D&D General io9: 2023 Should Have Been D&D's Best Year, Until It Wasn't

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That implies I feel they ought to do better in some way, not that they shouldn't do it.

But what way? The rank and file at io9 aren't the ones who made the decision to use AI. That's their famously awful owners imposing a cost-cutting measure. The writers at io9 have the choice of writing or not writing. That's it.

"Your owners suck, do better" isn't something they can do much about, other than quit, and no one at io9 is exactly stuffing wads of thousand dollar bills under their mattress.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have suggested that a company that's done much worse than Hasbro should be honest about themselves, yes

OK, so what is it you're asking for? Every time a G/O company writes the word "AI," they need to say "our owners have invested in AI to be used on the site?"

They could do that, but to what end? Does that meaningfully add clarity? Is the goal to punish the writers? Do you think people making about minimum wage are happy their employer is explicitly figuring out how soon they can be replaced?

This feels very much like a "I don't like this article you wrote about a company I like, so I want you to be punished in some way," which is a weird impulse.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Pfff... who cares what io9 says when we have the much more reliable and ethically run Enworld! Full of up to date news on the TTRPGs you love!

 

[Clint_L]

I think the impact is less "stank" than creating a new set of Pathfinders in the coming years. We'll see how many of them succeed long term, but if the goal was to consolidate the game industry around WotC's offerings, it seems to have done the exact opposite. I am confident folks inside of Hasbro don't think of it as "no big deal."

That was a pretty unique situation, in that WotC in effect let Paizo have D&D and call it Pathfinder, while simultaneously publishing something they called D&D that, to most fans, wasn't.

Note that they have gone in completely the opposite direction with the 2024 rules.

Edit: I'll be blunt: I don't think there's room for more than one behemoth in the fantasy TTRPG sphere. The space is big enough to support quite a few minor players at a low level, but how are you going to elbow your way into anything approaching D&D's numbers, especially when you are basically offering the same game without the branding? For most folks, the minor differences between D&D and Pathfinder or another D&D-derived system aren't that compelling, and not nearly enough to overcome the inertia of sticking with what you've already invested in.

 

[Parmandur]

no it doesn’t, that is anyone who ever played D&D during the last 50 years, the active number is probably more like 15-20M. Still puts things into perspective.

We don't actually know that: the number Kyle Newman gave in the recent interview is that 4E had 3 million players, while 5E has 60 million.

 

[Zardnaar]

We don't actually know that: the number Kyle Newman gave in the recent interview is that 4E had 3 million players, while 5E has 60 million.

Yeah we don't know where he sourced that number from or how they determined that number.

I think there's a reason they haven't released phb numbers sold. 60 million players is less than $3 per player per year.

Campea didn't challenge him but it's not his thing and he's plugging the books.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah we don't know where he sourced that number from or how they determined that number.

No, we don't know, that's my point.

And, yes, tge money per player per year I'd very low. D&D is a massively, disproportionately cheap hobby.

 

[Zardnaar]

No, we don't know, that's my point.

And, yes, tge money per player per year I'd very low. D&D is a massively, disproportionately cheap hobby.

Thought it was interesting but somewhat skeptical.

Find out what the book says context is its a puff piece though.

 

[mamba]

We don't actually know that: the number Kyle Newman gave in the recent interview is that 4E had 3 million players, while 5E has 60 million.

Would be curious to know how he arrived at that

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Edit: I'll be blunt: I don't think there's room for more than one behemoth in the fantasy TTRPG sphere. The space is big enough to support quite a few minor players at a low level, but how are you going to elbow your way into anything approaching D&D's numbers, especially when you are basically offering the same game without the branding? For most folks, the minor differences between D&D and Pathfinder or another D&D-derived system aren't that compelling, and not nearly enough to overcome the inertia of sticking with what you've already invested in.

I don't think we're looking at another singular behemoth. I think that what might (might) happen is that the stuff that arose in response to the OGL self-own are games that, collectively, will be as big as Pathfinder.

Like I said, I don't think anyone here thinks that Paizo is going to put WotC out of business or has any desire to. But they take enough market share to make someone at Hasbro (irrationally) freak out, which is why we had the whole OGL debacle. And that freak-out, in turn, then created the exact opposite effect they wanted: Instead of everyone clumping together under WotC's umbrella (something that consumer goodwill would likely have done to large part in 2024, with the 50th anniversary), they have spread players out at least a little more.

Is it a devastating or "behemoth" amount? Absolutely not. But Hasbro wasn't freaking out about a behemoth. They lost their minds over the proverbial molehill. Creating a bunch more (littler) molehills was a problem they created for themselves instead of just switching to decaf and using that Breathe app on their Apple Watches that no one uses.