Not only is that true, but on top of that, 5E is unique among D&D editions in that it really hasn't put out many books a player would ever consider buying.Also, isn't it mostly the GM/DMs who actually buy RPG products, making the percentage of actual paying customers bigger? I mean, yeah, players might buy the player-facing books, but probably not adventures?
The latter.The real question I think now is: will WoC learn from this and try to fix it, or will they pretend to listen to the fans and still try to pursue the exact same goals?
not much of a question there, given their ‘walkback’ statement. It’s still full steam aheadThe real question I think now is: will WoC learn from this and try to fix it, or will they pretend to listen to the fans and still try to pursue the exact same goals?
In the now infamous December 8th investor presentation, the example that WotC president Cynthia Williams gave of D&D being under monetized was this:However, I don't think WotC's current leadership even understands the DM/player distinction, let alone that they've been selling to DMs. I'm sure Winninger did, and Perkins and Crawford do, but Dan Rawson or Cynthia Williams? Unlikely based on this. This reeks of failure to know your audience.
they can do that and stay at 5e. Nothing in 6e helps with thatThat's what 6e is all about. The end goal isn't simply a new edition of D&D. It's moving the game from the dining room table to a state-of-the-art VTT with impressive graphics and other features, which will become a platform to sell everything from subscriptions to virtual currency to virtual miniatures to game materials (like classes, feats, spells, monsters, etc.) to customizations (for virtual dice, virtual miniatures, digital character sheets, etc.) and other things that I lack the business savvy to imagine.
And if those minor trust violations hadn’t occurred, do you think the OGL 1.1 wouldn’t have resulted in this backlash?
It’s not enough that trust violations erode someone’s trust. The mistrust has to be widespread, across a significant percentage of the fanbase, with the result that one more minor trust violation is the last straw. I don’t think that was really the case with WotC. Yes, they occasionally did things that annoyed some of the fans, but overall I think people had a positive, or at worst neutral, attitude towards them. But OGL 1.1 wasn’t a minor violation of trust. It wasn’t a final straw, on top of a mountain of older straws. And so it angered even WotC fans.
The very act of creating a new edition helps with that. It changes D&D from merely the latest edition of that weird game where you sit around the dining room table and play with books and funny dice, to One D&D, the evergreen final edition of the game that will be built around a state-of-the-art VTT and suite of digital tools.they can do that and stay at 5e. Nothing in 6e helps with that
The problem with that plan is ... we already have video games, and if you want to do video game stuff, then video games are better. This seems to be geared up to puncture the D&D fad bubble with lots of players leaving the hobby and instead of WotC being set up to quietly go into maintenance mode with say one release a year and letting third party creators take the risks that might bring people in to buy a PHB every now and again, they're going to develop an expensive system that requires constant maintenance just as their customer pool is shrinking.In the now infamous December 8th investor presentation, the example that WotC president Cynthia Williams gave of D&D being under monetized was this:
"So when we think about our future monetization, we start here. Dungeon Masters, which are the people who guide you through the adventure, they only make up about 20% of the audience, but they are the largest share of our paying players. For the rest of the players at the table, we believe digital will allow us to offer a lot more options to create rewarding experiences post-sale that helps us unlock the type of recurrent spending you see in digital games, where more than 70% of the revenue in digital gaming comes post-sale. The speed of digital means that we're able to expand from what is essentially a yearly book-publishing model to a recurrent spending environment..."
They understand the distinction, and they're in the process of restructuring their entire business model to get more money out of non-DM D&D players. That's what 6e is all about. The end goal isn't simply a new edition of D&D. It's moving the game from the dining room table to a state-of-the-art VTT with impressive graphics and other features, which will become a platform to sell everything from subscriptions to virtual currency to virtual miniatures to game materials (like classes, feats, spells, monsters, etc.) to customizations (for virtual dice, virtual miniatures, digital character sheets, etc.) and other things that I lack the business savvy to imagine.
WotC didn't just stumble into the OGL debacle because they don't understand the composition of their customer base. It's part of a larger plan.
I think many fans are conflating two different things, that work together in tandem to pull them away from WotC as customers.At that time for me it was the begin of my personal erosion of trust. They promised something (old settings) and released something completely different. Then other issues in the quality of other releases and now this OGL scandal. You quoted one post of mine without considering the previous one. Please, consider the whole thing.
not if it is backwards compatible, which this one isThe very act of creating a new edition helps with that.
they are, all I am saying is that there is no reason to, and you seem to agree here…To be clear, I'm not saying that it would have been impossible for them to make a state-of-the-art VTT and suite of digital tools for 5e. However, they're obviously going in a different direction.
That was very much the opposite of my experience as a publisher (well, VP of Product Development for a publisher).The OGL's value lay in the trust. Not the legal protections.
No, I mean the value is in you trusting WotC not to sue you, a trust generated by you feeling confident you not being sued. Not because of any legal precedent or court statements.That was very much the opposite of my experience as a publisher (well, VP of Product Development for a publisher).
I don't know if you're tying yourself into knots on the "trust" thing, or if I'm just failing at reading comprehension. The "value" of the OGL was in the contractual rights conferred by the legal document. That has been "devalued" by Wizards' efforts to revoke it. If, tomorrow, Wizards releases a 1.0b that adds the word "irrevocable," the value will be restored. It may not be Paizo or Kobold Press or MCDM or whatever, but publishers will line up to leverage that value and publish content for D&D.Now that trust is gone, regardless of whether the OGL will actually change or not.
I don't think that will work. Because there's nothing stopping WotC from simply biding their time and altering the OGL again later on. That's the trust the other poster is talking about. We know they want to kill the OGL. That's not likely to change. They could let it stand another 20 years or kill it tomorrow. The fact that they might kill it tomorrow puts publishers in a monumental bind and puts their businesses at risk. The margins are already small enough that most publishers would err on the side of not risking their entire business in trusting WotC to not do this again in 6 months or a year.I don't know if you're tying yourself into knots on the "trust" thing, or if I'm just failing at reading comprehension. The "value" of the OGL was in the contractual rights conferred by the legal document. That has been "devalued" by Wizards' efforts to revoke it. If, tomorrow, Wizards releases a 1.0b that adds the word "irrevocable," the value will be restored. It may not be Paizo or Kobold Press or MCDM or whatever, but publishers will line up to leverage that value and publish content for D&D.
And they're right about that -- it is a lifestyle brand. What they failed to reckon with is that being a lifestyle brand cuts two ways. Yes, it can engender tremendous customer loyalty. But it also means that customers can get absolutely furious if you mess with things that they view as essential.Wotc further saw dnd as a "lifestyle brand."
Okay so let me try to make it simple.I don't know if you're tying yourself into knots on the "trust" thing, or if I'm just failing at reading comprehension.
One, is WotC making decisions on the direction of D&D that are NOT a violation of trust, but simply don't align with what SOME customers want out of D&D. WotC never "promised" to release all the classic settings first before adapting Magic settings to the game. Never. You may have wanted that to happen first, but it wasn't a promise or a breach of trust. Still, if WotC isn't putting out products you want, your enjoyment is being "eroded".
Quality issues CAN be a breach of trust, but quality is subjective. A book you might think poor quality, I might think is awesome. Most of WotC's books have been well received by fans overall, the biggest gripes within the online community recently have been over the format of the Spelljammer release, with feelings it was an attempt to charge more for less content.
There are a lot of smaller events that actually WERE breaches of trust, that have brought WotC closer and closer to this "thermocline of trust". I posted a list of past WotC actions that bothered me up in post #59.