D&D General Ray Winninger on 5e’s success, product cadence, the OGL, and more.

[Reynard]

Given how many players don't even own dice, I'm not sure number of PHBs sold accurately correlates to number of D&D players. Better to count DMGs and multiply by 5 (or something).

 

[DEFCON 1]

I expect that WotC does want to hold on to them, and if they are as likely to move to anything else 5e adjacent as to the official revision of 5e, that would be a big failure on WotC’s part.

On the other hand we have no data that suggests they are anywhere as likely to move to eg SD as to 2024.

Sure, it'd be nice if 5E14 players moved on to 5E24... but WotC doesn't base their designs or publish around guaranteeing that. But yeah... the fact that they released the open playtests so that current 5E14 players could tell them what they did or did not like about potential changes is indicative that WotC was not throwing their desires away completely. But no one can suggest that 5E24's design was made specifically to keep all 5E14 players and have them move on to 5E24. Because after all that would have been a statistically impossibility. If players decide to move from 14 to 24, great! But that's just a happy aside, not the point of them creating 5E24 in the first place.

But what is completely obvious to me just by reading post after post after post of people here on EN World who have chosen not to buy 5E24... that each of them seems to think that the changes they would have been okay with and would have inspired them to move were the only changes that made sense. Which of course is ridiculous. "If WotC had actually fixed X but left Y alone, then of course I would have bought the new books!" As though their X and Y were the same things that every other player agreed with as a problem. Again... it's players giving themselves and their opinions of what is proper D&D way too much credit.

 

[AlViking]

So have we seen a verifiable slowdown with 5.5 that we can point and say “it’s the new edition’s fault?” Or are we assuming a slowdown because there’s a perception that there’s not as much overall excitement? At least some portion of the game buying public has shifted to D&D Beyond, and we just don’t have great numbers overall.

This may all turn out to be true but from what I’m seeing, we don’t know it until at least a few years later.

I think people are paying too much attention to the people on message boards, forums and blogs from people who have been playing the game for multiple editions. The real sales trajectory will continue to be determined by the 10 and 12 year olds and it's going to take a bit before we know. Most pre-fifth editions had this boom and bust cycle where the people who were already playing the game went out and bought the new stuff but then the game never attracted new players so sales dropped. With 5 there was continued growth because people who had never played before picked it up.

But nothing can grow forever and unless the game can be expanded into new markets a stabilization of the player base numbers is inevitable. Speaking of which are there non-English versions for sale yet? Add in that many people started playing DnD a decade ago with 5 and many of those people are getting to the age of reduced free time and more responsibility. The bump in sales during covid is also likely skewing what some people are seeing because it was such an anomaly but doesn't really have much to do with the long term. Dndbeyond numbers may be the best overall indicator but only people at wizards know what those look like. So ask this question again in 2-3 years and we may have an answer. My best guess is that there will be a stabilization of numbers with maybe a small amount of growth but no crash but it's just a guess. Nobody has a crystal ball here that can predict the future I just think proclamations of declining sales are premature.

 

[mamba]

Sure, it'd be nice if 5E14 players moved on to 5E24... but WotC doesn't base their designs or publish around guaranteeing that.

who do you think filled out those playtest polls?

Can they guarantee it? No, but they certainly aim for it. They would be stupid not to given their share of the market

But yeah... the fact that they released the open playtests so that current 5E14 players could tell them what they did or did not like about potential changes is indicative that WotC was not throwing their desires away completely

I’d say it is indicative of that being their core audience, esp. given how little actually changed because of those playtests

The new art and increased accessibility is there for the new players (at least to a large degree), the playtest, and by extension much of the actual rules, is there so the existing players do not get left behind

 

[Velderan]

Given how many players don't even own dice, I'm not sure number of PHBs sold accurately correlates to number of D&D players. Better to count DMGs and multiply by 5 (or something).

Especially with younger players who might not have income to spend on books. As a teenager playing 2e with my friends, we originally only had 2 copies of the PHB being shared by 7 people. Even my initial 5e campaign of 8 people who were all adults with income to support having a hobby, 2 of the players didn't own a PHB because they just didn't see the point in everyone owning one so they usually just used the DM's copy. Once DDB content sharing became a thing, they used that on their phone.

 

[mearls]

Thanks for the detailed responses, Mike. They are sincerely appreciated!

I'm curious about the reference to a slowdown with 5.5 though. From this article: "Lanzillo said that the English-language, analog version (ie., physical books) of the 2024 Players Handbook reached the same sales numbers that the 2014 PHB did in three years across all languages." That doesn't sound like a drop, so I'm wondering if you have some additional insights that might mean the marketing blurb is somehow hiding a slowdown.

Glad you asked.

I've been doing a lot of research into how 5.5 is actually doing. This quote is a great example of what I am finding. WotC is putting a lot of work into how they frame its launch. That made me suspicious, and I think my suspicion is justified.

For framing: People are going to make important, impactful financial decisions over the next few years based on what WotC tells them about 5.5's success. Whether it's an established company investing in a product, a first timer launching a Kickstarter for their dream project, or a solo dev pushing a PDF into the market, designers and publishers need to answer a simple question: Is it worth my time to support 5.5?

WotC has a vested interest in making than answer a yes. But what's the actual answer?

To start with, any marketing campaign is about framing. Let's take a look at the sentence immediately adjacent to the one that you quoted: "One of the metrics they're tracking to determine how well the new core books are doing is to compare it to the initial sales of the 2014 core books for 5E."

That prompts some questions:

• This is one metric. What are the others?
• Why are they sharing this metric?
• Are the results of that metric what they wanted or suspected?
• Why mention all languages? The game wasn't translated for years after release. I'm not sure that any non-English versions were available in the time period they mentioned.

Why is that data being shared? Let's turn it around. Upthread we heard that D&D sales have grown every year. OK, let's accept that and recast what we were told:

"D&D 5.5's initial sales beat 5e's three worst sales year combined."

That still sounds impressive, but why aren't they comparing it to the average year? It's clear it is not the best year. WotC has even admitted that in their initial press release. In fact, they have admitted it at least twice:

• The press release near the game's initial launch crowed that this was the largest first print run. The obvious omission is that D&D has had bigger second or later print runs. That means that the book is not beating 5e at its peak, nor did they plan to (they would have printed more). Otherwise, they would have printed more.
• In two places - the D&D Beyond end of year review and in an interview with CNBC - WotC has said that 3.6 million 5.5 characters have been created on D&D Beyond so far. Impressive! That's about 800,000 characters per month.
• Except that in January of 2020, Adam Bradford revealed that 30 million characters have been made on D&D Beyond at that point. Doing some simple math, that's about 1 million characters per month. That's also pre-pandemic.

Finally, a few other random data points:

• The new books are still behind 5e on Roll20's overall sales ranks.
• On Amazon, they are averaging far fewer reviews per day than the 5e books
• The Barnes & Noble sales ranks are 400 for the PHB and 2,000 (!) for the DMG as I write this

So, as someone considering putting a lot of money into publishing a TTRPG book, do I feel comfortable betting on 5.5? Not at all. Outside of WotC, I'm not seeing any data that shows that the game is surging. If anything, it looks like it is on a steady to strong downward slope.

 

[mearls]

It is worth considering how much of the 3E product line-up came out for 3.5E onwards. The early years of 3E were very light on material - the firehose came after 3.5E was released. It wasn't as light as 5E, of course, but still...

Very true, and as I think of it 5.5 and 3.5 are lining up to be eerily similar:

Both came out after a sharp surge in D&D sales and interesting - the 3e launch and the pandemic.
Both were a mix of random and sensible changes. The community hasn't really fixed on either's killer upgrade.

I think 5.5 is going to end up like 3.5. Remember, 3.5 launched in 2003. Work on 4e began initially in 2004 and in earnest in 2005. The x.5 upgrade just delayed the need for a new edition to revive the business.

 

[DEFCON 1]

who do you think filled out those playtest polls?

Can they guarantee it? No, but they certainly aim for it. They would be stupid not to given their share of the market


I’d say it is indicative of that being their core audience, esp. given how little actually changed because of those playtests

The new art and increased accessibility is there for the new players (at least to a large degree), the playtest, and by extension much of the actual rules, is there so the existing players do not get left behind

Then we're just arguing levels. How much did WotC change because it needed changing... how much did they not change because they didn't want to offend existing players... how much did they change to help onboard new players... how much did they not change because of fear of losing existing playerbase? All of those are valid questions to which the answers are probably in the middle for all of them.

But my original comment about any of this was in counter to eyehearthawk's statement earlier, which was:

"5.5 simultaneously changed too little to remedy edition fatigue after 10 years and changed too much for alot of people on the other end."

Meaning that they thought that what we got was wrong in both directions. Which I just don't think is true. The 5E24 we got is no more the right or wrong tactic as either leaving 5E14 pretty much as it were with just a handful of additional minor errata, or a completely overhaul to 6E. And to state definitely otherwise is more about preference than fact. And I can see exactly why WotC produced what they produced and cannot find any intrinsic fault with it-- regardless of what I personally think they could have, should have done with it. What I personally might have done doesn't matter. And would have been no more right or wrong that anyone else's. Why more people can't seem to accept that their own opinions are just as incorrect and that they don't actually have the right answers is beyond me.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Very true, and as I think of it 5.5 and 3.5 are lining up to be eerily similar:

Both came out after a sharp surge in D&D sales and interesting - the 3e launch and the pandemic.
Both were a mix of random and sensible changes. The community hasn't really fixed on either's killer upgrade.

I think 5.5 is going to end up like 3.5. Remember, 3.5 launched in 2003. Work on 4e began initially in 2004 and in earnest in 2005. The x.5 upgrade just delayed the need for a new edition to revive the business.

But the real question for anyone else in particular about any of this is "Does it actually matter?"

Now perhaps for someone like you or Mike Shea... designers who have to decide whether or not to hitch your future designs to the 5E24 wagon or not... trying to forecast 5E24's future is only doing your due diligence. That makes sense. But for the rest of the playerbase? Does it matter ultimately whether or not 5E24 lasts as long or does as well as 5E14 did? I don't know that it does. So it's more a discussion of curiosity rather than necessity.

 

[Staffan]

Heh... I would say it's more accurate to say that the 3rd party market decimated themselves, LOL. Once every single Tom, Dick, and Harry thought they could become a D&D designer and publisher off the 3E SRD and OGL... they flooded the market with so much material (90% of which was crap) that they cannibalized themselves moreso than anything WotC did.

That is not how it happened.

The switch to 3.5 killed a number of lines and even companies. Whether you think that is a good thing for consumers because of the glut is a different thing that ignoring 3.5's impact.

I think it's a bit of both. The early 3.0 glut was clearly not sustainable, but 3.5e made it fall off a cliff instead of skiing down a slope.