WotC Hasbro selling D&D IP?

[Ruin Explorer]

IMHO the cards were all there on the table in plenty of time for 4E to pick them up. It did not.

I don't think that's an opinion that can be backed up by the facts. Some of the cards were there since 3E came out. Others still weren't when 4E was on the way out in 2012.

I will say that aside from accessibility though, 5E did something right that neither 3E nor 4E did, in terms of success, which is simply to resemble older D&D, pre-3E D&D, to seem recognisable such that if you hadn't played D&D since, say, 1997, if you picked up 5E, it would seem like something that made immediate sense in ways 3E & 4E simply would not.

I think this really helped with the 30s and 40s crowd who were ex-D&D players from the '80s and '90s and who either got back into 5E, or in other cases, got 5E for their kids and helped them to get into it.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think that's an opinion that can be backed up by the facts. Some of the cards were there since 3E came out. Others still weren't when 4E was on the way out in 2012.

I will say that aside from accessibility though, 5E did something right that neither 3E nor 4E did, in terms of success, which is simply to resemble older D&D, pre-3E D&D, to seem recognisable such that if you hadn't played D&D since, say, 1997, if you picked up 5E, it would seem like something that made immediate sense in ways 3E & 4E simply would not.

I think this really helped with the mid-30s and 40s crowd who were ex-D&D players from the '80s and '90s and who either got back into 5E, or in more cases, got 5E for their kids and helped them to get into it.

We've seen the charts before, the 40+ crowd accounts for less than 15% of the total number of people playing. The majority of D&D players started with 5E, they certainly did not start playing because of nostalgia.

External factors have certainly helped D&D sales. But it wouldn't have taken off without a solid set of rules that appeals to a broad audience.

 

[MockingBird]

Big Bang Theory episode featuring D&D S5E4 aired Oct 6 2011.

Community's infamous D&D episode aired Feb 3 2011.

Big Bang Theory sometimes gets cited for 5es success. It just doesn't line up for me. 4e was still the current edition when these shows aired. If I'm not mistaken Big Bang Theory even had 4e books on the episode. Also shows inspired by D&D were doing really well (Adventure Time, Regular Show) during this time period. 4e and D&D in general definitely had exposure into the culture and public. These shows were pretty popular at the time.

Stranger Things first aired July 15 2016

Stranger Things didn't even air until 2 years after 5e was launched. If I recall correctly, 5e had a successful launch. It was very popular and getting lots of praise. What I don't recall is slow sales for 5e until 2016.

My point is I don't buy the whole 5e is only successful because x show or whatever. The time frames just don't line up for me. I'm not saying it didn't help but I'm a firm believer it is popular for its own merits.

 

[Incenjucar]

We do not know why 5E was successful. It is unlikely we ever will.

 

[Staffan]

Sure, but historically it's been a bit more complex.

Specifically Hasbro have SOLD and I do mean SOLD the videogame rights to literally all their major IPs before. They did so in 2000, when the sold Hasbro Digital and Games.com to Infogrames, and part of the deal was the rights to produce videogames based on Hasbro's major game IPs. Infogrames became the owner, and ultimate licensor of D&D, Monopoly, and so on, for videogames (not for anything else). This was because Hasbro were complete numpties who couldn't see past Games.com making less money than they hoped and I guess couldn't imagine the coming century at all. They sold all this for the even-in-2000 rather pathetic figure of $50m.

I believe this was the main reason Peter Adkison quit, or at least the final straw. From what I understand, he was adamantly against selling off video game rights to D&D, but overruled by higher-ups within Hasbro.

In 1999, I think everyone understood Hasbro purchased WotC because of Magic the Gathering.

Also the Pokemon TCG, which was making them mad money at the time. I believe this has been cited as a big reason why Wizards sold to Hasbro. Basically, many of the people who got in on the ground floor with Wizards were paid in stock. Some of these saw the ridiculous amounts of money the company made from Pokemon and figured that wasn't likely to last, and figured this would be the time to cash out. But since the company wasn't publicly traded, there was no convenient way to do so, so they told Adkison that he needed to either take the company public or find a buyer. And since Adkison had nowhere near a controlling interest in the company (because of bad calls when forming it), he had to go along with that.

4E was never "WoW-ified" that's typically something people who don't understand either 4E or WoW like say largely because they both have roles in them (the sole similarity, and ironically roles were inspired by D&D in the first place, but that's a long story).

I think there are two main differences with 4e roles compared to earlier editions.

1. "Defender" became a recognized role, much like the WoW tank, with abilities dedicated to "keeping aggro" and being able to withstand damage. Sure, pre-4e fighters and paladins (mainly) could rock a great AC and had plenty of hit points, but generally didn't have any "You wanna fight, fight ME" abilities. Late 3e experimented a little with such abilities, but those were mostly precursors to 4e.
2. Classes were designed role-first. Previous editions had fighters, wizards, clerics, and thieves/rogues as "archetypes", and other classes could often be described as "a little of X and a little of Y" (e.g. the druid being "sort of like a cleric but with less healing and more boom-boom"), but whatever roles they fulfilled was something that happened organically if at all. So a group might have a barbarian instead of a fighter, but the barbarian can't soak damage anywhere near as good as a fighter so the group will overall be worse off. In 4e, the Warden is designated as a primal defender, so they can (in theory) fill the same role as a fighter, just doing things a little differently.

That said, you are completely right when you say that roles were not what Wizards execs had in mind when they were talking about turning D&D into WoW, but rather the subscription model.

 

[mamba]

They didn't lose half the audience at all if we're being pedantic, more recent looks at the sales figures and comments from WotC suggest it was more like 30-40%. Still a huge drop but we all love pedantry, right?

I have no exact numbers, half is just easy to use.

4E was never "WoW-ified" that's typically something people who don't understand either 4E or WoW like say largely because they both have roles in them (the sole similarity, and ironically roles were inspired by D&D in the first place, but that's a long story). The actual "WoW-ification" they intended never happened because they never managed to get the DDI/3D VTT out of beta

the AEDU feel like that to me already, the focus on grid, classes being more or less equal. There is a lot more than just a subscription based VTT to turn D&D into WoW

5e on a VTT is still not WoW

And you're acting like they're not in the process of doing that now - WoW-ifying D&D. What do you think the goal of the 5E 3D VTT is?

subscriptions, I do not see that as the anything even close to wow-ifying 5e however. 5e does not change ‘just’ because I subscribe to a VTT now

Why do you think WotC has a team nearly 5x bigger than the D&D team working on the 3D VTT?

I am surprised it is only 5 times bigger, they spend an awful lot on it

I'd suggest maybe his huge experience in convincing people to change from buying individual products to digital subscriptions might be relevant.

sure, that is the goal, no doubt. To me this has nothing to do with wow-ifying 5e however, that was about game design

I do agree a very significant proportion of players were put off by 4E, but I question whether it would have been 30-40% if they'd had good marketing, a CEO who wasn't talking smack, and so on. I suspect it'd have been more like 10-20%.

guess we will never know The other part of the story is that even many of the 60% or so that bought 4e lost interest fast, tanking sales at record speed.

Getting people to try your product is only getting you so far if they then do not like it / stick with it

I also think there was just an element of burnout, because some players didn't go to PF or keep playing 3.XE, they just stopped playing D&D, and I don't think that was a "4E sux" thing, I think that was a "I don't want to learn a new game but I'm bored with this one" thing.

maybe, I assume there is always a churn of people entering and leaving. It only becomes a problem when more are leaving than entering.

5e seems to have staved off that fate, or at the very least delayed it considerably, probably by being easier to pick up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

5e on a VTT is still not WoW

What if everyone has really big shoulder armor, though?

 

[mamba]

Given that no other version of D&D has ever matched 5E's success, I don't thing this is much of a clarifier.

agreed, the drop-off rate for sales is more of a clarifier to me, and while no edition looks better than 5e there either, 4e still manages to come in towards the bottom / last

 

[mamba]

This whole "5E is successful because of the rules!!!" thing is hilarious because if that's true 5E should have astonishingly, mind-blowingly well-designed rules to be wildly outperforming every previous edition by insane margins.

it can be successful because of the rules without the quality of the rules of an edition being in a fixed relation to the sales of the edition.

Being easy to pick up and play and not overly complex helps a lot more than being ‘the best at rules’. There is a reason why we have an OSR movement but not much of a 3e or 4e one.

Not sure who said it, but I saw it recently ‘my biggest disappointment with TTRPGs is how little good rules and sales correlate’. I tend to agree with that and still believe that 5e’s success is largely due to the rules. 4e in 2014 would not have fared any better than in 2008

 

[bedir than]

What if everyone has really big shoulder armor, though?

Only if it is pay-to-win in installments