When did WotC D&D "Jump the Shark"?

[Jeffrey]

"Jumping the shark" is doing something sensational and outrageous in order to bolster perceived flagging popularity.

There might be an argument made that the "slaying of sacred cows" in 4e fits this definition exactly.

Not sure that I would support it, but the argument could be made.

 

[Imaro]

There are basically a few data points we have:


5) Size of the DDI group on the WotC boards. We know objectively this represents the lower bound on current active DDI subscribers.

Uhm... actually we don't know this objectively. There have been some weird anomalies discovered about the numbers concerning this group, between the numbers for "Listed Members" and the actual number of members listed under member list, here's the thread... it starts around page 16, post 151.

Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

Here's the relevant quote...

If you look at the group from your home area is says there are currently

49673 Members

But if you go to the groups page and then click on the list of members it takes you to a page that shows every members avatar. With 20 Avatars a page and only 1808 pages (the last page only has three avatars) which means there are

36143 Members

49673 - 36143 means there are 13530 missing members.

I suspect those are people that have left. From the graph it looks like they have gained 7,000 members since the start of the online builder but if they have actually lost 13,530 since the begining of the D&DI then there is certainly an issue with retaining subscribers.

Even if it isn't the number of people that have left, it shows that using the group membership numbers isn't a useful measure of actual membership.

 

[Imaro]

There might be an argument made that the "slaying of sacred cows" in 4e fits this definition exactly.

Not sure that I would support it, but the argument could be made.

Or the adding back in of some classic tropes with the essentials format...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Just wait until the NDA's are unenforceable, whether because a "statute of limitations" runs out and/or an ex-employee is retired and doesn't give a damn anymore.

Sooner or later, somebody will spill the beans.

Heh, try to find out anything about WotC financials, EVER. Aside from some stuff that was revealed due to a lawsuit WRT TSR and whatever Hasbro released when they bought WotC there's been squat. If it hasn't come out in 10+ years, I'm skeptical...

Sure a few people have made some very general comments about products they worked on, etc, but all regarding stuff years gone by. Read Ryan's stuff, even he really has relatively little to say about the business side of things or really anything except things he was involved in 10 years ago.

It is a small industry. You don't spill the beans on employers or former employers unless you don't feel like ever working in the field again as long as you live, and maybe eating a lawsuit. Besides it really isn't ethical to talk about other people's money. You're going to wait a long time to learn anything IMHO.

 

[Fifth Element]

(4) I am not a fan of 4e, or the delve format, BUT the only thing that even comes close to potential shark-jumping is the stupidsilly namesmack naming that 4e is rife with.

So you're (owl)bearish on the trend then? It chills you to the bone(snapper)? You feel stuck in the muck(dweller)? That's stun(jelly)ing. It's not all doom and gloom(wing), you can just leave it in the dust(digger) if you like.

Thunderherder. Webbird. Sorry, I'm all out of clever at the moment.

 

[TheUltramark]

again, I don't want to sound like the old codger ... "back in my day sonny..." but the bottom line you have to ask yourself is this:
Do you still have playing?
if yes, awesome!
if no, what can you as a group do to make it more fun...if you don't like a new rule...change it...if you think a new book sucks, don't use it, if you think 4e as a whole is monkey crap (which me and my cohorts do not) then scrap it and go back to 3rd or 2nd or 1st or whatever you played that gave you the most enjoyment.

As far as when did the whole thing jump the shark, as I posted earlier, making the novelist jump their stories 100 years into the future was ridiculous. Take just Salvatore for example...Cattie-Brie: dead...Wolfgar: venerable...Bruenor: very aged (near death)...Artemis : dead....
really????? all that so you can launch a new line????
shark jumping example if I had ever seen one
---and there is a youtube video interview of R.A.S. basically saying it sucked, but he had no control.
http://youtu.be/TlceNdbt9Q8

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

I've glanced at the whole thread and can't believe there is not a single photoshop of a "Fonzie cum polearm" leaping over a ferocious Bulette.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So you're (owl)bearish on the trend then? It chills you to the bone(snapper)? You feel stuck in the muck(dweller)? That's stun(jelly)ing. It's not all doom and gloom(wing), you can just leave it in the dust(digger) if you like.

Thunderherder. Webbird. Sorry, I'm all out of clever at the moment.

Surely you mean flamebeak owlbear, blacktongue bonesnapper, squiddgyfoot muckdweller, wallsmooth stunjelly, tenebrousdreaming gloomwing and underfoot donkeyhorse muchmaw dustdigger, right?

Rumblefooted thunderherder? Ebonwing webbird?

No?


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

FunRuiner GrumpyPants.

(Or are you really defending webbird?)

 

[Hussar]

Or vice versa. While I'm sure there are people with more or less knowledge around it is also quite obvious that nobody outside of WotC knows much and even ex-employees take their NDA's quite seriously.

In any case lots of people claim to know lots of things. Maybe a few of them do, but like any rational person I go by evidence that I can reasonably attribute as accurate. You'd have to explain in a credible way how you know more than the rest of us before I would take it into account.

Just to expand on this for a second because the other part of my original point I think got a bit lost in the scrum. It's not that we don't have bits of information, it's that the information lacks a great deal of context.

If you look at the anecdotal evidence that comes out, it comes in one of two flavours. Either it's:

A) I like game X, it's doing really well where I am.
or
B) I don't like game X, no one is playing it where I am.

What you rarely see is the following:

C) I like game X, but, I'm really having trouble finding anyone else in my area who does.
or
D) I don't like game X, but, everyone else around me loves it.

In other words, the popularity of a game is directly proportional to the amount a person likes that game. The bias is obviously pretty thick. All things being equal, you should see C and D just as often as A and B.

Or, take the "evidence" from various FLGS owners. FLGS owner claims, "Game X flies off the shelf but game Y sits and gathers dust". But, again, there's no context given. Let's say that Pathfinder is doing well at the store and 4e isn't. There could be many reasons for this, other than just the popularity of the games. For one, the store could be actively biased for or against a given game and that wouldn't be the first time that's happened. Or, perhaps this store is selling the books, but the store down the street is running Encounters and Gamma World events six days a week and all the 4e buyers go to that other store. That's just two off the top of my head and I'm sure there are many other reasons that could be just as true as "Game X is more popular that Game Y".

So, yes, IMO, anyone who comes to any sort of conclusion based on the flimsiest of evidence that we have presented here is holding the tail of an elephant and claiming it's a snake.