Quote from: Saplatt;641367Also, I suspect that a lot of the money they drew in from 4e (and continue to draw in) comes from paid DDI subscriptions rather than books.  I've always been curious about how many people passed on buying the splat books, knowing or expecting that the same material would be available through DDI.

And all those that depend on DDI and never got the books will really regret it the day WOTC pulls the plug on 4E support. Such are the hazards of renting content.

Quote from: Claudius;641514We'll see. I don't know if D&D5 will be a resounding success, but I bet it will be better than D&D4, and even if D&D4 was a fiasco, it just went from 1st to 3rd place. WotC only needs a decent enough version of D&D, not great, just decent, to get back to the 1st place.

I don't think this is true.  For D&D to be first, it's going to need 'draw'.  I don't think it will have it.  Assuming you weren't playing 4th edition, you've been able to make yourself happy without WotC producing new product for you for years.  Among the people that I game with, I'm the only one that has any real curiosity about Next - and that's minimal.  

I have every 3rd edition book* so I should be the kind of fan that they want back - but the comment that they 'fired the customer base' is true, in my opinion.  A 'decent enough' edition isn't going to win back any group that found a solution to their gaming needs that doesn't involve new product.  Only a spectacular product might do that, and even then I have my doubts.  From what I've seen of Next (which is very limited and nothing recent) they're not even on the right path.  

Maybe buying Paizo would allow WotC to become number one, but I don't think that will happen.  It's not a publicly traded company, and I don't think Lisa is interested in selling.

* Not quite every, but close.  This isn't quite up to date, but is close:
http://www.dndarchive.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=22&id=9722&Itemid=50

Quote from: deadDMwalking;641521I don't think this is true.  For D&D to be first, it's going to need 'draw'.  I don't think it will have it.  Assuming you weren't playing 4th edition, you've been able to make yourself happy without WotC producing new product for you for years.  Among the people that I game with, I'm the only one that has any real curiosity about Next - and that's minimal.  

I have every 3rd edition book* so I should be the kind of fan that they want back - but the comment that they 'fired the customer base' is true, in my opinion.  A 'decent enough' edition isn't going to win back any group that found a solution to their gaming needs that doesn't involve new product.  Only a spectacular product might do that, and even then I have my doubts.  From what I've seen of Next (which is very limited and nothing recent) they're not even on the right path.  

Maybe buying Paizo would allow WotC to become number one, but I don't think that will happen.  It's not a publicly traded company, and I don't think Lisa is interested in selling.

* Not quite every, but close.  This isn't quite up to date, but is close:
http://www.dndarchive.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=22&id=9722&Itemid=50

deadDMwalking, you are like myself a few years ago. I owned nearly every 3.x book WotC put out, but when 4e hit, I bought it, played it for about a year and gave up on it. I really tried to stick it out as it was all people played in my area.

Thankfully I found the OSR a little after 4e launch and it has been much more pleasing. I have a good group now that I run a B/X-LL game using Barrowmaze and An Echo Resounding for domain level things in the sandbox. It is littered with OSR and TSR adventures. I have another game that is an Other Dust/Mutant Future/Carcosa/Realms of Crawling Chaos hexcrawl along the west coast of North America.

WotC should want me back as I spend thousands on their product and so did most of the players that I had played with. They each had at least $1000 in books. Now they are all playing Pathfinder or LL with me (some of them) and they have no desire to return to D&D as a brand. They have Pathfinder (essentially 3.5) and that is what they wanted. WotC really screwed up 4e and the hype leading up to it.

I checked out D&DNext when they said they were going to build off the B/X base, and being my edition of choice I was excited. So I checked it out, tried and it was better than 4e, but not good enough to win me or my players back.

WotC really needs to hope they can get something that will hype people up and get them playing like 3.0 did. Sadly I don't think they will strike lightning twice.

The rankings are one thing, but more important is that the overall pie has been shrinking. No, I can't prove that. But I think RPGs have gone from a small industry to a tiny one not really worthy of the name in the last 5 years.

Quote from: Claudius;641513Agreed.

Ladies and gentlemen, edition change threadmill is not bad per se, the problem is when editions follow one another too fast.

I think they were taking their cue from the publishers of college textbooks.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;641686I think they were taking their cue from the publishers of college textbooks.

Now announcing the D&D 5e Player's Handbook, available at a hobby shop near you for only $249.95!

Sales, schmales.

Thanks to the World Wide Web, the hobby is back in the hands of hobbyists, and I think that's a good thing.

The days when Brand X could literally be the only game in town are long gone.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;641521I don't think this is true.  For D&D to be first, it's going to need 'draw'.  I don't think it will have it.  Assuming you weren't playing 4th edition, you've been able to make yourself happy without WotC producing new product for you for years.  Among the people that I game with, I'm the only one that has any real curiosity about Next - and that's minimal.  

I agree and this matches my experience as well. I know at least a couple dozen people who bought into 1st, 2nd, and/or 3rd pretty heavy who have absolutely no interest in Next at all.

Some liked 4e OK, some hated it, but no one loved it. So the people that preferred 3e dropped back to it, the people that preferred 2e dropped back to it, etc.

So now everyone is playing their own personal favorite and no one cares what WotC is doing because after the quick churn of 3->3.5->4->essentials, no one really wants to even bother investing any more money in a WotC product.

In order to really win people back, they will need both a great product and some major brand overhaul; and I don't just mean the D&D brand - I think the WotC brand itself has major issues (not unlike the final days of TSR).

Quote from: Spinachcat;641505WotC should get used to 3rd place because its doubtful that 5e is going to do much for them. The Edition That Pleases No One isn't going to save the company's bottom line.

You're making a prediction, but it's not very specific.  Let's drill down on this a bit.

Do you think 5e will put WOTC back in the number 2 spot for any length of time? The number one spot? If so, how long do you think they will sustain being the #2 or #1 before they fall back to #3 again, in your opinion?

As for bottom line, of course we don't know what that is.  But, given your opinion is 4e did not satisfy that bottom line, and you think 5e won't either, is it your opinion WOTC will end D&D, or sell it, or closet it for a while, or make it into primarily a non-RPG, after it fails?  And how do you measure whether or not it is a failure? If it successfully continues publishing for a year is that a sign of success? Three years? Five years? Seven years? Ten years?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;641521I don't think this is true.  For D&D to be first, it's going to need 'draw'.  I don't think it will have it.

Same questions I just asked Spinach.  You're making a prediction, so be specific.

Quote from: jgants;641952So now everyone is playing their own personal favorite and no one cares what WotC is doing because after the quick churn of 3->3.5->4->essentials, no one really wants to even bother investing any more money in a WotC product.

In order to really win people back, they will need both a great product and some major brand overhaul; and I don't just mean the D&D brand - I think the WotC brand itself has major issues (not unlike the final days of TSR).

You too, same questions.  You're making a prediction of the doom of 5e, so nail down the specifics of what you think would objectively measure failure and success.

Quote from: Mistwell;642110As for bottom line, of course we don't know what that is.  But, given your opinion is 4e did not satisfy that bottom line, and you think 5e won't either, is it your opinion WOTC will end D&D, or sell it, or closet it for a while, or make it into primarily a non-RPG, after it fails?

I don't know if it'll happen but that's absolutely the best thing that can happen to D&D under WOTC.

Release an evergreen game, keep it in print and STOP "DEVELOPING" for it.

No more supplements, no more "splats", no more feats/powers/skills/ponies/etc... no more editions, no more nothing.

Let them whore out the IP for money, board games, video games, card games, woodburning sets, "My little Beholder" cartoons, whatever, and leave the RPG alone.

If they want they could release an occasional "themed" version of game (IP tie-ins, D&D: Forgotten Realms, D&D: Gamma World, D&D: Dragonlance, etc...). Or maybe adventures but since they suck at those probably not.

Quote from: jgants;641952I think the WotC brand itself has major issues (not unlike the final days of TSR).

That's an interesting statement in which I'm inclined to agree with.

Quote from: Mistwell;642111Same questions I just asked Spinach.  You're making a prediction, so be specific.

I don't think D&D will be successful by 'any measure'.  As I said up thread, people that were happily choosing to be dependent on WotC for content during the 3.x era have had years to develop a 'new fix'.  

WotC managed to capture a tremendous amount of good will circa 2000 when they 'saved D&D'.  I think most gamers had the feeling (regardless of whether they agreed on the cause/causes) that TSR was failing and D&D was in trouble.  

WotC swooped in, acquired TSR and the D&D rights, released a pretty kickass edition with the OGL that let all the 3rd party publishers play, too.  I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that the release of 3rd edition ushered in a new 'golden age' of gaming.  Not everything was 'perfect', but 3.x was robust enough and third party support was extensive enough that the warts were easy to ignore for a good long time.  

By the time 4th edition came out, some of those warts were starting to come to light - but the player base wasn't yet ready for a new edition.  Instead of making a case for how a new edition could 'fix the flaws', WotC took a totally different tact.  They made the following major mistakes:

1) They essentially made fans of earlier editions (including 3rd, particularly) feel that they were being called 'stupid' for liking the edition they had been playing.  Despite the backpedaling, I was there for the whole thing, and that's how I felt.  Calling people stupid for liking something is going to make them defensive - that's a big thing right there.

2) They cancelled the license for Dragon and Dungeon and promised to move everything 'digital'.  This was a pretty huge deal - gamers in general tend to be pretty traditionalist as far as media.  I've not met a gamer yet that doesn't prefer 'real books'.  I've heard of some that prefer electronic, and I'm sure that will be a growing group in the coming years, but 4th edition with the promise of moving everything to an 'online subscription model' was too far ahead of the base.  

3) WotC had an abysmal record regarding providing online content.  They had consistently promised a digital table top and failed to deliver.  E-Tools was released on CD and was perpetually buggy.  For a company that was able to successfully launch an online 'Magic: The Gathering', they clearly couldn't put together the resources to deliver the online content that had been promised.  

4) 4th edition, when it was finally released, seemed 'gamist' to too many gamers.  Maybe nobody wanted a 'story game', but counting squares and making every class work the same (albeit flavored differently) was unsatisfying to a large portion of the player base.  4th edition was essentially alienating.  

5) Bears mentioning.  The 3rd edition OGL was beautiful - it meant that if you REALLY wanted a particular supplement or setting, it could be adapted to the rules of your game.  4th edition made it very clear that they were not interested in 3rd party support of the platform.  Combined with the pretty bad reputation WotC had with adventures (compared to the pretty favorable reputation that Paizo has, for instance) that was a bad move - it essentially made it inevitable that 'the competition' would behave as competition, rather than supporting the product that WotC was producing.  

So, what would I consider a successful D&D Next?  

1) Number 1 in sales by a large margin for 3-5 years.
2) Robust 3rd party support (including settings and adventures)
3) A ruleset that is light but flexible, readily adapting to a wide variety of play styles - but not modular.
(additional explanation for 3)
If the rules are modular, in the sense that table A plays with some rules and table B plays with totally different rules, a 3rd party can't really support both tables.  Additionally, WotC has a reputation garnered in 3rd edition for not considering how rules would work together to create 'broken' situations...  Modular rules are simply more difficult to balance appropriately.  
4) An edition that I am personally inclined to try - either because of it's innate popularity (it's the only game in town) or because it's actually fun (that makes recruiting a breeze).  

I don't think they'll achieve #1; I'd be really surprised if they achieved #2; I don't think they even intend to pursue #3; so that leaves #4 - and if they don't hit any of the first three, they won't hit this one either.  

So, WotC can take a stab at it, but my expectations are near zero.  The good news is that they'll easily exceed my expectations - but the bad news is that it won't actually make them successful.

I used to go hunting with a guy who knew the bush in that part of New Zealand like the back of his hand.

Hope he doesn't go hunting with Mistwell.

Experienced back country guy (glancing at the sky):
"I think it's gonna rain tonight. Might be heavy."

Mistwell: "That's not very specific. Let's drill down a little. How many millimetres of rain will fall between midnight and 2am? What will the wind speed be? Will the splatter be strong enough to heavily obscure 2 day old scat, or just moderately?

Come on - you're making a prediction. Be precise, my good fellow!"

Quote from: Mistwell;642110You're making a prediction, but it's not very specific.  Let's drill down on this a bit.

Do you think 5e will put WOTC back in the number 2 spot for any length of time? The number one spot? If so, how long do you think they will sustain being the #2 or #1 before they fall back to #3 again, in your opinion?

As for bottom line, of course we don't know what that is.  But, given your opinion is 4e did not satisfy that bottom line, and you think 5e won't either, is it your opinion WOTC will end D&D, or sell it, or closet it for a while, or make it into primarily a non-RPG, after it fails?  And how do you measure whether or not it is a failure? If it successfully continues publishing for a year is that a sign of success? Three years? Five years? Seven years? Ten years?