D&D 5E MtG D&D Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur's Gate Announce!

[Bolares]

Unlike Elminster, the Realms most popular character and frequent frustrater of forum posters, Drizzt Do'Urden, unsurprisingly got a card (with variants!) in the very first Forgotten Realms Magic set. Oh, and so did Minsc/Boo.

For real though, i hope to see Horny Gandalf make an appearance in this next one!

actually, in recent market researches, wizards found out that the Xanathar is the most popular D&D character right now. It got me by surprise, but thinking about it... it makes sense.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

actually, in recent market researches, wizards found out that the Xanathar is the most popular D&D character right now. It got me by surprise, but thinking about it... it makes sense.

The marketing might be over sampling 5e players and under sampling novel readers.

 

[Bolares]

The marketing might be over sampling 5e players and under sampling novel readers.

I think the thing is that there are waaaay more 5e players than novel readers...

 

[Scribe]

I think the thing is that there are waaaay more 5e players than novel readers...

Since they hardly support their novel readers, that wouldn't be a surprise.

 

[Northern Phoenix]

Since they hardly support their novel readers, that wouldn't be a surprise.

Drizzt is the only guy still getting novels though!

actually, in recent market researches, wizards found out that the Xanathar is the most popular D&D character right now. It got me by surprise, but thinking about it... it makes sense.

but while I'm not surprised a 5e gamebook character would be more popular than a novel character, i can't really understand why Xanathar specifically, over any of the other main book guys like Strahd, Tasha, and so on, or maybe one of the ones from the Intro scenarios.

 

[Bolares]

Drizzt is the only guy still getting novels though!

but while I'm not surprised a 5e gamebook character would be more popular than a novel character, i can't really understand why Xanathar specifically, over any of the other main book guys like Strahd, Tasha, and so on, or maybe one of the ones from the Intro scenarios.

Xanathar's guide is pretty popular, and the character was very resonant. Also the book is out for a while now, so more people have interacted with him than tasha...

 

[see]

The marketing might be over sampling 5e players and under sampling novel readers.

It'll be five years come December since Wizards stopped publishing novels.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

It'll be five years come December since Wizards stopped publishing novels.

Which contributes to the over sampling of 5e fans over novel and previous edition fans well. It creates a distorted image. Hence by the no Elminster being in AFR backlash caught them by surprise.

 

[Scribe]

Which contributes to the over sampling of 5e fans over novel and previous edition fans well. It creates a distorted image. Hence by the no Elminster being in AFR backlash caught them by surprise.

Not that it matters, those novels would not be canon anyway.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Which contributes to the over sampling of 5e fans over novel and previous edition fans well. It creates a distorted image. Hence by the no Elminster being in AFR backlash caught them by surprise.

I mean, there's no way that the folks who only read D&D novels is anything more than a tiny fraction compared to the 5E fanbase. I can see novel readers being a big group in the days of Dragonlance's peak or something, but now? There are barely any D&D novels anymore period.

The "Where's Elminster" thing seemed to be more about folks wondering where the character most associated with Ed Greenwood was. Which is fair, although Ed has himself said he prefers other characters, including Mirt.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, there's no way that the folks who only read D&D novels is anything more than a tiny fraction compared to the 5E fanbase. I can see novel readers being a big group in the days of Dragonlance's peak or something, but now? There are barely any D&D novels anymore period.

The "Where's Elminster" thing seemed to be more about folks wondering where the character most associated with Ed Greenwood was. Which is fair, although Ed has himself said he prefers other characters, including Mirt.

That doesn't mean the fans died because WotC botched the novel line, they are still there. For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things. Again you underestimate the amount of FR novel readers

 

[Urriak Uruk]

That doesn't mean the fans died because WotC botched the novel line, they are still there. For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things. Again you underestimate the amount of FR novel readers

So? I'm very doubtful there is a big audience of folks who only read D&D novels, but do not play D&D, but do play Magic the Gathering.

And believe me, if there was a big readership of D&D novels, WotC wouldn't have stopped publishing. If they were making crazy $ off of this huge readership, they would have kept pumping out those books. Instead, they shut it down... so it seems like the readership wasn't large enough to merit the investment.

 

[Bolares]

That doesn't mean the fans died because WotC botched the novel line, they are still there. For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things. Again you underestimate the amount of FR novel readers

It's not about fans dying. The novel fans are still there... there were just no more new novel fans (in big part on WotC's fault, sure), while there were A LOT of new 5e fans. so the numbers changed, the market space represented by novel fans got tinier and tinier, and so new things became importante. That's why I think there was no oversampling. The sampling was correct... just maybe their product strategy wasn't (if you want there to be more novel readers)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Since they hardly support their novel readers, that wouldn't be a surprise.

Given that Hasbro is a toy company, not a publishing house, that's hardly surprising.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For years the novels made more money then the RPG side of things.

That's because they botched the RPG, and that was selling badly.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

That's because they botched the RPG, and that was selling badly.

No it was because novels had high sales.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No it was because novels had high sales.

The novel sales where certainly high compared to the game. Which caused WotC to focus on the novels instead of the game, causing game sales to decline further. However, declining sales of the game hurt the D&D brand, eventually having a knock on effect on novel sales. WotC have now realised they need to focus on the core business - the game - since that drives the sales of all peripheral merchandise.

 

[Scribe]

The novel sales where certainly high compared to the game. Which caused WotC to focus on the novels instead of the game, causing game sales to decline further. However, declining sales of the game hurt the D&D brand, eventually having a knock on effect on novel sales. WotC have now realised they need to focus on the core business - the game - since that drives the sales of all peripheral merchandise.

The idea that a company cannot do both, seems dubious.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The idea that a company cannot do both, seems dubious.

Do you have an alternative hypothesis? Because I've heard the "they canceled the novels because WotC secretely hates Ed Greenwood!" theory, and let me say that's extremely dubious.

 

[Scribe]

Do you have an alternative hypothesis? Because I've heard the "they canceled the novels because WotC secretely hates Ed Greenwood!" theory, and let me say that's extremely dubious.

They simply didn't care. They didn't want to support the staffing of individuals who would manage this.

It's not as if Wizards was authoring the books, or that the RPG team was needed to support an author.

It's like blaming an art team for software bugs.