D&D 5E Could 5E Use A Branded Magazine In Stores (Again)?

[Quartz]

I have early, pre-Paizo issues of Dragon that were more than happy to advertise games that weren't TSR related, as well as books and video games. I doubt WotC would do the same in a more competitive market.

I'm not talking about games. Rather that gamers could be the target market for other sectors. For example, how many here wear watches? Research would need to be done very carefully. Continuing the watch idea, if it transpired that a significant number of potential readers were high net worth individuals, companies like Patek Phillipe might be persuaded to take advertising space. Other international brands might be car manufacturers and mobile phones. There's a lot of work to be done by someone who knows how to do it.

 

[Panda-s1]

I'm not talking about games. Rather that gamers could be the target market for other sectors. For example, how many here wear watches? Research would need to be done very carefully. Continuing the watch idea, if it transpired that a significant number of potential readers were high net worth individuals, companies like Patek Phillipe might be persuaded to take advertising space. Other international brands might be car manufacturers and mobile phones. There's a lot of work to be done by someone who knows how to do it.

I mean maybe? I feel like if you took a video game magazine from today you'd get a rough idea of what you're asking. idk if outside advertisers would want to risk their money on something even more niche than video games.

 

[Quartz]

I mean maybe? I feel like if you took a video game magazine from today you'd get a rough idea of what you're asking. idk if outside advertisers would want to risk their money on something even more niche than video games.

Agreed, so someone - likely Hasbro - needs to find out how big the niche is and how big the magazine-buying sub-niche is. Then determine and market the demographics of that sub-niche to advertisers.

 

[tommybahama]

I mean maybe? I feel like if you took a video game magazine from today you'd get a rough idea of what you're asking. idk if outside advertisers would want to risk their money on something even more niche than video games.

The highest circulation for Dragon Magazine was around 1984 but the earliest issue I could find online was September of 1985. The only advertisements were for computer games, other RPGs, a few FLGS including the one I used to shop at, and other hobbyist type stuff. That was when Dragon and TSR were highly profitable. The only thing I can think of is maybe the profits aren't enough to make it worth Hasbro's time and effort.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think that an official Zine published by WotC and sold for 1.50$ on the Dmguild with insight of the ecology of a monster and a few variants of it, new adventuring equipment, tips for dms, side treck for the most recent AP, interview with the team, statblocks for famous character from streaming shows, the synospis of the story so far of those streams, ads and preview, printable 8''x 11'' battle maps or token etc.

could work well

 

[Shiroiken]

I don't think a hardcopy magazine would be profitable, nor do I think it would really be that worthwhile. Even an e-version of Dragon by WotC wouldn't really be better than Dragon+ (except maybe a pdf version).

Something that could be worthwhile for both WotC, authors, and us would be Dungeon+, where 4 of the better adventures from DMGuild would be periodically bundled at a slightly reduced price (with an editor's perspective on them). That would boost sales of these adventures (good for WotC and the authors), while providing excellent content (Good for us). The biggest downside of adventures from DMGuild is slogging past a lot of the fairly "meh" materials, and this would alleviate that.

 

[Salthorae]

One of the keys is advertising. How much external advertising would a reborn Dragon magazine attract? Actually, let me be more specific: how much non-hobby advertising would a reborn Dragon magazine attract? I remember precious little in the originals. You need advertising to make the product profitable.

I mean, Hasbro owns WotC and D&D.

They could fill Dragon with cross branded advertising for all their different divisions/lines of toys/etc., especially the board games and MtG and such with the budgeted advertising dollars.

They would probably have enough just there to not have to open it up to any competitor advertisements.

They're never going to do it again, just saying, I think it's more viable now that Hasbro owns D&D than it ever was as TSR or WotC standalone companies.

 

[Quartz]

I think that an official Zine published by WotC and sold for 1.50$ on the Dmguild with insight of the ecology of a monster and a few variants of it, new adventuring equipment, tips for dms, side treck for the most recent AP, interview with the team, statblocks for famous character from streaming shows, the synospis of the story so far of those streams, ads and preview, printable 8''x 11'' battle maps or token etc.

That's a lot of content for $1.50; the print competition - White Dwarf - seems to retail for £5.

I don't think a hardcopy magazine would be profitable,

That is indeed the question. If there's a 6-figure market then I think that non-niche advertising will be the key.

 

[Quartz]

They could fill Dragon with cross branded advertising for all their different divisions/lines of toys/etc., especially the board games and MtG and such with the budgeted advertising dollars.

But would those products be of interest to players of D&D?

 

[Panda-s1]

I mean, Hasbro owns WotC and D&D.

They could fill Dragon with cross branded advertising for all their different divisions/lines of toys/etc., especially the board games and MtG and such with the budgeted advertising dollars.

They would probably have enough just there to not have to open it up to any competitor advertisements.

They're never going to do it again, just saying, I think it's more viable now that Hasbro owns D&D than it ever was as TSR or WotC standalone companies.

like I said earlier they already did that with TopDeck back in the late 90's, and it only lasted 15 issues. tcg's were definitely more profitable back then and they still couldn't make it successful.