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

[teitan]

It's numbers were similar to AD&D which had been out of print 14-24 years at that point. That suggests a very very rapid collapse of the playerbase.

3.5 (a poor performer D&D wise) was still more popular and was putting up better numbers than AD&D while Pathfinder was a thing.

3.5 was not a poor performer… I don’t think you know what words mean. 3.5 dominated the industry. Your very post is contradictory. 3.5 was revolutionary and the system that essentially props up the modern rpg industry. There was a reason game companies that exist today were formed to support 3e and then 3.5, it sold almost as well as 1e and continues, even now, to dominate conversations even after being OOP for almost 20 years. Green Ronin, Goodman Games, Fantasy Flight, Mongoose, Monte Cook, Alderac, some of the top companies today all started or kicked up their profiles as D20 publishers and especially proved themselves in the 3.5 arena. Even White Wolf survived for a few years on the back of D20/3.5 when nWoD didn’t exactly light the stage before they dissolved into PoD and then sizzled out. To call 3.5 a poor seller is like saying Return of the Jedi wasn’t a success because it’s box office was less than Empire.

 

[teitan]

D&D is still dead in that scenario you would have D&D like games.

My OP wasn't about D&D going extinct just getting themselves into a lot of trouble requiring a bailout or sale.

Ohhh ok. I see. You aren’t actually here to talk about things in any thread but to keep telling people how you’re right even when you’re wrong.

 

[Zardnaar]

3.5 was not a poor performer… I don’t think you know what words mean. 3.5 dominated the industry. Your very post is contradictory. 3.5 was revolutionary and the system that essentially props up the modern rpg industry. There was a reason game companies that exist today were formed to support 3e and then 3.5, it sold almost as well as 1e and continues, even now, to dominate conversations even after being OOP for almost 20 years. Green Ronin, Goodman Games, Fantasy Flight, Mongoose, Monte Cook, Alderac, some of the top companies today all started or kicked up their profiles as D20 publishers and especially proved themselves in the 3.5 arena. Even White Wolf survived for a few years on the back of D20/3.5 when nWoD didn’t exactly light the stage before they dissolved into PoD and then sizzled out. To call 3.5 a poor seller is like saying Return of the Jedi wasn’t a success because it’s box office was less than Empire.

You familiar with the collapse in 2004? And some figures were revealed years back that showed it sold around half of 3.0? And was in print for 4 years?

Relatively speaking it was the poorest perfoming D&D we have figures for Aarti from OD&D. We dont have any figures for 4E.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ohhh ok. I see. You aren’t actually here to talk about things in any thread but to keep telling people how you’re right even when you’re wrong.

Context it's right there in the OP. I assume you didn't read it and fired your mouth off.

 

[S'mon]

It could go dormant as in 2012 & 2013 after the failure of 4e. People will still be playing D&D though.

 

[teitan]

You familiar with the collapse in 2004? And some figures were revealed years back that showed it sold around half of 3.0? And was in print for 4 years?

Relatively speaking it was the poorest perfoming D&D we have figures for Aarti from OD&D. We dont have any figures for 4E.

Uh huh. Sure thing.

 

[teitan]

Context it's right there in the OP. I assume you didn't read it and fired your mouth off.

Ah no it’s just every thread you make you want to redirect any disagreement and disregard it instead of admitting you might be wrong or have drawn the wrong conclusion on the data. This is the second thread where someone disagrees with you and you point back to your “OP” to redirect the conversation because someone disagrees with your original conclusions at the point in the conversation that it has gotten to so you move the goal post back because you’re uncomfortable with where it is going.

 

[nevin]

As the title says. D&D has almost died 3 times but could it happen a 4th time?

For purposes if this question I'm going to ignore events that are highly unlikely and would really mess things up. This means WW3, Supervolcanoes, great depression etc basically things completely beyond WotC control. Could they botch things that badly purely on their own merits?

Also an edition flopping by itself won't kill D&D. Nor am I talking about no more D&D ever but something similar to the other near collapses/TSR going under.

So in what somewhat plausible scenario could D&D die again?

Here's my scenario.

1. The D&D movie flops (for whatever reason). A flop here means it loses money roughly speaking it needs to make around double it's production+marketing costs not if it makes hundreds of millions of box office or the quality of the movie or if you liked it. $200 million box office could still be a flop. Does the movie make money yes/no is the only criteria.

2. One D&D flops for whatever reason. Bit harder to know but if it's 4E 2.0 and it goes out of print in a few years it's probably a flop.

3. Hasbro/WotC themselves get into trouble due to whatever reasons. This means no MtG money to bail out D&D.

So that's roughly the scenario that's somewhat plausible.

This is not a prediction, projection, want desire etc.

Why plausible? For those of you who don't know is Magic is not in the best condition right now and Hasbros stock price is falling.

Due to various decisions made by WotC there's a lot of angry MtG players out there. It's probably worse than 4E comparatively. Espicially to WotC bottom line.

There's also multiple reasons but overprinting sets, to much product and to expensive with deluxe products aimed at whales seems to be big issues.

How bad is it? They're dumping MtG product for sale on Amazon cheaper than distributors can get it. And they're asking people why they're no longer playing standard. And Bank of America has commented on what's happening. How it plays out in the future no idea.

And that's basically how D&D could tank again a simultaneous collapse of D&D and MtG. Probably won't happen but it's a somewhat plausible scenario.

Dnd didn't almost die 3 times. In fact it survived a 20 year war by the Baptist church to kill it. TSR killed itself by bad management. Gaming continued. WOTC launched 2ed it did great till bad management nearly killed it and as before gaming continued. 3rd edition didn't die but it created pathfinder arguably making the ecosystem stronger. 4th edition didn't nearly kill DND either but it was a self inflicted wound that gave pathfinder the opening for 2e. Which still isn't as popular as 1e or 4th edition dnd was but it's a relatively strong product.

That all being said. Of course it could die. Some new thing could wipe it out. But I think it's safe for now. At least till we have HoloDecks.

 

[ECMO3]

3.5 was not a poor performer… I don’t think you know what words mean. 3.5 dominated the industry. Your very post is contradictory. 3.5 was revolutionary and the system that essentially props up the modern rpg industry.

Every version of D&D dominated the industry. In terms of sales 3E fell short of what most other D&D editions have done, I think that is what he is saying.

The Red Box and its siblings, 1E AD&D and 5E all were all much bigger commercial successes. 2E probably outsold 3E as well in terms of gross sales, the main problem with 2E and the reason for the financial collapse is sales started declining while TSR kept increasing volume.

3E did bring profitability back to the D&D brand.

5E can't collapse in the same way 2E did because it does not have the same volume in terms of paper products, or the same business model where they buy back unsold product. It was the unsold print that really killed 2E. 5E could experience a contraction and I think ONE will not attract nearly as many players as 5E has, but I don't think that will kill it.

People are going to keep playing regardless. I played 3E, but I played far more AD&D 1E even after 3E came out than I did 3E, and I think that was pretty common, at least for the gamers that had been playing since the early 80s.