D&D 5E (2024) MichaelSomething's Official Statement on the 2014 D&D rules going out of print

[SlyFlourish]

Give us D&D Bologna without listeria and I'm in

The Teos Abadia rule in the wild!

 

[SlyFlourish]

Yes. I'm aware my complaints about merchandizing sounds like it's a new thing, and I even complain about Star Wars in my post. I do remember Star Wars bubble bath, beach towels, breakfast cereal, and other things that don't start with the letter "B."
It's nothing new for D&D or any other fandom. The thing that's new is my tiredness of it, my seeing it as an extension of a corporate promotional juggernaut that has little to do about my enjoyment of what the hobby actually is.
Buying a Yankees cap isn't the same as watching baseball. Collecting D&D Funkos isn't playing D&D. I don't feel like engaging with the brand in this way anymore.

Another way to think of this is a four billion dollar company using its branding to help bring people into our hobby where we can show them how awesome this hobby can be, including being independent of the very four billion dollar company that brought them here.

I'm totally good with Hasbro paving the planet in D&D stuff. That's the top of the funnel to the rest of our hobby. No one else has that sort cash. Chris Cocks loves to talk about how Monopoly Go is the number one iPhone game because of nostalgia for the brand but it's more likely because of the 500 million dollars they spent on marketing. Money that may very well have come from a real-life kingdom.

I love the irony that a game about capitalism might be funded with money from a monarchy...

I'm totally good if someone wants to spend a half a billion dollars to advertise D&D, put it in schools, fly kites, add stuff into Destiny 2 – whatever!

I think this hobby is amazing for people and I want everyone to know it.

 

[Retreater]

I think it's ok to love D&D, especially the 50 year legacy of D&D, and still not have to bind your love of D&D to Hasbro. They happen to own the brand now. They didn't for the majority of the live of D&D and they may not in the future. But we can love D&D – I love D&D – and not feel bad about it.

I love D&D. I'm skeptical of Hasbro. I don't think those two things are contradictory.

Hasbro bought WotC in Sept 1999, so 25 years ago. It's been Hasbro longer than TSR. Time flies.
I feel bad about D&D, but that's just me. Like, I don't want to see the books. I've put my copies in storage and I'm doing my best running from third party sources.

 

[Micah Sweet]

True that. I wish we would go back to the halcyon days of yore with REAL D&D when we had Magic Users, not Wizards of the Coast, and none of this commercial crud.

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Does the fact that the hard core merchandising had been going on for decades somehow make it a good thing?

 

[SkidAce]

BEDSHEETS. Derek might have had the Kenner Millennium Falcon, because of course he did, but you will never take the memory of my Star Wars sheets from me!

I have the Star Wars original theme song on 45.

 

[KYRON45]

Does the fact that the hard core merchandising had been going on for decades somehow make it a good thing?

The Simpsons in the 90’s had hard core merchandising. D&D has had little exposure outside of gaming circles.

I’ve never seen a national tv ad or end cap retail display, billboards in time square or parents fighting over boxed starter sets on Black Friday.

Sure once a decade they show up in TIME or NEWSWEEK. I’m not sure all the grandpas who read those articles hand them off to the tweens in the family.

 

[Burnside]

The Simpsons in the 90’s had hard core merchandising. D&D has had little exposure outside of gaming circles.

Really, really not true.

Last year's D&D movie had a TV ad during the Superbowl.

In Times Square, right now and running successfully for months, is a theatrical D&D show.

D&D is featured prominently in Stranger Things, Big Bang Theory, Community. Baldur's Gate 3 exposed a huge number of people who have never played a TTRPG to D&D.

D&D references and memes are ubiquitous on social media.

 

[KYRON45]

Really, really not true.

Last year's D&D movie had a TV ad during the Superbowl.

In Times Square, right now and running successfully for months, is a theatrical D&D show.

D&D is featured prominently in Stranger Things, Big Bang Theory, Community. Baldur's Gate 3 exposed a huge number of people who have never played at TTRPG to D&D.

D&D references and memes are ubiquitous on social media.

That is product placement and one commercial. A pretty good slot for the commercial, but one commercial all the same. I'm not s sports fan so i have never seen the super bowl commercial. I did see the movie...lets leave it at that.
Didn't they take the Community D&D episode out of rotation? I don't watch hat show so i don't know.

Yet walk into a store that isn't dedicated to gamers and you see maybe 2 products if you look real hard.
"Hard Core" merchandising is when a retail outlets has 6, 8, 12 feet of shelf space dedicated to a brand. Shirts, hats, pencils, stuffed animals, water bottles etc. I worked retail in the 90s and you knew a brand was over merchandised by the fact that you threw out more product than you sold. The Simpsons, Power Rangers, Goosebumps and many more.

I'm pretty in tune with the RPG community and i was 100% unaware of the theatrical show. Where are they advertising that?

All of these things are great examples but its like preaching to the choir if the target audience is already the foundation of the product.

 

[Burnside]

That is product placement and one commercial. A pretty good slot for the commercial, but one commercial all the same. I'm not s sports fan so i have never seen the super bowl commercial. I did see the movie...lets leave it at that.
Didn't they take the Community D&D episode out of rotation? I don't watch hat show so i don't know.

Yet walk into a store that isn't dedicated to gamers and you see maybe 2 products if you look real hard.
"Hard Core" merchandising is when a retail outlets has 6, 8, 12 feet of shelf space dedicated to a brand. Shirts, hats, pencils, stuffed animals, water bottles etc. I worked retail in the 90s and you knew a brand was over merchandised by the fact that you threw out more product than you sold. The Simpsons, Power Rangers, Goosebumps and many more.

I'm pretty in tune with the RPG community and i was 100% unaware of the theatrical show. Where are they advertising that?

All of these things are great examples but its like preaching to the choir if the target audience is already the foundation of the product.

You said you'd never seen a national TV ad. There was one during the Superbowl, he biggest TV ad sell of the year. Commercials also ran on other TV shows, of course, so no it wasn't "one spot."

You said Times Square. I pointed out there is a D&D show with an open run in Times Square right now.

Retail? Target has licensed exclusive 3-month retail-only boxed Starter Set deals from Hasbro TWICE in the past 6 years. Typical Barnes & Nobles have 2 full shelf units of D&D products.

You said little exposure outside gaming circles and there has been massive exposure on massive network TV shows and the biggest show on Netflix. The US and UK postal services also extend slightly outside gaming circles.

You can move the goal posts some more if you want. But pretty much every point in your original post was incorrect in very specific, demonstrable ways.

You personally missed or forgot about stuff; doesn't mean it didn't happen or doesn't exist. Mainstream brand visibility for D&D is really high.

 

[KYRON45]

You said you'd never seen a national TV ad. There was one during the Superbowl, he biggest TV ad sell of the year. Commercials also ran on other TV shows, of course, so no it wasn't "one spot."

You said Times Square. I pointed out there is a D&D show with an open run in Times Square right now.

Retail? Target has licensed exclusive 3-month retail-only boxed Starter Set deals from Hasbro TWICE in the past 6 years.

You said little exposure outside gaming circles and there has been massive exposure on massive network TV shows and the biggest show on Netflix. The US and UK postal services also extend slightly outside gaming circles.

You can move the goal posts some more if you want. But pretty much every point in your original post was incorrect in very specific, demonstrable ways.

You personally missed or forgot about stuff; doesn't mean it didn't happen or doesn't exist. Mainstream brand visibility for D&D is really high.

I stand corrected I guess.
The fact that as a gamer even I'm unaware of half of this stuff is telling.
Target sells one Item with the D&D logo on it TWICE. That's not "Hard Core" merchandising. Half a store isle from floor to ceiling is hard core merchandising. I'll even concede the fact that retail is on the endangered species list.
Someone used the expression "Hard Core Merchandising". My experience with merchandising must be different than everyone else's.