D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Parmandur]

No, D&D is not being mothballed. It has a new edition coming out next year.

It is very difficult to credit the mothball hyopethesis as a serious opinion based in observation.

 

[Parmandur]

I’ll add to that. WotC does want to encourage FLGS to carry the books. So not only buy them all but them at your FLGS and make your demands to them.

Well, at least I'm doing my part there, lol.

 

[mamba]

I find it the height of irony that Colville is postulating and complaining about 5e being mothballed (it objectively is not), yet his company (and ENWorld, Kobold Press, Darrington Press, DMs Guild Publishers, etc.) all benefit from the slow pace of WotC publishing. If WotC were to turn on the spigot there would be less room for 3rd parties to get traction and less design space to stand out in.

that doesn’t mean it is ironic, it means he sees how WotC is leaving money on the table, and he is there to pick it up.

He absolutely is right that if WotC published more classes, then things like their Beastheart would not exist / be less popular, and if they can sell 10k copies (totally made up), then WotC can sell 200k for the same effort

 

[see]

The fact that you can sell lots of books of player options to your current playerbase looks attractive, but it kills future sales. Every book perceived as necessary for a new player to "play the game" is a barrier to new player recruitment (because it increases both the financial and learning costs), and every good option in a book beyond the PHB drives such a perception.

So, the more books of player options there are, the harder new player recruitment is, and thus the sooner sales of the entire edition collapse when player attrition outpaces player recruitment.

You want to kill D&D as a viable product? Cater to the current audience instead of maintaining low barriers to new player recruiting.

 

[Professor Murder]

As there is discussion of the release pace of 3rd/3.5, as someone who was there and buying a great deal of it, I still didn't get more than 50-60% of the overall D&D print materials. 2nd ed was similar. I must have bought near a dozen boxed sets for multiple settings. No regrets except that I wasnt able to hang onto it all. Space limitations. I am of the camp that the release cadence could still use improvement, but we dont want 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th ed levels of product bloat.

 

[Oofta]

Here is the PHB and the MM on NYTs best seller list a year after release. Before stranger things and Critical Role starting only a few months before.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/one-year-later-d-d-5e-phb-mm-still-on-nyt-bestseller-lists.663132/

Note the PHB was at 76 rank at Amazon at the time and had been above 100 for most of its life.

In addition, it took a fair amount of time before CR became a big thing. For quite a while they were happy if someone ordered pizza for them.

You could just as easily say that CR was successful because 5E was successful. In addition, people forget (or don't know) that their home game started as a 1-shot in 4E, switched to PF1 for their home game and then switched again to 5E because it was less finicky and was better for streaming. I wish I could find it now, but there was a chart showing 5E sales and the upward trend wasn't significantly increased by Stranger Things or CR.

 

[Umbran]

THey why dont they make more of that, even of a slow release schedule if that is the demand, why dont they make more books like that is my question...

The answer to that requires some knowledge of history (that Mr. Coville should have, but seems to be ignoring).

In short: Market demand is short-sighted.

In long: In 2e, 3e, 3.5e and 4e, WotC kept up a publishing schedule that could be characterized as variously between "brisk" and "fire hose". And people wanted those products. But, having a ton of products has impacts - the game becomes bloated, and that turns out to have eventually lead to decreased sales, decreased profits, and generated many, many complaints in the long run.

As I recall it, WotC specifically told us all this as the start of 5e - that they were keeping to a slower product schedule on purpose, for this reason.

 

[darjr]

Finally. I love Critical Role, but we’ve seen the bookscan numbers, and if CR had has much influence on book sales as some people like to say you’d think their campaign book would be selling better than almost all of them.

Dint get me wrong, I think it’s a fantastic book and I own it.

 

[Professor Murder]

In addition, it took a fair amount of time before CR became a big thing. For quite a while they were happy if someone ordered pizza for them.

You could just as easily say that CR was successful because 5E was successful. In addition, people forget (or don't know) that their home game started as a 1-shot in 4E, switched to PF1 for their home game and then switched again to 5E because it was less finicky and was better for streaming. I wish I could find it now, but there was a chart showing 5E sales and the upward trend wasn't significantly increased by Stranger Things or CR.

Anecdotal I know, but my in-laws (Sister and Brother in law and their 3 children) all have cited Stranger Things as what instilled in them a desire to try D&D. It's in the mix, but I agree it's not going to be a sole/primary cause overall.

 

[Professor Murder]

The answer to that requires some knowledge of history (that Mr. Coville should have, but seems to be ignoring).

In short: Market demand is short-sighted.

In long: In 2e, 3e, 3.5e and 4e, WotC kept up a publishing schedule that could be characterized as variously between "brisk" and "fire hose". And people wanted those products. But, having a ton of products has impacts - the game becomes bloated, and that turns out to have eventually lead to decreased sales, decreased profits, and generated many, many complaints in the long run.

As I recall it, WotC specifically told us all this as the start of 5e - that they were keeping to a slower product schedule on purpose, for this reason.

I would be curious to see how the 5e release cadence stacks up against the 1st ed of AD&D.