D&D 5E Greg Leeds talks about D&D

[Mistwell]

The best time to work on a replacement product is when your current product is still doing well.

Not really, that's too broad a statement. If your current product will do well for 20 years, working on it's replacement now would be a bad idea as by the time it's ready for release it will be woefully outdated.

 

[fjw70]

Not really, that's too broad a statement. If your current product will do well for 20 years, working on it's replacement now would be a bad idea as by the time it's ready for release it will be woefully outdated.

Obviously there are more factors of when to start developing a new product but I stand by my statement.

 

[MwaO]

The best time to work on a replacement product is when your current product is still doing well.

Except basically everyone agreed that it wasn't doing well. Essentials 4e bombed for a whole variety of reasons. Pathfinder was clearly taking lots of share in the 3.5 crowd.

5e might be doing much better than 3e or 4e, but we don't actually know anything from this interview.

 

[Morrus]

Now I know whose responsible for the slow D&D release schedule and who I hope gets fired so D&D can be properly supported.

People don't often get fired for making high net profits.

 

[I'm A Banana]

At the very least, this can hopefully serve as a bit of counter-evidence to those who claim that WotC's current strategy is an objectively bad one that will inevitably financially ruin them. D&D isn't suffering under this plan, so it alone will not lead to D&D's failure.

 

[77IM]

That said, there's almost certainly some sort of D&D equivalent of the Laffer Curve - if they don't release any products then their net revenue is obviously $0; if they release an infinite number than it's also $0 because the cost to produce is too high, and between the two extremes there is one or more points where net profit is maximised. And so from any given point the 'right' thing to do might be to release more product or to release less product. (And, as with the Laffer Curve, it's invisible so you can't actually ever know for certain - and, yes, it does look like they've found one of the "sweet spots".)

You seem to be confusing revenue with profit. The interview claimed revenue was up (although it did not say by how much) but didn't mention profit, unless I missed it.

 

[MwaO]

At the very least, this can hopefully serve as a bit of counter-evidence to those who claim that WotC's current strategy is an objectively bad one that will inevitably financially ruin them. D&D isn't suffering under this plan, so it alone will not lead to D&D's failure.

It isn't any evidence at all. Net revenue isn't profit and comparing release years against non-release years is easy to do.

They're getting heavily discounted by the big booksellers, they can't re-release the core books any time soon, so at some point, the following becomes true:
Almost everyone who plans to own the core 3 books owns them.
Game stores don't want to pay up for the core 3 books because they'll get undercut by Amazon/BN and they'll mostly just take up shelf space.
Then revenue from what everyone normally considers D&D falls off a cliff or 5e releases a lot more material.

My best guess at what they're trying to do is become the next Marvel. Have just enough of a presence in D&D that D&D players will go to Marvel-style movies, buy D&D themed games, etc...if Marvel can take Ant-Man or Guardians of the Galaxy and make blockbuster movies out of them with good scripts/effects, only stands to reason that they ought to be able to do the same with some D&D properties, right?

I don't think they'll be able to make that happen, but I think that's where Hasbro is going with all this.

 

[Mistwell]

Obviously there are more factors of when to start developing a new product but I stand by my statement.

By your logic, there is no bad time to be working on a replacement. If it's doing bad obviously you'd want to work on a replacement, and if it's doing well you're saying you want to work on a replacement, so when would you not work on a replacement?

WOTC appears to be planning for a long term, evergreen product in 5e. That makes now a bad time to work on a replacement, if indeed their plan is working.

 

[Mistwell]

You seem to be confusing revenue with profit. The interview claimed revenue was up (although it did not say by how much) but didn't mention profit, unless I missed it.

He says NET revenue is up. "Net revenue refers to gross sales minus the cost of sales, including cost of goods sold." It's not a direct translation to profit as there can be expenses which are not cost of sales and goods sold (like capital investments - for example if they buy a new building that's an expense that's not part of cost of sales or goods sold), but it's closer to "profit" than it is to mere "revenue".

 

[Warmaster Horus]

You need to go take some Corporate As A Second Language courses at the local community college.

Yeah. But look at this q&a exchange. It sucks the very soul out of what I love about D&D.

What about channel penetration for D&D or Magic. Is that changing or stable?

Very stable penetration from the digital side to the hobby game store side to the mass merchant side. What we find is our businesses tend to grow in all three areas. There’s a synergy between them. Each has their role in satisfying particular needs of the community, so we don’t see trade-offs in any of our brands.

One thing I would say with regard to the evolving store environment is that stores are getting better and better in the hobby game industry at creating these experiences. If I look back 10 years ago, what would be a great store 10 years ago would be an average store today. And everything we do at Wizards of the Coast is to make the great store of today an average store of tomorrow. So that’s the evolution we’re seeing.​