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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GVDammerung" data-source="post: 3927305" data-attributes="member: 33060">Agreed.  That is the gamble Wotc is making.  I'm betting Wotc's gamble that 4e will attract sufficiently more gamers than it looses to 3x will not pay off for their economics - 4e will succeed, yes, but will not succeed enough to satisfy Wotc's revenue needs.  IMO, 4e is highly unlikely to top or equal 3x's number of players and will "fail" by this measure even as it succeeds more generally.  Unlike smaller publishers, who can live well with more modest sales, Wotc needs BIG sales to live well.  I don't think they will get those type of numbers and unfortunately good numbers are not good enough for Wotc's economics as they need GREAT numbers.  My thought is that this dynanmic will help see 5e very much sooner - 4 to 6 years - than later.The problem, as I see it, for Wotc is two fold.  First, table top gaming (increasingly) just can't be grown significantly.  There are too many other, more readily accessible, as immersive (although differently) options, which the price of paper and thus Wotc's prices will also make even increasingly affordable as compared to D&D.  The tide is running against table top paper and pencil games.Second, Wotc's design of 4e, (a) coming quickly on the heels of the 3.0 and 3.5 editions, both of which were popular, (b) in a non-Grognard friendly, non backwards compatible fashion will see critical (even though well less than a majority) numbers of 3x players not convert, denying Wotc sales in an environment where they need every sale to succeed.The first wound cannot be avoided; the second is self-inflicted.I think eventually Hasbro will step in, either demanding 5e or shuttering D&D as a paper and pencil game.  Matter of fact, it would not suprise me if 5e was the last paper and pencil version of D&D.</blockquote>

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