Stonesnake
Explorer
By the way, Baron de Ropp and I believe we figured out where this news article came from and how this story started in the first place, if anyone is interested:
WotC Hasbro selling D&D IP?
Waller
Legend
It's not something to be proud of dude.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
They didn't lose half the audience at all if we're being pedantic, more recent looks at the sales figures and comments from WotC suggest it was more like 30-40%. Still a huge drop but we all love pedantry, right?
4E was never "WoW-ified" that's typically something people who don't understand either 4E or WoW like say largely because they both have roles in them (the sole similarity, and ironically roles were inspired by D&D in the first place, but that's a long story). The actual "WoW-ification" they intended never happened because they never managed to get the DDI/3D VTT out of beta (or really alpha), and didn't manage to convert people to subscribing to D&D and playing it online. It was certainly made into a more tactical combat-oriented game, but that's more like it was "Final Fantasy Tactics-ified" or "X-Com-ified" than "WoW-ified".
And you're acting like they're not in the process of doing that now - WoW-ifying D&D. What do you think the goal of the 5E 3D VTT is? Why do you think WotC has a team nearly 5x bigger than the D&D team working on the 3D VTT? (According to Cynthia Williams, CEO of WotC). Why did they appoint a Microsoft executive with no games (let alone TT RPG) experience to be in charge of D&D - I'd suggest maybe his huge experience in convincing people to change from buying individual products to digital subscriptions might be relevant.Those aren't rhetorical questions. They still want to WoW-ify D&D. If you think the danger is passed, you should think again.
I do agree a very significant proportion of players were put off by 4E, but I question whether it would have been 30-40% if they'd had good marketing, a CEO who wasn't talking smack, and so on. I suspect it'd have been more like 10-20%. I also think there was just an element of burnout, because some players didn't go to PF or keep playing 3.XE, they just stopped playing D&D, and I don't think that was a "4E sux" thing, I think that was a "I don't want to learn a new game but I'm bored with this one" thing.
Oofta
Legend
In addition, this whole myth that 5E's success has nothing to do with the rules of the game needs to die. The sales of 5E books were growing far more rapidly than anyone had ever anticipated long before Critical Role gained a significant following or before Stranger Things aired. There's no indication of change in sales growth.wasn’t around for the introduction of 4e or 5e, but current 5e marketing is nonexistent as far as I can tell. If I weren’t looking for it, I’d never see anything.
Of course that does not invalidate what you wrote, nor does it intend to, it’s simply my 5e marketing experience
well, they knew their audience well, apparently the marketing and the design showed this
my point is more that losing 5-10% would be manageable and also a lot less than they did actually lose with 4e
Did changing course with the 5e OGL prevent the worst, sure. The impact we had because of that is almost nonexistent. It will be hard to pin any future downturn on it (without just making it up as the cause)
no, but if there had not been a PF people could simply stayed with 3e, plenty did with 1e to 2e
which means 4e was in trouble even without PF
some people probably were turned off by that, others genuinely might not like the wow-ification of D&D that 4e represented - and that was not just marketing, the game was significantly different from previous versions
They did not just lose half their audience because they acted stupid with dropping the OGL and bad marketing, they also made a game that a significant part genuinely did not want.
They admitted as much and we have the playtests to prevent such a disconnect going forward
The game is approachable, holds up at higher levels, has decent flexibility in style of play. After a decade, I and the people playing still enjoy it.
MockingBird
Hero
Say it a little louder for those in the back! Can't agree with this more!
Oofta
Legend
The wow-ification impacted the design in many ways, even if the online version never materialized. It has little to do with playing online and is a reference to the style of play, the nature of powers and definitions used.
It's something the devs freely admitted at the time. At the same time, 5E is not being WoW-ified just because they're entering the VTT space.
MGibster
Legend
I tend to agree with you. For the most part, I think successful games have decent rules. We may all have our gripes with the rules, but 5th edition has been my favorite version of D&D.
Mecheon
Sacabambaspis
Given that no other version of D&D has ever matched 5E's success, I don't thing this is much of a clarifier. AD&D didn't match the success of 5E, doesn't stop the OSR crowd. There's 4E clones and stuff like 13th Age that go off with some of its ideas on their own showing it does have that lasting appeal and audience, just, y'know. A small audience. Given we're comparing to OSR games which are, let's be generous here, basically complete unknowns outside of the TTRPG space? Yeah, that's expected (i'd also argue there's also more tactical stuff around with some 4E inspiration, so your 4E fans might be drawn off to stuff like, y'know. Lancer)
Just, if you're trying to compare things to 5E's success? Every other edition of D&D is a failure. Basic? Doesn't meet 5E's stuff. 2E? Doesn't meet 5E's stuff, also bankrupted a company on the way out. 3e? Certainly doesn't meet 5E's stuff. 3.5E? Nup. Pathfinder 1E didn't even break past 4E's numbers until the tail end of the line, its got nothing on 5E. That's basically the problem of trying to compare to 5E's meteoric numbers: No edition has ever had the numbers 5E did.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
That it was inspired by MMORPGs/WoW? No. That's not true as far as I know, and I'd challenge you to produce any quotes supporting that it was "freely admitted". That it was influenced by video games? That might be, but that's hardly the same thing.
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