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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 6171691" data-attributes="member: 75787">There are many others much better at talking facts on the evolution of D&D than myself, but the play numbers and purchase numbers are pretty clear: - Before 3.0, D&D was way bigger than everything else, and mostly everyone played the latest version - When the OGL was released, a ton of companies tried their versions of stuff based on the OGL, and failed to get much traction and gave up. The basic reason was that the OGL seemed pretty much only good for heroic fantasy, and, if you want that, why not just use D&D? - When 4e came out, it was significantly different. Roughly, my guess is that about 1/3 of D&D players liked it, 1/3 disliked it and 1/3 just wanted to play some form of well-supported D&D and didn't care.  - Pretty much everyone who played D&D's living campaign -- and especially the organizers -- did not like the way the way the living campaign changed. - When Pathfinder came out a year after 4e had been released, it drew the attention of those who liked D&D but did not like 4e. They switched to Pathfinder from WotC D&D because they preferred the older style of gaming. In 2009-2010 about a third of D&D players were playing Pathfinder (Gen Con figures support this number)- There was a steady erosion of the middle third ("some form of well-supported D&D is all I want") of players because by this time both systems were well-supported and clearly had legs. - This erosion was intensified by WotC being unable to match Pathfinder in the creation of quality adventures. For players who just wanted to run pre-made adventures, Pathfinder is a clearly better experience with many better choices.- With the end of significant support for 4e in 2012, at least 2/3 of play was Pathfinder (again, going by Gen Con numbers) because it was down to people who wanted to play an unsupported 4e more than they wanted to play a supported 3.5 (Pathfinder).- Now, with no support for 4e, you have to be a strong committed fan to play it. Any new players or convention-goers are far more likely to join a Pathfinder group. I'd imagine well over 3/4 of D&D players play Pathfinder now.Note: I'm ignoring the small, but significant number of D&D players who prefer pre-3.0 D&D. That fraction hasn't really changed much over the last 5 years and I doubt it will moving forwards.At the heart of it, most D&D players want to play a supported system that feels like D&D. 4e was so different that it was more of a barrier for them than the previous change, which is why Pathfinder was successful in picking up traction whereas previous OGL attempts were not. I'd estimate about 1/3 of D&D players at the time they came out were actively looking for an OGL 3rd edition.OGL was a disaster for WotC (but not for players!) because it failed to get fans to play lots of small variants of D&D while buying WOTC core rule books and it succeeded in allowing another company to do exactly what WOTC used to do. This happened when a significant fraction of WOTC customers was unhappy with the new version. If the OGL had not been made, Pathfinder would not exist and they would instead have 2/3 happy customers, and 1/3 disgruntled customers who stayed with them because they preferred bad supported D&D to unsupported D&D. We are better off for the OGL, but Wizards are not.Back to the question in the thread? Are we fair to WOTC? They screwed up with the OGL, but that actually is better for fans as it gave them a choice between 4e and 3.5. So we should be grateful they made a bad business decision, not whining at them. On the other hand they do seem to handle transitions very badly. But then transitions between versions are hard (ask Microsoft ...). On the whole I think I feel sorry for them. They made a bad decision, it massively destroyed their market share, and then they haven't worked out how to recover. If I had to fault them, it would be for lack of imagination. Since the OGL fiasco, they have gone for safe and conservative -- let's please everyone and make a minimally offensive product. I don't think that will work for them. They have lost the high ground and need to do something actively cool. In 2010 they could have produced something merely "as good as" Pathfinder and it would have pulled fans back. Now I am not sure that simply being traditional is enough for them. They have ceded the status of owners of the "default game" to Paizo, and 5e will need to be significantly better to win them back. DISCLAIMER: I'm in the "strongly prefer 4e" crowd, but completely understand why a lot of people prefer older editions. I have not been impressed with 5e mostly because it does not feel like it raises the bar or does anything exciting. I am excited by 13th Age much more for my D&D-playing future. My general feeling is that we have come to the end of the era of default role-playing being owned by one company. WOTC will not recover enough market share and Hasbro will sell them off when it becomes clear they will not grow enough to be worth keeping in the fold. And this will be a good thing.</blockquote>

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