D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Staffan]

Thank you for taking time to explain that so I didn't. There's a name for this, and it's called the Laffer Curve.

I was under the impression that the Laffer Curve specifically applied to tax revenue (higher taxes act as a damper on economic activity because people don't see as much benefit, and/or are more likely to use various means of avoiding taxation, and these factors can lead to a higher tax rate actually reducing revenue). But people who talk about the Laffer Curve regarding taxes often seem to fall victim to the same fallacy as we have seen here: just because there are some cases where lowering taxes leads to more tax revenue that doesn't make it a universal truth (and that's probably as close to politics as the board rules will let me go). Similarly, just because there are some production schedules that could be dialed back and you'd still make more money, that doesn't mean that that's true for all production schedules.

And this is also a case where I think Wizards is a very special case in the RPG business (other than the scale they're working on): Wizards is part of an actual megacorp that's focused on the bottom line. That's not the case for most of the RPG industry, even at the mid-tier of companies like Paizo or Kobold Press. I'm fairly sure most people making money from RPGs could make more money outside the industry. People working on RPGs do so because they want to make RPGs. They want to make money doing so, but the objective is generally not to maximize the money, but to make enough of it that they can keep going. And that can lead to a faster schedule, because all these things are part of the Vision you see, and I have to get them out there!

 

[Milieu]

It is literally a syllogism. It's not illogical. You may disagree with the premises, but the logical form is valid.

"X-state is good."
"Making Y-change to the current state improves it."
"Therefore, applying Y-change as much as you can makes the best result."

Now, you can certainly say that it is unsound, because that means you think that at least one of the premises is wrong. But it isn't a fallacy. It is, quite literally, "A; A implies B; therefore, B." In this case, the retort would be that you reject P2; you don't believe that slowing things down is always an improvement from the current state. Rejecting one of the premises is nothing, at all, like claiming that the argument is fallacious.

Well, I would argue you're confusing existential and universal quantifiers.

There is a difference between the statements
"There exists a y < x such that f( y ) > f( x )" and
"For all x > 0, y < x implies f( y ) > f( x )"

Or, in your terms, "Making Y-change to the current state [at the time I am making this statement (or some other specific time in context)] improves it." vs "Making Y-change to the current state [at any time] improves it." In casual conversation, "Slower is better." could mean either of these (though I think it more commonly means the former), but your conclusion only follows from the latter.

For that matter, the person Matt responded to really only said "Slow is good."/"Slower than 3e/4e is good." Matt imputed "Slower [at any time] is better." to them (or, more charitably, considered that premise implicit in the context of the conversation, but I disagree that it is). So we could call premise B a straw man fallacy, though that usually implies intent rather than miscommunication, the latter of which I think is more likely in this case.

 

[mamba]

Yes, and for people who are selective, a smaller selection will make purchasing easier. Hence, more sales.

not sure you end up with higher sales overall... I can see something like 100k sales for the one AP they publish in a year vs 60k for each of three APs published in a year however.

This has been explicitly what the WotC team has laid out as their strategy, and every indication is that it is working as they theorized...better really.

I don't think anyone can say with certainty that they hit the maximum profit possible, but I guess they rather err on the side of caution than wiping out yet another edition by overproducing content for it, which is a reasonable approach. The fact that they are slowly increasing the frequency seems to indicate that they are trying to figure out where that maximum is.

 

[darjr]

Oh.

This is what Matt was responding too.

 

[darjr]

“Killing dnd at bookstores”

Come on Ken!

 

[Scribe]

“Killing dnd at bookstores”

Come on Ken!

The outrage machine only has 1 setting.

 

[darjr]

Yea, this whole thing. Those two tweets. Are a nothing burger.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

“Killing dnd at bookstores”

Come on Ken!

Who will be distributing D&D books to bookstores now? The books don't get there on their own.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You're assuming more books, more options equals more profit. A lot of people are happy with the core book and maybe another book or two that expands on the core. Churning out a ton of material just saturates the environment and can lead to confusion resulting in less sales for each book published and even the core rule books.

Flooding the market didn't work for TSR, 3E or 4E.

Also this.

All 5e books sell well. They dig into spending habits and what people like and want every year.

Like…5e’s product model is big player book once every couple years at most,

It was kind of shocking to see the accurate answer to his question shot down so dismissively.

yeah and like…with really terrible reasoning. Like, he misunderstand the logic he’s criticizing, and then uses that logic to create a slippery slope argument, and then just acts like he’s proved his point.

 

[darjr]

Who will be distributing D&D books to bookstores now? The books don't get there on their own.

Other distributors. Even Hasbro has it's own distributor that looks like it's been ramping up to take on the work. Bookstores will get their books just fine.