D&D 5E Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

[Reynard]

WotC could make easy money publishing a Dark Sun, Planescape, Dragonlance, etc setting book, including all the things that are unique to that setting, and then forgetting about it until the inevitable 6th edition and the whole thing gets regurgitated. Maybe throw in a bit of lore since the last time something for the setting was published. Or leave that part completely alone.

I still don't understand WotC's aversion to lower page count, B&W soft cover books (or even full color) since 3.5 first became a thing. Something like that would be perfect for these things.

I imagine that if publishing updated versions of these old settings was "Easy Money" then WotC would have done it by now. I would venture that the people making decisions at WotC probably know more than you about publishing, the market and their customer base in specific.

 

[schneeland]

But if they license it out then they lose the option of mining that old intellecutal property in the future. There's not a lot of reason for them to do that. That and I have no clue if other companies would be interested or how you would value it.

Yep. As soon as they figure out a way how to release a setting for 5e, they can expect a steady stream of income via DM's Guild (probably even for the more niche things).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I guess the books are for collectors, for people who don't want it to play but to remember old times.

Do you remember all movies of marvel superheroes..... before the first Blade vampire-hunter? And since Blade until the first Iron Man, the year zero of MCU. We see MCU like a big making-cash cow, but there were lots of failures before. The TV serie of Blade the vampire hunter was only a season (and ended with a f... cliffhunger). Warner Bros wants its own making-cash money, but Harry Potter spin-off, LofR and DC superheroes... they haven't found the right key yet (at least in the TV superheroes series are better). Can you mention any Disney cartoon movie since "Sleeping Beauty" until "Beauty & Beast"? The also had got titles what weren't true blockbusters to say it softly.

Nor even biggest cinema studios know the ultimate secret for a mass-production of blockbusters. Some titles are classics and other fallen in the oblivion. If you still are learning to play the right key you can't risk your better franchises, but test with "expendable" IPs. Then if you fail fandom will not angry with you. What would you rather, sooner or better?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Can you mention any Disney cartoon movie since "Sleeping Beauty" until "Beauty & Beast"? The also had got titles what weren't true blockbusters to say it softly.

Now waitaminit, it was Little Mermaid that brought back Disney animated movies.

 

[DragonBelow]

I have noticed this as well, but it's just a sign of the times, we're getting old. It's fine

 

[Oofta]

Now waitaminit, it was Little Mermaid that brought back Disney animated movies.

Spoken like a true fan?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

You are right, the rebith of Disney started with the Little Mermaid (but I loved more B&B). But lots of Disney productions have been forgotten, or almost forgotten, for example Atlantis or the planet of the threasure.

* WotC can't sell only fluff/lore/backgrounds when players can get freely with wiki about books, comics, videogames or teleseries. And selling crunch isn't enough, because 3.5 had got enough crunch to fed up. And Paizo has published lot of crunch for Pathfinder.

After of the failure of 4th Edition, the strategy is different. Even plans may change because somebody in Enternaiment One, or Universal Pictures, has a new idea.

 

[Helldritch]

I mean ... do they? Why would they?

I know why I love Greyhawk. And a lot of it is particularly tied up into nostalgia, and a connection with the original campaign world of 1e's modules and of EGG, and of my sprawling, multi-decade campaign.

And players who want to play GH can look up the material on the web (great websites like Canonfire) and/or purchase it and/or get really maps.

But why would they? It doesn't really speak to them? I mean, I share my love for it- the grittiness, the vaguely posty-apcalyptic, Conan meets Gamma World everything foes Swords & Sorcery crossed with Alice in Wonderland vibe ...

but they got their own thing. Good for them. It's more a curiosity (and a great one) than a necessity.

Why? Simple. These settings are not in the grey zone. They are black and white. Good is good, evil is evil. You don't ask yourself: "Is this orc good?". Nope, the orc is evil. Many new players do not want the gray areas of modern setting/adventures. At least, this is what they realize when they get their hands on old material or they get introduced into the hobby by an old grognard like me. Unfortunately, I can't introduce thousands of players every year. I keep to 2 groups now. No longer do I play with 6 to 12 different groups. I have a job, and it takes up a lot of my time. With my job, my wife, my daughter and my familly, I barely have enough time for two groups. I'm a bit hard pressed to do my own adventures and settings now. For additional meat on my Greyhawk setting I have to take notes on whatever I come up with on the fly. But having that work cut out for me would be great.

Each time someone brings a new player to my table to watch one of my group plays, they are surprised by the "no gray" area. Some are dismayed at a player simply slaying an orc in a merciful way, others (a vast majority, you'd be surprised) find this satisfying. No moral hassle, just play good vs evil (or in some cases, evil vs everything else...).

Don't get me wrong, I do play in the gray areas at times. This style of play has its merits. But so do the black and white views in a world where demons and evil gods can affect your life. That is why I would like a reprint/reboot/update or whatever on my favorite setting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There is maybe some money to be made with small, low-art books, but there is more to be made with beefy, art-heavy products that, say, a four year old or two year old can get a kick out of, generating more future players.

I feel like you're getting a bit silly here on two points.

First off, I don't think a two or four-year-old looking at a D&D book "generates future players" in any meaningful way. Otherwise I'd have been a zoologist, paleontologist, or pilot or something. And indeed pretty much everyone looks at tons of cool-looking books which have zero impact on their future life choices at that age. Definitely the most influential period for artwork on my hobbies and interests in later life was significantly later than that, at eight plus. I'm sure that varies, but I very much doubt it's normal to get into a hobby because you were exposed to it aged two. Otherwise model railways would still be big.

Second off, I think the idea of two or four-year-olds "getting a kick out of" D&D books is er, questionable. D&D often features some pretty terrifying and/or violent imagery. I know that, as a kid, even a fair bit older than that, the imagery from some stuff that seems utterly innocuous as an an adult, genuinely gave me nightmares, and I was not a "sensitive" kid - quite the opposite. The Monster Manual in particular I would question giving to a kid under about seven or eight. Some kids will be immune, but some kids watch Alien aged eight and don't blink an eyelid, so that doesn't mean much. I don't think WotC are, nor should be targeting "two to four-year-olds" in their main book line.

I imagine that if publishing updated versions of these old settings was "Easy Money" then WotC would have done it by now. I would venture that the people making decisions at WotC probably know more than you about publishing, the market and their customer base in specific.

Sorry, no.

This is not a reasonable approach. It's a facile one that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. WotC certainly attempt to find out about the market, but how successful they are, what their methods are, and how much they actually know is massively open to question. It's easy to be snooty and dismissive towards people who are suggesting WotC are perhaps making a mistake, to take a high-handed and contemptuous position of "Oh look, an internet-man thinks he knows what might work! How tremendously funny!", which is basically what you're doing, even if you don't mean to.

But this is WotC. They are deeply fallible. This is the company that came out with 4E, and more importantly, 4E's market strategy and product approach. You think they did less market research then? You think they were less competent then? You think companies continually get better at this? (hint: they do not) You think the same company that had flops with so much 3E and 4E material is always making good choices? You can't run with "Companies always know better!" whilst there's clear evidence of said companies making serious mistakes. 5E exists because WotC messed up with 4E.

5E's success seems to me to be very simple - they're essentially starving the market rather than flooding it, thus absolutely anything they release at all is almost certain to sell well. It's a good strategy for high profit with low financial investment, there's no denying that. But that doesn't mean it's actually what would be most profitable or most successful for D&D overall, and there's little to no evidence WotC is even considering other strategies. All the evidence we have, I would suggest, is that WotC, very early in 5E, before release even, decided on an extremely conservative sales strategy for 5E, sticking to a small number of products which were sure things, and the odd opportunistic media tie-in (nothing wrong with that!), rather than going for a more maximal strategy. I mean, do you not see how cautious they were even with Eberron? I don't think they really want to sell new versions of extant settings. I'm less sure, though, that that's because they won't sell - I suspect it's more out of a wild abundance of caution and an utter, stark terror of flooding the market.

 

[generic]

5E's success seems to me to be very simple - they're essentially starving the market rather than flooding it, thus absolutely anything they release at all is almost certain to sell well. It's a good strategy for high profit with low financial investment, there's no denying that. But that doesn't mean it's actually what would be most profitable or most successful for D&D overall, and there's little to no evidence WotC is even considering other strategies. All the evidence we have, I would suggest, is that WotC, very early in 5E, before release even, decided on an extremely conservative sales strategy for 5E, sticking to a small number of products which were sure things, and the odd opportunistic media tie-in (nothing wrong with that!), rather than going for a more maximal strategy. I mean, do you not see how cautious they were even with Eberron? I don't think they really want to sell new versions of extant settings. I'm less sure, though, that that's because they won't sell - I suspect it's more out of a wild abundance of caution and an utter, stark terror of flooding the market.

Adding to this, I think we all know that WotC is fully capable of releasing a greater number of books per year. Their current strategy starves consumers for just long enough that everyone buys the next book, for fear of missing out on what might be the only release they enjoy that year. This has certainly been the case for me, as I purchased Xanathar's, Volo's, Mordenkainen's, TFtYP, and GoS not because they were products which I examined deeply before purchase, but because, aside from adventures, they might be the only source of 5E crunch I am able to acquire for quite a while.