D&D 5E Is long-term support of the game important?

[Iosue]

Maybe. But there are easier ways of celebrating the anniversary than tanking sales for two years, and making it much harder for new people to get into the game.
And the 40th anniversary was two months back. They missed it. They missed the associated free advertising. They're missing half of the 40th anniversary.

There is no single day anniversary for D&D. The whole year is the anniversary, and a summer release, targeted for GenCon is perfectly in keeping with WotC's usual edition release schedule.

If they were just aiming to have an edition out in 2014 they would have started sooner or worked much faster.

Not at all. Work on the 1989 2nd Edition began in earnest in August 1987, when they sent out a questionnaire in Dragon magazine. Work on 3rd edition began in late 1997 for a 2000 release. Work on 4e began in mid-2005 for a summer 2008 release. Work began on 5e in mid-2011 for a 2014 release. Roughly 3 years is a perfectly standard length of time to work on an edition, particularly the "completely new game" version of editions that WotC favors.

 

[Jester David]

There is no single day anniversary for D&D. The whole year is the anniversary, and a summer release, targeted for GenCon is perfectly in keeping with WotC's usual edition release schedule.

"Sorry I missed our anniversary honey. But, if you think about it, this whole year is our tenth anniversary."
Yeah, don't buy that.

Okay, I *would* if WotC were doing a big "this whole year is our fourtieth!!" celebration. But they're not. They had one half-assed article on January 21st, where they put out a call for videos and then updated it twice before giving up.
They didn't change their website, they haven't released a retrospective book like during the 30th.
They do more for a single Drizzt book release then they did for the 40th.

So, no, the whole year is not the anniversary because they're not acting like the whole year is the anniversary. They're pretening the anniversary is in the summer, missing it by six months, and wasting half of the anniversary year in silence.

Not at all. Work on the 1989 2nd Edition began in earnest in August 1987, when they sent out a questionnaire in Dragon magazine. Work on 3rd edition began in late 1997 for a 2000 release. Work on 4e began in mid-2005 for a summer 2008 release. Work began on 5e in mid-2011 for a 2014 release. Roughly 3 years is a perfectly standard length of time to work on an edition, particularly the "completely new game" version of editions that WotC favors.

Right. And your argument was that they were always going to do something for the 40th. So if that was always their plan they should have known it was going to take three years and started eight months earlier, releasing for the holidays 2013 and hyping all of 2014 rather than just half.

But they didn't.

Which implies they were hoping 4e would still be going strong during 2014 and they'd be able to start a shorter revision in 2012 or 2013 for release on the anniversary.

 

[Umbran]

So, no, the whole year is not the anniversary because they're not acting like the whole year is the anniversary. They're pretening the anniversary is in the summer, missing it by six months, and wasting half of the anniversary year in silence.

Or, alternatively, they are working with the anniversary year, but recognizing that whatever you want to choose for the actual "birthday", GenCon is the biggest gamer's event around, and they need to use that.

Failing to use the prior months, in this view, is less, "wasting half the anniversary," and more, "not spending resources on months of publicity that are unlikely to yield much return."

 

[Iosue]

Right. And your argument was that they were always going to do something for the 40th. So if that was always their plan they should have known it was going to take three years and started eight months earlier, releasing for the holidays 2013 and hyping all of 2014 rather than just half.

But they didn't.

Which implies they were hoping 4e would still be going strong during 2014 and they'd be able to start a shorter revision in 2012 or 2013 for release on the anniversary.

Starting in 2010 for a 2013 release and then doing a year of various anniversary events is a perfectly cromulent plan of action. But so is starting in 2011 for a 2014 GenCon release to coincide with the year D&D turns 40.

Incidentally, the date of publication for "30 Years of Adventure"? October, 2004. Making sure the game is released by late January might be the way you'd do it, but that doesn't mean it was the only way of doing things.

 

[sunshadow21]

They're going to need some kind of DDI! I ain't ever going back to my book-haulin' days! NEVER!

They will almost certainly keep using the same DDI they already have or develop something similar, but if they want to succeed, they can't make DDI and the internet the focus the way they did with 4E. They need to, at minimum, break up the subscriptions so that the player tools are one subscription, DM tools are another, and the magazines are another, with packages that allow for combinations of the different lines; too many people don't need the whole package and aren't going to pay for everything when they are never going to use 90% of it for one subscription base to really take off. They also can't rely on just emags and DDI for getting information out. The print versions of the books and magazines were able to pick up random eyes while sitting on racks with other products; the emags and DDI require one to already want to go to their website to read them, cutting off a large part of the informal network that most rpgs rely on to survive.

This element really is going to be a key part of whether or not Next is as successful as they want and need it to be. Paizo has found a good balance between print and the internet and are enjoying great success because of it. If WotC can find a similar balance, the product will be able to sell itself to some degree without one medium's success limiting the success of the other medium; if they can't, they are going to have the same overall problems they did with 4E. They will have a great launch like they did with 4E, but they need to have something to later pull back those who inevitably buy the core book, never use it, and end up tuning out Next in favor of their preferred game. Essentials did this somewhat with 4E, but it was too little, too late, and not well enough supported.

 

[Lanefan]

But, yes, for D&D and Pathfinder, subscriptions are the future.

Bleah.

If there's one thing that will stop me buying new material, that's it.

Lan-"when I buy a book or adventure module I expect to pay for it once and be able to carry it home with me"-efan

 

[Iosue]

Bleah.

If there's one thing that will stop me buying new material, that's it.

Lan-"when I buy a book or adventure module I expect to pay for it once and be able to carry it home with me"-efan

Uh, what?

You won't buy new material because other people have the option of subscribing to a digital service?

You do realize that no hardcopy material for 4e ever required a subscription to DDI, right?

Incidentally, my DDI subscription recently ran out. The Dragon magazine PDFs I downloaded are still on my computer.

 

[steelsteve]

Wizards has to listen to Hasboro who makes the rules on how their games are made. Therefor Wizards must keep rolling in the 'dough' as it were in new and creative ways. I'm not so sure that long-term support is a good thing for the larger industry. It puts pressure to release content continuously release content, and while fluff is ok, when you continuously release crunch, some of that crunch can get really useless and slow down the game. I have a hard enough time getting though the players handbooks for 4e, but then the magazines give all these new options that MIGHT be good...

5e is supposed to be a bare bones system. If they continuously add stuff, it'll turn out into another bloated mess like all the other editions have been

 

[Erik Mona]

Bleah.

If there's one thing that will stop me buying new material, that's it.

Lan-"when I buy a book or adventure module I expect to pay for it once and be able to carry it home with me"-efan

Just posting to clarify that Paizo subscriptions are exactly matched to your expectations. Since Paizo was mentioned in the quoted portion of your response, I didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea.

--Erik

 

[fjw70]

Just posting to clarify that Paizo subscriptions are exactly matched to your expectations. Since Paizo was mentioned in the quoted portion of your response, I didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea.

--Erik

Wait, if I cancel my subscription then the Paizo Police won't come to my house and confiscate my AP books? That's good to know.