D&D 5E I feel like the surveys gaslit WotC about """"Backwards Compatibility""""

[Stormonu]

One of the wilds things I was just looking on Amazon to see if 5E 2024 had any numbers there showing for ranking or sale volume, which it doesn't seem to show. Conversely, 5E 2014 is showing that it sold over 700 copies for the PHB alone in the past month (Core 3 had 100+ sales). I'm shocked after 6 mo. there's still any stock of the 2014 books, much less anyone is buying them at the rate of ~20 per day. How many of these books did WotC print?

 

[Corinnguard]

That is an old mistake actually, see 4e GSL.

I forgot about the 4e Game System License and its' poison pill. There goes my Insight and Perception checks.

 

[Stormonu]

It was only really a successful business tactic from 4E to 5E.

Looking historically:

1E to 2E --> Not successful and drove TSR into bankrupcy





I think it is likely a complete edition switch would have resulted in WOTC losing market share to 3rd party publishers in a fashion similar to how the 4E edition switch resulted in a massive market share loss to Paizo. The situation now is even more conducive to this than it was when 4E hit the streets.

I have a quibble with this; part of the issue was 2E was allowed to run too long (MtG was kicking its ass as well as other behind-the-scene company issues). It's like calling the Atari 2600 "unsuccessful" because of the Game Market crash, when the console itself was successful for quite a while.

The big problem is, that after a certain amount of time, people get bored or frustrated with a system and its warts; if you do not refresh it, it mostly becomes abandoned. The trick is to move to that next iteration when you start to see a shift in your customer base - before the shift becomes too big. You want to hit the "sweet spot" to carry as much of your customer base forward as you can, as well as draw in the next batch. Personally, I don't think the customer base had hit that spot, but the designers certainly were ready to switch (that was apparent by the time of Tasha's).

This rapid rollover is what (infuriatingly) drives GW and its games, in an effort to "keep it fresh". Some time ago, I think they stated that their customer base had a ~18 month average life cycle and their edition rollover seems to be set up to take advantage of that.

 

[Corinnguard]

The big problem is, that after a certain amount of time, people get bored or frustrated with a system and its warts; if you do not refresh it, it mostly becomes abandoned. The trick is to move to that next iteration when you start to see a shift in your customer base - before the shift becomes too big. You want to hit the "sweet spot" to carry as much of your customer base forward as you can, as well as draw in the next batch. Personally, I don't think the customer base had hit that spot, but the designers certainly were ready to switch (that was apparent by the time of Tasha's).

This could certainly explain the development of the 5e-adjacent RPGs like Level Up and Tales of the Valiant. Both RPGs in essence are iterations of 5e that came about because of a shift in the D&D customer base. And their debut came right before WoTC began its' work on their 5.5e.

 

[mamba]

This could certainly explain the development of the 5e-adjacent RPGs like Level Up and Tales of the Valiant. Both RPGs in essence are iterations of 5e that came about because of a shift in the D&D customer base. And their debut came right before WoTC began its' work on their 5.5e.

A5e came earlier, ToV was a reaction to the OGL move by WotC (and overlapped with 5.5 development)

 

[Corinnguard]

A5e came earlier, ToV was a reaction to the OGL move by WotC

Yep. A5e made its' debut in November 2021. ToV came out in 2023.

 

[mamba]

Yep. A5e made its' debut in November 2021. ToV came out in 2023.

ToV was kickstarted in May 2023 with delivery in April 2024, so a little ahead of the 2024 PHB (the ToV DMG was a separate KS)

Whatever happened to the Cubicle 7 5e, did they officially drop it? I know they made some 5e supplements instead, not sure if there will officially never be a PHB though

 

[ECMO3]

that was basically guaranteed given the continued growth of 5e.

If they had not managed that, it would have been a disaster, so I do not take that as an indication of anything. It will take 2-3 years at least before we can say anything, the only thing that is clear so far is that it was not a complete and utter failure

Like I said it depends on your metric. If you are going to ask if adoption has been "enthusiastic", you need some metric by which to define and judge that. Gross sales is one, but perhaps not the right one.

 

[ECMO3]

without 2e that would have happened much sooner, you statement for 2e -> 3e applies here as well

I don't think so, maybe, but it is hardly a harbringer of success. Whether or not it would have happened anyway, we can confidently say bringing 2E to market in the fashion they did was a bad business decision.

2E did not sell as well as anticipated or well enough to keep TSR afloat given the over abundance of 2E product printed.

3e to 3.5 was not a success, 3.5 followed the same trajectory as 3e and the editions before it. If 3.5 was a success then so was 2e and 3e

I understand what you are saying for 3E, but I don't see anyway you can quantify 2E as a business success. 1E to 2E saw the 1E trajectory collapse (which as you noted might have happened anyway), same with 3.5E to 4E.

The bottom line though is I think there is ample evidence to say that edition switch has not consistently been a successful business tactic.

you are ignoring 4e Essentials, and that did not work out either,

I don't think of essentials as an edition update or change, it was a streamlined version meant to appeal to a different audience. I look at this as fundamentally different than 3.5 or 5.5.

It is closer to the supplements, like essentials, released with 5E

just like 3.5 did not, despite you wanting to put it into the success column

From a business point of view it was certainly more successful than 2E or 4E.

If we can learn anything from the half-editions (3.5, 4e Essentials) then that they gave a rather temporary bump for a year, two at best, but did not manage to turn things around.

A temporary bump is a bump and a "successful business tactic".

 

[Corinnguard]

A temporary bump is a bump and a "successful business tactic".

It must have been, the bump led to 3.75e (aka Pathfinder 1st edition).