D&D 5E Could D&D Die Again?

[Hussar]

Restoration Games has an updated version of Stop Thief. I have not tried it, but you might want to take a look:

Stop Thief! Archives - Restoration Games

restorationgames.com

DUUUUUDDDDDE THANK YOU!!!!!

OH NO. Only ships to the US and Canada. Sigh. But, totally thank you for this.

 

[Zardnaar]

Given long enough, asteroid from outer space stops being "theoretically possible", and moves over into the "statistical certainty" column.

Touche last one that really mattered was 65 million years ago.

Self inflicted extinction may be more plausible.

 

[Zardnaar]

And all I can say is, I think MtG is going to at least try to make things better, the movie already has relatively low expectations (it's a D&D movie, those are always crap, doesn't matter that this one looks super shiny), and predicting that "One D&D" tanks is circular, presuming the game will fail and thus concluding that the game will fail.

Is this scenario possible? Certainly. Almost anything is possible.

Is this scenario plausible? I don't really think so.

I suspect the movie will be fair-to-middling. It won't start a brand-new D&D film franchise nor collect award nominations, but it won't be a box office bomb either. It will simply be a movie. The only way it would tank is if it has some kind of absolute, unquestioned, knock-your-socks-off unbeatable competition. That's an unpredictable event--you can never know how well competing films are going to do until after they're already out in the world.

I suspect MtG will take some hard knocks, and require a few years to recover, and may not ever fully recover. But it won't go absolutely, unequivocally belly-up, totally-lost-cause either. If it dies, it will be a long, slow death.

And then, as stated, any amount of presumption about "One D&D" doing poorly is circular reasoning. We must simply suspend judgment, and observe what happens. If "One D&D" truly does absolutely, unequivocally tank--if it crashes and burns outright--then that alone is enough to say "D&D has died" by the standards you've presented in the thread (since you classify 4e as a "death" despite former WotC staff saying it did just fine financially.) If it doesn't fail spectacularly...then I just don't see D&D "dying" even by the loose standard you've given us.

I didn't include 4E as one of my times D&D died. A relative flop of an edition combined with MtG going to poo at the same time could do it.

D&D bounced back comparatively easily because WorC itself wasn't in trouble.

 

[Clint_L]

So...have we gotten anywhere further in answering the question "Could D&D die again?" than "Yes, but probably not"?

How much further can you get with that vague a question? Consensus is that it is too big now to really die short of civilization-destroying things like a calamity or just the passage of a ton of time. But in a practical sense, like "could it be so mismanaged by Hasbro that it quickly goes away?", the answers is an unequivocal "no." It has far too large a footprint.

 

[Rabulias]

DUUUUUDDDDDE THANK YOU!!!!!

OH NO. Only ships to the US and Canada. Sigh. But, totally thank you for this.

Happy to help. Not sure where you need it shipped to but it's also on Amazon, and I imagine other places.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Nothing lasts forever. At some point D&D will fall out of fashion, as it did during 1995-99 and 2009-13. When that down period arrives, whether it becomes serious enough WotC has to sell the IP is anyone's guess. But I don't see D&D dying because SOMEONE will buy it. After almost 50 years, I think the D&D brand has proven it can stand the test of time. It has seared its way in the national consciousness the way Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter have.

 

[Argyle King]

I think the current state of MTG illustrates what happens (in a worse-case scenario) when you repeatedly release "bad" (subjective, I know) product under an established brand name, while ignoring any negative feedback (from people who once enjoyed said brand) by labeling it as only being the result of trolls, haters, people not hip to contemporary trends, and etc.

Certainly, yes, change is inevitable. Things do evolve. In many cases, they need to for a variety of reasons.

However, I believe that many people mistakenly believe that "change" and "progress" are interchangeable words. They aren't.

Being an established brand carries certain a certain identity and a certain set of expectations with it. Names (like McDonalds, Nike, or Lacoste) and symbols (like golden arches, the 'Air Jordan' silhouette, or an alligator) carry meaning.

A history of goodwill and met expectations can mean a lot to a customer base. In some cases, that goodwill can cover for serious blunders which would have been disastrous for other companies.

But even that has limits.

Repeatedly abusing that built-up goodwill or an egregious violation of established expectation can change what is associated with a name and/or the associated symbol.

Charlie Chaplin was a famous and mostly beloved performer with a distinctive look, but the toothbrush mustache is not associated with his name because it gained visibility as a symbol associated with atrocity.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In the digital market, in the industry of the videogames, about card games, Magic: the Gathering is not "the only coke bottle in the desert" (= the only option). The videogames based in card-games don't need a powerful hardware. If WotC neglet M:tG is not the most popular card game again.

Now D&D is the "blue-eye girl" of Hasbro. Could Hasbro fall? I have read somebody telling 2023 will be a bad economy year, a "year of thin cows". If Hasbro gets ready and survives the storm, then after this woul be the opportunity to acquired other companies, even a merger with Mattel. (this was tried before, but it there wasn't a final agreement).

And now D&D is too hooked to the masses culture. And it is a hobby where parents play with their children. There is reasons for the hope for a new generations of players and to avoid falling in the oblivion.

D&D has survived worse ages.

The future is full of variables, but we shouldn't see the death of D&D, or at least not without warning signs in previous years.

 

[Jahydin]

I think AD&D/BX is timeless since the material they pull from is timeless (our shared myths) and the concepts of labyrinths, heroes, and monsters are timeless.

All other editions will die out at some point. But all it takes is someone clever to go back to the "blueprints" and reimagine it again for the next generation. And the best part, it doesn't have to be WotC.

 

[Zardnaar]

Just remember kiddies Monetization never means anything good!!!