D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Clint_L]

TSR started mass layoffs in October 1996 and they last shipped D&D products in December 1996. Most probably they were technically bankrupt before then, but they didn't officially close their doors until 1997.

I don't think there is such a thing as "technically bankrupt" - you have to be declared bankrupt via court proceedings, so there's nothing technical about it. It's more accurate to say that TSR was in a catastrophic financial situation and, had they not swung the deal with WotC, would almost certainly have had to file for bankruptcy within months.

But TSR never actually went bankrupt, though they came awful close on two occasions.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

 

[dave2008]

Yep. Often if the mechanics don't fit the concept, then the concept or parts of the concept fail in the fiction. For instance if part of the player vision for the PC was growing into one of the best archers the world has ever seen and 3e had no archery feats or classes/subclasses focused on archery, the concept would fail because every Tom, Dick and Harry with the same class and level could pick up a bow and be as good or better than the PC.

Not every part of a concept needs to have mechanical backing, but a lot of them do.

It seems like there is a simple solution to me, but not never everyone is as flexible as my group. So I get it, I think.

 

[R_J_K75]

Between last release of D&D14 and D&D24 Id say yes, there's usually a stop or lull. in product output overall, I'd say no. Besides hard copy books, theres IDW comics I believe, movies, possible TV/Streaming series. coffee mugs, Presto Magic, so I think the brands OK.

 

[Alzrius]

Because in 3.x and 4e they learned that they don't sell. They have increasing diminishing returns on each book after an initial spike. The 5e model shows each book continues to sell consistently in volumes to maintain profitability outside of the 1-3 month range. Players options don't sell on their own.

I remember when the refrain used to be "adventures don't sell, because only DMs buy them." Now we've apparently come around to "player options don't sell." Soon the circle will be complete!

All joking aside though, ever since the Hasbro era of D&D began (i.e. 1999), the idea that any iteration of D&D hasn't "maintained profitability" has gone out the window, because Hasbro's target has never been simply taking in more money than they spent. Rather, it's about ROI (return on investment). D&D has always been profitable in the Hasbro era, but it's rarely been profitable enough for its corporate overlords.

I'm not a business executive, but I'm given to understand (mostly from a Gen Con seminar I was at several years ago, where James Lowder spoke about this topic) that corporations of Hasbro's size don't judge ventures by whether or not they turn a profit, but whether they turn enough of a profit to be worth their time. If they're only earning (my random example, here) $10 for every $1 they spend, then whereas you or I would think of that as wildly successful, they think of it as a failed investment, because that $1 could be earning them $100 somewhere else. That's part of the reason why they eventually shuttered the novels division of WotC, which was earning more money than it spent at the time it was closed down.

As for whether or not there's a segment of TTRPG players who will consistently buy crunch-filled supplements, we already know that there are, and that it's sustainable: that's how Paizo stays in business. If they've been able to keep themselves going for well over a decade (sitting as the #2 RPG company in the business for almost that entire time by most accounts) using that model, then it's clearly not unsustainable or lacking in profitability.

Really, Paizo has overturned a lot of "conventional wisdom" in the RPG space. They have multiple lines of prefab adventures, proving that adventures sell. They put out consistent crunch-heavy books, proving that there's a market for them. And they kept 3.5 alive (counting PF1 as a form of 3.5) for over a decade after WotC moved on from it, proving that there was a significant portion of the player base who liked that system and didn't want to let it go.

WotC's leaving 3.5 behind wasn't due to any issues with the system, or with players deciding they were tired of the game. It was because they (WotC/Hasbro) wanted it to make more money than it was making, the same way that 5E is now being called "undermonetized" despite its success.

To summarize, it's not about profitability; it's about profit maximization.

 

[Velderan]

I remember when the refrain used to be "adventures don't sell, because only DMs buy them." Now we've apparently come around to "player options don't sell." Soon the circle will be complete!

All joking aside though, ever since the Hasbro era of D&D began (i.e. 1999), the idea that any iteration of D&D hasn't "maintained profitability" has gone out the window, because Hasbro's target has never been simply taking in more money than they spent. Rather, it's about ROI (return on investment). D&D has always been profitable in the Hasbro era, but it's rarely been profitable enough for its corporate overlords.

I'm not a business executive, but I'm given to understand (mostly from a Gen Con seminar I was at several years ago, where James Lowder spoke about this topic) that corporations of Hasbro's size don't judge ventures by whether or not they turn a profit, but whether they turn enough of a profit to be worth their time. If they're only earning (my random example, here) $10 for every $1 they spend, then whereas you or I would think of that as wildly successful, they think of it as a failed investment, because that $1 could be earning them $100 somewhere else. That's part of the reason why they eventually shuttered the novels division of WotC, which was earning more money than it spent at the time it was closed down.

As for whether or not there's a segment of TTRPG players who will consistently buy crunch-filled supplements, we already know that there are, and that it's sustainable: that's how Paizo stays in business. If they've been able to keep themselves going for well over a decade (sitting as the #2 RPG company in the business for almost that entire time by most accounts) using that model, then it's clearly not unsustainable or lacking in profitability.

Really, Paizo has overturned a lot of "conventional wisdom" in the RPG space. They have multiple lines of prefab adventures, proving that adventures sell. They put out consistent crunch-heavy books, proving that there's a market for them. And they kept 3.5 alive (counting PF1 as a form of 3.5) for over a decade after WotC moved on from it, proving that there was a significant portion of the player base who liked that system and didn't want to let it go.

WotC's leaving 3.5 behind wasn't due to any issues with the system, or with players deciding they were tired of the game. It was because they (WotC/Hasbro) wanted it to make more money than it was making, the same way that 5E is now being called "undermonetized" despite its success.

To summarize, it's not about profitability; it's about profit maximization.

The thing about Paizo is Lisa Stevens was the one who performed the autopsy on TSR's financials and I'm sure she quickly figured out the problem was they had no idea what the demand from their market was and they overprinted material pretty frequently.

"We sold through the initial 50,000 copies we made and need a reprint, 20,000 is probably a safe number to ensure we don't get stuck with unsold inventory."
"Sounds good, order 150,000 more copies."

I have no idea how long they've had the subscription model going, but I'd guess Paizo leans pretty heavily on it to predict how many copies of each book to print. 5ish years later, they still have some 1e material sitting around their warehouse from looking at what they're currently selling on their store but it doesn't look to be a lot so they probably managed their inventory pretty well. We know WotC is making a lot of data driven decisions, so I'm sure they're generally aware of how many copies a book needs to have in an initial print run to not have them end up stuck with a bunch of extra books. The issue is completely what you're saying: if something doesn't return a specific amount, it's not worth their time to do it. There's enough anecdotal evidence on various forums to suggest the average 5e player is not buying everything so despite having a wide audience that could definitely maintain some level of profitability by cranking out more material (note I said more and not how much more), it almost certainly would hurt the profit per book so that's a big no-no in WotC's business strategy.

 

[Maxperson]

It seems like there is a simple solution to me, but not never everyone is as flexible as my group. So I get it, I think.

I see it now! One additional book of crunch per year, starting with a Psionics Book. Why couldn't I see that earlier?!

 

[Cadence]

I see it now! One additional book of crunch per year, starting with a Psionics Book. Why couldn't I see that earlier?!

Because the book with a precognition based class isn't out yet!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I see it now! One additional book of crunch per year, starting with a Psionics Book. Why couldn't I see that earlier?!

I completely agree.

WoTC should keep the same production schedule, but should add in the following books:

Stuff I want them to publish.

This is clearly and obviously a successful strategy, because Paizo.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I remember when the refrain used to be "adventures don't sell, because only DMs buy them." Now we've apparently come around to "player options don't sell." Soon the circle will be complete!

All joking aside though, ever since the Hasbro era of D&D began (i.e. 1999), the idea that any iteration of D&D hasn't "maintained profitability" has gone out the window, because Hasbro's target has never been simply taking in more money than they spent. Rather, it's about ROI (return on investment). D&D has always been profitable in the Hasbro era, but it's rarely been profitable enough for its corporate overlords.

I'm not a business executive, but I'm given to understand (mostly from a Gen Con seminar I was at several years ago, where James Lowder spoke about this topic) that corporations of Hasbro's size don't judge ventures by whether or not they turn a profit, but whether they turn enough of a profit to be worth their time. If they're only earning (my random example, here) $10 for every $1 they spend, then whereas you or I would think of that as wildly successful, they think of it as a failed investment, because that $1 could be earning them $100 somewhere else. That's part of the reason why they eventually shuttered the novels division of WotC, which was earning more money than it spent at the time it was closed down.

As for whether or not there's a segment of TTRPG players who will consistently buy crunch-filled supplements, we already know that there are, and that it's sustainable: that's how Paizo stays in business. If they've been able to keep themselves going for well over a decade (sitting as the #2 RPG company in the business for almost that entire time by most accounts) using that model, then it's clearly not unsustainable or lacking in profitability.

Really, Paizo has overturned a lot of "conventional wisdom" in the RPG space. They have multiple lines of prefab adventures, proving that adventures sell. They put out consistent crunch-heavy books, proving that there's a market for them. And they kept 3.5 alive (counting PF1 as a form of 3.5) for over a decade after WotC moved on from it, proving that there was a significant portion of the player base who liked that system and didn't want to let it go.

WotC's leaving 3.5 behind wasn't due to any issues with the system, or with players deciding they were tired of the game. It was because they (WotC/Hasbro) wanted it to make more money than it was making, the same way that 5E is now being called "undermonetized" despite its success.

To summarize, it's not about profitability; it's about profit maximization.

Yup. This is why the, "WotC has to keep the lights on" argument falls very, very flat to me.