A new Edition/Iteration of D&D is really necessary?

[delericho]

Citation, please? I don't recall the public ever being given that information. Please don't state it as fact without factual support.

I don't have a citation. I drew a reasoned conclusion from the known facts.

With the vastly reduced product load of the last year, coupled with the marked reduction in DDI output, I concluded some time ago that 4e was in trouble.

The counter-argument to that was always the regular income from DDI subscriptions. But the known DDI subscriber base was circa 60k, barely more than Dragon at the time it was shipped out to Paizo - and that was done because WotC had decided it wasn't profitable enough to be worth their while. Since the costs of DDI are significantly more than they were for Dragon (given that they need to produce the Dragon material and the Dungeon material, and the tools, and the errata/revisions, and the server costs...), and especially given the sunk costs of having to re-do pretty much all the tools, and given that DDI subscriptions canibalised print product sales (especially the normally reliable splatbooks) in a way that Dragon never did, it seemed obvious that 60k subscribers wasn't really enough. Of course, there were always the 'hidden' DDI subscribers, of whom there were an unknown number.

But then Ryan Dancey provided yet more information, notably the rosetta stone of Hasbro's $50M target - a target that basically no RPG company could achieve. And given the real-world tragedy that struck the software team at exactly the wrong time, it seemed even less likely.

So you'll have to forgive me, but I put all that together, plus the announcement of 5e so soon, and came up with "4e failed under the weight of impossible expectations."

Someone (either at WotC or Hasbro or both) likely said, "Where can we make more money in the near, medium, and long-term future - continuing 4e, or creating a new game?" Then, weighing in risks and goals, a decision was made to go with a new game rather than continue with the old one.

Doing a new edition now is not a good move. It's way too soon. At best, this represents a huge risk. So if it's purely about making more money than a successful 4e, they would have to be awfully sure of themselves.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Living as I have in Korea for the past ten years, I can categorically, undeniably and objectively assert that games, and especially roleplaying games, are vitally necessary for the safety of the entire universe and certainly my own sanity.

But don't you have all those parlors to go to where you sit and stare at little metal balls plinking down a pegged board, to keep your sanity?

#westerndoofusattemptingbadpachinkojoke

#knowsthoseparlorsareactuallyinjapanbecauseheownedTheCompleteAlvhomevideowhereWeirdAlwenttoone

 

[WheresMyD20]

After i read about the upcoming new D&D, i was wondering with myself if it was really necessary to have another version of D&D so soon. i mean,has the 4E lost all their gas already? i still think that the 3.x edition had much ''life'' yet when they launched the 4E books. was the 4E so bad or that % of players who didn't liked 4E was so strong to make Wizards of The Coast design a new game? so do you feel a new edition/iteration was necessary? please,let me know what you think about it.

4e intentionally killed off a whole herd of sacred cows. The player base was split and now, just 3.5 years after 4e was launched, 5e has been announced.

I don't think WotC would kill off 4e and replace it with a new edition so quickly unless in their view it was necessary.

It's time for the slaughter to stop and to cast Raise Dead on those sacred cows.