D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Oofta]

I remember when the refrain used to be "adventures don't sell, because only DMs buy them." Now we've apparently come around to "player options don't sell." Soon the circle will be complete!

All joking aside though, ever since the Hasbro era of D&D began (i.e. 1999), the idea that any iteration of D&D hasn't "maintained profitability" has gone out the window, because Hasbro's target has never been simply taking in more money than they spent. Rather, it's about ROI (return on investment). D&D has always been profitable in the Hasbro era, but it's rarely been profitable enough for its corporate overlords.

I'm not a business executive, but I'm given to understand (mostly from a Gen Con seminar I was at several years ago, where James Lowder spoke about this topic) that corporations of Hasbro's size don't judge ventures by whether or not they turn a profit, but whether they turn enough of a profit to be worth their time. If they're only earning (my random example, here) $10 for every $1 they spend, then whereas you or I would think of that as wildly successful, they think of it as a failed investment, because that $1 could be earning them $100 somewhere else. That's part of the reason why they eventually shuttered the novels division of WotC, which was earning more money than it spent at the time it was closed down.

As for whether or not there's a segment of TTRPG players who will consistently buy crunch-filled supplements, we already know that there are, and that it's sustainable: that's how Paizo stays in business. If they've been able to keep themselves going for well over a decade (sitting as the #2 RPG company in the business for almost that entire time by most accounts) using that model, then it's clearly not unsustainable or lacking in profitability.

Really, Paizo has overturned a lot of "conventional wisdom" in the RPG space. They have multiple lines of prefab adventures, proving that adventures sell. They put out consistent crunch-heavy books, proving that there's a market for them. And they kept 3.5 alive (counting PF1 as a form of 3.5) for over a decade after WotC moved on from it, proving that there was a significant portion of the player base who liked that system and didn't want to let it go.

WotC's leaving 3.5 behind wasn't due to any issues with the system, or with players deciding they were tired of the game. It was because they (WotC/Hasbro) wanted it to make more money than it was making, the same way that 5E is now being called "undermonetized" despite its success.

To summarize, it's not about profitability; it's about profit maximization.

Companies are not, in the long term, going to publish because of love of the game. They may say that but unless you're a boutique privately owned organization it's just not going to happen. Let's put it another way. If you can put $1,000 in a bank and earn 2% interest or put it into a hedge fund and make 8% where are most people going to invest their money? Assuming that you believe the latter is a safe investment you're going to put that grand into a hedge fund.

So no, I don't begrudge companies setting profit expectations. It's just reality. Very few people will willingly lose money (or make significantly less return on their money) in the long run unless they are incredibly passionate about what they're spending money on. Companies are not charities.

Oh, and unless you've had a peak at the books, do you have any source for the profitability of 3E? Did they continue to sell core product and was new product actually profitable?

P.S. I'd love it if some billionaire bought out D&D and made it their passion project and didn't care about making a dime (or even 2-3 dimes) on sales. Especially if they paid me a bazillion dollars to be a consultant. But if wishes were horses we'd be hip deep in horse pucky.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Companies are not, in the long term, going to publish because of love of the game. They may say that but unless you're a boutique privately owned organization it's just not going to happen. Let's put it another way. If you can put $1,000 in a bank and earn 2% interest or put it into a hedge fund and make 8% where are most people going to invest their money? Assuming that you believe the latter is a safe investment you're going to put that grand into a hedge fund.

So no, I don't begrudge companies setting profit expectations. It's just reality. Very few people will willingly lose money (or make significantly less return on their money) in the long run unless they are incredibly passionate about what they're spending money on. Companies are not charities.

Oh, and unless you've had a peak at the books, do you have any source for the profitability of 3E? Did they continue to sell core product and was new product actually profitable?

P.S. I'd love it if some billionaire bought out D&D and made it their passion project and didn't care about making a dime (or even 2-3 dimes) on sales. Especially if they paid me a bazillion dollars to be a consultant. But if wishes were horses we'd be hip deep in horse pucky.

Now you're moving the goalposts. You were the one who insisted they were "just trying to keep the lights on". Now you're apparently fine with them maximizing profit no matter what?

Also, plenty of companies focus on making the best product they can and making enough money to continue doing so. Its just that big, publicly traded corporations often don't, because shareholders who need to be appeased are a terrible idea as far as society and the consumer are concerned.

 

[Clint_L]

P.S. I'd love it if some billionaire bought out D&D and made it their passion project and didn't care about making a dime (or even 2-3 dimes) on sales. Especially if they paid me a bazillion dollars to be a consultant. But if wishes were horses we'd be hip deep in horse pucky.

I think that would be the worst - can you imagine if any one of us was in charge of the game? It would become the most idiosyncratic thing that would please exactly one person. No thanks - I appreciate that the purchasing public keeps WotC honest!

 

[Oofta]

Now you're moving the goalposts. You were the one who insisted they were "just trying to keep the lights on". Now you're apparently fine with them maximizing profit no matter what?

Also, plenty of companies focus on making the best product they can and making enough money to continue doing so. Its just that big, publicly traded corporations often don't, because shareholders who need to be appeased are a terrible idea as far as society and the consumer are concerned.

They have to keep the lights on, that requires making a profit. Every company is going to evaluate how much profit they're making based on their investment. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not going to get into an argument of "capitalism bad", this isn't the forum for that.

 

[Oofta]

I think that would be the worst - can you imagine if any one of us was in charge of the game? It would become the most idiosyncratic thing that would please exactly one person. No thanks - I appreciate that the purchasing public keeps WotC honest!

I thought the "bazillion dollars" was a clue I was kidding.

 

[Alzrius]

Companies are not, in the long term, going to publish because of love of the game. They may say that but unless you're a boutique privately owned organization it's just not going to happen. Let's put it another way. If you can put $1,000 in a bank and earn 2% interest or put it into a hedge fund and make 8% where are most people going to invest their money? Assuming that you believe the latter is a safe investment you're going to put that grand into a hedge fund.

This isn't a reply to what I posted, it's a reply to a caricature of what I posted. No one is saying that companies should only publish "for love of the game." Rather, there's a sentiment that putting out multiple crunch products a month, every month, is both necessarily and self-evidently going to lead to financial ruin for a TTRPG company. This is a false narrative, one whose untruth is fairly obvious if you look at the next-most successful such company after WotC/Hasbro.

What you're responding to, at best I can tell, is a presumed charge that profit maximization is somehow "wrong" or "bad," neither of which was what I said. I was pointing out only that it's not "unsustainable" or "unprofitable" to publish books at the pace WotC published 3.5, which we know because there's another company that's done just that for years and years and is both sustainable and profitable...or are you saying that you've peaked at Paizo's books, and know that they're not profitable or sustainable?

So no, I don't begrudge companies setting profit expectations. It's just reality. Very few people will willingly lose money (or make significantly less return on their money) in the long run unless they are incredibly passionate about what they're spending money on. Companies are not charities.

Here's the thing about profit maximization that most people seem to intuit, but often struggle to articulate: that "make as much money as possible" comes across as, shall we say, more ethically dubious than "offer the best product/service you can, and financial success will follow." The latter sentiment is one that no one has a problem with, and while you can absolutely suggest that it might not be true that simply being the best is enough to lead to financial success, the idea that your goal is to make as much money as you can – realistic though it may be – inherently carries the idea that how you do that is, at best, a secondary concern, which understandably opens you up to charges (rightly or wrongly) that quality isn't your first and foremost goal.

That's without getting into ideas of how much money is, or should be, "enough." Even taking into account issues of inflation and purchasing power, there's a point where setting ever-increasing target goals ceases to look like (or actually be) anything realistic, let alone relatable. Fifteen years or so ago, Ryan Dancey told us all that Hasbro wanted D&D to earn $100 million per year. Now, as far as we know, it's doing just that...and yet the CEO of WotC is saying it's "undermonetized" (and the target number I've heard, admittedly from second- and third-hand sources, is closer to $500M annually). Given that $100M in 2007 dollars doesn't (insofar as I know) equate to $500M in today's money, it's hard for me to have sympathy for that inflated target, presuming that it's correct.

Oh, and unless you've had a peak at the books, do you have any source for the profitability of 3E? Did they continue to sell core product and was new product actually profitable?

I'll refer you to this thread, where Ben Riggs stated that the primary reason for the switch from 3.5E to 4E was because WotC/Hasbro executives saw how much money World of Warcraft was making, and wanted to get a slice of that pie. That 3.5 wasn't profitable anymore was never (that I recall) put forward as an issue.

P.S. I'd love it if some billionaire bought out D&D and made it their passion project and didn't care about making a dime (or even 2-3 dimes) on sales. Especially if they paid me a bazillion dollars to be a consultant. But if wishes were horses we'd be hip deep in horse pucky.

I mean, no disagreement there; I think a lot of the sentiment that you seem to take issue with is just that corporatism tends to interfere with the processes that result in the best content, rather than being orthogonal to those processes. That's a mindset that I think has some credibility to it.

 

[Oofta]

This isn't a reply to what I posted, it's a reply to a caricature of what I posted. No one is saying that companies should only publish "for love of the game." Rather, there's a sentiment that putting out multiple crunch products a month, every month, is both necessarily and self-evidently going to lead to financial ruin for a TTRPG company. This is a false narrative, one whose untruth is fairly obvious if you look at the next-most successful such company after WotC/Hasbro.

What you're responding to, at best I can tell, is a presumed charge that profit maximization is somehow "wrong" or "bad," neither of which was what I said. I was pointing out only that it's "unsustainable" or "not profitable" to publish books at the pace WotC published 3.5, which we know to not be true because there's another company that's done just that for years and years and is both sustainable and profitable...or are you saying that you've peaked at Paizo's books, and know that they're not profitable or sustainable.


Here's the thing about profit maximization that most people seem to intuit, but often struggle to articulate: that "make as much money as possible" comes across as, shall we say, more ethically dubious than "offer the best product/service you can, and financial success will follow." The latter sentiment is one that no one has a problem with, and while you can absolutely suggest that it might not be true that simply being the best isn't enough to lead to financial success, the idea that your goal is to make as much money as you can – realistic though it may be – inherently carries the idea that how you do that is, at best, a secondary concern, which understandably opens you up to charges (rightly or wrongly) that quality isn't your first and foremost goal.

That's without getting into ideas of how much money is, or should be, "enough." Even taking into account issues of inflation and purchasing power, there's a point where setting ever-increasing target goals ceases to look like (or actually be) anything realistic, let alone relatable. Fifteen years or so ago, Ryan Dancey told us all that Hasbro wanted D&D to earn $100 million per year. Now, as far as we know, it's doing just that...and yet the CEO of WotC is saying it's "undermonetized" (and the target number I've heard, admittedly from second- and third-hand sources, is closer to $500M annually). Given that $100M in 2007 dollars doesn't (insofar as I know) equate to $500M in today's money, it's hard for me to have sympathy for that inflated target, presuming that it's correct.

I'll refer you to this thread, where Ben Riggs stated that the primary reason for the switch from 3.5E to 4E was because WotC/Hasbro executives saw how much money World of Warcraft was making, and wanted to get a slice of that pie. That 3.5 wasn't profitable anymore was never (that I recall) put forward as an issue.

I mean, no disagreement there; I think a lot of the sentiment that you seem to take issue with is just that corporatism tends to interfere with the processes that result in the best content, rather than being orthogonal to those processes. That's a mindset that I think has some credibility to it.

All I'm saying is that, outside of people who are publishing products as a hobby or for other goals, are in it for money. If they think they can make more money with a different approach they will. I don't care if that's WOTC, PAIZO, Kobold Press or any other company.

There are people and companies so motivated by profit that they will engage in dubious practices and price gouging. I just don't see that with HASBRO, even if I don't like everything they do.

Profit motive is pretty unrelated to how many books are published. Publishing a new edition, publishing more books or fewer, does not rise to the level of either a dubious practice or price gouging IMHO.

 

[Alzrius]

All I'm saying is that, outside of people who are publishing products as a hobby or for other goals, are in it for money. If they think they can make more money with a different approach they will. I don't care if that's WOTC, PAIZO, Kobold Press or any other company.

To continue with this digression, no one is suggesting that companies don't want to make money; the issue that you've brought up is with regard to how they go about doing that, and people's reactions to (what they perceive to be) those practices. As I said before, no one (that I'm aware of) has a problem with a work ethic of "do the best you can, each and every time, as often as possible, and the money will follow." But the same can't be said for a work ethic of "maximize profit," especially since that's often understood (rightly or wrongly) to imply a reduced concern with the manner in which that's accomplished.

In the case of the former, a "different approach" is going to look like a different way to try and do their best. In the case of the latter, a different approach can look like other things (to put it mildly).

There are people and companies so motivated by profit that they will engage in dubious practices and price gouging. I just don't see that with HASBRO, even if I don't like everything they do.

Profit motive is pretty unrelated to how many books are published. Publishing a new edition, publishing more books or fewer, does not rise to the level of either a dubious practice or price gouging IMHO.

Leaving aside that no one has brought up price gouging (which typically has a slightly different meaning from how you're using it here; the word I think you're looking for is profiteering) that I recall (and certainly I didn't), the definition of what's dubious and what's not will understandably vary from individual to individual, and will only be muddied by the fact that we don't have all of the inside information with regards to the decisions that companies make. But neither do we have no information at all, and it's not unreasonable to draw conclusions and form opinions based on the best knowledge that we have at a given point in time (keeping in mind that information is still incomplete).

There's long been a sense, albeit a very generalized one, that larger companies tend to chase profits first and foremost, while smaller companies are committed to doing their best and letting that be their market strategy. With regard to WotC, scandals both recent (e.g. the OGL fiasco) and old (e.g. holding back popular monsters in 4E) have convinced a lot of people that this paradigm accurately describes them, at least in terms of larger companies. To that end, there's a sense that they aren't/can't/shouldn't be placed on the same level as (smaller) companies which that ideal paints in a more sympathetic light.

 

[Oofta]

To continue with this digression, no one is suggesting that companies don't want to make money; the issue that you've brought up is with regard to how they go about doing that, and people's reactions to (what they perceive to be) those practices. As I said before, no one (that I'm aware of) has a problem with a work ethic of "do the best you can, each and every time, as often as possible, and the money will follow." But the same can't be said for a work ethic of "maximize profit," especially since that's often understood (rightly or wrongly) to imply a reduced concern with the manner in which that's accomplished.

In the case of the former, a "different approach" is going to look like a different way to try and do their best. In the case of the latter, a different approach can look like other things (to put it mildly).

Leaving aside that no one has brought up price gouging (which typically has a different meaning from how you're using it here; the word I think you're looking for is profiteering) that I recall (and certainly I didn't), the definition of what's dubious and what's not will understandably vary from individual to individual, and will only be muddied by the fact that we don't have all of the inside information with regards to the decisions that companies make. But neither do we have no information at all, and it's not unreasonable to draw conclusions and form opinions based on the best knowledge that we have at a given point in time (keeping in mind that information is still incomplete).

There's long been a sense, albeit a very generalized one, that larger companies tend to chase profits first and foremost, while smaller companies are committed to doing their best and letting that be their market strategy. With regard to WotC, scandals both recent (e.g. the OGL fiasco) and old (e.g. holding back popular monsters in 4E) have convinced a lot of people that this paradigm accurately describes them, at least in terms of larger companies. To that end, there's a sense that they aren't/can't/shouldn't be placed on the same level as (smaller) companies which that ideal paints in a more sympathetic light.

I'm just having a hard time seeing why you care. Or why you are implying that WOTC is somehow doing something wrong by looking at ROI. Of course they look at ROI, all companies do. They sell a wider range of products than a lot of TTRPG companies, so their target may be higher because they can invest money elsewhere to have higher profit. If ABC company is in the TTRPG business and they think they can make more money by diversifying or publishing something different after doing risk/benefit analysis, they will. If I can get paid X dollars per hour or X+10% per hour doing basically the same thing, I'm going to take the latter option.

This idea that smaller companies are somehow more "pure" is a myth. They may or may not be more innovative, a smaller group of decision makers may be more likely to take a risky gamble. You're also conflating some suit making a stupid decision(s) with ... what exactly I'm not sure.

It all simply sounds like "WOTC BAD" looking for justification whether that's your intent or not. Because I don't know what your intent is other than that.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm just having a hard time seeing why you care. Or why you are implying that WOTC is somehow doing something wrong by looking at ROI. Of course they look at ROI, all companies do. They sell a wider range of products than a lot of TTRPG companies, so their target may be higher because they can invest money elsewhere to have higher profit. If ABC company is in the TTRPG business and they think they can make more money by diversifying or publishing something different after doing risk/benefit analysis, they will. If I can get paid X dollars per hour or X+10% per hour doing basically the same thing, I'm going to take the latter option.

I'm not sure why you care why I care; to be honest, that smacks of "your points are less important than your motivations," with the implication that my motives are something suspect. I'd rather you look at the points I raised in and of themselves than trying to intuit some sort of deeper motivation on my part.

And, to reiterate again, it's the "how" by which companies seek to make money that's being discussed, because not every option is held to carry the same weight in terms of how acceptable people find those practices. I'm sure that WotC ran an internal analysis on the profitability that their OGL v1.1 would have gotten them, and I'm (almost as) certain that the people who made the decision to go ahead with that didn't care that they were reneging on their promise that the OGL v1.0a would be perpetual (and that using dubious legalese about the difference between "perpetual" and "irrevocable" wasn't a sufficient excuse), endangering the livelihood of a lot of other people who worked in the same industry. Things like that don't become excusable just because companies are expected to chase profits. How they do it matters; it's why "ethically sourced" is a buzzword these days.

This idea that smaller companies are somehow more "pure" is a myth. They may or may not be more innovative, a smaller group of decision makers may be more likely to take a risky gamble. You're also conflating some suit making a stupid decision(s) with ... what exactly I'm not sure.

If you go back and read what I wrote, you'll notice that I acknowledged that the idea that smaller companies chase excellence (trusting the money to follow) while larger companies chase profits (putting excellence second, if that) is indeed a generalization. But it's not a generalization that's lacking in practical examples; when you're holding back popular monsters in order to ensure that a follow-up book will have higher sales, that's an example of trying to make money at the expense of your customers, rather than by doing as right by them as you can. To showcase an example of the opposite end of that generalization, all of Paizo's monsters are legally available for free online.

It all simply sounds like "WOTC BAD" looking for justification whether that's your intent or not. Because I don't know what your intent is other than that.

And I'm trying to tell you, the justifications for that attitude are already out there, and have been for a while. You are, if I'm reading you rightly, looking at things like the OGL scandal, the Pinkerton scandal, the $1,000 set of reprint M:tG boosters scandal, etc. and saying that they're all justifiable/excusable because companies are supposed to seek profits. I'm trying to tell you, that's not something that I – and, I believe, a lot of other people – give them a pass for.