D&D 5E Dungeonscape no more?

[Bugleyman]

There is also some wishful thinking

Oh, no doubt. I'm certainly guilty of my share.

 

[Umbran]

As for armchair game marketing -- at this point, would it even be possible to do it worse than the real thing? I can't imagine how...

Dude, while many people were really hoping for the electronic tools, many weren't. There's likely hordes of people for whom the project failure matters not a whit. For them, the hubub over these tools is itself patently ridiculous.

So, yes, there's ways to do it much worse than they've done it. If nothing else, if the situation was bad, going forward on it anyway, and continuing to promise what wasn't going to be delivered, would have been far worse - and that is something that companies do sometimes, and so isn't patently ridiculous.

 

[Bugleyman]

Dude, while many people were really hoping for the electronic tools, many weren't. There's likely hordes of people for whom the project failure matters not a whit. For them, the hubub over these tools is itself patently ridiculous.

So, yes, there's ways to do it much worse than they've done it. If nothing else, if the situation was bad, going forward on it anyway, and continuing to promise what wasn't going to be delivered, would have been far worse - and that is something that companies do sometimes, and so isn't patently ridiculous.

Agree to disagree. Since 2010 or so, WotC's worst enemy has been WotC.

From the repeatedly-delayed poison-pill original GSL, to the knee-jerk pulling of the 4E PDFs (and subsequent failure to offer PDFs at all for 5E), to the spectacular flame-out of the character visualizer and the game table, to the slow death of LFR and the confusing half-edition known as Essentials, WotC has failed to execute time and again. Oh, and don't forget he 24 months of dead schedule between the announcement and the release of 5E.

I sat and watched all this happen with growing incredulity. Surely they couldn't be that incompetent? But I can only give them the doubt for so long before we're clearly past "bad luck" and well intro plain old incompetence. RPG market leadership was WotC's to lose, and sure enough, they lost it. Do you actually believe Pathfinder could have been so successful if D&D had been firing on all cylinders?

At this point, I have to ask when it's OK to "armchair market." When D&D dies completely and gets shelved for a decade? No thanks...by then it will be too late. I love D&D; I just wish WotC would quit mis-managing it into the ground.

 

[Morrus]

The 5E release has been marketed extremely successfully - one of the best rollouts I've seen in years, with equal enthusiasm and inclusion of mainstream media and focused bloggers, combined with continual and extensive interaction via social media.

I've watched several of these now. This is by far the best managed.

This DS setback is unfortunate, but it's not enough to set all that goodwill generated over the last year aside. It would be extraordinarily myopic to claim otherwise. Folks should be careful about wearing blinders which focus them on their pet issue without seeing the wider picture.

 

[Bugleyman]

The 5E release has been marketed extremely successfully - one of the best rollouts I've seen in years, with equal enthusiasm and inclusion of mainstream media and focused bloggers, combined with continual and extensive interaction via social media.

I've watched several of these now. This is by far the best managed.

This DS setback is unfortunate, but it's not enough to set all that goodwill generated over the last year aside.

And I've watched them all as well, starting with 2E. I don't share your opinion. I think 5E is definitely better than 4E, but frankly that bar wasn't very high.

The spectacular failure of DS wasn't just a set-back...it was a practical inevitability given WotC's record with digital products. Many predicted it in advance. And now that it has happened, it just serves as another piece of evidence that D&D deserves better than WotC/Hasbro is willing or able to provide.

They've got a great product in 5E, but watching them punch themselves in the face over and over is simply...exhausting.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

And I've watched them all as well, starting with 2E. I don't share your opinion. I think 5E is definitely better than 4E, but frankly that bar wasn't very high.

The spectacular failure of DS wasn't just a set-back...it was a practical inevitability given WotC's record with digital products. Many predicted it in advance. And now that it has happened, it just serves as another piece of evidence that D&D deserves better than WotC/Hasbro is willing or able to provide.

They've got a great product in 5E, but watching them punch themselves in the face over and over is simply...exhausting.

I'm not sure anyone is really disagreeing that WotC has a poor record with digital offerings. What people are saying (as I see it at least) is that failure in the digital market is not the be all and end all of product marketing, and 5e D&D is actually doing quite well so far.

I would add that I don't think it is likely to lose many people. Most gamers simply aren't nearly as picky as those of us (I'm including myself) who are passionate enough about something to log in to a forum just to argue with people we don't actually know.

 

[Bugleyman]

I'm not sure anyone is really disagreeing that WotC has a poor record with digital offerings. What people are saying (as I see it at least) is that failure in the digital market is not the be all and end all of product marketing, and 5e D&D is actually doing quite well so far.

Fair enough. I guess I should say such a failure is catastrophic to me. I get that I might be an outlier in that regard.

But I would add that they've dropped the ball in several other ways -- the GSL poison pill being a big one -- that to me clearly demonstrates that whomever is managing the D&D brand just doesn't "get it." The implication that they're being paid to do it and therefore must necessarily be better at it (the pejorative references to "armchair marketing") can be debunked simply by observing the performance of 4E and the spectacular success of Pathfinder. The simple truth is that Pathfinder should never have able to overtake D&D...the fact that it did is quite telling.

Or is someone now going to argue that being losing market leadership to a former contractor is part of WotC's brilliant master plan?

Step 1: Lose market leadership.​

Step 2: ???​

Step 3: Profit! ​

The collapse of DS is just the latest in a series of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

I would add that I don't think it is likely to lose many people. Most gamers simply aren't nearly as picky as those of us (I'm including myself) who are passionate enough about something to log in to a forum just to argue with people we don't actually know.

I can't dispute that.

And you're right...if I didn't care about D&D as much as I do, I wouldn't bother posting. I guess I hope to help affect change in some small way, though I'm not entirely sure how.

 

[Morrus]

And I've watched them all as well, starting with 2E. I don't share your opinion. I think 5E is definitely better than 4E, but frankly that bar wasn't very high.

The spectacular failure of DS wasn't just a set-back...it was a practical inevitability given WotC's record with digital products. Many predicted it in advance. And now that it has happened, it just serves as another piece of evidence that D&D deserves better than WotC/Hasbro is willing or able to provide.

They've got a great product in 5E, but watching them punch themselves in the face over and over is simply...exhausting.

The hyperbole is getting a bit tiresome, don't you think? DS was not nearly as important as you think it was. The majority of D&D customers aren't even aware it existed. Let's reign back the excitable exaggeration, eh? It's no spectacular, catastrophic, or anything else; it's a speedbump.

 

[Bugleyman]

Sorry...that's the wannabe-writer in me.

The failure of DS is not, in itself, a major problem. However, it is the latest misstep in a series of missteps stretching back 4+ years. Collectively, these missteps, coupled with the loss of market leadership, constitute evidence that the D&D RPG is being mismanaged.

Is that better?

 

[Lalato]

At some point posters on these forums are like robots posting the same stuff over and over.

X posts the same argument. Y posts the same rebuttal. Z posts the same non-sequitur.

That's not discussion. It's just bots having a pissing match.

 

[Evenglare]

Tough to say how important DS was I think. Given that many people (over the years) have said they wouldn't play 4e without a character builder makes me think that DS was pretty important. A lot of people like character builders, good ones anyway. Personally? It doesn't matter to me, but I'm not blind, I know a lot of people were looking forward to it. If they weren't then this topic wouldn't be 33 pages. It would just be a blip on the radar, which clearly is not the case. At this point I.. just feel sorry for Wizards they can't do digital correctly. They just simply cant and it sucks for them.

 

[tomBitonti]

Step 1: Lose market leadership.​

Step 2: ???​

Step 3: Profit! ​

There is another take on this: Re-interpret "Lose market leadership" to "stop overdelivering marketable value; correct by reducing deliveries; refocus on more incremental deliveries with a higher price point".

A brand leader may move ahead in profit by capturing as much profit as is enabled by their monopoly position, generally, with very different delivery and pricing techniques than you will see in a more competitive market.

To fit ones thoughts around this, the goal is to price the deliveries to match their value per purchaser. That is, differential pricing, with a value just slightly higher than the price to each customer.

This of course depends on keeping market dominance (near monopoly) and on having good product control, and having a good bead on correct pricing.

I suspect the online offerings aren't there because Hasbro/WOTC hasn't figured out yet how best to monetize them.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Bugleyman]

At some point posters on these forums are like robots posting the same stuff over and over.

X posts the same argument. Y posts the same rebuttal. Z posts the same non-sequitur.

That's not discussion. It's just bots having a pissing match.

I'd simply prefer the rebuttals to rebut what I've actually written, as opposed to what people think I have written.

That said, I'll bow out of this thread. I've certainly said my piece.

 

[mcbobbo]

The hyperbole is getting a bit tiresome, don't you think? DS was not nearly as important as you think it was. The majority of D&D customers aren't even aware it existed. Let's reign back the excitable exaggeration, eh? It's no spectacular, catastrophic, or anything else; it's a speedbump.

I think this gets less true as you zoom out. If DS is the one and only digital offering, for example, it would be a much bigger deal. I personally haven't heard of any other plans, and I was served the kool-aid about how it was the only digital tool anyone would ever need.

So I hope you're right about the speed bump thing, but you'd have to admit we are taking a small leap of faith to hope so.

 

[pemerton]

Several, however, have established significant precedents in the boardgaming venue. One that's particularly relevant is Allen v. Academic Games... JH Kim has a page discussing it: http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/copyright/academic.html

I've had a quick read of the judgment, after looking at Kim's summary and extracts.

The notion of ideas not being copyrightable, together with the doctrine of merger of text and ideas,was key to the decision. (Because of this, the court didn't consider the issue of derivative works.) From the closing paragraph of the decision, "To hold otherwise would give Allen a monopoly on such commonplace ideas as a simple rule on how youngsters should play their games."

In the context of an RPG, it's not clear to me that the doctrine would operate in the same way, in part because (using another phrase from the decision), it's not the case that an RPG "consist of abstract rules and play ideas." It also consists of story elements. So recognising (for instance) WotC copyright in it's armour table or weapons table wouldn't necessarily give it a monopoly on rules for how we youngsters play fantasy RPGs. Other publishers would just have to use other combat systems (eg Traveller, RQ, Rolemaster, to name a few fairly traditional approaches).

 

[aramis erak]

Tough to say how important DS was I think. Given that many people (over the years) have said they wouldn't play 4e without a character builder makes me think that DS was pretty important. A lot of people like character builders, good ones anyway. Personally? It doesn't matter to me, but I'm not blind, I know a lot of people were looking forward to it. If they weren't then this topic wouldn't be 33 pages. It would just be a blip on the radar, which clearly is not the case. At this point I.. just feel sorry for Wizards they can't do digital correctly. They just simply cant and it sucks for them.

There already is a good one for 5E. It's just not licensed...

 

[aramis erak]

I've had a quick read of the judgment, after looking at Kim's summary and extracts.

The notion of ideas not being copyrightable, together with the doctrine of merger of text and ideas,was key to the decision. (Because of this, the court didn't consider the issue of derivative works.) From the closing paragraph of the decision, "To hold otherwise would give Allen a monopoly on such commonplace ideas as a simple rule on how youngsters should play their games."

In the context of an RPG, it's not clear to me that the doctrine would operate in the same way, in part because (using another phrase from the decision), it's not the case that an RPG "consist of abstract rules and play ideas." It also consists of story elements. So recognising (for instance) WotC copyright in it's armour table or weapons table wouldn't necessarily give it a monopoly on rules for how we youngsters play fantasy RPGs. Other publishers would just have to use other combat systems (eg Traveller, RQ, Rolemaster, to name a few fairly traditional approaches).

I don't see much in the way of story elements in a typical core rulebook. I do see lots of formulae, and lots of procedures that are, in a very real way, program code for the human brain.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see much in the way of story elements in a typical core rulebook.

I do.

In a game that consists of "abstract rules and play ideas", the ideas are things like (say) moving counters around a board in a race game. This idea can't be copyrighted, and so where the doctrine of merger of ideas and text operates, the producer of a ludo, backgammon, etc set can't copyright his/her rulebook.

But in an RPG, the rules are not abstract play ideas. They convey particular events in a fiction - eg a fight between a hero and some goblins. There are other ways to express that idea without having to reproduce the D&D rules text: RuneQuest and RoleMaster are just two examples of this.

If you are going to argue that the idea is something else - not the idea of the fiction but an abstract mechanical idea along the lines of "rolling a d20 and adding an attack modifier to see if a declared attack hits a pre-given armour class" - then perhaps the merger doctrine might operate.

But this requires establishing what the relevant idea is which can't be copyrighted. I don't know enough copyright law to express a view on that, but to my intuitions it is not obvious that the abstract mechanic is the relevant idea, rather than a particular textual way of expressing a story idea which hasn't merged with that story to thereby become uncopyrightable. Nor is it obvious that that it isn't.

The best (if short) discussion I know of on this board of these issues is on this thread (post 360 and then a few of the posts following, mostly from [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]).

 

[Sailor Moon]

And I've watched them all as well, starting with 2E. I don't share your opinion. I think 5E is definitely better than 4E, but frankly that bar wasn't very high.

The spectacular failure of DS wasn't just a set-back...it was a practical inevitability given WotC's record with digital products. Many predicted it in advance. And now that it has happened, it just serves as another piece of evidence that D&D deserves better than WotC/Hasbro is willing or able to provide.

They've got a great product in 5E, but watching them punch themselves in the face over and over is simply...exhausting.

I was going to quote just the first paragraph but these forums are awful on a mobile phone.

You hit the nail on the head with your first paragraph. 4th edition had problems from the start and they never ended through out it's short run so saying the next edition did better than the previous edition isn't saying a whole lot. Wizards hasn't been at the top of their game in years. 5th edition is doing well, but it's not doing anything ground breaking.

 

[sgtscott658]

Hi-

Totally disagree, 5th edition for me is so much easier to write up pre gens and actually play the game. If you do not use feats, 5E comes very close to 1E. To me, the feats make 5E more complicated and are when all is said and done, not worth the trouble or effort. To me, 5E is a very well thought out version of D&D that tries to harken back to the grand old days of sitting around a table with beer, mary jane, coke cans filled with cigarette butts and your buddies playing an awesome game of D&D.

Scott

I was going to quote just the first paragraph but these forums are awful on a mobile phone.

You hit the nail on the head with your first paragraph. 4th edition had problems from the start and they never ended through out it's short run so saying the next edition did better than the previous edition isn't saying a whole lot. Wizards hasn't been at the top of their game in years. 5th edition is doing well, but it's not doing anything ground breaking.