D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[FitzTheRuke]

I've been selling D&D books since 1993, and I think I finally understand why I've always thought that 3.5 was the most popular edition (before 5e). It certainly wasn't personal bias - it's my own least favorite edition. It's that 2e was getting "old" when I started (and the black books didn't do very well). 3e was BIG in game stores, but never hit the mainstream like 1e or 5e.

My perception comes from being a growing game store over the life of 3.5. I actually sold more 4e than 3.5, but I have always known in that case that that fact was because 1) My store was much more established at the time of 4e's launch & 2) I ran 4eEncounters and other organized play. While I ran 3.5 here and there at the store, I never got in to organized play to a fraction of the extent.

Customers buy what is played at the store.

 

[darjr]

I've been selling D&D books since 1993, and I think I finally understand why I've always thought that 3.5 was the most popular edition. It certainly wasn't personal bias - it's my own least favorite edition. It's that 2e was getting "old" when I started (and the black books didn't do very well). 3e was BIG in game stores, but never hit the mainstream like 1e or 5e. My perception comes from being a growing game store over the life of 3.5. I actually sold more 4e than 3.5, but I have always known in that case that that fact was because 1) My store was much more established at the time of 4e's launch & 2) I ran 4eEncounters and other organized play. While I ran 3.5 here and there at the store, I never got in to organized play to a fraction of the extent.

Customers buy what is played at the store.

Thanks for that input. The retailers I talk too say similar things. The interesting bit is the really old long term sellers see it differently. Which I must admit I set down to other reasons, but now I need to rethink.

 

[Velderan]

Perhaps but WoW also wasn't the first fantasy mmo. It would not shock me if "WoW" is serving as a placeholder for the generalized mmo genre that was entering a boom period in those years as broadband internet was becoming more readily available in the US for the first time.

Seems like the "Xerox" effect.

Yep! The numbers I've seen online vary, but it sounds like by 2004 Everquest had at least 500k monthly subscribers. Final Fantasy XI also had around 500k subs by 2004. Given how crippling addicting time consuming these games were to play, they likely had an impact on D&D sales.

I'm sure WoW exploding into the 1m+ monthly subscriber count so quickly just became the easy scapegoat for WotC brass at the time.

 

[Scribe]

One final note of interest: Riggs mentioned that he couldn't get anyone to talk to him about what's going on with One D&D, but that it seems emblematic of WotC still having a culture of warring factions. His big example there was how Mike Mearls, who wrote the 5E PHB (which according to Riggs' estimate has sold at least 3 million copies, if not more), is currently working on Magic: the Gathering instead of D&D. John Tynes, who wrote three of the top six best RPGs according to RPG.net, is also currently working on M:tG and not role-playing games. "Something," Riggs noted, "is rotten at Wizards of the Coast."

While the whole re(re,re,re,re-)litigation on 4e is fine and all, I find this part more interesting.

How big is WotC D&D segment? How many staff? How is it possible there are these 'warring factions'? Is it C-level vs Designers? Is it Design Management vs Individual Contributors?

5e is a fence sitter of an edition. Its not saying anything too bold, and it certainly is trying to appeal to 'everyone' while appealing less to any one, and I would have assumed that was the intent.

I have to wonder what direction these assumed different factions actually want to go in.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I don’t think the magnitude of success that WOW had over its predecessor MMOs can be overstated. After WOW there was WOW and then everything else - and I didn’t even really play or like WOW. Was poor and could never justify any monthly sub.

Sure. I'm not meaning to downplay WoW, just pointing out that the genre and the trends that led to WoW's success predated WoW by a few years. So from 2000-2004, you still had your Everquests, Dark Age of Camelots, etc.

It was the birth of a genre. WoW took that genre to another level.

 

[SJB]

I can understand that point of view, but when I look up Riggs' book in the Library of Congress, it notes the following:

View attachment 292169

Likewise, my understanding (based on the answer given by a history professor) is that you don't need a history degree to write a history book.

I love the concept, but looking at the image in that link...the one of the character sheet...I see there's a long list of fairly specific skills.

I know that's a common thing in RPGs, but I...I...I'm just not sure I want that anymore. The existence of those skills suggests they are supposed to be used, and I find myself wanting less RNG in my games, not more.

Then I thought, Wait, maybe those skills are meant to be used in a different way, more like 'traits' and less as numerically ranked skills. But then I saw this quote:



Bah.

And the real kicker is that I'll probably buy it anyway.

Here's the image, for convenience:

Meh. What is a historian other than someone that researched historical facts and writes about them?

Indeed, anyone can call themselves an historian: it’s not a guild and there are no enforcers.

Riggs it seems to me does a good job in the hobbyist space.

I believe that he has a history degree from Boston University.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

There's probably some truth to that, but I recall Riggs being less sanguine about it during the seminar.

I forgot to mention this in my list of bullet points, but one of his takes about Gleemax was that WotC was a company that had always dealt in cards (e.g. M:tG, Pokemon, etc.) and books (e.g. D&D), which is to say, they were a company which made paper products. "For them to just decide that they were going to reinvent themselves as a tech company," I recall Riggs saying, "was hubris."

I have always felt that the idea behind Gleemax was solid but the above is completely true. Managing software is something that even software companies have had trouble with. they should have started with one small element, iterated until that was solid and iterated out from there.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Yep! The numbers I've seen online vary, but it sounds like by 2004 Everquest had at least 500k monthly subscribers. Final Fantasy XI also had around 500k subs by 2004. Given how crippling addicting time consuming these games were to play, they likely had an impact on D&D sales.

I'm sure WoW exploding into the 1m+ monthly subscriber count so quickly just became the easy scapegoat for WotC brass at the time.

I always forget Final Fantasy has MMO titles.

 

[MGibster]

Is there anything guys with MBAs don't ruin?

A few months ago the Freakanomics podcast had an episode discussing the difference between companies with CEOs who were MBAs and those with CEOs who weren't. They cited a study that showed MBA CEOs might increase profits, but they do this by cutting costs rather than actually growing the business. i.e. They don't actually make companies better other than providing shareholders with some extra profits.

I don't know that the Hasbro executives were correct- they could have simply seen that World of Warcraft (which is D&Dish) was a massively successful MMORPG that was generating recurrent subscription revenue, and said ... "Hey, we want that!"

Anecdotal information alert! I used to be involved in a local gaming club, and around 2002, we started losing a lot of players to MMORPGs like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot. While most of them didn't totally abandon table top role playing games, it really ate into the amount of time they participated in face-to-face gaming.

It will be interesting to see if WotC manages to kill off 3PP support by over reliance on beyond and the new VTT.

I think killing off 3PP is WotC's goal. And making players reliant on Beyond and the new VTT is going to help the company with the undermonetized D&D.

 

[Scribe]

I think killing off 3PP is WotC's goal. And making players reliant on Beyond and the new VTT is going to help the company with the undermonetized D&D.

They could you know...try and grow the business instead of cutting others out. Maybe.

Novels. Supporting other approaches to D&D. Merch. Licensing. You know, growth.