So that's it for 4th edition I guess?

[Valetudo]

The way wizards marketed 4th was laughable. There are people too this day swearing 4th isnt DnD, that havent evan tried it.

 

[GreyLord]

They say that the product that ruins the market normally isn't the product being released when it is a sequel. It is the one that was released previous to it.

A lot of love was lost when they isolated the OSR or old school gamers with the 3.X releases.

The Old schoolers went underground and D20 seemed to reign (probably because it was all that was really being made at the time, there was very little you could buy that WASN'T D20).

It was a bitter pill for the 3.X players to eat though, they tend to be more vocal overall, and there you go.

4e was successful to a point, but like 3.5 during it's last two years...sales had dropped off.

What did you want WotC to do?

They could have held off on 4e...and been closed as 3.5 wasn't making the money that last few years that was demanded of by their higher ups.

4e had a pretty successful initial release...but followed the same path as 3.5 in sales. I think the bigger mistake was pushing everything as core at first (a lesson they thought they learned from 3.5, it was felt that sales dropped off with 3.5 because what they were selling WAS NOT core) and then people got too used to everything being called core and not especially optional. People also got tired of some of the wilt of product (PHB3, how many classes and odd races will people go for...Dungeon Survival Guide...how many want to play goblins???).

Essentials was a grab to try to re-invigorate the Core rule book type sales.

Redbox starter was good to one degree, but bad on another. Old school fans may have liked the cover...but they don't like the way it was presented ultimately...if it's in a box like that it should contain a certain product, and 4e wasn't it.

I thought it was nice, but many did not.

However, 4e was successful, but NOT successful enough. AKA...not to the degree that it is expected to be by those higher up on the food ladder...hence the pressure.

3.5 suffered similar problems as well...so this is hardly something started by 4e. People either were unaware of sales difficulties with 3.5 during it's last two years...or they have very short memories.

 

[Rechan]

Hell, only reason I'm back on these forums is to put together another 4e campaign.

I'm vexed we never got a full Fey monster book (like the Undead and Dragons and Demons) or Feywild focused book (like what the SHadowfell/Astral Sea/Elemental Chaos got) but, aside from that (and builds I wish had been created), I need nothing else.

I've not looked at 5e since the first playtest info came out.

 

[tomBitonti]

An unfortunate fact of life is that companies (not just Hasbro) very often promise that they will support things for ever and ever (especially when they announce new products competing with their old products) but later cut support anyway.

Its not even necessarily dishonesty. At the time the promise is made the people making it might well mean it. But, some time later, different people looking at the then current sales numbers will come to a different decision. At that later point the promise has little weight in the decision. It usually has SOME weight. Just not too much

Kindof late to the discussion I fear, but want to point out that the above is not true. When a person makes a statement for a company in an official capacity that is the company speaking, not the person. (Think of the person as a nominated spokesperson.) If what is said sounds like a promise, then it is. As a result, official spokesmen are coached to be very very careful about what they say, and a person from the company who is not an official spokesman is advised (in some cases required) to put a disclaimer next to what they say. Also as a result, official statements tend to be strongly qualified.

Don't think that just because there is a new spokesperson two years later, or if market conditions change, that that gets a company off the hook for clear promises that it made.

TomB

 

[Steely_Dan]

However, 4e was successful, but NOT successful enough.
.

Where is the source for this?

 

[N'raac]

However, 4e was successful, but NOT successful enough.

Where is the source for this?

5th Ed? If 4e were satisfying WoTC/Hasbro, why would they replace it (with an extended period having no new product sales)?

 

[B.T.]

Ryan Dancey:

Sometime around 2005ish, Hasbro made an internal decision to divide its businesses into two categories. Core brands, which had more than $50 million in annual sales, and had a growth path towards $100 million annual sales, and Non-Core brands, which didn't.

Under Goldner, the Core Brands would be the tentpoles of the company. They would be exploited across a range of media with an eye towards major motion pictures, following the path Transformers had blazed. Goldner saw what happened to Marvel when they re-oriented their company from a publisher of comic books to a brand building factory (their market capitalization increased by something like 2 billion dollars). He wanted to replicate that at Hasbro.

Core Brands would get the financing they requested for development of their businesses (within reason). Non-Core brands would not. They would be allowed to rise & fall with the overall toy market on their own merits without a lot of marketing or development support. In fact, many Non-Core brands would simply be mothballed - allowed to go dormant for some number of years until the company was ready to take them down off the shelf and try to revive them for a new generation of kids.

Sometime around 2006, the D&D team made a big presentation to the Hasbro senior management on how they could take D&D up to the $50 million level and potentially keep growing it. The core of that plan was a synergistic relationship between the tabletop game and what came to be known as DDI. At the time Hasbro didn't have the rights to do an MMO for D&D, so DDI was the next best thing. The Wizards team produced figures showing that there were millions of people playing D&D and that if they could move a moderate fraction of those people to DDI, they would achieve their revenue goals. Then DDI could be expanded over time and if/when Hasbro recovered the video gaming rights, it could be used as a platform to launch a true D&D MMO, which could take them over $100 million/year.