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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cibet" data-source="post: 7648152" data-attributes="member: 83838">Great article Mr. Dancey, thank you. I must wonder though why are you privy to confidential information about D&D that you can't share? Do you work for Hasbro/WoTC in some way? I also wish there was a way to get notified about these articles when you write them. I just happened to stumble across this. I would really like to keep reading your insights into 2012. Maybe put these articles on a personnel blog or something so it is easier to find?D&D (and now Pathfinder) will live on as long as there are groups of people to play it. My group has been playing regularly (multiple times a month) with the same players for 27 years and counting. We never played 4E, but have played every other version of D&D right up to and including Pathfinder today. While we are clearly the longest running still active group of D&D players on the planet, we would not be so unique if groups of players were as lucky as we are to have all stayed with driving distance of each other since high school. Lack of face to face contact kills more D&D groups than wives (kidding, kidding, sort of). I believe if a group can get together it will find a way to do so. VTT won't replace the "around the table" aspect of the game. Anyone that plays strictly VTT or (especially) PBP knows it's just a pale imitation of an actual face to face game, they just don't have any other choice. VTT will not salvage the game. In fact I believe VTT RPGs will die even before tabletop RPGs do.So what will save the game? Well what Paizo did with 3E is about the best example. Smaller companies with a focused and consistent (no version changes) product providing publications at premium rates. Call of Cthullu is another great example. D&D will not expand beyond about what it is now in player base but it will remain in publication for some time to come.As long as the players can get together to play the game there will be a market to sell to. WoTCs big mistake with 4E was moving the game closer to an electronic format and VTT experience. If not for Paizo that move could have killed the game. 4E did not bring a significant number of new players to the game, it drove tons out. Luckily they had somewhere else to go. I'm sure WoTC can correct this with 5E, I'm positive they can. Hasbro just has to either accept the limited but consistent revenue stream 5E will provide or move on entirely. Trying to grow the game beyond the available community will always fail. It truly is and will forever be a niche. If companies want that niche to continue to generate revenue they should find ways to get and keep groups playing together, around a table, locally. Conventions help but the community needs something more consistent and static in location. It needs something likes casinos for tabletop gaming. Places where adults can go to game, drink, eat, socialize, and buy more games. That's pretty much it. I think this niche hobby can be very profitable but it takes a backwards strategy do so: in person communication, paper based physical product, and static locations. I think that is pretty much the opposite of any other modern consumer product. It seems archaic and counter intuitive, but it's true.</blockquote>

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