I sometimes hear it said that Eberron wasn't the success WotC was hoping for. While I can certainly believe that based on tertiary indicators, I'd be curious to see more direct evidence. Does anyone have some? Haven't found much online myself.

For the record, I enjoyed the one campaign I've run in it so far.

It's internet hearsay. Only the WotC guys would really know.

I like Eberron a lot, personally. One of the coolest things to come out of 3rd ed, if you ask me.

I never did pick up any Eberron material; I think it may have something to do with being enamored with the D20 Iron Kingdoms stuff at the time, and feeling that there was a lot of overlap. Not that there actually was, but I seem to recall I felt that way at the time. Maybe I should include this in the thread about not liking an RPG product for petty reasons? At any rate, while I find it much more interesting now, I play very little 3.x these days, and I need another new setting to buy material for about as much as I need new holes drilled in my head...

As for a lukewarm reception, I certainly heard that anecdotally at the time, repeatedly reinforced by people I knew, but have never seen anything firm.

I think the lukewarm reception may have come from every GM on the internets submitting their own lovingly crafted and outstandingly unique campaign world, then being pissed off it wasn't chosen.

I never cared for it personally, but all I heard about for a good few years was Ebberon (in the later 3.5 years after WotC had kinda turned away from Greyhawk and back to FR and Ebberon), and most folks seemed to have liked it.

I guess that's not that helpful and just as anecdotal as "Well no it sucked nobody bought it because I never saw anyone playing it."

Given the 3e, 4e and novel support it got, I would say the signs are that WotC thought it did well.

Well, look at the novels.

It started off strong, 12 in 2006, then slowly tapered off into nothing. 4 in 2010, 1 in 2011, 1 in 2012.

I think it probably did have a strong initial reception, but didn't make the transition to 4e

I think it was like a lot of old D&D setting, in a sense. Flared up, was briefly popular, didn't really stick around for the long haul. It seemed to do well enough at first, but outside of some number crunchers at WotC, I'm not sure any of us can be certain about that.

If the setting had sold like hotcakes, and kept on selling like hotcakes, I expect that WotC -- no more full of morons than any other business -- would have kept on pushing the product.  Since they stopped pushing the product, one can reasonably infer that it stopped selling well.

Do we need to come up with any more baroque explanation than that?

I liked Eberron a lot. The 4e reboot is likely what killed it, as I had no inclination to buy any of the 4e books. Also, a lot of the novels were very, very good.

Quote from: danbuter;713752I liked Eberron a lot. The 4e reboot is likely what killed it, as I had no inclination to buy any of the 4e books. Also, a lot of the novels were very, very good.

How much of the novels had more to do with good writers, than the actual Eberron setting itself?

Would they still be good stories, if one removed all the direct Eberron references and replaced them with generic names?

Quote from: Ravenswing;713747Do we need to come up with any more baroque explanation than that?

I suppose I'm curious about the details and the degree of success or failure. Obviously it didn't set the world on fire, but what RPG product does these days?  It made the leap to 4e when many other settings and D&D concepts did not, even if its run was very self-contained. Exactly how badly did it do? What factors held it back, if any? Why didn't it have the multimedia penetration potential that was clearly hoped for? I've sometimes been given the impression by the internet at large that someone outside of WotC's secret cabal knew these things.

I heard a lot about it when released and then not as much as after a couple of years.  If it were really well liked it would have been pushed more by WotC.

Quote from: Zachary The First;713737I think it was like a lot of old D&D setting, in a sense. Flared up, was briefly popular, didn't really stick around for the long haul. It seemed to do well enough at first, but outside of some number crunchers at WotC, I'm not sure any of us can be certain about that.

That sounds about right.  
 
I've seen many new Eberron books with multiple copies at Half Price books, implying that several of the books were remaindered, implying that sales were less than planned.

Eberron was a brilliant idea for D&D 3.x; "everything in D&D has a place in this setting". And it worked. I really dig Eberron and I think they accomplished that goal.

I would suggest that the decline of popularity in Eberron followed the same decline in popularity of D&D. 4e was not received as well, so it only makes sense settings ported over wouldn't either.

I would also suggest that business goals affected Eberron's popularity. What if WOTC had sold Eberron to Paizo? Or gave it back to Keith Baker to let him run with it (maybe even possibly keeping it a 3.5 ish system that competes with Pathfinder...). I think we would be looking at a different level of popularity. I think WOTC decided to focus on core books because in a decline, that is what sold the most.

It's kind of like a popular TV show. At first you have some free desktop wallpapers and maybe a calendar. Next thing you know there's action figures, coffee mugs, bathroom rugs, stickers, underwear and every imaginable THING you could brand and sell. When Eberron (and D&D) was popular, you could sell novels easily, because people were interested. Once that popularity declines, not so much.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if Eberron was re (re?) -packaged into a 3.5 platform for WOTC to support previous editions of D&D, it would see a resurgence in popularity. They should probably re-tool Forgotten Realms back to 2e, keep the generic Points of Light for 4e and come up with a completely new setting for 5e. I would dust off and update Greyhalk to be a 1e setting. Then you can publish stuff for a particular setting tied to a particular edition and offer free "conversion" PDFs for enterprising DMs who want to port a setting to another edition. I also think each of these combinations would sell pretty well.

That makes too much sense, so it probably will never happen.