D&D 5E So what exactly is Wizards working on?

[DaveDash]

That makes sense. WotC's business model holds up... if we ignore the elephant in the room. Paizo.

If it is about maximizing profits, than you issues licenses for various products and produce a robust RPG line. D&D is first and foremost PnP RPG. Your fan base, the players, are the first who will buy you other products. You need them to be interested in your brand. Sure, maybe some people get intimitated if their are too many books. But are more put off because they feel the brand isn't supported?

More maximizing? You also sell PDFs. Books made of paper are in decline while the dematerialized ones are more and more popular. Store are more important? Paizo sells PDFs and it still managed to become the number one seller in stores. You also lower the price of your core books. Those are the gateway drug to players buying other books. That is Paizo's model. Their core book is 50$ and it is the DMG and PHB put together. Half the price in other words. For 10$ you have the PDF of the core book. Cheaper also means more players.

Just having more players is good? Make an OGL and a SRD. All of Paizo's crunch is open content. Just go to d20PFSRD and you have if all for free. The Adventure League modules, once the new season begins, just sell the old one as PDFs. 2,99$ a pop. Very low cost for you, you draw people to the game and make money. Win win. A lot of people do not have access to stores with AL games.

I understand the arguments people are putting forth to explain D&D's business model. I really do. They make sense. In a vacuum. When you compare to what other businesses do and it doesn't hold up. Either WotC is making another mistake or they just do not want to support D&D. If that is the case, I won't support them. The energy put into the AL tells me they want to support D&D. Maybe with their limited resources they have to prioritize. Obviously, I have doubt about their priorities.

I think it comes down to the fact WoTC just don't know how to make money off TTRPG D&D. Seems like they tried with 4e and "failed", so now they're trying something completely different.

 

[Kramodlog]

I think it comes down to the fact WoTC just don't know how to make money off TTRPG D&D. Seems like they tried with 4e and "failed", so now they're trying something completely different.

I agree. A lot of the critics 4e faced were about mechanics and fluff. They worked on that. Lots of polling and playtesting. 5e is a great game because of that. But they only focused on that and sort of forgot to ask about what sort of products we wanted and what sort of communications would be appreciated. So now they are improvising experimenting.

 

[Manchu]

IME the playtest set high expectations for continued transparency and solid comms. Maybe too high? In any case, it's not just a case of falling short of high expectations. Feels like a reverse course. For Torm's sake, we're huddled around cryptic tweets like the last morsels in a starving town.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

That makes sense. WotC's business model holds up... if we ignore the elephant in the room. Paizo.

If it is about maximizing profits, than you issues licenses for various products and produce a robust RPG line. D&D is first and foremost PnP RPG. Your fan base, the players, are the first who will buy you other products. You need them to be interested in your brand. Sure, maybe some people get intimitated if their are too many books. But are more put off because they feel the brand isn't supported?

More maximizing? You also sell PDFs. Books made of paper are in decline while the dematerialized ones are more and more popular. Store are more important? Paizo sells PDFs and it still managed to become the number one seller in stores. You also lower the price of your core books. Those are the gateway drug to players buying other books. That is Paizo's model. Their core book is 50$ and it is the DMG and PHB put together. Half the price in other words. For 10$ you have the PDF of the core book. Cheaper also means more players.

Just having more players is good? Make an OGL and a SRD. All of Paizo's crunch is open content. Just go to d20PFSRD and you have if all for free. The Adventure League modules, once the new season begins, just sell the old one as PDFs. 2,99$ a pop. Very low cost for you, you draw people to the game and make money. Win win. A lot of people do not have access to stores with AL games.

I understand the arguments people are putting forth to explain D&D's business model. I really do. They make sense. In a vacuum. When you compare to what other businesses do and it doesn't hold up. Either WotC is making another mistake or they just do not want to support D&D. If that is the case, I won't support them. The energy put into the AL tells me they want to support D&D. Maybe with their limited resources they have to prioritize. Obviously, I have doubt about their priorities.

Paizo is really the only "other business" that puts out remotely the amount of product we're discussing though. Not Cubicle7's The One Ring, nor Fantasy Flight's Star Wars RPG... hell even World of Darkness which is famous for the amount of product White Wolf churned out in the 90s has a much more limited release schedule today under Onyx Path... none of the rest put out a hardcover monthly. Only Pathfinder.

I'll call it now. Two years from now, that will not be the case. Either Paizo will throttle back the pen and paper release schedule dramatically, or they will have to release a Pathfinder 2.0. You were the one who posted the link to a store owner stating "Boring Pathfinder releases have hurt Boring Pathfinder sales." There's simply very little exciting content left that Paizo hasn't already covered, and we're currently in the long dark teatime of the Pathfinder fan's soul.

Wizards has been through this process twice already, and decided they're not interested in oversaturating the market twice in a row. This is Pathfinder's first rodeo, and they've done phenomenally to date, but now they're going to need to change tactics if they don't want to get thrown off the bull.

 

[Shasarak]

You've just driven home for me why I get so irritated by statements like "You'd have a point if it were just me, but there's lot of us", implying that WotC better get it's act together and satisfy the complainers or they're toast.

It's exactly the tone people take when the gripe about it taking so long between Song of Fire and Ice novels.

George R. R. Martin is not your bitch, people, and neither is Wizards of the Coast. Their continued success as a company is not dependent on anyone buying D&D books. If you bought the core books, you've already given them your money, and now they're looking elsewhere for customers because they'll make more money for less investment reaping profits from board games, video games, movies and the like.

Maybe WotC can hire George to give them some tips on how to license out their products and make a successful TV show?

 

[graves3141]

I remember a Youtube video of Mearls trying to talk-up 4E in 2008 either just prior to or just after its release and him saying something like "This is the fastest, best, version of D&D yet". I thought it was funny because I could sense that he didn't really believe what he was saying.

Also, I wonder what they are working on as well at WotC... they must be doing something but it doesn't feel like it. Maybe I'll change my mind if they post a release schedule in the near future.

 

[pemerton]

Paizo did not lose its #1 spot on IVc2 to D&D because they produce too many books or because WotC produces so few D&D books. Rather, this issue is that D&D as a brand speaks to a far, far broader audience.

Non-rhetorical question: are the two factors you contrast related? Is part of why D&D speaks to a broader audience is because of its slimmer profile?

I think what it might do is train people to not rely on WotC at all. The first time a group decides they don't like an AP and there are no alternatives, they will either stop playing D&D, stop purchasing things for D&D or turn to other publishers. Once they have done that, whether those folks continue to be players, they are no longer customers and therefore lost to WotC.

I think the whole rationale of the 'brand' strategy is to falsify this!

People who have enjoyed D&D will buy D&D boardgames, buy D&D lunchboxes, buy D&D videogames, etc - at least, that's the hope.

I think WotC has concluded that there is little profit to be made in trying to keep customers as RPG customers. But they are not equating "D&D customer" with "RPG customer".

I wouldn't be at all surprised if 5e hasn't already made greater profit than the entirety of the D&D RPG in the 'Essentials' period.

For books sales you're probably right - each period is around 2 years, and 5e has probably sold more books than Essentials D&D did. And (I think) with a lower staff budget for its 2 years?

The spanner in the works of this calculation is (i) DDI, and (ii) non-RPG-book D&D sales. I don't know how these compare across the two periods.

 

[pemerton]

With regards to modules, Paizo has the right idea because they understand that not everyone is going to like one module so they may like another, so they produce multiple modules in a short time span.

Given that this helped bankrupt TSR, I would expect WotC to be pretty wary of it!

I understand the arguments people are putting forth to explain D&D's business model. I really do. They make sense. In a vacuum. When you compare to what other businesses do and it doesn't hold up. Either WotC is making another mistake or they just do not want to support D&D.

I think you are ignoring the third alternative: that WotC can make more money spending its finite capital on other projects, like MtG or overseeing the production of licensed products.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Maybe WotC can hire George to give them some tips on how to license out their products and make a successful TV show?

I suspect you're being facetious, but in all seriousness a good television show is exactly the kind of thing that would turn the brand into a huge win for Hasbro. Game of Thrones has what, three more seasons tops? Get preproduction underway in a year or two and a Dragonlance (or, let's face facts here, more likely the Legebd of Drizzt) adaptation could fill the sword and sorcery void in cable viewer's hearts once GoT has ended.

It doesn't have to be the "next Game of Thrones", those are some big shoes to fill. Just something flashy with good writing and good acting is enough.

 

[BryonD]

I'll call it now. Two years from now, that will not be the case. Either Paizo will throttle back the pen and paper release schedule dramatically, or they will have to release a Pathfinder 2.0. You were the one who posted the link to a store owner stating "Boring Pathfinder releases have hurt Boring Pathfinder sales." There's simply very little exciting content left that Paizo hasn't already covered, and we're currently in the long dark teatime of the Pathfinder fan's soul.

Wow that is serious Deja Vu.
In fairness, I completely agree that Pathfinders content is running out of new things. "Boring" is, unfortunately, fitting. So I can't go out on a ,limb and say this won't happen. To the contrary, If they announce tomorrow that PF2.0 will be released at GenCon *this year* it will still have been an impressive six year run. So it isn't quite the bold move to predict change.

But before PF came out there were 4E fans making VERY similar "cold lock" promises about how Paizo would give in or die.
So don't count them out so fast.