There is also some wishful thinking
Oh, no doubt. I'm certainly guilty of my share.
D&D 5E Dungeonscape no more?
Oh, no doubt. I'm certainly guilty of my share.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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Sword of Spirit
Legend
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.
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 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.
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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.
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?
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?
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