D&D (2024) Motley Fool Prediction: New Dungeons & Dragons Edition Won't Help Hasbro Much

[FrogReaver]

Yes, every quarter must not only be better than that quarter last year, it must be better than that quarter in every year ever. Welcome to late stage capitalism, American style.

As long as population keeps increasing (more potential customers) and costs decrease (automation, offshoring, productivity gains, etc) at least relative to what the market will allow you to charge and inflation (even the 'normal' 2-3% kind) keeps occurring then it's not clear why in general future quarters shouldn't be able to indefinitely be better than previous. And even if that kind 'evergreen growth' is not always actually achievable, it still makes a good goal.

 

[Oofta]

If it's a hit, they will say so.

We may get generalities in company speak, we won't get exact numbers.

 

[Scribe]

We may get generalities in company speak, we won't get exact numbers.

No, but "best selling of all time" is a nice way to boost a stock price.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

5.5e will sell. I expect most people who play 5.0 will eventually switch, especially once a new book comes out adding in (most of) the missing subclasses or meaningful equivalents.

But 5.5e won't outdo 5.0. That's what this is saying. It's treading water financially, staving off decline, not growing things further. Other stuff will have to fill that in.

My expectation is that we will start hearing rumors of a true, proper 6e in about four years, public playtesting will begin sometime around a year or two later, and we'll have actual published books two or three years after that. So, all told, somewhere between seven and ten years from now.

People swore 4e's Essentials line would make it evergreen. It didn't. People swore 5.0 would be evergreen, only needing small/slow, iterative updates. It wasn't. People are now swearing 5.5e will be evergreen, getting only iterative updates. I'm about as convinced of that as I was of the previous attempts.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, but "best selling of all time" is a nice way to boost a stock price.

Sure, but "best-selling of all time" can mean a lot of different things--especially when you throw in whether or not one adjusts for inflation and things like population increase. Selling 10M books to a population of 200M is functionally equivalent to selling 15M books to 300M people--but you can easily spin the latter into "this dwarfs the previous peak of sales." That doesn't mean selling 15M books is in any way bad or inferior, it is a good thing--but in a meaningful sense it's closer to treading water than actual growth.

 

[Scribe]

Sure, but "best-selling of all time" can mean a lot of different things--especially when you throw in whether or not one adjusts for inflation and things like population increase. Selling 10M books to a population of 200M is functionally equivalent to selling 15M books to 300M people--but you can easily spin the latter into "this dwarfs the previous peak of sales." That doesn't mean selling 15M books is in any way bad or inferior, it is a good thing--but in a meaningful sense it's closer to treading water than actual growth.

Sure. All I'm saying is that IF this release is a success, we will be told as much.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure. All I'm saying is that IF this release is a success, we will be told as much.

But when "success" can mean damn near anything--even when it actually means fewer books sold, for example, because a higher price point (due to inflation) still results in higher total income (but lower total profit)..."success" can be spun so hard, it barely even means anything.

This is the problem with corpo-speak. It is almost literally Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

We will be told whatever Hasbro wishes to tell us. They would never willingly tell us something has gone wrong. They will play up whatever good does come of it to the absolute best of their ability. The only way we'd find out things weren't going well would be long after the fact, when someone (presumably a bit disgruntled) spills the beans. Corpo-speak talk of everything being lovely is worse than useless, because you can't even tell if it's sincere or not.

 

[Scribe]

But when "success" can mean damn near anything--even when it actually means fewer books sold, for example, because a higher price point (due to inflation) still results in higher total income (but lower total profit)..."success" can be spun so hard, it barely even means anything.

This is the problem with corpo-speak. It is almost literally Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

We will be told whatever Hasbro wishes to tell us. They would never willingly tell us something has gone wrong. They will play up whatever good does come of it to the absolute best of their ability. The only way we'd find out things weren't going well would be long after the fact, when someone (presumably a bit disgruntled) spills the beans. Corpo-speak talk of everything being lovely is worse than useless, because you can't even tell if it's sincere or not.

I used to spin when I worked for a public company. I know how it works lol.

 

[mamba]

Selling 10M books to a population of 200M is functionally equivalent to selling 15M books to 300M people--but you can easily spin the latter into "this dwarfs the previous peak of sales." That doesn't mean selling 15M books is in any way bad or inferior, it is a good thing--but in a meaningful sense it's closer to treading water than actual growth.

in the sense that counts it is not though, there are more books out there and theoretically you also made more of a profit

Since everyone usually treats increased sales as a function of increased $ (so not only do you not account for population growth but also not for inflation), I'd say selling a larger number of books absolutely counts as growth.

 

[mamba]

But when "success" can mean damn near anything--even when it actually means fewer books sold, for example, because a higher price point

the price point did not change though, so at least in this case you can rule that out

We will be told whatever Hasbro wishes to tell us. They would never willingly tell us something has gone wrong.

I agree with that, but an absence of talking about great sales also is an indicator, as they absolutely would have done that otherwise