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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 7718241" data-attributes="member: 75787">The basic problem with establishing D&D as a brand is that it's dirt easy to produce something that is very similar to D&D without it being D&D. The very thing that made D&D successful makes it hard to monetize -- it is highly generic fantasy.Why didn't the Lord of the Rings trilogy pay royalties to D&D? It looks very much like a D&D game, has the same tropes -- classes, Scottish dwarves, fragile elves -- all the trimmings. But D&D got nothing from it because core D&D is too generic to use as a brand. So maybe we can use as an attractor to bring in more people -- all the D&D fans. Well, the issue there is that we don't actually spend that much money (see posts comparing total RPG sales to single Michael Bay movies) and, worse, we'd go to those films anyway. If Lord of the Rings had been co-branded with D&D, do you think more people would have gone to see it? Seems unlikely. Fewer? Quite possible.So we are left in a state whereas if you do a good fantasy project, all the D&D fans will pay for it anyway without you needing D&D branding. And branding something D&D might well drive away a small percentage of the global audience -- which, if you have a  good fantasy project is almost certain to be bigger than the D&D fan audience, because we're tiny.Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Ravenloft --they won't draw non-D&D fans, and so we're talking niche audiences again. Why bother? Either pick a popular franchise (LOTR, Conan, etc.) and use that to start with an interested audience 100x larger than D&D -- and that includes the D&D players, or go with something generic and just market if to the D&D crowd. Cheaper, easier, and way less risky.</blockquote>

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