MockingBird
Hero
I personally really wished WotC would have left 5e alone and let it ride for a couple more years. The PHB was still doing well.
You're absolutely correct... this whole argument of mine relies on HasbrotC getting working what they want made and that it maintains a steady place in the market. If they can't get it online, then they're truly up the river.I mean, I mostly agree with what you're saying here, but I think we have to allow that this is a big "if".
And it can still do well. If you haven't had the same issues with Rangers, Sorcerers, Monks, the Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter feats, the Stealth rules etc. that other players have had over these past 8 years... then there's no reason not to just keep playing the 2014 book as you always have.I personally really wished WotC would have left 5e alone and let it ride for a couple more years. The PHB was still doing well.
Yeah and this was also the goal in 2008 with 4E. They gave up on it entirely with 5E (even the design of the game is at odds with the concept), but I think the burgeoning success of Beyond made them start rubbing their little hands together lol.If WotC's VTT for Dungeons & Dragons can get up and running similarly... then they have the potential of a long-term money influx where there will always be customers willing to shell out a certain number of bills each month to get to play.
Fine isn't good enough.It won’t. The internet is not real life.
They may not reach everyone they were going to before this mess but it will do fine.
Which happens regularly.In corporate speak, failure is not meeting revenue and profit expectatons. to an outsider, D&Done could look like a massive success and still be considered a massive failure due to the failure to meet the expectations.
(Cutting out the potshot at 4e there because 4e's launch was actually quite good - it took a while before they realized that 4e sales were on the same declining trend that 3e's had been towards the end of 3e and that the 4e launch wasn't doing what they needed it to because they hadn't solved the fundamental problem of the monthly supplement publishing model).So the worst (for WotC and Hasbro) happens. One DnD launches and [fails].
And software, especially games, often fails to meet expectations. So acting like it's a sure thing is just acting like an exec at some game company who is 100% certain [new game] will be a huge hit, only to find it does 30% of the numbers they expected - still making money, but not the kind of money that would make it worthwhile to them.
(And since this would be the second time they've tried to make D&D huge, and the second time it's blown up in their faces, I doubt we'd see a third chance.)
Is it ironic that the one time it did get huge under their stewardship wasn't really because of anything they did?
All of this is 100% correct. The absolute best growth that D&D has ever experienced as a game is when the company producing it reduced its publication schedule down to crumbs, put it back under an open license for the fans to support for themselves, and then staffed the product team with a skeleton crew to keep the brand alive for non-gaming purposes.More than that -- it got huge when they were actively ignoring it for once.
Indeed. Someone, somewhere in management is going to ask, at some point, for a report that shows the number of users they actually have and how many were lost during "the great OGL storm of 2023" and never came back. Then they'll be asking why the extra income they could have had from those users is not heading into the bank monthly..Fine isn't good enough.
Indeed, they say the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results each time.There's a lesson for executives to learn in there, but as I've said elsewhere it would hurt their feelings to learn it, so they won't.
Since OneDnD is backwards compatible, I don't see how it's a problem.
Someone will buy the new PHB (as they stop selling the old one) and they can still play with the other people playing with the old PHB. So any new player will be using a revised class.
And the new version will just be better in a bunch of little ways. So eventually one of those old players will want buy a new book to play the new class.
Over time, everyone will eventually switch. It's just a question of how fast.
saying ti would be backwards compatible was a PR move. Announce a new version and everybody stops buying the current version. this was to sotop so much sales bleeding, nothing more. There will be conversion guides and nothing more.Since OneDnD is backwards compatible, I don't see how it's a problem.
Someone will buy the new PHB (as they stop selling the old one) and they can still play with the other people playing with the old PHB. So any new player will be using a revised class.
And the new version will just be better in a bunch of little ways. So eventually one of those old players will want buy a new book to play the new class.
Over time, everyone will eventually switch. It's just a question of how fast.
Nah, it's already being shown to be compatible. You are just currently assuming the worst about everything.saying ti would be backwards compatible was a PR move. Announce a new version and everybody stops buying the current version. this was to sotop so much sales bleeding, nothing more. There will be conversion guides and nothing more.