D&D 5E WotC 5e products, published or announced, as of end of 2015?

[pukunui]

Damn, so nothing announced?

No, nothing's been officially announced yet, because they've made it official company policy not to announce things well in advance anymore.

However, plenty of things have been hinted at, mainly by Chris Perkins. There's going to be something with mongrelfolk in it. There's something codenamed "Cloak" and another something codenamed "Dagger". There's something that Pendleton Ward from Adventure Time is working on. Some of these things might be the same thing.

So yeah, just because nothing's been officially announced yet doesn't mean nothing's coming.

Also, they've done heaps of surveys, and the surveys tell them that the majority of their fans don't want a rapid release schedule. Most of us, it would seem, are quite happy with the current release rate. I am one of those. I'm playing in and DMing three fortnightly D&D 5e games, and I still haven't seen every combo possible in the PHB, let alone any of the extra stuff that's just come out in the SCAG. I'm running Tyranny of Dragons and using bits and pieces of PotA and OotA, but haven't run any of them in their entirety yet. There's heaps of material already to keep me going for ages yet without any need for more.

 

[Jester David]

They haven't been done under license. They've been outsourced, which is a completely different thing, and freelancers aren't exactly a new thing in RPGs.

If the adventures/sourcebooks were done under license, even a book-by-book license, they would be sold by the production company instead of by Wizards of the Coast. This is pretty much how it works with the miniatures and spell cards, for example.

Whether or not they're sold isn't contingent on being a licence or not.
Outsourcing a company IS licencing. The difference is largely one of scale, individual versus company.

The video games are very much licence but there's constant oversight on those projects as well and just as many WotC names in the credits.

WotC is licencing out production, but is maintaining editorial control and is restricting the products the licence applies to. That's not unprecedented. It's not an unrestricted licence like Onyx Path where they can choose their own products.

 

[Morrus]

Whether or not they're sold isn't contingent on being a licence or not.
Outsourcing a company IS licencing. The difference is largely one of scale, individual versus company.

That's contracting. It's a different thing to licensing.

 

[spectacle]

Whether or not they're sold isn't contingent on being a licence or not.
Outsourcing a company IS licencing. The difference is largely one of scale, individual versus company.

This is just plain wrong. When you license out an IP the licensee is the one marketing and selling the product. They take all risk of potential losses and keep any profits, minus the license fee.

Outsourcing on the other hand means that a company is paid an amount of money to produce a specific product, which is then marketed by the IP owner. The owner takes the risks and keeps profits.

If you license something to someone, they pay you. If you outsource it to them, you pay them.

 

[pukunui]

It's not outsourcing. It's collaborating. Remember?

 

[Jester David]

That's contracting. It's a different thing to licensing.

It's a very semantic argument. Arguing over exact terms as if they perfectly fit the dictionary definition as if knowing the exact label would change anything.

It bugs me a little as a fully licenced RPG line likely wouldn't be all that different. WotC expected the other licenced partners to participate in the storylines, so there'd likely continue to be the super adventures. I doubt many companies could do more than three hardcovers a year.
They could segue to a textbook licencing arrangement and we'd never notice...

This is just plain wrong. When you license out an IP the licensee is the one marketing and selling the product. They take all risk of potential losses and keep any profits, minus the license fee.

Outsourcing on the other hand means that a company is paid an amount of money to produce a specific product, which is then marketed by the IP owner. The owner takes the risks and keeps profits.

If you license something to someone, they pay you. If you outsource it to them, you pay them.

Assuming there's no profit sharing agreements in place with the licence.
It's a very mutually exclusive definition that ignores a lot of grey and overlap.
The current contracted collaboration doesn't really fit either definition perfectly, as the creators have a lot of independence. There's none of the firm outlines that normally accompany freelancing or outsourcing.

 

[Morrus]

It's a very semantic argument. Arguing over exact terms as if they perfectly fit the dictionary definition as if knowing the exact label would change anything.

It's not a semantic issue - the two are *very* different things.

It's not an argument, either. I don't have a position on the matter. I was just clarifying a relevant issue of fact.