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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9156369" data-attributes="member: 18">None of that is investing significantly more than 2014.I don't understand why you think that it is. To WotC it's just a brand refresh, and creating the new PHB/DMG/MM is likely costing them a similar relative amount to the original 5E ones, which is to say - not very much. They've only got 30 people working on them.Trying new formats at higher prices indicates experimentation, it doesn't indicate investment. That's pretty simple. If you think it does indicate investment, you'll need to explain how. Historically this sort of experimentation is commonly seen just before a company gets into serious financial trouble. I don't think that will happen with D&D, but it is interesting - I suspect it means there's an exec out there who thinks D&D needs to make more cash, but isn't willing to put more money into D&D, so is having them twiddle with the format.As for "internally vs freelancers", well, they've had about 30 people on D&D for a long time. They're not making significantly more books than they used to, nor are they making those books have more content - on the contrary for the last few years there's been a trend towards less content per book. So that doesn't indicate any significant investment that I can see.It may be that WotC is spending, say, 20-30% more on D&D now than in 2014, but D&D has 300%+ more customers than it did in 2014, so I think it's fair to say that's not "significantly more".Especially in the context of the 3D VTT. Let's assume D&D workers, and 3D VTT people are paid the same, cost the company the same - I doubt this, almost certainly the 3D VTT people are vastly more expensive, but let's pretend. Let's say each costs WotC $100k/year.D&D has, last I heard, about 30 people on it, that's costing WotC $3m per year. The 3D VTT, according to Cynthia Williams, has 250 people on it. That's costing WotC about $25m per year - over eight times as much. Thus even if D&D had had 30 people on it from day 1, the 3D VTT project is going to cost more than the entire decade of D&D in 2 years of existing. Do you see the gigantic difference in investment and thus internal corporate interest? The 3D VTT is the sort of thing that makes and breaks corporate careers. D&D itself, as a game, is likely not seen that way inside WotC (however foolishly), I would suggest.</blockquote>

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