The problem with these kinds of speculations is that the sales number from the ICv reports show that 4E was making as much or more than 3.5E up until the end of the second year and only started to drop down when they slowed down the release of 4E books and launched Essentials. There are also several books that hit name brand bestseller lists near the end of the second year.
That's not entirely true.
Pathfinder tied D&D in the third quarter of 2010, which is July to September. That's when WotC had just started to release Essentials but also includes several big 4e releases such as
Dark Sun and
Psionic Power. ANd while ICv2 says this was when they tied, Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens (who shares the distributor with WotC and also sold D&D books on paizo.com) says this was when Pathfinder started passing D&D.
Which means sales were likely dropping before then. This is very likely what prompted Essentials in the first place. Essentials was caused by dropping sales in an attempt to get new players in and boost sales.
And sales did not slow until early 2011 when they cancelled three books and delayed two others.
What really happened is that for the first time people who liked a previous edition of D&D could go to another company and continue getting support, instead of feeling like they had to play the newest edition to get support.
Of course, ignoring the existence of
Castles & Crusades and other retro games that were out half a decade before Pathfinder.
I still disagree with this statement.
It takes a year to get books on the shelf, including writing time and planning. Essentials came out in Fall 2010 so it had to have been planned in the Fall of 2009, a year after D&D 4e came out and very, very shortly after Pathfinder was launched but still well before it was, well, Pathfinder. So Paizo cannot take all the heat as players were evidently leaving the game before Pathfinder was really more than a cosmetic reboot. It took a year (again, Fall of 2010) before Paizo really offered something new. Prior to that it was all updates.
It is handy being able to stick with a previous edition and another company and continue getting support, but that's not really necessary. New content is nice but you could always just play with what you had. Especially with the amount of content WotC released for 3e (let alone 3rd Parties).
A new edition
alway has to be better than the previous and encourage people to switch. If the new edition is not better it doesn't matter if there is new support or not, people will just run with what they have. Paizo is making good money now and has grown in leaps and bounds. But not everyone who dropped 4e went to Paizo; there is a large number of people who just stuck with 3e or moved onto an entirely different system.
Had there not been a Pathfinder, I think 4e would have still ended. It might not have been as quick, but I imagine it still would have ended. There were simply too many other problems and factors at work.
Pathfinder and Paizo picked that up and instead of focusing on rulebooks, they focused on adventures and settings supplements. Which is a better strategy. They also created higher quality books, and elicited feedback from their customers and used that feedback to shape future products. Something WotC doesn't seem to be capable of.
This is true. Although, Paizo is having a harder time of it now that they've become so large. They had to switch from forums tied to playtesting to a survey because there was simply too many people testing and responding. But the fact the staff even acknowledges the forums, let alone regularly posts, is a huge improvement over WotC.
For the most part 5E is going to be a failure because it doesn't really bring anything new and it doesn't bring any enhancements. Anything that is good about 5E can be easily imported into pathfinder (or another OGL game) by using a slightly different wording and implementation. There really isn't enough in 5E to distinguish it from a slightly house ruled 1E or 2E.
New =/= good. You can make a game comprised of only new ideas and that is no guarantee of quality. And many times, old ideas are solid. Ideas that have stood the test of time and keep popping up are often the best.
But 5e does have new ideas. Bounded accuracy. Advantage. Adding balance to simplicity. Inherent modularity over a simple core. A classic feel with better math. All those elevate the edition and give it the best chance of success.
The other thing that is going to spell the fall of 5E is their budget. Hasbro pulled their big budget out from under them so the D&D side of WotC is running on what they can generate. What they generate is the PDF sales and the DDi sales. This probably barely pays the salaries of the 5 full time workers on 5E (Someone estimated the budget from the sales awhile back and then estimated the salaries of the people working on 5E). There is little or no room in the budget to actually advertise the new product. Its a wonder they have enough money to even print it at this point.
Can you provide a link to where we were told WotC is running on what they can generate?
Is it WotC as a whole or each brand individually? The latter is bad for D&D but the former is good as MtG continues to make a staggering amount of money and should be able to easy support some extra D&D team members.
Oh, and there are more than 5 people on 5e now.
Keep in mind, the profit mandates placed on WotC were reported to have happened in 2004-5 when work on 4e began. Hasbro received a new CEO in 2006. So there's a good chance the policies have changed.
Lastly its likely that 5E is meant to be a last 'forever' product like monopoly where for the most part nothing will be added, removed, or changed for the foreseeable future. Essentials was meant to be like this, but people wouldn't buy it...
Where have they said that?
In a GenCon panel I remember Mearls and Crawford talking about how it's better for the company if the edition is not changing every five years, but they expected reprints with revisions and updates.
