WotC Hasbro CEO Chris Cox, "I would say that the underlying thesis of our D&D business is all about digital,”

[gorice]

I don't have figures available, but it's a truism in the RPG industry that most books sold never actually get used at the table.

I don't think you can understand WotC's strategy, sales figures, and public perception of their products without understanding this fact. They're not in the business of selling you something that's fun to play, they're in the business of selling the fantasy of something fun to play.

 

[Parmandur]

I also see cherry picking of measures of quality or success.

The trouble with ranking modules is that, one, a lot of work goes into actually experiencing it fully, and then secondly, everyone's table is going to have such a different experience. One group could fall flat with Curse of Strahd, while another forms beloved memories playing HotDQ with their friends. Not conducive to "objective" measurement.

 

[darjr]

I don't have figures available, but it's a truism in the RPG industry that most books sold never actually get used at the table.

I don't think you can understand WotC's strategy, sales figures, and public perception of their products without understanding this fact. They're not in the business of selling you something that's fun to play, they're in the business of selling the fantasy of something fun to play.

I wonder about this. Who is the majority buying those books and not using them. Is it that books get bought by active players and left fallow or is it mostly non active players?

Cause if it’s active players and the books are at least read and the ideas within spark things in play, does that stat mean what it seems to?

 

[Alzrius]

I dint get you?

It is indeed very likely that ddi made WotC a ton of revenue from 4e. And, for the time, and as far as we can tell, had a large user base.

The problem was it might have cost them more than that revenue just to make it.

What can I say? I just find it hilariously funny that people will keep harping on about WotC making money hand over fist, and thinking that alone means that WotC is successful and doesn't need to do better.

 

[darjr]

What can I say? I just find it hilariously funny that people will keep harping on about WotC making money hand over fist, and thinking that alone means that WotC is successful and doesn't need to do better.

I get that.

I’ll just say that the book money for 5e vs 4e has probably been hugely lopsided in 5es favor. Probably by a lot. Even more so if you take in the dev investment, even giving the fallow product times if the Next playtest.

I’m not entirely sure about revenue in the digital side but I think it’s true about the profit. I think 5e has made more money for WotC than 4e on the digital side of the game.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I dint get you?

It is indeed very likely that ddi made WotC a ton of revenue from 4e. And, for the time, and as far as we can tell, had a large user base.

The problem was it might have cost them more than that revenue just to make it.

Edit: Note I hit post accidently before actually posting anything.

Anyway, to you point. I would agree on revenue, and it probably did cost more than the revenue justified, mainly because there were a lot of associated project that failed to deliver.
DDI is where WotC's lack of software development experience most clearly showed. Their big issue was that their most successful component was a fat windows client. The fact that it was in Silverlight was secondary in my opinion to the fact that it was a fat client-side application. What they needed was a server-side application.
I reckon they had a couple of problems. They might not have built the tooling to keep the game updates to the compendium and client to keep update costs down.
They needed to hollow out that fat client into a thin client and the present a web and mobile app. My guess is that they did not have a large enough team to service the existing services and develop the new stuff needed and they were massively over budget on a project where much of the planned deliverables was non-existent (the VTT) or a thrash fire (the Gleemax website). So, the whole lot got chucked. Particularly since it was adaptable to 5e.

 

[Golroc]

I wonder about this. Who is the majority buying those books and not using them. Is it that books get bought by active players and left fallow or is it mostly non active players?

Cause if it’s active players and the books are at least read and the ideas within spark things in play, does that stat mean what it seems to?

For PC games I believe the figures are somewhere around 25% of games are never even launched once. A lot of TTRPG players buy books to collect and to read. Some buy them hoping to use them, but never do. But you're right that for books "never used" is not easily defined. "Never read" is probably quite rare. But the spectrum from "flipped through briefly and never picked up again" to "read in detail for ideas and inspiration, but never used at a table" is probably significant from anecdotal experience. Humans like collecting, and I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with collecting (not that you've said so, but just mentioning it en passant) over using. It's not always voluntary that people don't get to play as much as they'd like to.

 

[Velderan]

yeah, Amazon reviews are kinda meaningless. Fans buy it, fans rate it. 4.5 is relatively bad, it might even be the worst rated 5e release with that.

Curse of Strahd has 4.9
Rime of the Frostmaiden 4.8
Storm Kings Thunder 4.8
Tyranny of Dragons 4.7
Did not check the rest…

Not to mention people give things 0 star reviews for the dumbest reasons, like "the post office left my package in a spot where it got rained on, zero stars" or my favorite Home Depot review for a bath robe hook that was 0 stars because the person's towel kept falling off of it.

 

[gorice]

I wonder about this. Who is the majority buying those books and not using them. Is it that books get bought by active players and left fallow or is it mostly non active players?

Cause if it’s active players and the books are at least read and the ideas within spark things in play, does that stat mean what it seems to?

To be clear, I'm distinguishing between books read and books 'used' in play. I think it's a mix of people who do play but have to choose between a lot of different things to play in their limited gaming time (I'm in this position: I own tonnes of stuff I want to try, but actually getting it to the table is hard, and I play twice a week as it is), and people who'd like to play but don't have an active group.

So, yeah, reading trumps play as an activity, at least by volume. Incidentally, you can see this in reviews, were a minority of game or adventure reviews seem to have been written by someone who actually played the game.

This seems to be a problem across a lot of hobby spaces, honestly. There's a new edition of 40k out, and it's literally impossible to find a review that actually describes what the game is like to play!

 

[Golroc]

Hasbro really just needs to sit on the IP until the technology catches up and they can attach their IP to whatever AI-powered online RPG service looks the most promising. I think that's where a lot of the digital money is going to be for them. The physical space is an income stream, and will remain so, I think. But the franchise is going to become a lot more valuable if AI-powered RPG services take off. And I think they will.

Now where they can tank their company and up being forced to sell the franchise (or get gobbled up by someone else who wants it) is if they get impatient and/or incompetent in their attempt to create their own digital tabletop systems. Such projects can destroy much bigger companies as the capital expenditure they can soak up is massive.

I see the latter as the main risk - bad decision making and failed projects leading to panicked decisions, IP sell-offs and/or corporate take-overs, some of which may end up impacting the current player-base negatively. Ironically, I think digital success will be the biggest guarantor of continued and healthy physical presence.