D&D General Why Were the Dragon and Dungeon Magazines Discontinued?

[darjr]

yes, it’s discontinued, but at 30 magazines for $30 the bundle still could be of interest for those that do not have it.

Can’t really go that wrong at that price

Oh! Good point!

I hadn’t realized it was all still up there.

 

[bloodtide]

I love Dragon and Dungeon, each month getting ideas fro a bunch of different people. I'm not a fan of digital content, so I did not buy that spam.

While I'd like a print magazine, I would never pay the $10+ it would cost and I'm not a fan of digital subscription. And I doubt that WotC would make anything of quality.....

You can find new content in a couple places online.....and all the old places too. Plenty of blogs, for example, go back 10-20 years. Plenty for you to read one 'article' a day even.

 

[delericho]

WotC have gone backwards and forwards a few times over the years in their attitudes to licensed content, both open licences like the OGL and closed ones like those Paizo used for the magazines. At the time 4e was in production, the anti-license faction was in the ascendancy, and so they pulled a lot of stuff back - they cancelled the d20 license, and let the Dragonlance license lapse. I forget whether they did the same with the Raveloft license, or if that had already expired.

In the case of Dragon and Dungeon, they actually allowed Paizo an extension of a few months to allow the popular "Savage Tides" adventure path come to its end. But then those licenses were also ended.

By that stage, print magazines were nowhere near profitable enough for a company the size of WotC, so they were never going to stay in print, but moving them online and into the D&D Insider package could have been a good move. Unfortunately, they then let them wither, largely because putting together a monthly magazine is a very significant chunk of work, and the return on investment just wasn't there. (It is, of course, difficult to determine just how much of a package deal like DDI can be attributed to any individual component, but WotC's estimate was that very few people subscribed for the magazines, rather than considering them a bonus. They were probably right about that.)

It's an interesting question what would have happened had WotC not taken that path, and had instead renewed the licenses. My gut feeling is that 4e would have done somewhat better (as cancelling the licenses brought about Pathfinder, and turned D&D biggest cheerleader into its biggest competitor). However, I suspect it wouldn't have done hugely better, and I don't think 4e ever stood a chance of meeting WotC's expectations of that time.

And it's entirely possible that 5e then wouldn't have done as well - it's likely that Pathfinder kept a chunk of people who didn't like 4e in the hobby, so that 5e could bring them back to D&D; without Pathfinder, they may simply have been gone.

But that's all just a best guess.

 

[mearls]

When I first got into running D&D around 2007 one of my favorite things to do was to collect the new issues of Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine, and even when they went fully digital with 4E I still loved looking at each issue for inspiration and resources. Some of my favorites were the various series on gods, demon lords, and archfey.

Even 10 years into 5E I feel like there's just a dearth of content. I keep going back to my 3E and 4E issues of the magazines for inspiration because there's just not enough to work with going by official 5E content alone, especially where lore and world building is concerned. It's honestly one of my biggest problems with the edition.

With that said, why do you think the magazines were discontinued, and would you like to see them return?

Others talked about the realities of magazine publishing, but there's one other thing that popped up.

Supporting the 4e, online versions of the magazines required a ton of overhead. The staff managing them - I believe Chris Youngs and Steve Winter led the effort - was always massively short of resources.

Even worse, while there was an audience that loved them, we could see from web traffic that a tiny percentage of DDI subscribers ever actually read them. It was hard to justify the ongoing expense when we could see that most users were just interested in the digital tools. Even there, we could see that the magazine content saw very little use compared to the core rulebook content.

That observation led to research into how much TTRPG content people were interested in buying each year, which led to the 5e strategy of fewer, bigger releases.

That doesn't mean a magazine can't work or that more content is a bad idea. It just meant we had to shift from thinking everyone wanted new content to understanding that new content moved the needle for a subset of players and DMs.

 

[Bagpuss]

I would like to see Dragon in print again.

Rather see Dungeon in print again.

 

[delericho]

Even worse, while there was an audience that loved them, we could see from web traffic that a tiny percentage of DDI subscribers ever actually read them.

It was also the time of the Edition Wars as well, of course - for every person who loved them, there were also a few who were extremely vocal about being pissed off at the print versions ending, and missed no opportunity to dump on the online versions as a result.

Putting all that work in on a product few people read, and facing a barrage of negativity for factors beyond your control must have been tough.

 

[delericho]

I would like to see Dragon in print again.

I would very much like to see them both, especially now.

Twice in the past I've gone through spells when I haven't been gaming for one reason or another, and in both previous occasions the monthly deliveries of one or both of the magazines has served as a really strong tie back to the hobby - I've been inactive but never truly untethered.

This time, there's no such link, and I'm afraid places like this just aren't the same. Couple that with a new version of the game I'm skipping, and it does feel like I'm losing touch.

 

[darjr]

The other new magazine is called Horizons!

Subscribe to Horizons Magazine

Horizons is a digital magazine for 5e and other tabletop roleplaying games. Each issue includes four articles full of content for your tabletop games

wildmagepress.com

 

[Zaukrie]

Others talked about the realities of magazine publishing, but there's one other thing that popped up.

Supporting the 4e, online versions of the magazines required a ton of overhead. The staff managing them - I believe Chris Youngs and Steve Winter led the effort - was always massively short of resources.

Even worse, while there was an audience that loved them, we could see from web traffic that a tiny percentage of DDI subscribers ever actually read them. It was hard to justify the ongoing expense when we could see that most users were just interested in the digital tools. Even there, we could see that the magazine content saw very little use compared to the core rulebook content.

That observation led to research into how much TTRPG content people were interested in buying each year, which led to the 5e strategy of fewer, bigger releases.

That doesn't mean a magazine can't work or that more content is a bad idea. It just meant we had to shift from thinking everyone wanted new content to understanding that new content moved the needle for a subset of players and DMs.

Thanks Mike. That tracks with what everyone at the game store said back in the day. Though your skill challenges articles are still useful, and the world building articles are still amazing to read.

 

[Parmandur]

Others talked about the realities of magazine publishing, but there's one other thing that popped up.

Supporting the 4e, online versions of the magazines required a ton of overhead. The staff managing them - I believe Chris Youngs and Steve Winter led the effort - was always massively short of resources.

Even worse, while there was an audience that loved them, we could see from web traffic that a tiny percentage of DDI subscribers ever actually read them. It was hard to justify the ongoing expense when we could see that most users were just interested in the digital tools. Even there, we could see that the magazine content saw very little use compared to the core rulebook content.

That observation led to research into how much TTRPG content people were interested in buying each year, which led to the 5e strategy of fewer, bigger releases.

That doesn't mean a magazine can't work or that more content is a bad idea. It just meant we had to shift from thinking everyone wanted new content to understanding that new content moved the needle for a subset of players and DMs.

I think by about 2018 you guys had found a pretty good rhythm of new content for 5E.