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

[dave2008]

In the year or two before the release of the new PHB, WotC made quite substantial changes to the way the D&D business operates, making it very difficult to apply what we know about earlier eras to figure out what's happening now.

WotC now sells books direct-to-consumer and incentivizes purchase by deeply discounting physical/digital bundles. How successful is that program? How many sales has it pulled away from Amazon, FLGSes and other outlets? We have no idea.

WotC ended its relationship with Penguin-Random House and now sells to Amazon directly. (A hefty percentage of D&D is sold through Amazon.) An important consequence of this change is that Amazon now treats D&D products more like games, while they were previously treated like books. This changed a number of things, including the way Amazon discounts the products. During the PRH era, Amazon customers almost never paid cover price even for the very latest D&D products. These days, it seems, new products are barely discounted at all which is certainly impacting sales. WotC is pleased about this. Their aim is to take as much of the business direct-to-consumer as possible; they want to engineer a world in which WotC itself is the only source of discounted D&D (at least on the frontlist). In effect, WotC is deliberately selling fewer books in an effort to earn more revenue on each of those sales. Is that working? We have no idea.

WotC launched a VTT and are using it to drive DDB subscribers? How is this impacting Roll20? Is it incentivizing more digital sales? We have no idea.

The OGL fiasco blew up the release schedule for 2023-24, the 50th Anniversary was poorly exploited, and the roll out of the 2024 core books was suboptimal. All of those factors had at least a short term impact on the business. How significant? We have no idea.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that more customers purchased the 2014 PHB on Roll20 over a ten year span than purchased the new PHB in four and a half months. Similarly, the DDB data posted upthread looks pretty dubious.

Is D&D experiencing a "slow down?" I've yet to see a compelling argument and I can see several counter-arguments. Still, we don't know. It's not at all unlikely that growth is slowing down--you can't continue to grow at 20+% annually forever. There's no question the brand remains at or near its high watermark.

Thank you for your insight!

 

[Mistwell]

No. The initial print run for any product is based on its project sales. You want to print as many as possible to get the cheapest printing cost per copy and the best deal on shipping.

In terms of comparisons, the 5 month run is what WotC is comparing to the first 36 months of 5e. My point is simply this - why would WotC use that as their measure of success? Why share that measure when they specifically mention that they have other measures? How does that square with WotC's own public statements of characters made on DDB, which shows a decline in characters per month when compared to prior DDB statements made to the public?

I think you'd compare to the comparable time period because that's a simple reference that people can understand, particularly if they were not already aware (like you and I) that later years had much stronger sales. Comparing start to start for an edition is easier to explain, and marketing is about ease of explanation.

I'm sure you're aware most of that time, DDB was not functioning up to speed for the new rules very well. It's still missing large swaths of stuff. I suspect, if DDB is your metric (and I think that's a terrible metric to measure sales by as it's correlated by not causally related to sales) there are lots of explanations for why people would be making fewer PCs on a not-quite-ready system which doesn't even have the Monster Manual out yet to be playing that system with. Why make dozens of PCs for a system you cannot fully play yet, and which doesn't even fully make those PCs yet and requires tinkering with the house rule system to get things to even display right at this stage?

Looking to DDB numbers at this stage feels, to me, like finding a way to spin things. If one were to first assume sales are lower, they might be prone to go looking for evidence to justify that perspective in DDB numbers. Or if one were to first assume sales were stronger, they might have read the DDB data as supporting that strength as well given the MM isn't even out yet and it's not functioning fully yet. But those are just my guesses and I may be totally off. I personally think DDB numbers at this stage are not a good metric for sales either way, with either assumption.

 

[Dire Bare]

I am now confident that we'll never come to an agreed upon name. I'm going with D&D 2024.

I understand why WotC themselves didn't push out some terminology, as they were trying hard with the "it's the same game" perspective. But really, they should have. There seems to be a lot of confusion in the community and marketplace as what to use.

It's become a new hobby of mine, checking out all the new 5E Kickstarters and taking a look at how they discuss 2014 vs 2024. It's often tortured and confusing.

If I ever get off my butt and publish something myself, at the top of marketing is simply going to be "5E Compatible" and then maybe in the FAQ section "Designed with the latest 2024 5E rules, but fully compatible with the 2014 5E rules and other rulesets including Level Up and Tales of the Valiant." Even that sounds like too many words . . .

 

[Dire Bare]

I've been planning to use the tag '5Ecosystem' for future cross compatible 5E products.

While I like it . . . I don't think adding more tags is going to clear up consumer confusion. Maybe if it had a snazzy logo . . .

 

[Dire Bare]

True... but then again I might suggest that the D&D doesn't necessarily care if established players buy the three new core books?

If 5E14 players stick with 5E14, that's not really a problem. Yes, WotC won't get $150 from those players... but those players are still D&D 5E players and thus a part of the market for a lot of their subsequent product releases. Any adventure path books, any setting books, any monster lore books... those will all be able to be used by 5E14 players, so it doesn't matter than they haven't gone 5E24. They are still part of the 5E market WotC is selling to.

This is a situation where I think veteran players are once again giving themselves too much credit. Players of 5E14 think that they are the primary purchasing force for Dungeons & Dragons 5E and that everything should really be catered to what they want to buy. But I do not believe (nor do I think WotC believes) that to be the case. WotC always seems to gear their product to NEW players. Opening up their market to the wider world, not constantly trying to just re-sell and re-sell and re-sell product to the same people over and over again. But yet veteran players around here often act and speak as though that if they don't buy what WotC is selling that WotC is going to be in trouble. But nothing could be further from the truth. WotC is fine with whatever those players choose to do.

If veteran 5E players feel like the messiness of 5E14 was becoming just irritating enough that they wanted to join the new players coming in through 5E24... WotC certainly wouldn't say No. But they also I don't think care if they do or don't. After all... veteran players are just as likely to move on to games like Level Up or Shadowdark or Tales of the Valiant as they are anything else (including 5E24) so what's the point in trying to grab onto them so tightly? If they move to a new product, they move. No big deal and not a WotC concern. There's always a large swathe of new players coming in to cater to instead.

I think there are two levels publishers have to be concerned about 2014 vs 2024 5E rules. There is the reality level, how different are the rulesets from each other really? And then there is the perception level of reality. How are consumers looking at the difference, and how do I as a publisher help clear up confusion rather than add to it?

If I design a product using the 2014 rules . . . it's perfectly compatible with 2024 D&D products. If I design a product using 2024 rules, it's MOSTLY compatible with the older 2014 products, I'd want to add a sidebar on using subclasses and species with the older rules. But overall . . . yeah, it's all compatible!

But, regardless of the reality . . . if my consumers perceive a major difference between the 2014 and 2024 rules, than can affect my sales if I lean one way or the other. So what do I do? How do I design my next product, and how do I address the two different rulesets?

During the 3E era, I remember being surprised at how many folks in the community, both fans and publishers, treated 3.5 almost like an entirely new game. To me, the differences were not significant and I wasn't bothered by the "3.5 update" at all (as a fan, I'm not a publisher). But there was the perception the two versions were incompatible enough to invalidate earlier purchases, and this had an impact on the publishing community.

It's why WotC has tried to muffle language making the two 5E rulesets as significantly different. They are not calling the new rules "5.5" or "revised" or anything really . . . which I think was a mistake, as it obviously punts the ball to the community, and we are all over the place with how we are viewing the new rules and what we are calling them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

First off, I do not think it is a 'hope against hope' scenario, or that WotC sees it as such. Second, where do you see 2024 here, is this focusing on new players over the existing ones? I do not see that, but I am curious about your opinion

I'd like to see that case made for 2024 What in the rules did they change to better support new players against the desire of the existing players?

Putting aside the standard quality of life improvements that make it easier to find and/or understand the game (because those are just as useful to veteran players as they are to new players so I wouldn't attribute them to catering to new players specifically)... for me it's more about what WotC didn't do. Which is not do all the of the various random so-called "improvements" that every poster in places like here has claimed WotC should have done with the game-- whether that's not change anything substantial because it's no longer "compatible" (in their exceedingly specific definition of what they would claim 'compatibility' is)... or go the route of making a completely new game for a "true 6E" because they are so bored with 5E14 and hate its playstyle that only a full revamp could possibly make a D&D game worth for them playing again.

WotC hasn't catered to any of these people. Sure, they've asked for opinions but they haven't gone in any of the extreme directions that some of the players out there have wanted them to go. WotC has stayed very middle-of-the-road with 5E24 (in my opinion). Changed things that a lot of people have been okay with via the playtests, not changed things that many people have poo-poo'd in the playtests, fixed bugaboos that some people have had issues with over the past decade but not all. And by staying middle-of-the-road... to me means that meant catering to the incredibly large middle of the playerbase-- the ones who just don't care about all the wild and crazy ideas and needs that one tends to only get from veteran players who grow bored easily because they've played all these games so many times and know every single facet of the ins-and-outs of how these games work. The large middle is made up of the new players, lapsed players, and players who are just completely fine playing D&D in its most basic form. And thus with WotC keeping 5E24 in its bog standard form... it plays more to that newer/lapsed/unconcerned playerbase in my opinion.

TL/DR: Veteran players are the ones who have all the views on what the 5E24 game should have been. And if the game was not made in that way... then obviously WotC didn't make it for them.

 

[Dire Bare]

I’ve been swimming in OSR gaming lately and the ease with which people just use content across the board is refreshing.

It is interesting how the OSR community treats the many, many different but similar games as easily compatible . . . while the 5E community seems to be having a harder time with 2014 vs 2024.

Partly, I'm sure, is that the BX core of many OSR games is simpler than D&D 5E, but I don't think it's just that. Maybe OSR fans are just grognards tired of the never-ending Edition Wars in fandom . . .

 

[DEFCON 1]

. . . which I think was a mistake, as it obviously punts the ball to the community, and we are all over the place with how we are viewing the new rules and what we are calling them.

I suspect WotC probably doesn't really care how us community members in places like this spend our time arguing about all this crap, LOL! They're probably like "Let me them argue about it amongst themselves all they want... rather than them all continually showing up on our doorstep trying to argue with us. We've got better things to do with our time."

 

[mearls]

Looking to DDB numbers at this stage feels, to me, like finding a way to spin things.

I think there might be a disconnect behind why I'd pull this data and even look into the topic. I, and publishers I work with, need to make informed decisions behind how we spend our time and money. Researching 5.5's relative sales is a critical part of that assessment.

Basically, when WotC says X and Y to show that the game is doing well, I need to verify that. We won't know the full story until we've had a year of quarterly results, and I and the companies I work with can't wait that long.

Hell, I sold some stocks last week and invested the money in different companies. I do the same thing there. I read the quarterly reports, then see what I can find to support or counter the narrative the company is offering. Sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's not.

To echo what @darjr posted earlier - if it was a clear triumph or disaster we'd know by now. What we're seeing is something like a status quo. In my experience and based on that status quo, that's not a good investment.

 

[Dire Bare]

I suspect WotC probably doesn't really care how us community members in places like this spend our time arguing about all this crap, LOL! They're probably like "Let me them argue about it amongst themselves all they want... rather than them all continually showing up on our doorstep trying to argue with us. We've got better things to do with our time."

I'm not sure how much they care, but I feel they should. If the community, rightly or wrongly, perceives 2014 and 2024 as different enough from each other, it can fracture the fan base and impact sales of official D&D books moving forward.

How many of the "modern" fanbase will decide, "I stopped purchasing WotC D&D books when they released the new edition in 2024."? I'm not sure the impact is going to be huge, but also I don't think it will be insignificant.