Pramas: Does 4E have staying power?

[garyh]

d20srd.com DID make WotC money. The SRD that they gave away for free DID make WotC money. In a very indirect fashion, but it DID make WotC money.

They want to make more, which is a pretty good idea, but in order to do that, they took away something, and gave us nothing. Now we're paying for something we used to get for free. That's a pitfall of this. The appearance is of someone giving us a ball to play with and then, once we've been having fun for a while, taking the ball back, showing us an EVEN BETTER ball, and saying "Give me a dollar if you want to rent it."

d20srd.org was/is GREAT. The thing is, it never grew past core (plus psionics and some UA stuff). For 4e, yeah, they're selling something similar, but that new product is ALWAYS updated with every book, and you get a bunch of other neat things with it like magazines and a character builder.

That's value. And a lot of people, including myself, are happy to rent that better ball.

 

[I'm A Banana]

d20srd.org was/is GREAT. The thing is, it never grew past core (plus psionics and some UA stuff). For 4e, yeah, they're selling something similar, but that new product is ALWAYS updated with every book, and you get a bunch of other neat things with it like magazines and a character builder.

Well, the SRD can't grow past core. It's not allowed. That's the d20 license in a nutshell: use only the SRD + your own stuff. The SRD, in effect defines what is core.

That's value. And a lot of people, including myself, are happy to rent that better ball.

And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that renting a better ball + buying books + buying minis + buying dungeon tiles + buying adventures might not be something that every D&D player can do, and that by making all of them "required" (even if in name or suggestion only), you risk a binary decision: people will either buy all of it, or NONE of it. In at least some people, this has happened in 4e. It might be something that the designers should look at when figuring out how to make 5e even better.

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

I do not know if any of the quoted statistics or numbers are true for anything. The only thing I know is what's going on here locally. At our University roleplaying society initially there was a big rush to play 4e, currently there is one game of 4e running, and the rest who are playing D&D are doing so with 3e.

I don't know if that is indicatve of anything at all, it may be that it's just that people here have lots of 3e material they can use immediately to hand and things may change as more 4e replacement material comes out. (They do have a LOT of 3e material to draw upon.)

It's still early days.

 

[Betote]

When 2e came out and TSR removed half-orcs and assassins, where there this many "incomplete" complaints?

There are still people who claim this. In fact, comparing 4e-3.x changes to 2e-1e ones does a very weak favor to 4e

Is 4e a complete game with just the 3 core books? Yes, it is.
Has 4e got the same options as 3.x for PCs with just the 3 core books? No, it hasn't.

But still, RC has way too fewer options for PCs than 3.x and it's still a damn good complete game.

 

[Aeolius]

In fact, comparing 4e-3.x changes to 2e-1e ones does a very weak favor to 4e

Only to those second generation leap-grognards who skipped from 2e to 4e, not to the first generation leap-grognards who skipped from 1e to 3e.

 

[der_kluge]

I am not a fan of 4e. But nonetheless I hope sales are fairly brisk. I think it's important that WotC do well financially, for the sake of the industry, and I think it's also important that people keep playing games and having a good time, for the sake of the hobby.

I think the *industry* needs WoTC about as much as a fish needs a bicycle.

And all this economic pandering aside - could it be that a lot of people just hate 4th edition and *gasp* aren't buying it? There's definitely a lot of anecdotal evidence here to support that theory.

Personally, I give WoTC 6-10 years before they are bankrupt and are out of business. But that might be optimistic.

 

[sjmiller]

Well, the SRD can't grow past core. It's not allowed. That's the d20 license in a nutshell: use only the SRD + your own stuff. The SRD, in effect defines what is core.

Actually, to be a little picky, that is the OGL in a nutshell. The d20 license is a different, and soon to be quite dead, license entirely.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Personally, I give WoTC 6-10 years before they are bankrupt and are out of business. But that might be optimistic.

If you're basing that on anecdotal information, I think you're not giving the Coasties enough credit. 4e is a success, but there is a chance it might not be as big a success as hoped. That doesn't risk bankruptcy, really. And they've got MUCH bigger fish than D&D even in their little pond (Magic, Pokemon).

 

[der_kluge]

If you're basing that on anecdotal information, I think you're not giving the Coasties enough credit. 4e is a success, but there is a chance it might not be as big a success as hoped. That doesn't risk bankruptcy, really. And they've got MUCH bigger fish than D&D even in their little pond (Magic, Pokemon).

If you think kids will still be playing M:tG and Pokemon 6, or even 10 years from now, you've got a lot more faith in their attention spans than I do.

 

[Fifth Element]

If you think kids will still be playing M:tG and Pokemon 6, or even 10 years from now, you've got a lot more faith in their attention spans than I do.

Yeah, I mean Magic has only been around for 15 years now. I know many gamers said the same as you did when the game first became popular way back when. But it's 15 years later, and it's still going.

Pokemon, as a licensed brand, I can see disappearing the near-short term future, possibly. But there's no reason to think the same of MtG.