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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 5422119" data-attributes="member: 49613">This thread is for those who, regardless of their aesthetic preferences vis a vis the current edition of D&D, are simply tired of having a new edition come out every ten minutes. Though it is an anti-5E thread, it is not intended to be an edition war thread or to bag on anybody's favorite edition thus far released. Instead, I'd like to talk at least a little bit about business and possible alternatives to the "edition treadmill" model.So let's step back for a minute and consider a "gamer's game" that is actually making headway in the popular market: The Settles of Catan. Now, though I've played it a number of times it's not a game I'm particularly excited about, and among my fairly impressive board game collection Settlers is conspicuously absent: there's always something else, probably more obscure, that I'd rather be buying (though I do own its comrade-in-arms, Carcassonne plus an expansion). Anyway, here's the thing about Settlers: it came out in 1995.That's right... Settlers came out over 15 years ago. It has changed very little in this time. It came out, won the Spiel des Jahres prize, and has rested upon its ever-increasing laurels since then. People during the Christmas season of 2010 (again, 15 years after its release) walk into game shops and ask for "There's this game... Settlers of something..." or "There's this game... you build these little houses on an island..."; which is to say, after over 15 years the common man (and woman) is still discovering Settlers anew.Settlers of Catan is not taking the world by storm. But it is taking it.Settlers has had a number of expansions. These are not necessary to play. So once you buy into Settlers, there's more to buy (but nothing required). However, Settlers has remained... Settlers. It has expansions, it has spinoffs, it has sibling games, but the game has, actually, remained "ze same".If, on the other hand, Settlers was, over the last 15 years, already up to "Jerry Bruckheimer Presents: Settlers of Freakin' Catan 5th Edition!!!!1!" then it would still be a niche game, eking out a meagre revenue stream from the same. dang. fans. over and over again. It would not be growing.Returning to D&D, the subject of this thread (though it probably doesn't seem like it so far): how can the public ever get any traction in the world of D&D? It changes every ten minutes! They cannot. It doesn't stay the same long enough for it to begin to gain a foothold outside the diehard niche.The current business model seems to be: produce edition. Produce a billion supplements. Wait until the fanbase is saturated, then repeat the process. It's a continual treadmill of driving the same fans to a state of product saturation over and over again.That might make a little bit of money, but it will never grow. It will never begin to spread among the general public and gain traction. It needs time to do this... time to be disseminated and spread. Time for people to become comfortable with it and start having non-gamers over to play. Time for its terminology to become part of the language. Virtually everyone has heard of Boardwalk and Park Place, and passing Go, and Community Chest. People are just starting to become familiar with Settlers (and will get "I've got wood for sheep" jokes). Most people have not heard of a Healing Surge.So what if WOTC decided to just stick with 4E Essentials, regardless of whether or not it's the Platonic Form of role playing game systems? What if they just decided to go with it for a while (like, a decade) and see if it could gain traction? Is there a possible business model that could support that in this industry, or do we have to face the fact that, at heart, Dungeons and Dragons is so weak of a product that the only way it can last is by making the same few thousand people buy it over and over again every couple years?</blockquote>

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