D&D 5E NPR - The Curse of the Black Lotus & D&D

[Dire Bare]

I find your abundance of faith... refreshing.

I would absolutely love for you to be right. If that means I'm wrong, it's a small price to pay!

The new movies might or might not suck. But if they suck, they are more likely to be a Transformers 4 level of suck. Beautiful production values, makes a killer amount of money, is actually a fun movie even as the fans lament the suckitude . . . but trashed by critics and fans alike. We'd all go see it, even have fun in the theatre, but be very sure to tell all of our friends online and in RL that the movie was TERRIBLE! And be right back in line again for Transformers 5.

They are unlikely to be the SweetPea Entertainment level of suck we got with the first three (four?) D&D films. Films that disappointed and left you sad and melancholy for your childhood memories that are now forever tainted by bad production values, bad acting, and even worse writing. I remember not only being very disappointed, but actually felt sorry for the actors involved. Like I wanted to write them a letter expressing hope they would still be able to find work after their involvement with these films. Still, I've seen all three movies, plus that animated abomination of Dragonlance. Shudder.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Entering a skill-based competition for a cash prize is not the same as gambling.

Fantasy football
Football parlays
Poker
Blackjack

Most people are not good at them overnight. You need to invest time, energy, and money learning to be good at it. The point is I think gambling *is* very much a skill based competition...and yes I think this is gambling. You risk the entry fee for the possibility to win more cash.

Perhaps the store I mentioned is a rare thing? I'm not sure.

My intention is not meant to degrade the game or dismiss it as "just gambling."

Eta It just seems like a good way to make a steady profit.

 

[aramis erak]

The one Magic store I visited had cash prizes for tournaments. Glancing at their site they just had a tournament on March 8th with "over $2000 in cash prizes!"

Pure speculation: if your game can add gambling to the mix, it'll be a big money maker. I don't think American professional sports (as it does today) would exist without gambling. I'd include American college sports too.

I'm not knocking the game, or gambling. I know I've had some fun nights at the craps table!

They took the most obvious gambling aspect (playing for the ante card) OUT of the game; it was threatening to get the game banned in Alaska, Oregon and a couple other states. Alaska's died in the legal committee.

For the younger pups out there, in the first generation of the game rules, you randomly picked an ante card from your deck, as did your opponent. Winner got to keep them both. Very quickly, many people switched to playing "false ante" - you still pulled the card, but you didn't get to win the other guy's card.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Seems like a sore subject. I have not paid much attention to Magic until the past couple weeks.

Anyway, I'm derailing the thread with this. Carry on!

 

[Dire Bare]

They took the most obvious gambling aspect (playing for the ante card) OUT of the game; it was threatening to get the game banned in Alaska, Oregon and a couple other states. Alaska's died in the legal committee.

For the younger pups out there, in the first generation of the game rules, you randomly picked an ante card from your deck, as did your opponent. Winner got to keep them both. Very quickly, many people switched to playing "false ante" - you still pulled the card, but you didn't get to win the other guy's card.

I knew about the ante rules, but I always thought ditching them was due to pure player feedback, I didn't know the stuff about legal challenges! Interesting, thanks!

Seems like a sore subject. I have not paid much attention to Magic until the past couple weeks.

Not a sore subject, you're just not right!

Playing Pro Tour Magic is like pro video gaming or even pro golf. It seems kinda silly to some folks, even if they like the game itself! They used to have Magic pro matches on ESPN 2!!! *yawn* Definitely not for everyone, but also definitely not gambling of any sort.

 

[innerdude]

NPR's Planet Money just released an article about Magic The Gathering, and how it beat the "Curse of the Black Lotus". With all the talk about WotC's plans for D&D, I found this interesting and relevant.

Here's the NPR story: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/03/11/392381112/episode-609-the-curse-of-the-black-lotus?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150312

Basically, in the early days, Magic was very much in danger of going the way of Beanie Babies. In other words, WotC had the potential to make killer short-term profits by catering to the speculators and likely giving Magic a very short life cycle. But they instead choose to try and beat that scenario and invest in Magic's long term profits and sustainability. Many fans (and speculators) derided them at the time, and they WERE giving up practically guaranteed amazing short-term profits. But since Magic turned 22 recently, it looks like their gamble played out. And as Magic fans who follow WotC's design and development for Magic already know, WotC has Magic design down to a science. Not that they don't make mistakes from time to time, and feel the need to change gears, but Magic has been an incredible long-term success for them that has no end in sight.

Today, WotC is trying something similar with D&D. Two different games with different needs, but perhaps a similar approach can do for D&D what it did for Magic. WotC has stated they hope to make 5th edition long term and sustainable, and that they are moving away from the splat-book driven edition treadmill that has resulted in shorter and shorter edition life cycles for the game. Even with their experience with Magic, repeating that success with D&D is new territory and WotC has also stated that they are basically experimenting as they go, and we should expect to see different approaches as new products are released. We have some fans relieved and excited about the new, leaner, release cycle for the game. And we have others upset that WotC has a light release schedule announced for 2015 and has explicitly stated they are trying to avoid saturating us with splats.

Personally, I feel that this is an experiment and isn't a guaranteed success for WotC, although the initial reaction and sales for 5E seem to be very favorable. But I am on board and very excited to potentially see an edition that might remain stable for 10 years or possibly longer, with fewer, but interesting releases each year. My wallet can't afford the old style splat inundation of 4E, 3E, and 2E, while at the same time I miss and am nostalgic for all of those great products.

What do you guys think? Is there any relationship between WotC's proven success with Magic and their new approach with D&D?

It's pretty well documented by Ryan Dancey and others that 4e's "massive pile of never-ending splat" was a direct result of the WotC team trying to push Dungeons and Dragons to hit enough sales to be considered a "core" Hasbro brand.

To hit the sales numbers needed (what was it again? $50 million in a fiscal reporting year? Does that sound right?) in an industry that requires you to sell product, you have to have product to sell.

Since there was NO CHANCE of 4e being OGL, and the GSL being a disaster for actually getting third-party content providers on board, if 4e was going to hit "core brand" numbers, it was going to have to do it with WotC providing the vast bulk of the product. From this perspective it should be utterly unsurprising to anyone just how quickly and voluminously WotC tried to fill the "product vacuum" on its own for 4e. Essentials is proof of this --- why else would Wizards try pushing an entirely different product line in an entirely different format that ended up mostly confusing its target consumers? Answer: To have sale-able product on shelves.

5e is clearly being driven by an entirely different perspective / paradigm / business outlook than 4e. I think 5e is a realization by the WotC team that D&D is not really EVER going to be a "core" Hasbro brand. The $50 million annual sales for the brand simply isn't happening as "just" a core RPG product line. So why not build a sustainable, if less profitable in the short term, product that also tries to bridge the gaps between generations of players---which is exactly what they did.

 

[Gadget]

It's pretty well documented by Ryan Dancey and others that 4e's "massive pile of never-ending splat" was a direct result of the WotC team trying to push Dungeons and Dragons to hit enough sales to be considered a "core" Hasbro brand.

As opposed to the small amounts of splat released for the 2nd & 3rd editions of the game? I believe it is also well documented that, due to certain accounting and reporting systems of Hasbro/WOTC, D&D was not allowed to count licensing revenue as part of their earnings to make to make the aforementioned target ($50 million). Given 5e's new strategy, one would have to assume this has been rectified or is no longer a problem.

Since there was NO CHANCE of 4e being OGL, and the GSL being a disaster for actually getting third-party content providers on board, if 4e was going to hit "core brand" numbers, it was going to have to do it with WotC providing the vast bulk of the product.

I don't believe WOTC would be able to count any revenue from OGL/GSL products toward their $50m goal, as they don't see any of that money Yes, yes, we've all heard Dancey's "Network Externalities" argument, but I remain doubtful if this would have helped overmuch. I think one of the few GSL companies (Bad Egg?) stated that they gave up on it, not because the GSL was so bad (although it was certainly more restrictive than the OGL), but that it became hard to sell new crunch for the game that was not in (and never would be in) the online character builder. Many groups came to depend on the on(and off)line charter builder and associated tools thereby making it hard for 3rd parties to sell product.

And as for Essentials, I remember it being criticized for being 4.5 e, and how WOTC was 'desperate' to reclaim lost gamers. There is probably a lot of truth to the reclaiming lost gamers assertion, but I find it hard to believe that they did it just 'have product on the shelves'. Traditional splat material could have fed that need if core 4e was 'on target' for revenue goals after all.

 

[Dire Bare]

It's pretty well documented by Ryan Dancey and others that 4e's "massive pile of never-ending splat" was a direct result of the WotC team trying to push Dungeons and Dragons to hit enough sales to be considered a "core" Hasbro brand.

To hit the sales numbers needed (what was it again? $50 million in a fiscal reporting year? Does that sound right?) in an industry that requires you to sell product, you have to have product to sell.

Since there was NO CHANCE of 4e being OGL, and the GSL being a disaster for actually getting third-party content providers on board, if 4e was going to hit "core brand" numbers, it was going to have to do it with WotC providing the vast bulk of the product. From this perspective it should be utterly unsurprising to anyone just how quickly and voluminously WotC tried to fill the "product vacuum" on its own for 4e. Essentials is proof of this --- why else would Wizards try pushing an entirely different product line in an entirely different format that ended up mostly confusing its target consumers? Answer: To have sale-able product on shelves.

5e is clearly being driven by an entirely different perspective / paradigm / business outlook than 4e. I think 5e is a realization by the WotC team that D&D is not really EVER going to be a "core" Hasbro brand. The $50 million annual sales for the brand simply isn't happening as "just" a core RPG product line. So why not build a sustainable, if less profitable in the short term, product that also tries to bridge the gaps between generations of players---which is exactly what they did.

As opposed to the small amounts of splat released for the 2nd & 3rd editions of the game? I believe it is also well documented that, due to certain accounting and reporting systems of Hasbro/WOTC, D&D was not allowed to count licensing revenue as part of their earnings to make to make the aforementioned target ($50 million). Given 5e's new strategy, one would have to assume this has been rectified or is no longer a problem.

I don't believe WOTC would be able to count any revenue from OGL/GSL products toward their $50m goal, as they don't see any of that money Yes, yes, we've all heard Dancey's "Network Externalities" argument, but I remain doubtful if this would have helped overmuch. I think one of the few GSL companies (Bad Egg?) stated that they gave up on it, not because the GSL was so bad (although it was certainly more restrictive than the OGL), but that it became hard to sell new crunch for the game that was not in (and never would be in) the online character builder. Many groups came to depend on the on(and off)line charter builder and associated tools thereby making it hard for 3rd parties to sell product.

And as for Essentials, I remember it being criticized for being 4.5 e, and how WOTC was 'desperate' to reclaim lost gamers. There is probably a lot of truth to the reclaiming lost gamers assertion, but I find it hard to believe that they did it just 'have product on the shelves'. Traditional splat material could have fed that need if core 4e was 'on target' for revenue goals after all.

4E splat volume was not greater than 2E or 3E splat volume, it was of a similar quantity to 3E and much less than 2E. Although I do think you are right, WotC was purposely putting out a lot of product to try and meet a sales goal. It didn't work.

Gadget has the right of it, we have already heard from the WotC D&D team that licensing did NOT count during the 4E era, but that has changed and it DOES now. Thus allowing the new "slower" release strategy to be put into practice.