WotC WotC can, and probably should support multiple editions of D&D.

[overgeeked]

Another flaw with “don’t compete with yourself” is so many other, similar companies do. Toy makers do. Video game makers do. Boardgame makers do. None of them produce one thing then an endless supply of supplements for it. Most of them (including all the big names) have multiple lines that “compete” against each other.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Heck, Wizards can't even adequately support 5th edition.

I would say won't rather than can't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's not a Hasbro thing, that's an every corporation thing! I'd be absolutely shocked if Purina or Nabisco (both subsidiaries of major conglomerates) thought past quarterly profits. That's that nature of being traded on the stock market.

Every publically traded corporation thing. The problem is, as always, being beholden to shareholders.

 

[overgeeked]

The regulations largely got chucked out the window starting in the 1980s, even outside the US, based on the widespread adoption of new regulatory theory. The reason things feel "different" nowadays with capitalism is because they are.

Just a response to the general comment of "it's just capitalism," which lets governmental regulatory and legislative bodies off the hook.

Yes, the regulations are different but capitalism hasn’t changed. What’s legally allowed has. Maximize profits; minimize costs. If slavery were legal, they’d bring back plantations overnight. Just don’t look too closely at the 13th Amendment and prison labor. “AI” is the next big push to minimize costs.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes, the regulations are different but capitalism hasn’t changed. What’s legally allowed has. Maximize profits; minimize costs. If slavery were legal, they’d bring back plantations overnight. Just don’t look too closely at the 13th Amendment and prison labor. “AI” is the next big push to minimize costs.

It's amazing that there are people arguing in the 21st century US in favor of child labor, but here we are.

 

[jasper]

Visit the pet food, potato chip, soda, cereal and toiletries aisles in your local grocery store.

"Competing with themselves" is what's made much bigger corporations than Hasbro very, very wealthy.

Okay boys and girls and geeks with measuring sticks. Measure the foot print of pet food aisle.
Measure the foot print of you RPG bookshelf. Firgure out how many RPG books will need to be fill the pet food aisle.
One is a game which unless Garfield takes a pee on the book, it does NOT need to be replace. then other is a consumable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Okay boys and girls and geeks with measuring sticks. Measure the foot print of pet food aisle.
Measure the foot print of you RPG bookshelf. Firgure out how many RPG books will need to be fill the pet food aisle.
One is a game which unless Garfield takes a pee on the book, it does NOT need to be replace. then other is a consumable.

Now do automobiles.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not with the albatross of shareholders around their necks.

 

[bmfrosty]

this. They don't have the workforce to actually do it and 3PP have already filled that niche. WotC could easily beat anyone and everyone else in the market for those products if they'd only try. But they won't. Mostly because they can't.

Hasbro/WotC doesn't have the money to hire the workforce to do a refreshed 3rd edition and test the waters publishing secondary versions of a couple of their upcoming adventures as a test. They couldn't even spare the electrons to have those on D&D Beyond.

They would never be able to scrape together the cash to do a new rulebook for the TSR era of adventures. Goodman games would never want to pick up their OAR line again. What a disaster that was.

/s

I think that the idea that they couldn't isn't right. I think the idea that they don't want to compete with themselves is correct. I do think that they could do that without replacing 5th edition and without betting the entire farm on it.

A small print run or a digital release of a new 3.x to see reactions would be very doable. Moreover a design cycle (reusing art of course) is probably the more expensive part of even trying it out. Top that with a new version of a couple of the adventures (say whatever 2 FR adventures come out that year) is what it would take for 3.x - at least to test the waters. The idea isn't to change the math much, but to have a core book that is mostly set. Something stable that maybe they don't mess with too much and introduce a bunch of power creep. Support it with adventures where the expense is in the art and the prose that's already being developed and paid for with 5th.

For Classic D&D, the work is out there, and someone like Gavin Norman or Daniel Proctor would be likely be happy to be paid to work on it. Again, the initial release isn't the massive thing it is for 5e releases today. It starts off smaller.

The big difference between these works and what you see coming from Paizo and various OSR guys is that it has the D&D name on it.

 

[overgeeked]

Okay boys and girls and geeks with measuring sticks. Measure the foot print of pet food aisle.
Measure the foot print of you RPG bookshelf. Firgure out how many RPG books will need to be fill the pet food aisle.
One is a game which unless Garfield takes a pee on the book, it does NOT need to be replace. then other is a consumable.

And how many people are a few months away from replacing that game book they don't need to replace? About 80-95% of the D&D fanbase. How many people replaced 4E with 5E? 3.5 with 4E? 3 with 3.5? 2E with 3? AD&D with 2E? Etc.