WotC Hasbro selling D&D IP?

[Oofta]

That's the environment it happened in, in which other things existed. Unless you can reliably repeat it it's hard to claim we know anything directly causative. There are obviously a lot of things that helped, but it's not easy to repeat the experiment to make a hypothesis into a theory.

So we know the reasons but we don't know the reasons? I guess I don't see the point. Most of the time when people say "We don't really know why 5E is successful" it seems like what they're really saying is that 5E is, at best, a mediocre game and just got lucky. Usually because of Critical Role and Stranger things, which were things long after sustained growth has already started.

We never 100% know why any cultural or economic trend happens. I just see no evidence that the previous couple of versions would have been able to take advantage of that general cultural zeitgeist. There was no significant cultural or technological change between the release of 4E and 5E. The difference was the approach to the game design with 5E having playtests and surveys followed by a good game that lacked the barriers to entry that 3.x had and the approach of 4E that gave it broader appeal.

No game can be for everyone. But 5E has been embraced over the past decade by millions of new players. That doesn't happen in a world where people have so many pressures competing for their free time unless it has broad appeal and people playing enjoy the game. The fact that it broke the sales trajectory of most previous versions is proof that 5E did something right outside of just environmental factors.

 

[payn]

Yeah seriously if there'd been an MMO which played like 4E, that would have been pretty amazing.

I know Atari/Turbine had the MMO rights which they based on 3E (but live action hybrid not turn based). Though, at the very end wasnt there a Neverwinter nights MMO based on 4E? I never played it but im guess it was like Turbine's DDO in that it was a live action hybrid of 4E.

 

[Incenjucar]

So we know the reasons but we don't know the reasons? I guess I don't see the point. Most of the time when people say "We don't really know why 5E is successful" it seems like what they're really saying is that 5E is, at best, a mediocre game and just got lucky. Usually because of Critical Role and Stranger things, which were things long after sustained growth has already started.

We never 100% know why any cultural or economic trend happens. I just see no evidence that the previous couple of versions would have been able to take advantage of that general cultural zeitgeist. There was no significant cultural or technological change between the release of 4E and 5E. The difference was the approach to the game design with 5E having playtests and surveys followed by a good game that lacked the barriers to entry that 3.x had and the approach of 4E that gave it broader appeal.

No game can be for everyone. But 5E has been embraced over the past decade by millions of new players. That doesn't happen in a world where people have so many pressures competing for their free time unless it has broad appeal and people playing enjoy the game. The fact that it broke the sales trajectory of most previous versions is proof that 5E did something right outside of just environmental factors.

We have different levels of rigor needed to make us comfortable with "knowing". Given how the world can change because two people randomly met in a shop one day because someone had a hankering for a Snickers bar, I am not comfortable declaring this endlessly-argued event an answered question.

 

[mamba]

I am not comfortable declaring this endlessly-argued event an answered question.

that very much depends on the case, I am not revisiting whether the earth is flat for example

 

[Oofta]

We have different levels of rigor needed to make us comfortable with "knowing". Given how the world can change because two people randomly met in a shop one day because someone had a hankering for a Snickers bar, I am not comfortable declaring this endlessly-argued event an answered question.

I can tell you that (after a quick search) the Rav4 is a more popular car than the Yugo ever was. I can tell you that most previous editions of D&D saw growth for a period of time and then sales dropped off after a year or two. I can tell you that 5E breaks that trend. Nobody can ever tell you why D&D, or the Rav4, succeeds with 100% accuracy, that doesn't mean we can't discuss broad reasons and why some products are not successful.

But this is typical nit-pick fallacy, because we can't know exactly why something happens we can draw no conclusions whatsoever. I stand by what I said above. There is no reason 4E could not have been as successful as 5E, their respective release dates are simply not that far apart. The primary difference is the rules of the game that reflected a different approach and 5E simply has broader appeal.

 

[Incenjucar]

I can tell you that (after a quick search) the Rav4 is a more popular car than the Yugo ever was. I can tell you that most previous editions of D&D saw growth for a period of time and then sales dropped off after a year or two. I can tell you that 5E breaks that trend. Nobody can ever tell you why D&D, or the Rav4, succeeds with 100% accuracy, that doesn't mean we can't discuss broad reasons and why some products are not successful.

But this is typical nit-pick fallacy, because we can't know exactly why something happens we can draw no conclusions whatsoever. I stand by what I said above. There is no reason 4E could not have been as successful as 5E, their respective release dates are simply not that far apart. The primary difference is the rules of the game that reflected a different approach and 5E simply has broader appeal.

I'm not looking to shut down discussion - quite the opposite. I'm just not willing to declare knowledge that very likely cannot be proven. When I feel, guess, assume, predict, etc. I stick to that language.

 

[Oofta]

I'm not looking to shut down discussion - quite the opposite. I'm just not willing to declare knowledge that very likely cannot be proven. When I feel, guess, assume, predict, etc. I stick to that language.

But you're stating we can draw no conclusions because we cannot draw precise conclusions. I disagree with the former because with anything to do with product sales you can never draw precise conclusions.

In any case, your responses are the equivalent of "nah-uh" at this point and it's not a discussion in any case.

 

[Incenjucar]

But you're stating we can draw no conclusions because we cannot draw precise conclusions. I disagree with the former because with anything to do with product sales you can never draw precise conclusions.

In any case, your responses are the equivalent of "nah-uh" at this point and it's not a discussion in any case.

I am stating that I am not willing to. We have different bars. I'm not even saying you're wrong, I'm just not comfortable with the bar you've set. I hold the same position on 4E's relative success being the result of smack talk and ignorance of the rules rather than a sincere response to the rules being unsatisfying for the player base.

 

[Oofta]

I am stating that I am not willing to. We have different bars. I'm not even saying you're wrong, I'm just not comfortable with the bar you've set. I hold the same position on 4E's relative success being the result of smack talk and ignorance of the rules rather than a sincere response to the rules being unsatisfying for the player base.

The large majority of people playing D&D right now are new to the game. The sales growth we've seen has not been driven by old school players, old school players not jumping on the 4E bandwagon cannot explain why it had successful sales at the beginning that rapidly dropped off.

It doesn't make 4E a bad game to acknowledge that it simply didn't appeal to a broad audience.

 

[Incenjucar]

The large majority of people playing D&D right now are new to the game. The sales growth we've seen has not been driven by old school players, old school players not jumping on the 4E bandwagon cannot explain why it had successful sales at the beginning that rapidly dropped off.

It doesn't make 4E a bad game to acknowledge that it simply didn't appeal to a broad audience.

Indeed. And all of these elements are time- and audience-specific.

The most popular RPG of all human history might be being developed in Siberia right now, where it will catch on like wildfire in Asia, while barely making a cultural dent West of Germany, and the rules all play like BESM crossed with Ironclaw, and it takes off because a random nerdy KPop band made a song about it once during a slow news cycle.

Teen Titans GO has been very informative.