D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Citation?

 

[darjr]

Citation?

The very announcement that first tweet was about.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/penguin-random-house-to-stop-distributing-d-d-updated.700259/

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You're kidding me?

No, I've been working.

We largely operate in a fact-free zone here at ENWorld, where people say WotC is good because they cannot be otherwise, or WotC are bad because they cannot be otherwise.

The very announcement that I'm certain Ken could have read.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/penguin-random-house-to-stop-distributing-d-d-updated.700259/

Thank you. I hadn't read that since the update.

 

[darjr]

No, I've been working.

We largely operate in a fact-free zone here at ENWorld, where people say WotC is good because they cannot be otherwise, or WotC are bad because they cannot be otherwise.

Thank you.

Apologies. I changed the post to be less snarky. I didn't mean to be snarky to you.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Taking away premises has a tendency to render an argument illogical, yes. This shouldn't be shocking.

The syllogism is exactly as I said it:
Slow is good
Slower is better
Therefore, slowest is best.

And what is the slowest possible publication speed? Zero. Stopping.

That isn’t how anything works.

The argument isn’t even “slower is always better”, which it would have to be for your very illogical counter to be valid. The argument is that a release schedule slower than the past couple editions is better, and that the current release schedule is at about the right place.

The first part is very well supported, the second is more speculative and preference based but certainly valid.

If you can make $1000 selling 20 items to a small number of people each, or you can make the same scratch selling 10 items to damn near everyone in the hobby those items relate to, you do the latter.

The profit margin is better, the sustainability is better, the customer retention is better, the more products each person in the community has purchased.

That wouldn't be surprising. Corporate America being, well, Corporate.

Suit: "Excellent job with this Fifth edition of Deandee, you stayed under budget and growth is just blistering. Well done. Keep it up. No, we aren't going to give you a dump truck full of money so you can do even better. You delivered high growth on a low budget. Do it again."

Oof. I don’t think it’s the case, but yeah wouldn’t be surprising to see the c-suite goons do such a thing.

 

[Parmandur]

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

One of their 6 other distributors.

 

[Parmandur]

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.


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.

Not less sales, less profit. If I spend $50 to make $100, I make $50. If I spend $100 to make $140, I have less money.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it's fairly clear that D&D is as successful as it's ever been in 50 years. The current release rate has been working really well for a decade.

"D&D books are coming out too slowly" was 2015's conversation; I've no idea why it's suddenly an issue yet again today and I don't think a professional publisher like Matt Colville would suddenly come to this opinion 10 years after everybody else. Can we go back to "are hit points meat?" or something?

So because the game is financially successful, anyone who disagrees with the release rate should just go away, because you're bored?

 

[Morrus]

So because the game is financially successful, anyone who disagrees with the release rate should just go away, because you're bored?

To be very clear, those are your words, not mine.

 

[Dire Bare]

Oh.

This is what Matt was resounding too.

View attachment 302077

Looks like Ken and Matt are competing for the "I don't know what I'm talking about" prize in RPG journalism . . . .