Actually there is something that wasn't considered. I remember Perkin's stating that he had stories planned for the next X number of years. There could be a contract in place with various other companies that they may not be able to pull back on. It could also be that if Perkin's pulled back then it shows he was wrong.
Sorry, but that's a laughable conspiracy theory. That the adventures aren't doing well and that they're continuing to do a losing strategy because of contracts and to avoid hurting Perkin's feelings.
Firstly, WotC is the party with power in making the contracts. They're the ones with the IP. They're the ones the license parties want to deal with and approach.
It would also be foolish of WotC to work any single product line into contracts, since they would have known they could fail or plans could change. That's just not done. Plus, many of the licenses would have been negotiated months or years prior to 5e, before the plans were firmly set.
But, in the super extremely unlikely situation this was the case, WotC has options. They could keep the storylines but drop the superadventures, and make the twice annual stories part of Organized Play only. Y'know, like they did for most of 4e. Or they could renegotiate the contracts, offering favourable terms (such as an extension). They would not just keeping doing what they're doing.
Also, Perkin's is way down the totem pole. Above him are Mearls, then Nathan Stewart, and then the CEO. Possibly a middle manager or two between Stewart and the CEO. If the storylines were doing poorly, all of them would need to agree to continue to release the adventures. Chris Perkin's doesn't have ANY say in the continuation of the adventures.
Perkins is also a pro. He knows that sometimes products get canceled and product lines end. WotC has cancelled products and changed plans before.
But what really moves the idea the adventures aren't doing into the realm of conspiracy theory is that it flies in the face of the amazon sales rankings. The adventures aren't just doing well for RPG books, but books in general.
If nobody ever pushed for change then the world would be a very bad place. There is nothing wrong with being persistent with what you want. There were several things that Mearls wanted to add to 5th edition that people rallied and said no. Remember the whole "damage on a miss" fiasco?
Only if the change is positive…
And, yes, I remember the "damage on a miss" fiasco. I was a heavy participant. One of the unrealistically small sampling of people arguing on a message board. One of maybe two dozen people that really gave a crap about the issue. I was a member of a disproportionate group that was not representative of the whole and should not have been listened to, ignored in favour of survey respondents.
And, in the end, DoaM went away. But I doubt my juvenile screaming on a message board had anything to do with that.
DoaM is an excellent example of why Mearl's should pay attention to the entirety of the playerbase and not just what the 1% of fans who post online are saying.
Actually Mike did not say that. You've gotten your information wrong. Mike said they have sold more PHB's than some of the earlier editions. He tried to break up 3.0 and 3.5 as separate editions in order to prove his point correct when in fact 3.0 and 3.5 were not separate editions but one edition. This has been argued in other threads.
Did 3.0 and 3.5 have their own PHB? Why, yes they did. Did those PHBs contain different rules necessitating a separate purchase? Also yes. So counting the sales of those separately makes sense. Unlike the 2e reprint where the content was repackaged but the text was identical.
Lumping the sales assumes that there was no overlap in the audiences, which is likely not the case.
Regardless, 5e has outsold 3.0e. And given the much smaller number of PHBs 3.5e sold, and given the continued selling power of the 5e PHB, it probably will not be long before the 5e PHB sells more than 3.0e and 3.5e combined.
If it has not already.
This has already been explained to you before. DM'sGuild material is not legal in AL nor is it allowed at lot's of tables. Not to mention the fact that loads of it is broken, not play tested, and not official. Fan made material has been around for a long time, but now just because Wizards creates a site for it that it's suddenly become well accepted. Nothing has really changed in this department. Fan made material is still looked at cautiously and not accepted by loads of DM's.
Firstly, do you actually PLAY in the Adventurer's League or is this just an excuse?
Second, at best Organized Play is a tenth of games. There aren't that many game stores and not all run AL. Remember how for the longest time everyone was asking for small adventures or the AL adventures to be made public because they couldn't get to a store? AL should be in the minds of the D&D team when releasing content, but it shouldn't be the driving factor.
Third, as someone who played a lot in Living Greyhawk and Pathfinder Society, lots of new content is NOT what organized play needs. It's actually the exact opposite. From experience, what hurts those campaigns the most is lots of options, as the DMs can't say "no". DMs can't block certain options, and running the game becomes harder when you're uncertain what any given player can do.
I gave up trying to adjudicate Pathfinder Society characters and went by the honour system. Because finding the text in a book and reading all the entries unfairly slows down play for the rest of the table. "You have a combo feat/ archetype/ magic item that lets you punch out Cthulhu? Sure, I guess you KO an Elder God then."
Fourth, WotC can only playtest material because they're releasing it slowly and have lots of time between releases. You call out that fan material isn't playtested and loads of it is broken… well, look at the content released for 3.5e and 4e. How much of that was playtested? Answer: none. How much was broken? A heck of a lot. A few options released were functionally unplayable.
