D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Cadence]

You mean the update they keep explicitly saying isn't a new edition? The one they have said they internally call "2024 5e" because they're desperate to avoid the stigma they believe is associated with an "X.5e" revision, and even more desperate to make ultra clear that this is definitely absolutely not a totally brand new edition, we pinky-swear?

That's the product they're writing almost nothing for, so they can avoid anger over writing content for a soon-to-be-abandoned edition?

Yes. That would be the one. You obviously understand the tightrope they're trying to walk with it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Are "people" the ones that made 1/3 pound burgers an awful marketing strategy because they thought it was smaller than 1/4 pound?

More corporations assuming their customers are idiots.

 

[Charlaquin]

More corporations assuming their customers are idiots.

That wasn’t an assumption, it was an observation. A&W added a third-pound burger to their menu in the 80s, and it sold terribly despite performing better than McDonalds’ quarter-pounder in initial focus testing. In their follow-up research, it was found that over half their customers thought it was overpriced because it was the same cost as the quarter-pounder despite being “less meat.”

 

[Scribe]

More corporations assuming their customers are idiots.

Assume? Or survey, focus group, and poll to confirm?

 

[Cadence]

More corporations assuming their customers are idiots.

No. A&W put out 1/3rd pound burger for about what McDonalds was selling 1/4 pound burgers for. When they did focus groups to figure out why they didn't sell it was in part that a bunch of folks thought 1/3 was smaller than 1/4.

 

[Malmuria]

I've heard that "the future of dnd is digital." We'll see if that ends up impacting a) the density of analog products available or b) their game design

 

[Scribe]

More corporations assuming their customers are idiots.

Remember, this is straight out of Maro's mouth.

70 (75?) percent of Magic the gathering players, via their own polling/focus groups, DO NOT KNOW what a Planeswalker is.

I will go to my grave dismayed over such a statistic, but I have no reason to believe he is lying.

 

[see]

If it makes good games...

The person I was responding to was claiming that WotC was passing up money.

Now, it is entirely rational for someone who wants a lot of game products to want WotC to follow a production pattern that historically produces a lot of products. I have no objection to them expressing that they would prefer lots of products.

But when a person goes on to claim that WotC is passing up lots of profits by not producing lots of products? It's worth pointing out that the traditional splatbook publishing strategy has been associated with rapid sales volume death spirals, across all RPG publishers, for decades.

(This is not to say that the pace of product in 5th edition is necessarily correct. It might have been better at a higher pace. Or, for all we can actually tell, 5th edition might have done far better if the new product pace had been half the rate it was. But to switch to the strategy used by most RPG companies 1990-2014 would not be a sane business move.)

 

[Charlaquin]

Remember, this is straight out of Maro's mouth.

70 (75?) percent of Magic the gathering players, via their own polling/focus groups, DO NOT KNOW what a Planeswalker is.

I will go to my grave dismayed over such a statistic, but I have no reason to believe he is lying.

What year was that?

 

[Cadence]

What year was that?

Not sure when the poll was. He repeated it in 2022.


Given Universes Beyond, the name could go with a zombie in the Midwest...