC have now realised they need to focus on the core business - the game - since that drives the sales of all peripheral merchandise.

The idea that a company cannot do both, seems dubious.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The idea that a company cannot do both, seems dubious.

Do you have an alternative hypothesis? Because I've heard the "they canceled the novels because WotC secretely hates Ed Greenwood!" theory, and let me say that's extremely dubious.

 

[Scribe]

Do you have an alternative hypothesis? Because I've heard the "they canceled the novels because WotC secretely hates Ed Greenwood!" theory, and let me say that's extremely dubious.

They simply didn't care. They didn't want to support the staffing of individuals who would manage this.

It's not as if Wizards was authoring the books, or that the RPG team was needed to support an author.

It's like blaming an art team for software bugs.