D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Umbran]

True. But it's also just part of a bigger picture, that fantasy and the supernatural as entertainment is more acceptable now than it ever was.

Yes, but that isn't an acute change in influence we can point to cleanly explain 5e sales, specifically. It an influence has been steadily growing for this entire century, since at least the popularity of the Lord of the Rings films.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They grew rather than shrank during every single one of their errors.

Yep, which definitely insulates them from the most of the consequences of them.

I do think, eventually, someone internally is going to come up with a plausible set of numbers for where they could have been if they took more shots on goal, but until that happens, they're probably not going to change their approach.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But what if WotC believed they could only sell 10,000 of thar, when they could sell twice as many of Keys from the Goldeb Vault...?

I think this is optimistic best-case projection.

I don't see any evidence that they actually even consider a lot of the products that everyone stands around expecting in vain. So often, their interviews betray a weird ignorance of what players are asking for.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

1) had those things all happened earlier or prior editions come out later, you might have enjoyed the same sales trends that you are seeing now with a prior edition.
2) Even if slowing has a positive effect, but it could be less positive to have it as slow as it is than a bit faster. I know my group is frustrated at the slowness of the release schedule and that's one of the reasons we seem to be heading back to 3e.

1) I think if Critical Role & Stranger Things had hit under another edition, that edition would absolutely have done a lot better than it did, sure.
2) I don't think so. The balance is really really narrow, and like I said above, the tipping point is already being reached. I believe that it would have been reached earlier if they had, for example, produced even one more book per year than they did. They did get away with increasing from four books per year to five at one point, but it was a near thing, even then.

AS A GAMER, I'd like to see more books too! But as a retailer, this pace has been as close to perfect as is possible. My only complaint (aside from some content quibbles) would be that they back-load the year too much. Now, part of that is because this year everything slipped due to printing delays, but it's always been a bit back-loaded.

 

[Umbran]

Not only that, but there have been several shows other than Stranger Things that also brought D&D into the main stream, and a ton of celebrity D&D games that have streamed and been reported on. Many podcasts. Social media was also exploding during those years. All of these things were also uncontrolled.

Yep.

Oh, by the way, on the matter of publication rates, I think we can recast that in a more clear manner - slower releases may not so much create success, as it avoids a known failure mode.

Basically, you cannot have the great success like 5e has seen if you shoot yourself in the foot. Whether or not WotC hit the absolute optimum rate we could never say, but they stood back from a cliff and refused to approach it too closely for a long time.

 

[darjr]

Yep.

Oh, by the way, on the matter of publication rates, I think we can recast that in a more clear manner - slower releases may not so much create success, as it avoids a known failure mode.

Basically, you cannot have the great success like 5e has seen if you shoot yourself in the foot. Whether or not WotC hit the absolute optimum rate we could never say, but they stood back from a cliff and refused to approach it too closely for a long time.

Well there was Big Bang Theory and the PAX shows and podcasts and Eve some early streaming. There was even a week long event for the 4e starter red box on a decently sized cable channel of the time. None of that changed 4es trajectory.

 

[Umbran]

I don't see any evidence that they actually even consider a lot of the products that everyone stands around expecting in vain. So often, their interviews betray a weird ignorance of what players are asking for.

For various definitions of "they" and "consider", too.

WotC has a whole lot of people there whose job it is to create game products. In a fairly typical business, the company will produce loads of ideas, and have several levels of consideration that eventually filter down to the few products that will actually get made.

The customer will usually only ever hear about the ones that actually get made - because to speak about the others is to had ideas to the competition, and does unfortunate and unpredictable things to market expectations. You should not expect any evidence about anything else, so lack of that evidence doesn't tell you anything.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yep.

Oh, by the way, on the matter of publication rates, I think we can recast that in a more clear manner - slower releases may not so much create success, as it avoids a known failure mode.

Basically, you cannot have the great success like 5e has seen if you shoot yourself in the foot. Whether or not WotC hit the absolute optimum rate we could never say, but they stood back from a cliff and refused to approach it too closely for a long time.

This is true. Sometimes for success (and this is particularly true when you start with a proven brand) all you need to do is to avoid disaster.

 

[Parmandur]

I think this is optimistic best-case projection.

I don't see any evidence that they actually even consider a lot of the products that everyone stands around expecting in vain. So often, their interviews betray a weird ignorance of what players are asking for.

What are "players asking for"...? I wouldn't take a few thousand people on Reddit as necessarily better than WotC market research, which we know theybare doing. Back when the designers were active on Twitter, they made it clear they had considered just about any of the niche products one can imagine (I remember Mearls mentioning Faith & Avatars, for example) but were intentionally not. With the DMsGuild, they have less reason to go niche, too.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is just something I've heard say online and never experienced in person since I was not exposed to US marketing at that time, but I was told that 4E marketing was absolutely terrible back in the day. My understanding was that the attempts at hyping the system was really hostile to old school fans of D&D.

A lot of people certainly got upset at it.