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[UPDATED] Has ADVENTURER'S HANDBOOK Been Cancelled?
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<blockquote data-quote="Trickster Spirit" data-source="post: 7657738" data-attributes="member: 6701829"><p>Increasingly smaller fractions of the player base purchasing each subsequent Fighter's Handbook mean that splatbooks are always a matter of diminishing returns; chump change to the makers of Magic and quite frankly of a questionable level of quality that will only harm the brand they're working so hard to turn into The Next Big Thing™.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Wizards of the Coast does not care about D&D book sales. Let me repeat that:</p><p></p><p><strong><em>WotC does not care whether they are leaving money on the table by not producing D&D splatbooks for us.</em></strong></p><p></p><p>The reason being that even if those books sold very well for non-core D&D books, it'd still be just a drop in the bucket compared to Magic. No WotC edition has ever made bank off of splatbooks - the inevitably end up having to put out revised corebooks or a new edition if they want to see a steady profit. This time, they're saying screw making money off of D&D books, that's not worked out the last couple of editions, this time we're going to leverage great stories and cross-media events to turn D&D into a juggernaut brand like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, with successful movies and novels and videos games and yes tabletop rpg books, but the focus is on the whole, not the pen and paper line. D&D is already more than halfway there, with dozens of best-selling novels to draw from and a huge base of lapsed players and non-players who've nevertheless been exposed to D&D through the internet, video games and nerd culture in general.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The same reason Marvel puts out comic-books, despite the fact that they've long since ceased being Marvel Entertainment's bread-and-butter. Indeed, the comics are probably the <em>least</em> profitable venture for the for the mass-media empire - movies, the tv shows on ABC and Netflix, toys and costumes at the Disney Store... the comics tie that all together and are the "origin" of the brand.</p><p></p><p>Theoretically they could cancel The Avengers print run and still have decades of stories to draw on, but the comics serve as a continual farm for new properties - last summer's Guardians of the Galaxy was based on a new line-up from the 2009 reboot series. </p><p></p><p>Wizards wants there to be "one D&D" going forward to serve as a stable foundation for that brand; the aim is for there to never be a 6E, just a 5E that draws in new players the same way new X-Men storylines draw in new comic book fans. They're playing the long game with this edition, and are ignoring small-time cash in the short-term (bloated splatbook sales that will hinder a "timeless" D&D edition) in favor of banking on bringing in the Big Bucks when a Drizzt movie gets made (or a hugely popular Planescape MMO, or an Eberron tv show on HBO, or even just a solid D&D video game like the old Baldur's Gate series, etc.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Trickster Spirit, post: 7657738, member: 6701829"] Increasingly smaller fractions of the player base purchasing each subsequent Fighter's Handbook mean that splatbooks are always a matter of diminishing returns; chump change to the makers of Magic and quite frankly of a questionable level of quality that will only harm the brand they're working so hard to turn into The Next Big Thing™. Wizards of the Coast does not care about D&D book sales. Let me repeat that: [B][I]WotC does not care whether they are leaving money on the table by not producing D&D splatbooks for us.[/I][/B] The reason being that even if those books sold very well for non-core D&D books, it'd still be just a drop in the bucket compared to Magic. No WotC edition has ever made bank off of splatbooks - the inevitably end up having to put out revised corebooks or a new edition if they want to see a steady profit. This time, they're saying screw making money off of D&D books, that's not worked out the last couple of editions, this time we're going to leverage great stories and cross-media events to turn D&D into a juggernaut brand like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, with successful movies and novels and videos games and yes tabletop rpg books, but the focus is on the whole, not the pen and paper line. D&D is already more than halfway there, with dozens of best-selling novels to draw from and a huge base of lapsed players and non-players who've nevertheless been exposed to D&D through the internet, video games and nerd culture in general. The same reason Marvel puts out comic-books, despite the fact that they've long since ceased being Marvel Entertainment's bread-and-butter. Indeed, the comics are probably the [i]least[/i] profitable venture for the for the mass-media empire - movies, the tv shows on ABC and Netflix, toys and costumes at the Disney Store... the comics tie that all together and are the "origin" of the brand. Theoretically they could cancel The Avengers print run and still have decades of stories to draw on, but the comics serve as a continual farm for new properties - last summer's Guardians of the Galaxy was based on a new line-up from the 2009 reboot series. Wizards wants there to be "one D&D" going forward to serve as a stable foundation for that brand; the aim is for there to never be a 6E, just a 5E that draws in new players the same way new X-Men storylines draw in new comic book fans. They're playing the long game with this edition, and are ignoring small-time cash in the short-term (bloated splatbook sales that will hinder a "timeless" D&D edition) in favor of banking on bringing in the Big Bucks when a Drizzt movie gets made (or a hugely popular Planescape MMO, or an Eberron tv show on HBO, or even just a solid D&D video game like the old Baldur's Gate series, etc.) [/QUOTE]
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[UPDATED] Has ADVENTURER'S HANDBOOK Been Cancelled?
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