Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thunderfoot" data-source="post: 5687916" data-attributes="member: 34175">My whole point was that Monte is back in R&D. (That's research and development for the few of that may not know (but I really doubt that's many folks here))  That's more than just he's back in WotC, he back to designing.  THAT is why I think 5e is on the burners.  He built 3e, for the most part.  Mike slowly rose to prominence taking ever next promotion and eventually became the "Galactic Emperor" of WotC; and while his dream of making D&D more widely accepted worked, the core of RPers started going over the Pathfinder.  /My statement of the prior is based on the GenCon attendance of the various events using both systems.  For a third straight year the D&D open and the Dungeon Delve have lost attendance while the PF hosted games are growing in attendance - anecdotal, yes, but there is something there./My guess, strictly conjecture, no real proof, is that Mike is doing triage to stop the bleeding out of core players.  They need something that covers all the bases:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Acceptable enough to get both new short-term (session) and long-term (mega campaign) players interested and loyal.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Easy to learn and easy to modify</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Something that will maintain long-term profit margins - ie minis, cards, splats or whatever the flavor of the month is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Something that will finally get the product back in to big box stores like Target, Wal-Mart, etc.  So that they can corner brand recognition outside the niche market.</li> </ol>Of course this has always been the goal, but it's really hard to keep a hard core gamer/geek interested (LotR style heavy fantasy) while also getting something out there that a Paris Hilton type could get behind. (so like that's Hot.)  Mike has been spot on with his marketing so far, while 4e wasn't my thing he has increased the overall revenue for WotC, so good on him.  But without a sustainable core market success is going to be short-term. Monte created a version that spawned renewed interest in the game by veterans and at least 2 major "clones" - PF, True 20 (and I'm sure there are a host of others I'm missing)It's simply good business to hire back the best designer you've had in the last 15 years to try and find a balance.  Mike makes the final decisions so Monte can be kept under thumb while being free to expand both market base and interest.  Reading too much into this...maybe, but I said before GenCon that something was up, now it looks like it's just coming to light.</blockquote>

Verification