D&D 5E Given WotC plans with the RPG will 5e always be the #1 seller?

[Mistwell]

WoTc does not make vast amounts of money to the point where Hasbro can just sit back and rake it all in without a care in the world. If they are, then D&D will be yet another failure for the second time in a row.

WOTC makes more money than any other division of Hasbro. They have lots of cares in the world, but WOTC is indeed the least of their cares, as all their attention appears to be fixing other areas of Hasbro right now.

Let me ask you, BR, have you listened to all the Hasbro investor relations phone calls? Have you read their quarterly statements? Have you bothered to inform yourself about this topic at all, or are you running purely off your own speculation and education about how things supposedly general work in the business world? Because right now, you're not coming off very well (particularly with your last claim about the degrees of the people working at WOTC relative to your own), and if you are informed it might help you be more persuasive than you are right now. Because right now you are failing at whatever your goal might be, unless your goal was to amuse people with feigned smugness.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Are you saying that was the equivalent of a Mistophecy?

If so, I would be happy if someone else does that sort of thing for this edition

But, as his name is Sword of Spirit, I think we need a new name for his prediction. Swordophecy? Spiritophecy? Swordiction? Spiritiction? The Oracle of SOS? Sword of Aurgury? Sword the Soothsayer?

Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?

Probably needs to throw in a Time Stop spell to make it more powerful.

 

[Gilwen]

And do you happen to know a list of these degrees? If not then the remark is irrelevant.

Luckily nobody gave me mine, broke my arse to get mine.

doesn't matter what the degrees are or even if they have any at all. Credentials outside of direct experience or primary sources for that information are irrelevant. basing arguments on degree or credentials is a fallacy. You having a degree or even business experience doesn't give you any more insight to the operations of WOTC and Hasbro than anyone else sitting on the outside.

Gil

 

[Gilwen]

This is an interesting topic.

<snip>
The real question is. Is selling/producing the most books the most important and crucial thing to DND5e (And quite frankly DND in general) success?

I'd say no.

DND IS the name brand. Marketing and Licencing the brand is what is going to make DND5e successful. Movies, Video Games, Novels, Toys, T-Shirts. Getting attention of the General Public. 5e is an easy to learn and simple system perfect for this audience. I think with this route, WOTC will have great success.
<snip>

that's pretty much what I am thinking too. Hasbro is even suing to get the movie rights back and I hope they are successful.

 

[doctorhook]

Depends on the business. D&D does not have a good record when it comes to business. Creativity is what makes D&D and it is what generates money for D&D. With their current record, I do not for one minute, no matter who says any different on these forums, think that Hasbro doean't have their hands in this, especially with their transmedia goals. WoTc does not make vast amounts of money yo the point where Hasbro can just sit back and rake it all in without a care in the world. If they are, then D&D will be yet another failure for the second time in a row.

This is asinine. You want to argue bout WotC but refuse to consider any of the informed perspectives people are offering to you. Yes, Hasbro wants WotC to succeed, and very likely encourages WotC to take its brands in "transmedia" directions, but that's not the same as exercising creative control over D&D. Expanding the D&D brand is not a bad business move, nor does it imply any Hasbro-directed changes to the D&D game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is an interesting topic.

Will DND 5e be the Number one Seller in Tabletop Roleplaying Books?

Hard to tell/say. The market is quite different now.

There is a lot of High quality products out right now they are competing with other then Pathfinder. Numenra and 13th Age to name a couple.

That's nothing new. D&D was competing with higher quality products almost as soon as other publishers jumped into the market. Even after the fad waned, D&D was the only RPG with mainstream name recognition, and the one RPG most gamers started with, giving it tremendous longevity.

Add Kickstarters to the equation and you have one broke gamer.

That is, indeed, a difference. Even so, it's not that different from the advent of small press publishing in the 90s, which, yeah, hurt D&D a little, but arguably not as much as CCGs.

The real question is. Is selling/producing the most books the most important and crucial thing to DND5e (And quite frankly DND in general) success?

I'd say no.

It's the only thing that's made D&D successful in the past. There's always been some speculation that it could go mainstream with a board game or card game or movie or video game or novels or comic books or whatever - it's never quite panned out. In 2008, they pinned their hopes on a massive subscription-model revenue stream over and above just selling books, and it didn't work out so well. In the 90s, TSR drove itself out of business by betting to heavily on publishing novels and putting out failed collectible games (when CCGs were the latest fad).

DND IS the name brand. Marketing and Licencing the brand is what is going to make DND5e successful. Movies, Video Games, Novels, Toys, T-Shirts. Getting attention of the General Public.

We've heard that tune many times before. Admittedly, it'd be nice to see someone finally dancing to it, but I see little reason to hope.

5e is an easy to learn and simple system perfect for this audience. I think with this route, WOTC will have great success.

Least of all this reason. 5e is /not/, even in it's Basic form, a simple or easy-to-learn system for the new-to-RPGs player. For experienced players, even for returning one-time players of long ago, sure, /because it's familiar/. Even a player who started with 4e is going to have a fairly easy time assimilating the archaisms of 5e. But or the new player, peeping in from the mainstream with, maybe, exposure to MMOs or a CRPG or something as foundation, 5e is as arcane as 3.x - and only barely saved from being as counter-intuitive as AD&D by sticking with d20 core mechanics. For every improvement in clarity/consistency that makes the game simpler or easier to understand (like 'vantage) there's several steps back (like Vancian, saving throws, inconsistent class advancement), not to mention unchallenged D&Disms like armor making you 'miss,' that have always made new players scratch their heads a bit.

It's not easy to learn or simple, it's just familiar and not all out yet.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

No, that is pretty much how it works. WorC staff say so pretty much repeatedly. Hasbro barely knows D&D exists.

I can confirm this. A few years back I was on a bus at CES in Las Vegas and I started chatting with the gentleman next to me. Turns our he was a C level executive at Hasbro, so naturally I asked about D&D. He said that WOTC's line is so different than the rest of Hasbro that they're pretty much left to their own devices.

Personally, I would speculate that Hasbro mainly bought WOTC for their card games, and maybe for D&D brand toys and video games. As long as the RPG group makes their ROI targets, I would expect Hasbro to leave them alone.

 

[doctorhook]

[Publishing is] the only thing that's made D&D successful in the past.

Technically true, but publishing is a dying industry. Can D&D rely on publishing for the future? I doubt it, and so does WotC. More importantly, what in the past has indicated that D&D must rely on revenue from publishing?

There's always been some speculation that it could go mainstream with a board game or card game or movie or video game or novels or comic books or whatever - it's never quite panned out. In 2008, they pinned their hopes on a massive subscription-model revenue stream over and above just selling books, and it didn't work out so well. In the 90s, TSR drove itself out of business by betting to heavily on publishing novels and putting out failed collectible games (when CCGs were the latest fad).

We've heard that tune [expanding the brand] many times before. Admittedly, it'd be nice to see someone finally dancing to it, but I see little reason to hope.

The management at TSR by the '90s was infamously poor. Expanding the D&D brand doesn't have to mean whole-hog, ham-handed fad-following. The circumstances of TSR's failure doesn't preclude WotC from success.

Least of all this reason. 5e is /not/, even in it's Basic form, a simple or easy-to-learn system for the new-to-RPGs player. For experienced players, even for returning one-time players of long ago, sure, /because it's familiar/. Even a player who started with 4e is going to have a fairly easy time assimilating the archaisms of 5e. But or the new player, peeping in from the mainstream with, maybe, exposure to MMOs or a CRPG or something as foundation, 5e is as arcane as 3.x - and only barely saved from being as counter-intuitive as AD&D by sticking with d20 core mechanics. For every improvement in clarity/consistency that makes the game simpler or easier to understand (like 'vantage) there's several steps back (like Vancian, saving throws, inconsistent class advancement), not to mention unchallenged D&Disms like armor making you 'miss,' that have always made new players scratch their heads a bit.

It's not easy to learn or simple, it's just familiar and not all out yet.

It's a TTRPG--how simple do you really expect it to be? Compared to the spectrum of similar games, 5E (especially in its Basic form) is clearly on the "easier and simpler to learn" end of the spectrum, especially compared to Pathfinder, 5E's only significant competitor.

 

[Tony Vargas]

WOTC makes more money than any other division of Hasbro.

To be fair, even if that's true, WotC is not D&D, WotC is a CCG company that also owns D&D. The CCG industry is at least a full order of magnitude larger than the RPG industry.

Technically true, but publishing is a dying industry. Can D&D rely on publishing for the future? I doubt it, and so does WotC. More importantly, what in the past has indicated that D&D must rely on revenue from publishing?

Nothing. As always, past performance is no guarantee, but TSR and WotC both tried repeatedly to break D&D out of its limited-appeal niche, and it's never worked before.

It's a TTRPG--how simple do you really expect it to be? Compared to the spectrum of similar games, 5E (especially in its Basic form) is clearly on the "easier and simpler to learn" end of the spectrum, especially compared to Pathfinder, 5E's only significant competitor.

'Simpler than Pathfinder' is not much of a bar to clear. And the question isn't whether D&D can compete with other RPGs on simplicity (it doesn't really need to), it's whether D&D is simple/easy-to-learn enough to retain new players better than it has in the past. Comparing the current Starter Set to the last one (the Essentials 'Red Box' redux), for instance.

 

[Mirtek]

WOTC makes more money than any other division of Hasbro.

More than transformers?

Let me ask you, BR, have you listened to all the Hasbro investor relations phone calls? Have you read their quarterly statements? Have you bothered to inform yourself about this topic at all,

Have you? If so, you might have noticed that WotC is solely mentioned for MtG. D&D isn't deemed worthy enough to have a few pixels spared to be added on their investor fact sheet (and that's meant to really wet potential investors appetite for Hasbro)

Heck, even if you look at their 33 pages investor presentation, D&D is still not mentioned at all (unlike 35 other brands deemed worth mentioning). Even the aquisition of WotC is described as "Acquires Wizards of the Coast and it's Magic the Gathering franchise"