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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6278787" data-attributes="member: 37579">And absence of information does not mean I'm wrong, it means we don't know if I'm wrong or right. This is not edition warring. I am casting no judgment on 4e. Or 2e for that matter as I also said it was a less popular edition. I actually quite like 2e, as it got me into the hobby and I never played 1e. It's not saying 4e was bad or terrible to say it didn't sell well. The world is full of excellent, amazing products that were bombs and failed to attract more than niche attention or have mainstream appeal. And there are many great RPGs out there that very few people like but are great games and have ardent fanbases. Some of my favourite movies and TV shows were failures. Firefly is the obvious answer. The cancellation of Firefly and inability of Serenity to generate a profit at the box office are no reflection on the quality or my enjoyment of either than the short lifespan of 4e is on the quality or your enjoyment of that edition. And I did have reason. You were commenting on how you really wanted them to abandon 5e in favour of a return to 4e. I commented that this was unlikely the ended 4e for no reason. Further discussion ensued.We do know which are more popular. That's pretty easy looking back. 1e and 3.0 were boom times for the industry. The golden and silver ages of the game followed by lulls of 2e and 3.5e onward. That's not edition warring any more than saying the "Connery" era of Bond films was more successful than the "Moore", it's just counting the numbers. (Although, it has been reported that the 4e launch was very successful, that WotC said it sold more PHBs than ever before. Which likely meant the first print run of the 4e PHB was the largest and the books were heavily ordered by stores. But I've never personally been able to find a link to that.)How is it not scary for you?Is D&D the brand going to disappear? No. So long as the name is popular they'll keep releasing licenced products and likely use the IP for new board games and the like. However, if the RPG fails to be successful twice in a row that they're going to shelve the RPG line. Just like WotC shelved Dreamblade, HeroScape, and a myriad other product lines that didn't achieve success. (I quite liked Dreamblade. It was fun.) WotC is not going to give the D&D Brand team a third chance. Logically, there are really four possibilities tied to two variables:1) D&D 4th Edition might have been successful or D&D 4th Edition might not have been successful. 2) The cancellation was motivated by internal politics or The cancellation was not motivated by internal politics. You can set it it up like a grid:[TABLE="width: 500"][TR][TD][/TD][TD]4e Failure[/TD][TD]4e Successful[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Politically Motivated[/TD][TD]Option 1[/TD][TD]Option 2[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Politically Unmotivated[/TD][TD]Option 3[/TD][TD]Option 4[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]Option 1 and Option 3 are roughly the same. If the game was a failure (or even just less successful than intended) then the internal politics are irrelevant. However, Option 1 is a little unnerving as it means the early deaths of 3.5e and 4e might be repeated. Which doesn't bode well for the lifespan of D&D5.Option 4 is the WTF reason. It's almost a non sequitur. Option 2 is the scary one. Cancelling a successful product line for personal reasons. Wow. This really doesn't inspire confidence in the management. It would also have to be really upper management. In the shared "office politics" variable  of Option 1, politically motivated cancellation is easier for the upper management (read: CEO) to approve because the game is failing.  But in Option 2, it means the highest of the high in WotC needs to at least rubberstamp a four-year revamping of the product line. I think we can safely eliminate Option 4 as a rational possibility. And from what we know of the CEO of WotC, he isn't particularly motivated by D&D one way or another. He's a suit formerly from Hasbro, who is basically there to run the MtG company. Formerly of the Boys Toys division at Hasbro, he used to be in change of GIJoe, Transformers, and all the licensed action figures. So he's no slump when it comes to business. He's also unlikely to have any feelings regarding D&D one way or another, it's just a job for him. He's not going to cancel a game that's making money, so we can remove Option 2.So that leaves Option 1 and Option 3.There could be some politics that hastened the end of 4e. In this case it didn't need to be a failure, but it had to be less successful enough that the CEO could be convinced to end the RPG product line. But all the current D&D staff are either people who helped make 4e or were heavily involved with 4e, so it's harder to imagine reasons they'd want to cancel the game they created. The division of the fanbase might count. Having edition warring doesn't provide a nice environment for new players to join. But making a new edition to end fighting over editions seems unlikely. Tying this back on-topic, it emphasises that the edition being successful is important and that sustained success is key. 4e was wildly successful at launch, but evidently sales were not sustained.  So you need to have sustained sales to maintain success. Which means long-term support.</blockquote>

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