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Does D&D Have an Identity Crisis?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9108918" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I think the issue is that with the published tabletop game the tent is getting smaller, not larger, as WotC increasingly push the game into a specifically G/PG-rated space (not even PG-13). This hasn't really been true for all of 5E - more it's something that's become true as 5E has become extremely successful.</p><p></p><p>So it's not an identity crisis in the normal sense of "Who am I?!", it's rather different issue - "I've decided I'm a very upright and suit-and-tie-wearing fellow, so I'm no longer going to turn up at the bar with my old buddies, and if they come to my house, they'll have to be quiet and respectful and not drink". There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's a smaller church.</p><p></p><p>Indeed, the larger brand definitely doesn't, and I think that even HAT is pushing the upper bounds of what the tabletop game really thinks is okay, and BG3 is completely outside it.</p><p></p><p>But BG3 has been an insanely huge hit, and HAT, much as I enjoyed it, has been a flop. There's no question BG3 will make a lot more money than HAT. It's been stuck at the top of Steam best-sellers for weeks now, sold 5m copies some time back, and may well be approaching 10m or more, and that's only being out on PC, let PS5 or Xbox Series X/S, yet. It's easy to see it may well pass 20m copies sold in the next year. Assuming full-price sales (and Larian usually waits a while before dropping it) that'd be a revenue of 1.2bn. On costs that are quite likely lower than those of HAT.</p><p></p><p>I don't think that's solely attributable to the tone of BG3, but I will say I don't think it would have sold half that many copies if it had HAT's tone and content, and would have sold even fewer if it had, say the PG-ish tone/content we seem to be seeing from WotC. The videogame market is obviously different in many ways to TT RPG one, but I think WotC are maybe chasing the wrong market primarily here. Or that they need to think about somehow chasing both markets (which should be doable, but perhaps not trivially).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9108918, member: 18"] I think the issue is that with the published tabletop game the tent is getting smaller, not larger, as WotC increasingly push the game into a specifically G/PG-rated space (not even PG-13). This hasn't really been true for all of 5E - more it's something that's become true as 5E has become extremely successful. So it's not an identity crisis in the normal sense of "Who am I?!", it's rather different issue - "I've decided I'm a very upright and suit-and-tie-wearing fellow, so I'm no longer going to turn up at the bar with my old buddies, and if they come to my house, they'll have to be quiet and respectful and not drink". There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's a smaller church. Indeed, the larger brand definitely doesn't, and I think that even HAT is pushing the upper bounds of what the tabletop game really thinks is okay, and BG3 is completely outside it. But BG3 has been an insanely huge hit, and HAT, much as I enjoyed it, has been a flop. There's no question BG3 will make a lot more money than HAT. It's been stuck at the top of Steam best-sellers for weeks now, sold 5m copies some time back, and may well be approaching 10m or more, and that's only being out on PC, let PS5 or Xbox Series X/S, yet. It's easy to see it may well pass 20m copies sold in the next year. Assuming full-price sales (and Larian usually waits a while before dropping it) that'd be a revenue of 1.2bn. On costs that are quite likely lower than those of HAT. I don't think that's solely attributable to the tone of BG3, but I will say I don't think it would have sold half that many copies if it had HAT's tone and content, and would have sold even fewer if it had, say the PG-ish tone/content we seem to be seeing from WotC. The videogame market is obviously different in many ways to TT RPG one, but I think WotC are maybe chasing the wrong market primarily here. Or that they need to think about somehow chasing both markets (which should be doable, but perhaps not trivially). [/QUOTE]
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