D&D 5E Podcast on the current state of 5e

[Yaarel]

What we really need is some form of official license for indicating compatibility, for using the monsters and spells, and for using the trademarks and product identity in a somewhat controlled manner. We could really use a GSL.

Because of the 3e OGL, you can already use all of the monsters and spells that are in the SRD. Additionally, you can modify them. Additionally you can make up new monsters and spells that you then own as your own intellectual property.

You dont need a GSL.

The only purpose of a GSL is to refer to WotC intellectual property, such as the D&D trademark itself, references to names such as ‘Forgotten Realms’, and so on.

However, by signing onto the GSL, you give WotC a certain amount of control over your product. So the GSL reduces the amount of freedom that you have if you just use the OGL alone.

When WotC released 4e, its lawyers did everything in their power to take that freedom away from you. Fortunately, Paizo and others resisted this legal restrictiveness and returned to the 3e OGL without WotC.

The bottom line is: you the fan own D&D.

Everything in the SRD belongs to all gamers everywhere.

Thanks to the freedom-loving foresight of the 3e OGL.

 

[Morrus]

Because of the OGL, you can already use all of the monsters and spells that are in the SRD. Additionally, you can modify them. Additionally you can make up new monsters and spells that you then own as your own intellectual property.

More importantly, you can use and modify game terms. Armor Class, Hit Points, Hit Dice, all that stuff. Class names, too. That's what the OGL gives you. You can make up your own monsters in your publication and it'll be fine, but making up your own game terms is no way to sell a compatible product.

There are one or two terms it doesn't include because they're new to 5E - "advantage" is the main one. But mostly, all the game terms are right there in the OGL, even if they meant something slightly different back then.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You blame this for 4E's demise?

I guarantee you the business people at WotC don't. They blame the OGL that allowed Pathfinder to exist for the demise of D&D as the top TTRPG.

Unlikely. 4e was an ambitious gamble that tried to deliver MMO-like revenue that no TTRPG had ever gotten close to - indeed, the entire 'industry' as a whole had never even flirted with the kind of revenue stream WotC promised Hasbro. The failure of WotC to develop the on-line tools was probably the biggest perceived factor in the business sense.

Pathfinder really didn't matter. Even if you had combined the sales of 4e books & Pathfinder books - and every other d20 book published at the time - and every other RPG published at the time - you still wouldn't have had a WoW-like revenue stream.

By the standards of the TTRPG industry, Pathfinder was a rousing success, and by the standards of a tiny, closely-held company like Paizo, quite profitable - but by the standards 4e was being judged, it would have been a dismal failure.

Maybe it hasn't been stated, but I guarantee you the business people at WotC want D&D to take market share from Pathfinder and wipe them out if they can.

Nope, completely irrelevant. If anything, Pathfinder helps the D&D brand, because it's popularity is perceived as adding to D&D's popularity. TTRPGs aren't a meaningful market, D&D is being kept on life support so it can be used as an IP in other markets - maybe.

I don't understand why some don't acknowledge how much Paizo damaged WotC. They hammered WotC. Probably took half their profit pie or more.

Nope. WotC pulls down 9 figures with CCGs, Paizo's market share represents less than 1% of their revenue - income is probably even more trivial, since RPGs aren't exactly high-margin.

Paizo establishing Pathfinder as a dominant RPG in the industry was an unforeseen hammer blow to WotC. I don't know why you need some kind of positive admission from the company to know this. If you study business at all, it's very clear that Paizo Publishing won the battle against WotC for the TTRPG market.

Actually it's not clear at all. Paizo took the lead, briefly, when WotC put out Essentials, and again when WotC put out /nothing/. As soon as D&D was being published again, Pathfinder was back to second fiddle.


There is not some epic Paizo-WotC battle. They're even a lot of the same folks: someone works on D&D at WotC, gets laid off one Christmas, goes to work at Paizo, does their own Kickstarter project, does some freelance for WotC again, etc. It's a small industry.

 

[Celtavian]

Unlikely. 4e was an ambitious gamble that tried to deliver MMO-like revenue that no TTRPG had ever gotten close to - indeed, the entire 'industry' as a whole had never even flirted with the kind of revenue stream WotC promised Hasbro. The failure of WotC to develop the on-line tools was probably the biggest perceived factor in the business sense.

Very likely.

Pathfinder really didn't matter. Even if you had combined the sales of 4e books & Pathfinder books - and every other d20 book published at the time - and every other RPG published at the time - you still wouldn't have had a WoW-like revenue stream.

By the standards of the TTRPG industry, Pathfinder was a rousing success, and by the standards of a tiny, closely-held company like Paizo, quite profitable - but by the standards 4e was being judged, it would have been a dismal failure.

You are incorrect. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why Hasbro bought the brand. Companies like Hasbro purchase dominant games. Primarily they wanted magic when they purchased WotC. The dominant TTRPG was a nice add on. Hasbro was very interested in maintaining a dominant position in the TTTRPG market if D&D was to continue to be funded. The company failed to do that.

It took a huge amount of revenue from D&D. Try to slant it anyway you want it, I know how business works. You don't want someone taking any pieces of your pie.

Nope, completely irrelevant. If anything, Pathfinder helps the D&D brand, because it's popularity is perceived as adding to D&D's popularity. TTRPGs aren't a meaningful market, D&D is being kept on life support so it can be used as an IP in other markets - maybe.

Extremely relevant. Pathfinder does not help the D&D brand. It took its market share. Do you really not understand business to the point where you can't admit that taking someone's market share is not something any company wants?

You're flat out wrong. Not only wrong, but making an ignorant comment. No business wants someone taking their market. Pathfinder took D&D's market. It did not share it. It did not build it. It splintered the market taking revenue directly from D&D and into Paizo's pockets.

It would be the equivalents since you are using MMORPG's of someone taking an older version of WoW, keeping it going, and taking half of Blizzard's money as they try to launch a new WoW.

You're taking a very wrong position. I'm quite sure it's because you don't want to admit the economic failure that was 4E. It was a failure. No game that allows a competitor to take a system and splinter your market is a success. WotC has handled licensing exactly as I expected since it happened. Why? Because I do business and study business as part of my education. I know how business works. It is never, ever smart to allow a competitor to take market share from you and the revenue associated with it. That is exactly what Paizo did.

To you this is a hobby, to WotC/Hasbro it is a business. Games that lose market share are business problems that need to be corrected.

Nope. WotC pulls down 9 figures with CCGs, Paizo's market share represents less than 1% of their revenue - income is probably even more trivial, since RPGs aren't exactly high-margin.

So now you're talking about something else which is leveraging D&D's intellectual property in the CCG, novel, and other media market. That does not change the fact that the TTRPP was an economic failure. That Paizo took a huge chunk of their market share. It will not stop them from killing the TTRPG if it fails to take back market share. We're talking about the TTRPG, not the intellectual property in other areas.

Paizo hammered the TTRPG game division. 4E failed to maintain market share. TTRPG does not do video games as far as I know. Do you know differently? We're talking the TTRPG here. We're talking licensing. WotC has handled licensing exactly like a company that did not like another company taking market share from the TTRPG D&D division.

Sorry, Hasbro may keep D&D's intellectual property for novels, movies, and video games. If the TTRPG doesn't take back market share or at least maintain what they have, they'll have zero problems killing it. They would probably love to turn D&D into a board game, a MMORPG, and movies and kill the TTRPG. Hasbro probably barely cares about the TTRPG division. The hammer blow Paizo dealt 4E further soured them on things like an OGL and funding the TTRPG division.

Actually it's not clear at all. Paizo took the lead, briefly, when WotC put out Essentials, and again when WotC put out /nothing/. As soon as D&D was being published again, Pathfinder was back to second fiddle.

It is quite clear. You take 50% of someone's market share, they'll be unhappy. Very unhappy. I'd love to see run a business and see what you would do if another company like Paizo did what they did. I'd love it. I'd love to see the excuses you would make like you're doing now to try to pretend that it didn't happen.

Paizo probably too anywhere from 30 to 50% of D&D's TTRPG market. TTRPG's are funded by TTRPGs. That's where their budget comes from. Businesses don't fund projects to lose money. They certainly don't look to lose market share. Pretending WotC is happy that Paizo exists is not in any way provable. By every business model I know, that is bad, extremely bad. WotC acted exactly like a business that was not going to let that happen ever again.

There is not some epic Paizo-WotC battle. They're even a lot of the same folks: someone works on D&D at WotC, gets laid off one Christmas, goes to work at Paizo, does their own Kickstarter project, does some freelance for WotC again, etc. It's a small industry.

They're is definitely a battle by the business people. I guarantee as much as Mike Mearls and the designers are friends with some of Paizo's designers. The business people at Hasbro are not happy campers. Why would you think a corporation would be pleased that another company using a game system you owned wholly at one point was able to build a dominant rival that took your market share? Or are you trying to argue that Paizo didn't take a large portion of WotC's D&D customer base?

Once Hasbro purchased D&D, it became a not so small industry. Bean counters own D&D now. Corporations do not work like small companies owned by people that like the hobby. Corporations work with budgets. They watch revenue streams. They carefully watch market share. They monitor metrics like sales, revenue, and how much it costs per dollar of revenue and profit. Corporations are interested in control of intellectual property on all levels. Control the product, keep competitors from taking market share, keep costs controlled, leverage intellectual property into as many revenue streams as possible.

Sorry, Tony Vargas. You're favorite game was bought by a megacorporation. Hasbro is worth 9.8 billion dollars. Their specialty is games. Each company under its umbrella is closely monitored and given directives for market share, sales, and other metrics they must meet to maintain value. I'm certain Mearls has been in on those fun meetings with the bean counters. If you don't meet Hasbro's metrics, they will be unhappy. Corporate metrics are annoying facet of business operations. I imagine it is even tougher in something as subjective as the TTRPG market. If you don't think that Hasbro was pissed when Paizo took a big old bite of their TTRPG market share, you're willfully lying to yourself.

Personally, I'd like to see how much revenue Paizo took in pure numbers. I bet it was quite shocking when it happened and completely unexpected. It probably occurred over a fairly long period of time, probably three years or so as Paizo took more and more of the TTRPG market revenue. That's why 4E's licensing was so restrictive. And why 5E's licensing will be equally restrictive. Mearls and company may be agreeable to an OGL because as you said, they're game designers that like the hobby first and foremost. They are probably friends with many Paizo people. But the chances of Hasbro's legal team and corporate management signing off on an OGL are about 0% in my opinion as a student of business.

You're right. No matter what happens, Hasbro is going to keep D&D's intellectual property to leverage into video games, novels, and movies if they can. Right now I see guys like Mearls and Crawford trying to rebuild D&D's brand to ensure it will be there for future generations. Because Hasbro bean counters don't care a great deal about the TTRPG. If it fails, they'll write it down and store the intellectual property for other uses or sale to some hobbyist with a lot of money that will pay top dollar for the intellectual property.

Business is business as they say. The reason I take the position I do because I've seen companies fail for the exact same reason WotC failed: loss of market share. It's a big deal in business. Any mistake that costs you market share is going to bring about major changes. This is a common business problem that if not corrected usually leads to the dissolution of the company or division. That's why I'm happy 5E has seems to have been well received by the D&D fan base. As much as I like Paizo, D&D is still the game I grew up on. I'd like to see the TTRPG stay viable. It's in dangerous corporate hands at the moment. I hope Mearls and company can execute a vision that makes the Hasbro corporate guys happy enough to grow the game and keep it going.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You are incorrect. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why Hasbro bought the brand. Companies like Hasbro purchase dominant games. Primarily they wanted magic when they purchased WotC.

Actually, it was Pokemon, at the time. D&D wasn't remotely on the radar.

It took a huge amount of revenue from D&D.

Pathfinder? Probably not. First of all, D&D wasn't a huge amount of revenue to begin with, the goal was to make it huge, and the absence of Pathfinder wouldn't have helped with that. Secondly, the virulent hyperbole of the edition war aside, there was every indication that folks bought (and even played) both D&D and Pathfinder, anyway.

I'm quite sure it's because you don't want to admit the economic failure that was 4E. It was a failure.

On the contrary, it was a very clear and dramatic failure, and informs the way 5e needed to be handled. The growth potential just isn't there for TTRPGs, trying to marry a TTRPG to on-line tools to create an income stream didn't work, and that's an important lesson, one that WotC learned, painfully. Cutting cost and shifting to a sustaining mode was the only thing that made sense.

So now you're talking about something else which is leveraging D&D's intellectual property in the CCG, novel, and other media market. That does not change the fact that the TTRPP was an economic failure. That Paizo took a huge chunk of their market share. It will not stop them from killing the TTRPG if it fails to take back market share. We're talking about the TTRPG, not the intellectual property in other areas.

That's what this forum is about, sure, but it's not what anyone at Hasbro particularly cares about. The TTRPG hobby, as a market, just isn't that big and has no growth prospects. It's hidebound, and attempts to re-invigorate it failed. So, WotC is openly looking for opportunities outside of it. It's only sensible.

Paizo hammered the TTRPG game division. 4E failed to maintain market share. TTRPG does not do video games as far as I know.

The story from an insider was that 4e was pitched as a way of gaining huge revenue relative to what TTRPGs had done in the past, mainly by selling a subscription service, and MMO-style revenue stream. WotC failed to get the on-line support out in the manner it was originally envisioned and it failed, dramatically.

As far as performance just within the TTRPG marketplace, there's very little hard data, but what there is showed D&D beating Pathfinder in every quarter but the one in which Essentials was released, and the ones in which no D&D product was released. Now that D&D is back on the market, a year has gone by and D&D remains solidly back in the #1 position.

All D&D has to do to beat Pathfinder is put a product on the shelves that doesn't completely baffle folks with it's pointlessness. And 5e has done that, and D&D is back to beating Pathfinder.

Paizo probably too anywhere from 30 to 50% of D&D's TTRPG market.

Since Pathfinder, even at launch, couldn't beat D&D, even over a year in, it was obviously a lot less than 50%.

TTRPG's are funded by TTRPGs. That's where their budget comes from. Businesses don't fund projects to lose money.

Which is why D&D has only 2 developers and such a slow release schedule. The revenue potential of TTRPGs doesn't warrant any greater investment in that. Especially when D&D can win what market there is just by showing up.

They're is definitely a battle by the business people. I guarantee as much as Mike Mearls and the designers are friends with some of Paizo's designers. The business people at Hasbro are not happy campers.

Last I heard, they were happy that M:tG was pulling down a lot of revenue (~100 mil, IIRC). And, yes that D&D was making the best sellers lists - even if the actual income from it was miniscule, it sounds nice to have winner, however low-stakes the race.

Why would you think a corporation would be pleased that another company using a game system you owned wholly at one point was able to build a dominant rival that took your market share? Or are you trying to argue that Paizo didn't take a large portion of WotC's D&D customer base?

Not too large a portion, no. But, really, it's the tiny size of the pie, rather than the relative size of the piece that makes it a minor consideration.

Once Hasbro purchased D&D, it became a not so small industry. Bean counters own D&D now. Corporations do not work like small companies owned by people that like the hobby. Corporations work with budgets. They watch revenue streams. They carefully watch market share. They monitor metrics like sales, revenue, and how much it costs per dollar of revenue and profit. Corporations are interested in control of intellectual property on all levels.

Nod. And what happened after Hasbro acquired WotC? 3.5 and rapid bloat to flog some more revenue out of the line. when that didn't work well enough, a big investment in 4e & DDI that failed to hit unprecedented revenue goals. Followed by much more modest attempts to merely stabilize the line: Essentials, Next, now a 5e with a very small staff and very slow pace of releases.

You're favorite game was bought by a megacorporation. Hasbro is worth 9.8 billion dollars.

And the 20-million-on-a-good-year TTRPG market doesn't even make it on the executive's dashboard. D&D is something they're keeping on the shelf in case an opportunity presents itself. 5e is that shelf-warmer. Honestly, I think it's doing quite well, in spite of the low level of investment.

Mearls and company may be agreeable to an OGL because as you said, they're game designers that like the hobby first and foremost. They are probably friends with many Paizo people. But the chances of Hasbro's legal team and corporate management signing off on an OGL are about 0% in my opinion

3.5 did do fairly well with the help of the OGL encouraging the production of 3pp complementary products. 5e could do with some 3pp adventures, for instance - or really, anything, since the pace of official material is so slow. The existing OGL has already been used to create carefully-unofficial 5e-compatible products. I expect either status-quo - no 5e-specific OGL, no C&Ding 5e-compatible 1.0 OGL products - or some sort of 5e OGL, or 5e GSL for use with the existing OGL, that encourages creating adventures, settings, and other complementary products.

You're right. No matter what happens, Hasbro is going to keep D&D's intellectual property to leverage into video games, novels, and movies if they can. Right now I see guys like Mearls and Crawford trying to rebuild D&D's brand to ensure it will be there for future generations. Because Hasbro bean counters don't care a great deal about the TTRPG.

Really, the existing OGL will let the hobby continue indefinitely, however small it dwindles, even if Hasbro retires the product line, entirely. So no worries on that account. I do hope D&D hangs on, though. It certainly doesn't take much to keep 3 core books in print and 2 developers employed....

 

[Mistwell]

Your posting above is wrong.



The reason Pathfinder, Green Ronin, and so on exist, is because they like all fans have the legal right to use and modify the SRD...All of us are owners of the D&D tradition.

First, I disagree. You can make RPG products for D&D without the SRD, you just can't use some trademarks and trade dress. Some companies are doing it right now. Some companies did it before the SRD even existed (starting in 1976). The SRD helps spell things out easier for companies, it makes it a lot easier to do it without an attorney, but it's not required for companies to make such products. It takes and gives a few extra rights here and there. But it's not needed.

Second, you keep talking about the "tradition" of D&D being in the OGL. It's not. That's not what tradition means. You don't "inherit the tradition" of Judaism by quoting the Talmud, you don't "inherit the tradition" of the Masons by writing about the Masons and quoting their books, you don't "inherit the tradition" of any group or culture by quoting their rules or history. Anyone can "inherit the tradition" of D&D, without the OGL. The OGL is a license, not a trusts and estates tool to pass on a body of tradition.

Third, the SRD actually DECREASES the amount of "traditional" things you can use. It excludes the most iconic elements of D&D - that's more "tradition" than the generic items you can make more use of.

Suppose Hasbro closed down WotC.

All of us still have the legal right to continue to create products.

Play on!

You had that right anyway. You're mistaken about what the OGL is and does. You think it's necessary to make D&D products - Judges Guild was doing it before there was such a thing as WOTC. You don't need the OGL for that. The OGL makes certain things easier, it makes using some trademark and trade dress much easier, but it's not necessary for products to be made to support D&D rules. It can be done without it, and has been done without it, and would have continued to be done without it.

 

[Dire Bare]

I didn't mean the cartoons, I meant this video: https://youtu.be/sbbqMoEwDqc
The one where they sell 4e by not talking about 4e but just mocking D&D's history.

Really?!?! That video is also in no way disrespecting the fans of earlier editions. It's poking light-hearted fun at earlier editions, and it is hilarious! Mostly for Chris Perkin's wigs. The only sad part of that video is the awesome screenshot of an early build of the character generator that didn't make the final cut.

You realize this is a little like telling someone they shouldn't be offended by something?

Well . . . yes! In this case you are "offended" by business and artistic decisions made by WotC in regards to D&D. I'm not saying you don't have the RIGHT to be offended, but I am saying that no offense was intended or even truly given, and that there is no rational reason to be offended. Yes, I feel that your feelings of offense are overwrought and a bit silly, but you certainly have a right to feel that way, as nonsensical as it is to me.

 

[Dire Bare]

4e is dead. Because. The 4e GSL was too restrictive, and WotC often sues those who create products to support and continue 4e. Especially electronic products are littered with cease-and-desists from lawyers.

I was going to add quotes from almost all of your posts after this one, but . . . Let's just say I disagree and feel you are stating as fact what is actually misinformed supposition.

Firstly, while 4E is no longer being published (although you can still subscribe to the DDI tools), it is not remotely "dead". No more so than any other prior edition of the game. Each edition, including 4th, has its fans who still play the game and have fun doing so.

Whether the 4E GSL was too restrictive is a matter of opinion. Certainly, not as many publishers took advantage of it as did the 3E OGL & d20 License, but that also has a lot to do with the "d20 Bust" that occurred towards the end of 3E's publishing era. More than a handful of publishers, both big and small (relatively for our industry), created fantastic D&D supplements for 4E using the GSL, or by adapting the 3E OGL and by following general copyright law. Just as they are doing right now for 5E, which doesn't have any sort of license at the moment.

Also, WotC does not sue fans who create and post their own D&D creations to the web, such as fan-created characters, monsters, magic items, house rules, campaign settings, etc, etc. WotC does, on occasion, send out C&D letters to fans and publishers who misuse their IP, most often in electronic game aids or things like spell cards, and they are very right to do so. They haven't done this often, and to my knowledge, haven't followed up any of the C&Ds with actual lawsuits (mostly because the recipients of the C&Ds complied with the requests).

And . . . ah, nevermind.

 

[Dire Bare]

[PARAPHRASE]Tony Vargas, you are wrong, wrong, wrongitty wrong.[/PARAPHRASE]

Celtavian, while I don't disagree with all of your points, stridently claiming Tony is WRONG when all of us are debating (?) with minimal facts and maximum supposition is a bit much. I don't agree with most of Tony's points either, but . . .

I am pretty sure, however, that more than a few folks who actually work in the industry would not completely agree with your take on WotC's "failure" and move to a new edition. Especially the part about WotC/Hasbro viewing Pathfinder as serious competition.

 

[Celtavian]

Actually, it was Pokemon, at the time. D&D wasn't remotely on the radar.

Pokémon and magic. Both were making a ton. Their card game division was the big prize.

Pathfinder? Probably not. First of all, D&D wasn't a huge amount of revenue to begin with, the goal was to make it huge, and the absence of Pathfinder wouldn't have helped with that. Secondly, the virulent hyperbole of the edition war aside, there was every indication that folks bought (and even played) both D&D and Pathfinder, anyway.

What is not a huge amount of revenue to you? A business cares about every revenue stream unless something is a complementary product or a loss leader. D&D is not a loss leader. It's revenue stream was monitored. I doubt they spent that kind of money on both. A lot of Pathfinder's customers did not like 4E. That's why they left to begin with.

On the forums the edition war was words. Between WotC and Paizo it was measured in dollars and cents.

On the contrary, it was a very clear and dramatic failure, and informs the way 5e needed to be handled. The growth potential just isn't there for TTRPGs, trying to marry a TTRPG to on-line tools to create an income stream didn't work, and that's an important lesson, one that WotC learned, painfully. Cutting cost and shifting to a sustaining mode was the only thing that made sense.

I don't think sustaining was the reason. I think the loss of market share sent a very clear message that they needed to change. I think Mearls and company have very clear directions to take back market share from Paizo. Rebuild the brand to what it was.

That's what this forum is about, sure, but it's not what anyone at Hasbro particularly cares about. The TTRPG hobby, as a market, just isn't that big and has no growth prospects. It's hidebound, and attempts to re-invigorate it failed. So, WotC is openly looking for opportunities outside of it. It's only sensible.

I agree to a degree. TTRPGs will never be the video game market. Probably not even the card game market. D&D is a game that appeals to a portion of the population that enjoys TTRPGs. It's a matter of tapping that market and creating a dominant position that allows you to make money. With tight financial controls, you build a healthy revenue stream.

The story from an insider was that 4e was pitched as a way of gaining huge revenue relative to what TTRPGs had done in the past, mainly by selling a subscription service, and MMO-style revenue stream. WotC failed to get the on-line support out in the manner it was originally envisioned and it failed, dramatically.

It might have worked if they didn't splinter their market with a game that failed to maintain their customer base. All my friends love being able to work off their laptops. They just didn't like the game WotC produced.

As far as performance just within the TTRPG marketplace, there's very little hard data, but what there is showed D&D beating Pathfinder in every quarter but the one in which Essentials was released, and the ones in which no D&D product was released. Now that D&D is back on the market, a year has gone by and D&D remains solidly back in the #1 position.

Yet that hasn't happened since D&D took the dominant position in the TTRPG market. No one has been close to D&D prior to this. No one has ever used an old D&D system to do it. It's not done in business. Allowing someone access to your old system and fans of that system is a bad business idea.

All D&D has to do to beat Pathfinder is put a product on the shelves that doesn't completely baffle folks with it's pointlessness. And 5e has done that, and D&D is back to beating Pathfinder.

How much of their previous market did they recover? That is the question. D&D used to be number one by quite a margin. That margin was substantially reduced by Paizo and Pathfinder by directly taking customers and associated revenue from WotC. How much? Substantial enough to piss the corporate business people off.

Since Pathfinder, even at launch, couldn't beat D&D, even over a year in, it was obviously a lot less than 50%.

Hard to know. That's why the range I listed was wide. It could have been up to 50% at its peak, but probably closer to 30 to 35%. Even that is a giant chunk of the pie. If someone takes a 1/3 of your customer base, the someone it is taken from is not happy.

Which is why D&D has only 2 developers and such a slow release schedule. The revenue potential of TTRPGs doesn't warrant any greater investment in that. Especially when D&D can win what market there is just by showing up.

It did when its market share wasn't splintered. It doesn't matter if it is 70/30 in favor of WotC. Or 60/40. That's a lot of lost revenue and customers. No business tolerates that even if it is a small piece of a larger company.

Last I heard, they were happy that M:tG was pulling down a lot of revenue (~100 mil, IIRC). And, yes that D&D was making the best sellers lists - even if the actual income from it was miniscule, it sounds nice to have winner, however low-stakes the race.

What is miniscule revenue to you? Miniscule compared to the other divisions? Or miniscule amount of money like not reaching the millions? Are you saying a company doesn't care about one of its revenue streams because it isn't large?

Not too large a portion, no. But, really, it's the tiny size of the pie, rather than the relative size of the piece that makes it a minor consideration.

A minor consideration to The President of Hasbro? Hasbro is a game company very used to managing games with smaller revenue streams. It is the aggregate of all their games that makes them money. I'm sure they have profitability metrics in place that must be met. A lot of pressure comes down on D&D management to meet them. I would say that makes it major to the guys involved in that division.

Nod. And what happened after Hasbro acquired WotC? 3.5 and rapid bloat to flog some more revenue out of the line. when that didn't work well enough, a big investment in 4e & DDI that failed to hit unprecedented revenue goals. Followed by much more modest attempts to merely stabilize the line: Essentials, Next, now a 5e with a very small staff and very slow pace of releases.

It did work well enough. 3.0 and 3.5 was a Golden Age of D&D. New ideas rejuvenated the hobby. The OGL worked in a positive manner to support the hobby. The game was flourishing. It isn't like the book bloat was a surprise. 2E had a huge glut of material. The previous model seemed to be introduce a new edition, if it was popularly received, roll out books as fast as possible to take advantage of the momentum until they stopped selling, do it all again. 5E is one of the first editions where a truly different model is being sought.

Paizo's model is slightly different. They produce a lot of books. They sell on a subscription basis. It seems to be working for them. So 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder produced a lot of books. I'd have to see profit margins to know if it was beating the current methodology Mearls is using. He seems to have different sales metrics for determining success and a different sales model he is trying.

And the 20-million-on-a-good-year TTRPG market doesn't even make it on the executive's dashboard. D&D is something they're keeping on the shelf in case an opportunity presents itself. 5e is that shelf-warmer. Honestly, I think it's doing quite well, in spite of the low level of investment.

Yes, it does. Good executives watch every revenue stream. If the TTRPG market is 15 or 20 million. D&D probably aims to take half of that. That is a substantial enough revenue stream to take note of. I wonder what the margins are like. Given it is a hobby, I would think the margins are relatively high given the consumer will spend discretionary income with a reasonably high price point possible for the company. Very few people will spend $50 for a novel. Gamers will drop that on a game book without a second thought. If you have a dominant, relatively high margin TTRPG business, if well run it can be an attractive revenue stream.

For most of our lives TTRPGs have been run by small companies usually owned by hobbyists. This is a strange time. D&D is actually getting more publicity than I've seen in the past. It has made it on major TV shows like Community and The Big Bang Theory. They have made some movies about gamer culture. The gaming subculture is getting more publicity than I've seen in my entire life. It's never been cooler to be a comic book reading, gaming nerd. How to take advantage of that economically? That is the question.

3.5 did do fairly well with the help of the OGL encouraging the production of 3pp complementary products. 5e could do with some 3pp adventures, for instance - or really, anything, since the pace of official material is so slow. The existing OGL has already been used to create carefully-unofficial 5e-compatible products. I expect either status-quo - no 5e-specific OGL, no C&Ding 5e-compatible 1.0 OGL products - or some sort of 5e OGL, or 5e GSL for use with the existing OGL, that encourages creating adventures, settings, and other complementary products.

It did. The OGL was hugely successful. Until it bit D&D in the ass and wasn't. It doesn't take many business mistakes to seriously a damage a business.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mearls and company aren't getting asked stupid questions like, "Can you write the OGL so we can have all the positive effects of the 3E OGL with none of the negative effects?" They're probably sending it to a legal team for review. The legal team keeps sending it back saying, "Too open-ended. No company can ever have the game for free again. Try again."

Really, the existing OGL will let the hobby continue indefinitely, however small it dwindles, even if Hasbro retires the product line, entirely. So no worries on that account. I do hope D&D hangs on, though. It certainly doesn't take much to keep 3 core books in print and 2 developers employed....

It will. Not named D&D perhaps. That would be pretty sad.

Like you, I've been playing a long time. When I was young, I didn't give a rip about the business of D&D. I just loved the game. After studying business I found the different methods of building an RPG business interesting. I never entered the business because it is a hard business to make money on. D&D was probably one of the only brands making big money relative to the market. Maybe the Vampire Game during the Anne Rice induced vampire craze, but that fad seems to have slowed considerably. D&D has been like the IBM of TTRPGs. It's the big daddy that has sustained. Around it TTRPG companies come and go, it keeps the lighthouse on in the TTRPG market. If D&D were to fail, that would be disappointing.

I'm wondering at this point if it can take advantage of the increased popularity and publicity associated with nerd culture. Splitting their market did not help with this endeavor. I still wonder why they chose to take a game with a dominant market share in the TTRPG market into a direction that would splinter their customer base. Mearls seems to have the game back on track. He is definitely using metrics to keep it on track. I wonder why D&D didn't use a similar approach in the past. Then again the tools Mearls is using may not have been in place at the time. I know tools for business metrics have substantially improved over the years and thereby the results obtained by their use.