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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 8445565" data-attributes="member: 3400">5e's success doesn't mean there aren't screw ups in the past. Claiming that the 4e era didn't involve significant missteps is like claiming that New Coke wasn't a mistake because Coke Classic surged after it's reintroduction of the older formula and taste. Whether you buy the argument that 4e consistently outsold previous editions throughout its life, you still have to look at the rest of the environment that they were responsible for - not having some kind of project recovery after their electronic initiative blew up, turning Paizo from ally into competitor capable of challenging its primacy in the market, late licenses that a large group of previous 3PP wouldn't sign on to, bad marketing, shortened project schedule. All of those would indicate poor handling of D&amp;D regardless of 4e's sales.What's important now is that they learned from those mistakes just as they learned from TSR's mistakes (including don't price boxed sets based on what they think people will pay rather than what they actually cost to produce - that one always makes me chuckle) when they bought the company. They'll make new mistakes to be sure. But they've avoided repeating those. The question might remain, relevant to TSR's history, would a company with D&amp;D as its flagship product have survived from 3e through 4e to 5e? After all, WotC had too many assets to be sunk by any blunders in managing 4e - it wasn't facing an existential risk. My guess is they could have soldiered through - in no small part because they HAD learned not to make TSR's mistakes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="billd91, post: 8445565, member: 3400"] 5e's success doesn't mean there aren't screw ups in the past. Claiming that the 4e era didn't involve significant missteps is like claiming that New Coke wasn't a mistake because Coke Classic surged after it's reintroduction of the older formula and taste. Whether you buy the argument that 4e consistently outsold previous editions throughout its life, you still have to look at the rest of the environment that they were responsible for - not having some kind of project recovery after their electronic initiative blew up, turning Paizo from ally into competitor capable of challenging its primacy in the market, late licenses that a large group of previous 3PP wouldn't sign on to, bad marketing, shortened project schedule. [B]All [/B]of those would indicate poor handling of D&D regardless of 4e's sales. What's important [B]now [/B]is that they learned from those mistakes just as they learned from TSR's mistakes (including don't price boxed sets based on what they think people will pay rather than what they actually cost to produce - that one always makes me chuckle) when they bought the company. They'll make new mistakes to be sure. But they've avoided repeating those. The question might remain, relevant to TSR's history, would a company with D&D as its flagship product have survived from 3e through 4e to 5e? After all, WotC had too many assets to be sunk by any blunders in managing 4e - it wasn't facing an existential risk. My guess is they could have soldiered through - in no small part because they [B]HAD [/B]learned not to make TSR's mistakes. [/QUOTE]

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