Matt Colville weighs in.
Both D&D MMOs have a free to play model, compared to WoW that has a monthly subscription AND a cash shop where you can buy cosmetics. I guess to answer your question "in comparison to WoW how are they doing?", not well.
We older adults don't get to declare what the "culture" of D&D is. We certainly can declare how we engage with the culture of D&D... but none of us have the right to say what that culture is. The same way the AD&D crowd didn't get to declare the game dead when 3E was released, or the 3E crowd when 4E was released, or anybody when 5E was released.
I usually agree with Colville on most of his takes about D&D... but this is one that is just entirely sour grapes. He thinks that HIS way of engaging with D&D is the right and proper way to do it, and that anything that comes out of whatever online version WotC produces is not it.
That is complete and utter bullshite.
If the children of the future engage with D&D online through a VTT, and then decide to spend money in whatever modes are available to them to do things like make their avatars look like the characters they have in their heads, make their spellcasting have cool animations and such, or DMs decide they want to buy terrain packs to make their VTT experience even more in-depth... NO ONE gets to say those kids have lost anything when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons.
Our ways aren't "better" than theirs. Especially when we don't even know what their way of playing and engaging with D&D is even going to be. So to lay out this "Back in MY day..." screed about how our poor children won't know the glories of what it meant to play is the same exact crap our Boomer and Silent Generation parents said when we were inside playing on our Atari 2600s. It was a bullshite attitude then, and it's a bullshite attitude now. And Colville should know better.
I usually agree with Colville on most of his takes about D&D... but this is one that is just entirely sour grapes. He thinks that HIS way of engaging with D&D is the right and proper way to do it, and that anything that comes out of whatever online version WotC produces is not it.
That is complete and utter bullshite.
If the children of the future engage with D&D online through a VTT, and then decide to spend money in whatever modes are available to them to do things like make their avatars look like the characters they have in their heads, make their spellcasting have cool animations and such, or DMs decide they want to buy terrain packs to make their VTT experience even more in-depth... NO ONE gets to say those kids have lost anything when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons.
Our ways aren't "better" than theirs. Especially when we don't even know what their way of playing and engaging with D&D is even going to be. So to lay out this "Back in MY day..." screed about how our poor children won't know the glories of what it meant to play is the same exact crap our Boomer and Silent Generation parents said when we were inside playing on our Atari 2600s. It was a bullshite attitude then, and it's a bullshite attitude now. And Colville should know better.
I'd assume he's getting that from the fireside chat for investors that declared the brand under-monetized and said they were looking for that recurrent digital spending like you find in video games.
Or he just was in a bad or depressed mood when he made his Twitter screed and said a bunch of inflammatory stuff to get people riled up just to make himself feel better.
He gets that way sometimes. Like when her discovered someone went through his garbage at his house apparently in a hopes of finding out information about his home campaign world of Orden... Matt went on Twitch a couple days later in a sour mood and basically told everyone "Since all of you want to know my world so badly... I'll just hand it all to you right now. Ask me any question you want and I'll answer it". And almost every single question was answered with "I don't know, I haven't thought of that yet."
It was basically him, after feeling violated by someone going through his garbage, taking out his angers and frustration on the people who genuinely care about the work he does and for whom they have interest. It was not a good look.
I don't blame him at all for feeling the way he did... it was just his way of processing it was not the greatest way of doing it I don't believe. Because that's when you have a better chance of saying something accidentally that you don't really mean but people take it to heart and you get in trouble over it.
I mean sure but generally people have a thing that caused them to be in a bad mood or depressed like your example about someone going through his trash. That's all my comment was pointing to. Right, wrong, or indifferent he had a thing that caused him to arrive at the conclusion he did.
Parmandur
Book-Friend
While I'm ot comfortable believing that he is The Evil One based on rumors...it is plausible he has a lot ofnsway at WotC, considering the raging success Magic Arena has been.
Do you know what kids I know who play Arena do...? Play Magic with real cards that they sleeve and put in deck boxes.
I listened to all of that and did not come away with the idea they WotC was out of the book business and in to Loot Boxes. As long as they continue to publish books, which is what One D&D is currently playtesting, I'm not sure I can really get all that worked up about the potential for microtransactions in a VTT that I may not even use. And what are we even talking about here? Dice skins and digital minis? That doesn't spell the end of D&D.
Wait - that's crazy?! Someone went through his trash looking for .... I guess a discarded notebook?
Who knows what they're planning, but I agree nothing they said in that investor call implies the imminent end of printed books. With them spending $146m on DDB, I could certainly see a huge influx of mostly optional digital things to buy to recoup that investment but emphasis on the word optional.
If the digital stuff does extremely well and book sales drop off sharply could they begin shifting towards a digital only strategy? Maybe but we're not even close to that yet. MTG: Arena makes a lot of money and they still print cards because they still sell extremely well so perhaps the 2 things can coexist in D&D as well.
