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EggKookoo
2015-06-24, 10:55 AM
Or is it too early to tell?

A lot of people (or some, anyway) predicted that Pathfinder would be the end of D&D. Just curious if anyone knows of any sales numbers to show if WotC is seeing a healthy recovery with 5e.

And please, I'm not interested in starting a discussion over which game is better. There are so many places on the Internet where such debates are ongoing.

Lurkmoar
2015-06-24, 11:23 AM
I have no idea. Casual Google Fu is giving me squat, and not the cool 40k Space Dwarves kind.

JAL_1138
2015-06-24, 12:03 PM
The PHB and MM are still on the NYT bestseller list. And *most* of the Amazon bestseller list for gaming-related books consists of 5e products.

That doesn't really give solid numbers, but it's probably a good sign.

EggKookoo
2015-06-24, 12:29 PM
I did try the almighty google first. I did get an interview with someone from WotC gushing about how well it's going and an armchair analysis saying that it appears to be doing better than 4e but not enough to say D&D is entering any kind of new golden age.

My gut says there's a lot of enthusiasm about this version. I just started a 5e campaign and one of my players is a diehard 2e DM, and he kept asking to look at the DMG. I take that to be a good sign.

obryn
2015-06-24, 12:47 PM
By all appearances, it's selling very well. WotC doesn't release sales numbers, but it seems healthy and they're doing reprints, so that's a good sign.

I'm rather doubtful of everything else around the game, mind you - the skeleton crew on the RPG side, the tepid release schedule, the lack of a third-party license of any sort, the lack of any public roadmap for future supplements, the cancellation of print products, the lazy approach to web articles, the lack of any involvement in stuff they'd previously supported like Free RPG Day... those don't speak to me of a lot of confidence in the future. But time will tell, of course.

Segev
2015-06-24, 01:00 PM
By all appearances, it's selling very well. WotC doesn't release sales numbers, but it seems healthy and they're doing reprints, so that's a good sign.

I'm rather doubtful of everything else around the game, mind you - the skeleton crew on the RPG side, the tepid release schedule, the lack of a third-party license of any sort, the lack of any public roadmap for future supplements, the cancellation of print products, the lazy approach to web articles, the lack of any involvement in stuff they'd previously supported like Free RPG Day... those don't speak to me of a lot of confidence in the future. But time will tell, of course.

My impression - for what little it's worth - is that the game is mechanically and flavorfully being better, more broadly received than was 4e. If 5e flops, it will likely be due to marketing or management failures rather than design failures.

Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D." Certainly, if PF wasn't already an established powerhouse thanks to 4e, it wouldn't be able to get started competing with 5e. (It will, as it stands, at the LEAST be competing.)

Maglubiyet
2015-06-24, 01:06 PM
I don't know about sales, but if you look at number of games running at conventions, Pathfinder still dominates.

As of two minutes ago there were 309 D&D (all editions) games scheduled for GenCon next month and 439 Pathfinder. The D&D editions seem split by 3.5 and 5th with a respectable showing of 1st and 2nd. 4th edition barely registers.

The breakdown was similar at the Origins convention last month.

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-24, 01:07 PM
I have no idea, but speculate that it's doing about as well as 4e. Despite this, I know NOBODY who owns as much as a starter set, for me and someone else in particular we were actually on the 'not buying' list since 4e, due to not liking the combat focus.

However, I don't think 5e is selling well by Hasbro standards, and that it's not going to grow in sales, but most likely shrink as few sourcebooks come out and everybody interested already owns core. I will not be surprised if D&D is either rebooted for 6e or dropped in four years.

Segev
2015-06-24, 01:15 PM
I don't think 5e is selling well by Hasbro standards, and that it's not going to grow in sales, but most likely shrink as few sourcebooks come out and everybody interested already owns core. I will not be surprised if D&D is either rebooted for 6e or dropped in four years.

It will be interesting to see what happens if that occurs. I would expect that somebody will want the D&D name, and will offer Hasbro more than the $0 they'd get if they just shut it down forever. Heck, I could see WotC trying to spin that part off into its own company, if the VP in charge of it felt it was profitable enough to sustain itself (even if not at Hasbro's standards).

EggKookoo
2015-06-24, 01:16 PM
Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D."

That's what I mean when I say I see a lot of enthusiasm. Maybe it's mainly a reaction to 4e, though, rather than any particular reaction to 5e.

Reverent-One
2015-06-24, 01:28 PM
Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D."

That may not be a good thing though, as it could represent that people don't care about 5e at all. At least people loudly complaining about <whatever edition> prompts discussion about the edition, while an edition people don't care about could die off quietly. Not saying that's the case, but it's a possibility.

Flickerdart
2015-06-24, 01:29 PM
However, I don't think 5e is selling well by Hasbro standards
No edition of D&D has sold well by Hasbro standards. Hasbro is big - it has ~$4 billion in revenue per year. Hasbro's games group (Parker Brothers, Waddingtons, Milton Bradley, WotC, Avalon Hill, etc) makes up about a quarter of that, with MtG bringing in $250 million and the rest being divided among all of the other products.

D&D in total - over 38 years of publication - has been estimated to bring in just $1 billion in revenue to its owners.

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-24, 01:30 PM
It will be interesting to see what happens if that occurs. I would expect that somebody will want the D&D name, and will offer Hasbro more than the $0 they'd get if they just shut it down forever. Heck, I could see WotC trying to spin that part off into its own company, if the VP in charge of it felt it was profitable enough to sustain itself (even if not at Hasbro's standards).

The D&D name might be quite profitable, I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro only sell the licence for the RPG while keeping the brand. Want to make the film D&D4: Return of the Awful Plot? Pay Hasbro.

EggKookoo
2015-06-24, 01:30 PM
That may not be a good thing though, as it could represent that people don't care about 5e at all. At least people loudly complaining about <whatever edition> prompts discussion about the edition, while an edition people don't care about could die off quietly. Not saying that's the case, but it's a possibility.

Well, it's not really been like that in my experience. There have been a lot of positive "this game really feels like classic D&D" reviews.

Kurald Galain
2015-06-24, 01:36 PM
A thread on the WOTC forums gives the following estimates for total units sold:


BECMI: 1.250.000 (over a very long print run)
1E: ~350.000
2E: 270.000 in the first year
3E: 500.000 (most of which in the first month)
3.5: 350.000
4E: 75.000
PF: 250.000
5E: 100.000 as of last February


This is based on several independent sources that turn out to be mostly consistent with each other, including industry insiders and Amazon sales figures. Make of that what you will.

(edit) Here's a graph of the above, adding 20% more sales for 2E in its other years and 50% more sales for 5E in the months since February. And yes, those two long bars are both BECMI.
http://s29.postimg.org/a5eb6e2vr/salesgraph.png

Nightcanon
2015-06-24, 01:53 PM
For what it's worth (and I appreciate it doesn't directly address the question), the breakdown on of activity on GITP shows 5e with nearly a third more threads than 4e, and nearly 3 times as many posts. 3e/d20 (which I think includes PF) now has less than ten times the posts of 5e- given that the Playground has traditionally been pretty rooted in 3e and variants I think that shows that there are an awful lot of Playgrounders playing 5e after a relatively short space of time.

AdmiralCheez
2015-06-24, 02:09 PM
Well, I know that in my gaming group, at least four of us own the 5e books (phb, mm, and dmg), while only one owns the 4e phb and nothing else.

I know that's not indicative of the entire market, but that's what I've seen.

obryn
2015-06-24, 02:22 PM
Well, I know that in my gaming group, at least four of us own the 5e books (phb, mm, and dmg), while only one owns the 4e phb and nothing else.

I know that's not indicative of the entire market, but that's what I've seen.
You see, in my group, most of us own at least some of the 4e books but I'm the only one with any 5e books. :smallbiggrin:

NomGarret
2015-06-24, 03:20 PM
My impression - for what little it's worth - is that the game is mechanically and flavorfully being better, more broadly received than was 4e. If 5e flops, it will likely be due to marketing or management failures rather than design failures.

Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D." Certainly, if PF wasn't already an established powerhouse thanks to 4e, it wouldn't be able to get started competing with 5e. (It will, as it stands, at the LEAST be competing.)

Given that marketing and management failures played a not insignificant role in 4e's downfall, it's certainly something to watch out for.

goto124
2015-06-24, 08:37 PM
You see, in my group, most of us own at least some of the 4e books but I'm the only one with any 5e books. :smallbiggrin:

Don't the PDFs for 5e come for free on the official website?

Yora
2015-06-25, 03:43 AM
Given that marketing and management failures played a not insignificant role in 4e's downfall, it's certainly something to watch out for.

I believe they actually decided not to support the game after release at all. Looks like they just finished the books that were mostly done already and then closed down shop.


Here's a graph of the above, adding 20% more sales for 2E in its other years and 50% more sales for 5E in the months since February. And yes, those two long bars are both BECMI.
Do you have a source link for this?

Kurald Galain
2015-06-25, 04:40 AM
Do you have a source link for this?

They're extrapolations. The 2E figure in that table is for one year only (whereas all other figures are for their entire run), and since 2E was sold for about a decade, 20% strikes me as a very conservative estimate. 5E is, of course, still being promoted and sold; perhaps the +50% estimate for four more months is a bit too generous though.

Bottom line is that 1E, 2E and 3.5 appear to be more-or-less tied, and both 5E and PF are racing to match that, and it'll be interesting to see if they succeed and how quickly.

If we take this as the baseline, then 3E outsold it almost by half, 4E sold less than one-quarter of baseline, and BECMI vastly outsold any of these by an order of magnitude. I must say being surprised by these figures, but then the Red Box was a hugely popular forerunner and translated into multiple languages.

JAL_1138
2015-06-25, 06:44 AM
I wonder if they're counting Holmes, Moldvay/Cook&Marsh, Mentzer BECMI, Black Box, and RC as all "BECMI." And how they're figuring the multiple boxes of the set into sales.

I know Gold Box (Immortals) was incredibly hard to find for sale online when I tried to complete my BECMI set (finally found it, but took a while) and Black Box (Masters, not the Black Box Basic that was the intro set for RC) wasn't easy either.

obryn
2015-06-25, 08:18 AM
They're extrapolations.
I wouldn't personally put much stock in them, because they are at odds with WotC's public announcements regarding sales. Namely, that at release, 3.5 sold more than 3e, 4e sold more than 3.5, and 5e sold more than 4e.

Brova
2015-06-25, 08:22 AM
I wouldn't personally put much stock in them, because they are at odds with WotC's public announcements regarding sales. Namely, that at release, 3.5 sold more than 3e, 4e sold more than 3.5, and 5e sold more than 4e.

The 4e > 3e bit is misleading. 4e had the highest pre-order sales, but had over all worse sales than 3e. By a literal order of magnitude.

Reverent-One
2015-06-25, 08:34 AM
The 4e > 3e bit is misleading. 4e had the highest pre-order sales, but had over all worse sales than 3e. By a literal order of magnitude.

I assume you have a citation for that? Because that's a rather specific claim.

Kurald Galain
2015-06-25, 09:51 AM
I wonder if they're counting Holmes, Moldvay/Cook&Marsh, Mentzer BECMI, Black Box, and RC as all "BECMI." And how they're figuring the multiple boxes of the set into sales.
It's the Red Box, not the complete set. Likewise, for the other editions, it's the PHB, not the complete set of books. WOTC has repeatedly stated that the best selling product for any RPG is its main player's handbook, and anything else is (from a business perspective) a tool to sell more player's handbooks.


I wouldn't personally put much stock in them, because they are at odds with WotC's public announcements regarding sales. Namely, that at release, 3.5 sold more than 3e, 4e sold more than 3.5, and 5e sold more than 4e.
Wait, the 20% and 50% are extrapolations. The other figures are given by multiple independent sources that confirm one another.

Note that these public announcements also line up with these sources, once you realize that how much a book sells at release is not indicative to how much it sells over its first year, or over its entire print run.

Reverent-One
2015-06-25, 10:05 AM
Wait, the 20% and 50% are extrapolations. The other figures are given by multiple independent sources that confirm one another.

Note that these public announcements also line up with these sources, once you realize that how much a book sells at release is not indicative to how much it sells over its first year, or over its entire print run.

Actually, they don't line up. According to documents from a court case by WOTC, as of April 2009, they had sold "hundreds of thousands of core books" (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?254013-PDFS-Of-the-WotC-Court-Case). Since all non-setting-specific books are listed as core books, that's less impressive than when core books just meant the PHB/DMG/MM, but still shows that those extrapolations for total unit sales are entirely wrong.

Brova
2015-06-25, 10:25 AM
I assume you have a citation for that? Because that's a rather specific claim.

There's not a perfect source, as WotC doesn't release sales data. But they sold over a million core books for 3e (http://icv2.com/articles/games/view/1021/over-1-million-d-d-3e-rulebooks-sold). That's only an order of magnitude more than a hundred thousand (not than hundreds of thousands), but it also assumes that they sold literally no other books, including copies of the core rules (despite that exact article stating sales were increasing). It's possible that 3e only outsold 4e by double rather than an order of magnitude (if "hundreds of thousands" means 900,000 and all future book sales, including 3.5, were less than initial sales) but it is also possible that 3e outsold 4e not by one order of magnitude, but by two (if "hundreds of thousands" means 200,000 and 3e managed to sell 20 million books). WotC just doesn't release data, and googling it basically gets you other people asking the same question.

Reverent-One
2015-06-25, 10:43 AM
There's not a perfect source, as WotC doesn't release sales data. But they sold over a million core books for 3e (http://icv2.com/articles/games/view/1021/over-1-million-d-d-3e-rulebooks-sold).

Huh, so either Kurald Galain's "multiple independent sources that confirm one another" are also wrong about 3e, or there's some funny numbering going on in that release.


That's only an order of magnitude more than a hundred thousand (not than hundreds of thousands), but it also assumes that they sold literally no other books, including copies of the core rules (despite that exact article stating sales were increasing). It's possible that 3e only outsold 4e by double rather than an order of magnitude (if "hundreds of thousands" means 900,000 and all future book sales, including 3.5, were less than initial sales) but it is also possible that 3e outsold 4e not by one order of magnitude, but by two (if "hundreds of thousands" means 200,000 and 3e managed to sell 20 million books). WotC just doesn't release data, and googling it basically gets you other people asking the same question.

As you said, even knowing that 3e sold 1 million copies of the big three doesn't tell us a whole lot of total sales for 3e or 3.5 when it releases a year later. If the claim that most 3e books sold in the first month, at least, is accurate, then the remainder of the sales being less than one for the first two years is very possible. But we don't really know that, so relative measurements are hard to make.

obryn
2015-06-25, 10:49 AM
Nerds just love to do the nerd thing and try and use extrapolated numbers to prove nebulous things about their favorite (or least favorite) elfgames. :smallbiggrin:

Reverent-One
2015-06-25, 10:54 AM
Nerds just love to do the nerd thing and try and use extrapolated numbers to prove nebulous things about their favorite (or least favorite) elfgames. :smallbiggrin:

Yep. We're really moving away from the main point of the thread too, which is 5e sales. Going by official statements and things like presence on amazon and bestseller lists, it seems to be doing fairly well, if not really well, even if we can't accurately compare it to previous editions.

mephnick
2015-06-25, 12:04 PM
I jumped on the PhB, DMG and MM, but since then have heard of absolutely zero supplements I want to buy coming in the near, or far, future. I don't use adventure paths, but you can't blame them for focusing on those considering how popular the Pathfinder modules are. Pathfinder actually has supplements though and I think they're important. Are there any supplements that aren't tied to adventure paths planned? I don't even know as a consumer, that's not a good sign.

Kurald Galain
2015-06-25, 12:09 PM
I jumped on the PhB, DMG and MM, but since then have heard of absolutely zero supplements I want to buy coming in the near, or far, future. I don't use adventure paths, but you can't blame them for focusing on those considering how popular the Pathfinder modules are. Pathfinder actually has supplements though and I think they're important. Are there any supplements that aren't tied to adventure paths planned? I don't even know as a consumer, that's not a good sign.

Bear in mind that there are two ways to increase your profit: sell more, or lower costs.

EggKookoo
2015-06-25, 12:20 PM
My main reason for asking the original question was to get a "tea leaves" sense of whether or not 5e is a good thing for D&D.

Numbers aside, there seems to be a general feeling that WotC made a mounting series of mistakes arguably starting with 3e and culminating in 4e. I mean this independently of any inherent quality in those systems. My gut take from a lot of conversations online is that 5e has at least stemmed the blood flow, and might even contributed a lot to patching up the wound.

I was curious if the sales numbers supported that position. Unfortunately, while it certainly doesn't seem like 5e was in any way a bad thing for D&D, it looks like it's hard to distill any useful data at this point.

S_Dalsgaard
2015-06-25, 01:20 PM
I jumped on the PhB, DMG and MM, but since then have heard of absolutely zero supplements I want to buy coming in the near, or far, future. I don't use adventure paths, but you can't blame them for focusing on those considering how popular the Pathfinder modules are. Pathfinder actually has supplements though and I think they're important. Are there any supplements that aren't tied to adventure paths planned? I don't even know as a consumer, that's not a good sign.

They haven't announced anything beyond APs and doesn't seem to have any intention to do so, at least for the foreseeable future. On the other hand they have already released several free goodies on their website, including new races, classes and spells.

Yora
2015-06-25, 03:48 PM
My main reason for asking the original question was to get a "tea leaves" sense of whether or not 5e is a good thing for D&D.

For "D&D, the Roleplaying Game", the answer to me seems a very clear no so far. With exclamation mark and in all caps. Because it looks to me that for all intents and purposes, the owner of the Dungeons & Dragons brand has decided to stop producing roleplaying games.

S_Dalsgaard
2015-06-25, 05:24 PM
For "D&D, the Roleplaying Game", the answer to me seems a very clear no so far. With exclamation mark and in all caps. Because it looks to me that for all intents and purposes, the owner of the Dungeons & Dragons brand has decided to stop producing roleplaying games.

I completely disagree. To me they are trying (and perhaps succeeding) in finally creating an edition of D&D that might actually last more than a couple of years. WotC hopes to make 5e the "evergreen" edition of D&D and while it might not last quite that long, I sure hope it does.

The PHB, MM, and DMG are more than capable as a complete set of rules and with the occasional AP, they really don't need to put out any more books. The free UA articles on their website is just icing on the cake. Nevertheless I am sure that they will eventually publish more books, like a second MM or perhaps a manual of the planes, but fortunately (IMHO) the days of endless splats are over.

Anxe
2015-06-25, 06:50 PM
Roll20 logs how many people are in campaigns for certain systems on their website. They started releasing that data last year.

Q3 of 2014 (http://blog.roll20.net/post/100246471625/what-is-the-orr-group-industry-report-and-what)

Q4 of 2014 (http://blog.roll20.net/post/107957194710/the-orr-group-industry-report-q4-2014)

Q1 of 2015 (http://blog.roll20.net/post/116828584295/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2015)

5E existed in a significant number of games in Q3 of 2014 and is now holding the highest number of games in Q1 of 2015. Q2 of 2015 data isn't out yet but should be next month. I'd suspect it reflects the same thing, 5E pulling further ahead in number of campaigns and players.

That's just people who play through Roll20 (skewed data), but it suggests that 5E is selling well compared to the older versions for people who play online at least.

Yora
2015-06-26, 04:44 AM
I completely disagree. To me they are trying (and perhaps succeeding) in finally creating an edition of D&D that might actually last more than a couple of years.

That's... an interesting difference in perception. :smallbiggrin:

Kurald Galain
2015-06-26, 04:52 AM
To me they are trying (and perhaps succeeding) in finally creating an edition of D&D that might actually last more than a couple of years.

You mean like how 2E lasted for eleven years, or how 3E/3.5/PF has been going on for fifteen, and how "basic" D&D was sold for about two decades? :smallbiggrin:

JAL_1138
2015-06-26, 06:42 AM
You mean like how 2E lasted for eleven years, or how 3E/3.5/PF has been going on for fifteen, and how "basic" D&D was sold for about two decades? :smallbiggrin:

I don't see 5.0 making it to ten years without a 5.5...but I could kinda see it getting there with one.

Even 2e had a Revised printing (there weren't any major overhauls, just collected errata and a reformatting) rather than incrementally-errata'd printings of the same format/cover.

Supplements have never sold as well as adventures, apparently; Paizo makes most of their money on modules rather than their many splatbooks. So rolling supplements and modules together like they've done with PotA (and to a lesser extent the Tiamat modules) might be the cheaper, more profitable option.

Where they're going to make "Hasbro money"--if they make it--is probably in licensing the brand rather than book sales.

"Moichandizing, moichandizing, where the real money from the RPG is made! D&D the coloring book, D&D the lunchbox, D&D the breakfast cereal, D&D the Netflix-release low-budget movie, D&D the MMO, D&D the mobile game, D&D the CRPG, D&D the FLAMETHROWER *fwooossh*--the kids love this one..."

Flickerdart
2015-06-26, 07:22 AM
How is D&D Online doing, anyway?

Yora
2015-06-26, 08:16 AM
It got an expansion in 2012 and the website is still being updated.

Kurald Galain
2015-06-26, 08:24 AM
I don't see 5.0 making it to ten years without a 5.5...but I could kinda see it getting there with one.

Interesting point.

2E also had "skills and powers" which is a major overhaul and is sometimes called 2.5, but I don't think it was very popular. 1E had, er, unearthed arcana perhaps? :smallamused:

Jay R
2015-06-26, 09:38 AM
One thing I've noticed is that in used bookstores, there are a lot more 4E books than 3E/3.5E. People seem to be dropping 4E very quickly. 4E appears to be the least successful version ever produced.

The initial sales of 5E might be far more an indication of 4E than of 5E. I don't care how many people buy 5E right now. They are buying to learn about it, without any knowledge of its value. The important question is how many people will continue buying it three years in.

Segev
2015-06-26, 10:13 AM
One thing I've noticed is that in used bookstores, there are a lot more 4E books than 3E/3.5E. People seem to be dropping 4E very quickly.

Eh, this could be because people who rotate out their books every edition have 4e books to dump right now, since they cycled their 3e books when 4e came out. I do not think this is a good indicator of which is more popular to "get rid of."



The one area that I think Hasbro Money could be made is, ironically, back in 4e's paradigm. 4e was very good for a board game experience that has "fantasy dungeon delving" flavor, as evidenced by a few Hero Quest style games that came out a few years ago. "Hasbro money" has traditionally been made in that kind of game, sold to a mass market that is more interested in family games than hours-long sessions of ongoing ones.

Adapt to a "DM-less" style inspired, perhaps, by Fantasy Flight's style of game, make it cooperative, and possibly make it a little more bite-sized in time commitment, and you could probably sell a ton of 4e-based board games with a "develop once" cost structure.

EggKookoo
2015-06-26, 10:41 AM
The one area that I think Hasbro Money could be made is, ironically, back in 4e's paradigm. 4e was very good for a board game experience that has "fantasy dungeon delving" flavor, as evidenced by a few Hero Quest style games that came out a few years ago. "Hasbro money" has traditionally been made in that kind of game, sold to a mass market that is more interested in family games than hours-long sessions of ongoing ones.

Adapt to a "DM-less" style inspired, perhaps, by Fantasy Flight's style of game, make it cooperative, and possibly make it a little more bite-sized in time commitment, and you could probably sell a ton of 4e-based board games with a "develop once" cost structure.

I had the same kind of thought driving into work this morning. Imagine a Dungeon Crawl board game. Players pick pre-made "role" characters and they move about a grid board. Each time they move, someone draws a "chamber" card from a shuffled deck and lays it down, which indicates the layout of the room they just entered. Then someone draws an "encounter" card that indicates the encounter for the room. Players gain items periodically and level up periodically. Characters have "per encounter" abilities and "per level" abilities, plus a basic attack and a power attack.

The goal is to get the party to level 20 before they draw the Big Bad Boss card, or at least gather enough magic items so that they can survive the fight.

Flickerdart
2015-06-26, 10:43 AM
The one area that I think Hasbro Money could be made is, ironically, back in 4e's paradigm. 4e was very good for a board game experience that has "fantasy dungeon delving" flavor, as evidenced by a few Hero Quest style games that came out a few years ago. "Hasbro money" has traditionally been made in that kind of game, sold to a mass market that is more interested in family games than hours-long sessions of ongoing ones.
As I mentioned before, Hasbro's board games are a fairly tiny blip on their radar - all of their game product lines, including D&D, all card games, all board games, etc only account for a quarter of their revenue, and MtG is then a quarter of that all by itself.

Segev
2015-06-26, 10:45 AM
Borrowing deeper from Arkham Horror, it could be the goal to reach and defeat the boss of the dungeon. Choose the boss at the start of the game, and know you're delving to find his secret lair. Each boss would have special rules for the dungeon, for certain minion-monsters, or the like, and would have a treasure he gives out, either specific to a given pre-gen PC or one for the whole group to decide one of them can wield in the next dungeon.

For the "bite-sized" time period, could even have individual "dungeon floors" be rather quick, with a semi-random mini-boss to end each one.

EggKookoo
2015-06-26, 10:56 AM
Right, I think anything like that would be cool. And if WotC used the same class names, attacks, monsters, and spell names from D&D, it could serve as a gateway into that game.

But we're getting off-topic...

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-26, 11:10 AM
The one area that I think Hasbro Money could be made is, ironically, back in 4e's paradigm. 4e was very good for a board game experience that has "fantasy dungeon delving" flavor, as evidenced by a few Hero Quest style games that came out a few years ago. "Hasbro money" has traditionally been made in that kind of game, sold to a mass market that is more interested in family games than hours-long sessions of ongoing ones.

Adapt to a "DM-less" style inspired, perhaps, by Fantasy Flight's style of game, make it cooperative, and possibly make it a little more bite-sized in time commitment, and you could probably sell a ton of 4e-based board games with a "develop once" cost structure.

I once played a D&D 4e board game. It was strange, the board grew every turn and far too quickly. It also had a strange level up mechanic where you had to roll a natural 20 and spend 5 XP from the party pool.

Kurald Galain
2015-06-26, 11:26 AM
The one area that I think Hasbro Money could be made is, ironically, back in 4e's paradigm. 4e was very good for a board game experience that has "fantasy dungeon delving" flavor, as evidenced by a few Hero Quest style games that came out a few years ago.
How's that related? Popular "hero quest style" game Descent came out in 2005, and the most recent edition of Talisman came out in 2007. In other words, both of them predate 4E, and I'm seeing zero evidence that 4E has influenced sales of this kind of games.

There were, however, several 4E board games such as Castle Ravenloft and Conquest of Nerath. I would be curious to know how well they're selling compared to e.g. Descent; for what it's worth, they rate about 7.0 at Boardgamegeeks (whereas Descent gets a 7.8)

Palanan
2015-06-26, 11:39 AM
Originally Posted by Jay R
One thing I've noticed is that in used bookstores, there are a lot more 4E books than 3E/3.5E. People seem to be dropping 4E very quickly. 4E appears to be the least successful version ever produced.

Agreed on this point.

Another clue is the prevalence of gaming books in public libraries. My local library is very responsive to requests for new titles, and for some years they had over half a dozen 3.5 titles in heavy circulation--the core books, the Monster Manuals, several of the Completes, etc.

When 4E came out they stocked three or four of them (the PHB, Adventurer's Vault, one of the dragon books) but those seem to be sitting forgotten on the shelves these days, essentially untouched.

Pathfinder, on the other hand, is huge in our library system. I have copies of the CRB, APG, Bestiary 1 & 2 checked out right now, and my library also has several copies apiece of the Inner Sea World Guide and GameMastery Guide, plus three copies of Pathfinder Unchained on order.

I have yet to see a single 5E book in any of my local libraries. I don't think anyone's requested them. That to me speaks volumes.

Segev
2015-06-26, 12:17 PM
How's that related? Popular "hero quest style" game Descent came out in 2005, and the most recent edition of Talisman came out in 2007. In other words, both of them predate 4E, and I'm seeing zero evidence that 4E has influenced sales of this kind of games.

There were, however, several 4E board games such as Castle Ravenloft and Conquest of Nerath. I would be curious to know how well they're selling compared to e.g. Descent; for what it's worth, they rate about 7.0 at Boardgamegeeks (whereas Descent gets a 7.8)

My point had nothing to do with 4e-based "Hero Quest" style games supplanting anything. I was just noting that, if they wanted to make "Hasbro Money" on it, focusing on that market and marketing those items - maybe recharacterizing the rules for faster (or at least shorter one-off time consumptions of) play - would be the right way to go. Hasbro made much of its money in board games, anyway.

Jay R
2015-06-26, 12:48 PM
Eh, this could be because people who rotate out their books every edition have 4e books to dump right now, since they cycled their 3e books when 4e came out. I do not think this is a good indicator of which is more popular to "get rid of."

No, I mean that there are more 4E books in used bookstores now than 3E/3.5E books when 4E came out, or 2E books when 3E came out. I'm comparing apples to apples; I just phrased it badly.

Segev
2015-06-26, 02:10 PM
No, I mean that there are more 4E books in used bookstores now than 3E/3.5E books when 4E came out, or 2E books when 3E came out. I'm comparing apples to apples; I just phrased it badly.

Ah, okay. That is harder to gauge, because it relies on long-distant memories compared to immediate stimuli, but can be done accurately, so I will take your word for that. :smallsmile:

JAL_1138
2015-06-26, 03:40 PM
No, I mean that there are more 4E books in used bookstores now than 3E/3.5E books when 4E came out, or 2E books when 3E came out. I'm comparing apples to apples; I just phrased it badly.

I also noticed a lot of old 2e setting books zip RIGHT off the shelves at the local used-book store when 5e came out. Which ticked me off, I'd been saving up to buy them in one fell swoop.

There are dozens of 4e books there now.

NomGarret
2015-06-26, 06:41 PM
I completely disagree. To me they are trying (and perhaps succeeding) in finally creating an edition of D&D that might actually last more than a couple of years. WotC hopes to make 5e the "evergreen" edition of D&D and while it might not last quite that long, I sure hope it does.

The PHB, MM, and DMG are more than capable as a complete set of rules and with the occasional AP, they really don't need to put out any more books. The free UA articles on their website is just icing on the cake. Nevertheless I am sure that they will eventually publish more books, like a second MM or perhaps a manual of the planes, but fortunately (IMHO) the days of endless splats are over.

Which may be the ultimate test.

1. Will this be the ultimate "core-only" system, where they resist the temptation to add a bunch of supplements? And if they do...

2. Does it work? Or does a sizable chunk of the fan base get bored?

EggKookoo
2015-06-26, 06:52 PM
2. Does it work? Or does a sizable chunk of the fan base get bored?

Given that players stuck around 11 years for 1e, and then another 11 years for 2e, I tend to believe that given a system they like, players don't really get bored.

If WotC put out a steady stream of content (modules, settings, etc.) and players were mostly satisfied with 5e, it could stick around for a long time with only mild tweaks and tuning (5.1e, 5.2e, etc.).

NomGarret
2015-06-26, 08:20 PM
Even if we set aside settings and modules, 2e wasn't supplement-free. The Players Option books and several Complete Handbooks were definitely in the repertoire.

Taet
2015-06-27, 09:36 AM
My game shop has drop in games for 5e and for Pathfinder both. Pathfinder buys are modules and settings and Pathfinder Unchained. 5e buys are core rulebooks.

I also noticed a lot of old 2e setting books zip RIGHT off the shelves at the local used-book store when 5e came out. Which ticked me off, I'd been saving up to buy them in one fell swoop.

There are dozens of 4e books there now.
Where did you say you were? The sponsored 5e game at my game shop at least once rewrote a very old module for the group the night I was there. The DM seemed to be enjoying himself watching pretty well trained dungeon explorers run into the nonsense. And usually win because they were very well trained. I mean they had all sorts of player skill going in covering each other when breaking into a room and all. :smallbiggrin:

How's that related? Popular "hero quest style" game Descent came out in 2005, and the most recent edition of Talisman came out in 2007. In other words, both of them predate 4E, and I'm seeing zero evidence that 4E has influenced sales of this kind of games.

There were, however, several 4E board games such as Castle Ravenloft and Conquest of Nerath. I would be curious to know how well they're selling compared to e.g. Descent; for what it's worth, they rate about 7.0 at Boardgamegeeks (whereas Descent gets a 7.8)
D&D the Board Game already is in 5e too. And just from me it works a LOT better than 4e. Advantage and disadvantage work great with the board game. :smallbiggrin: Leveling up costs more xp so you cannot do it in a single dungeon. Traps are much more common. Not those "ow" encounter cards that hit a whole tile, just single square traps. And it still plays in less than two hours a game. And it is still one of the few ways to get your dungeon crawl going when solo. Just set up at least three characters and play them and wait for real live players to drop in. :smallsmile:

Descent has gone to 2e. Or what I call the playtested edition. :smallannoyed: I am still annoyed about how wobbly 1e was so I do not play it as much. Descent still does better for a very large group though. There is a group of six people who bought Descent because D&D the basic board game can only go to five players and even then it is a little too easy. It is built around four I think.

JAL_1138
2015-06-27, 10:03 AM
Where did you say you were?

I didn't. No offense; I tend not to give that out. I really like the idea of rewriting old modules, not just pulling old setting stuff, for the new generation just so they can see the glorious insanity of some of the old ones; though it was easier back in Ye Olde Days when 1e (and much of Basic) content could pretty well be used straight in 2e, which is how I played pretty much any of the old classics like Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, and the like. 5e has a somewhat more classic feel than the past two-and-a-half editions and would work well for it.

mephnick
2015-06-27, 01:25 PM
Given that players stuck around 11 years for 1e, and then another 11 years for 2e, I tend to believe that given a system they like, players don't really get bored

To be fair, the market is now completely different, there are actually competing products.

EggKookoo
2015-06-27, 02:16 PM
To be fair, the market is now completely different, there are actually competing products.

During 1e's run, players also had the choice of Champions, Warhammer, V&V, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller/Megatraveller, GURPS, Paranoia, DC Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, and a whole bunch I'm sure I forgot. And let's not leave out Runequest, which was kind of like the Pathfinder of the late 70s and 80s (in the sense that it presented a reasonable alternative to AD&D).

I don't think I could get into a list of games that competed with 2e. We'd be here all day.

Yora
2015-06-27, 02:29 PM
I don't remember anyone calling for a new edition when 4th was announced either.

Longer edition runs are not only possible, I also think they are necessary. You can't make it a regular thing to start producing a new game just 4 years after your last one was first released. You might do that once to admit failure, but once people expect it to be the normal thing, interest in buying into a new game would be quite difficult to create.

EggKookoo
2015-06-27, 04:12 PM
Longer edition runs are not only possible, I also think they are necessary. You can't make it a regular thing to start producing a new game just 4 years after your last one was first released. You might do that once to admit failure, but once people expect it to be the normal thing, interest in buying into a new game would be quite difficult to create.

I would be happy if each edition was merely an incremental change over the previous one. I consider 1e -> 2e to be the kind of change I'm talking about. If a game nowadays went from 1e's rules to 2e's rules, we'd consider the new game to be 1.5e at most. They're almost identical games from a contemporary point of view.

Tabletop RPG players are relatively conservative, at least when it comes to game systems. Can you think of another game that's been updated to the degree D&D has but still has a significant equivalent of the 1e and 2e fanbases?

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-27, 04:31 PM
I don't remember anyone calling for a new edition when 4th was announced either.

Longer edition runs are not only possible, I also think they are necessary. You can't make it a regular thing to start producing a new game just 4 years after your last one was first released. You might do that once to admit failure, but once people expect it to be the normal thing, interest in buying into a new game would be quite difficult to create.

I'm of the thought that games can start a new edition to clean up a few messes (I believe GURPS 2e and 3e we're this, as was cWoD 2e and I'd argue nWoD), but otherwise an edition should be able to run for at least a decade. I think by D&D terms GURPS 4e could be considered a 3.5, but it's an addition that came after a long wait, not 4 years after the last core.

I also think that ideally a new edition should offer something new while keeping the old viable. But I'm off to nab GURPS Psionic Powers to consider using in a game, so what do I know?

Kurald Galain
2015-06-27, 04:41 PM
I would be happy if each edition was merely an incremental change over the previous one.

For pretty much every other system on the market, a new "edition" means an incremental change. D&D is the only one where it means "hey, let's rewrite the whole system from scratch".

EggKookoo
2015-06-27, 04:58 PM
For pretty much every other system on the market, a new "edition" means an incremental change. D&D is the only one where it means "hey, let's rewrite the whole system from scratch".

Certainly for 2e -> 3e. 1e -> 2e was incremental, IMHO. And 5e inherits quite a bit from 3e and 4e although it's less like a progression and more like an interpolation. From my experience with 3e/5e and corroborated from reviews and whatnot online, 5e really feels like a refined version of 3e to me. Some reviewers have said it's "what 3e should have been" and I can't totally disagree with that.

I'm just hoping WotC understands how right they got it at a fundamental level with 5e and stick with incremental evolution.

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-27, 05:01 PM
For pretty much every other system on the market, a new "edition" means an incremental change. D&D is the only one where it means "hey, let's rewrite the whole system from scratch".

nWoD is arguably a 'new edition' of the oWoD, where the system was massively reworked, although that was specifically a reboot where WW wanted to return to their themes and change the gamelines (Requiem at the beginning is as close to Masquerade as Blood and Smoke), and specifically noted to have a system rebuilt from scratch. Blood and Smoke just updated Requiem to what it had become in the intervening years, and arguably the same for the other 2e books, although some got a heavier reworking (I'm not sold on Werewolf 2e being about the hunt, although I can see myself focusing on the pack. Forsaken 1e is one of the few ones I liked as much as oWoD).

Kurald Galain
2015-06-27, 05:23 PM
nWoD is arguably a 'new edition' of the oWoD,

No, oWOD has had several editions that are incremental changes. nWOD is explicitly not an edition of oWOD.

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-27, 06:48 PM
No, oWOD has had several editions that are incremental changes. nWOD is explicitly not an edition of oWOD.

I think this is a case of differing views. I know that oWoD specifically has 4 editions under it's label (first, second, revised, and twentieth anniversary), but I personally see nWoD as being a continuation of the themes. I know that generally they are treated as two separate games because the mechanics are so different, but I think the main thing nWoD did is lay out and explore the intended themes better, and so I consider it both WoD 4e and first edition take two. For everyone who disagrees with me, I except that people like to view them as different things, so I put the arguably in there. I'm now becoming convinced that unless it's D&D you can't make changes beyond tidying up the system because people will cry foul.

aspekt
2015-06-28, 10:43 PM
When you look at companies, or even communities, that are able to maintain a stable economy you find that they all are spread out into several arenas.

While I have considered any number of complications and costs, the idea of having several renditions of a game being curated at once seems to make more sense than a regular and complete reboot.

For instance the pdf releases of 1e/2e modules and the like online makes complete sense given the continued, even renewed, interest in those earlier versions.

If 4e is good for miniatures combat and 5e for TRPG play, then modify and move 4e over to fill that niche.

Completely trashing years, or decades, of work and customer confidence simply to reboot and sell core books again seems incredibly inefficient.

If you then rotated support for each of the supported editions you could consistently run errata prints and even new content for all of them. At least on a more productive scale than 5e is getting right now.

Felhammer
2015-06-28, 11:03 PM
Supplements have never sold as well as adventures, apparently; Paizo makes most of their money on modules rather than their many splatbooks. So rolling supplements and modules together like they've done with PotA (and to a lesser extent the Tiamat modules) might be the cheaper, more profitable option.


I don't think this is entirely true. One of the strong cases made for the OGL, originally, was that it would allow independent creators to write adventures while WotC could focus on the lucrative supplement trade. After all, adventurers are only purchased by one person at each table (if that), where as supplements could easily be purchased by multiple people (if not the whole group).

There was definitely a culture shift in the last 10-ish years that saw modules and adventures grow immensely in popularity as compared to supplements.

EggKookoo
2015-06-29, 06:59 AM
There was definitely a culture shift in the last 10-ish years that saw modules and adventures grow immensely in popularity as compared to supplements.

I've always been more interested in modules over supplements. I don't want a million subclasses or feats or twelve different ways to tweak out my character.

I want a simple core and loads and loads of adventures to run through.

Kurald Galain
2015-06-29, 07:49 AM
There was definitely a culture shift in the last 10-ish years that saw modules and adventures grow immensely in popularity as compared to supplements.

There are several famous 1E modules that sold extremely well and are still iconic scenarios being reprinted and ported to newer systems, such as the Temple Of Elemental Evil and the infamous Tomb Of Horrors. Overall, I think that modules were always more popular than supplements, they're just harder to write well.

goto124
2015-06-29, 07:54 AM
and the infamous Tomb Of Horrors

ToH, however, lives up to different standards than other modules. It must always be adsurdly full of fake difficulty (see related thread) =P

Maglubiyet
2015-06-29, 08:34 AM
Given that players stuck around 11 years for 1e, and then another 11 years for 2e, I tend to believe that given a system they like, players don't really get bored.

If WotC put out a steady stream of content (modules, settings, etc.) and players were mostly satisfied with 5e, it could stick around for a long time with only mild tweaks and tuning (5.1e, etc.).


You don't make any money on a product once everyone in your target demographic owns a copy. Out of financial necessity they will need to reboot the D&D franchise every few years.

EggKookoo
2015-06-29, 09:28 AM
You don't make any money on a product once everyone in your target demographic owns a copy. Out of financial necessity they will need to reboot the D&D franchise every few years.

If recent history is anything to go by, it doesn't look like WotC makes any money by rebooting D&D every few years, either.

S_Dalsgaard
2015-06-29, 10:06 AM
You don't make any money on a product once everyone in your target demographic owns a copy. Out of financial necessity they will need to reboot the D&D franchise every few years.

The TTRPG books aren't the moneymaker. They will probably make a lot more from the upcoming Sword Coast Legends game, than they have from all three core books of 5e.

Kurald Galain
2015-06-29, 12:13 PM
You don't make any money on a product once everyone in your target demographic owns a copy. Out of financial necessity they will need to reboot the D&D franchise every few years.

Or, you know, increase your target demographic.

aspekt
2015-06-29, 05:10 PM
Or, you know, increase your target demographic.

Agreed, but I honestly think that was the purpose of 4e.

We all know the reaction that garnered on both sides. Driving off marketshare isn't useful either. But rather than making the franchise a one trick pony, why not cultivate an ecosystem out of it.

As I argue above I just don't think a monoculture product array can exhibit longterm economic stability. BECMI and 1e/2e existed side by side just fine. Admittedly they had the benefit of having similar enough mechanics for crossover. However, crossover isnt always necessary and different playstyles for different aspects of the franchise could increase marketshare without driving off existing customers.

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-29, 06:05 PM
Agreed, but I honestly think that was the purpose of 4e.

We all know the reaction that garnered on both sides. Driving off marketshare isn't useful either. But rather than making the franchise a one trick pony, why not cultivate an ecosystem out of it.

As I argue above I just don't think a monoculture product array can exhibit longterm economic stability. BECMI and 1e/2e existed side by side just fine. Admittedly they had the benefit of having similar enough mechanics for crossover. However, crossover isnt always necessary and different playstyles for different aspects of the franchise could increase marketshare without driving off existing customers.

I personally hope 6e comes out with some decent political mechanics, as this is the main reason I rejected D&D for my next campaign (which features the PCs as the unexcepted successors of the local nobility).

Darth Ultron
2015-06-29, 10:25 PM
Well.....

Ye Old Days(pre 2000) Most of the many bookstores, game stores, comic stores and used bookstores had a RPG shelf. And it was a beautiful mess of random RPG games. Dice and miniatures were rare, but you'd find a small selection here or there. You could never really find anything. A new item would come out and utterly vanish after a couple weeks...never to be seen again. Though most stores only bought like five copies of anything anyway. And the stuff was cheap to start with, and often went on sale too. And you had things like Waldenbooks Otherworlds Club: sign up for free and get 20% off all RPGs and the Village Booksmiths fill card where you got a stamp for every $5 spent, and at $25 you got a $5 gift card.

The Golden Era(2000-2008) With d20, gaming exploded. Every one of the bookstores, game stores, comic stores and used bookstores had at least two full bookcases of like four or five shelves each full of D&D, D20 and then the other games. Minatures, dice and anything else you wanted were everywhere. Most stores you could order things for pick up. The D&D stuff was horribly over priced, but most of the D20 stuff was not and was quite reasonable. And good stores like Borders sent me an e-mail coupon for 20%-40% off everyweek.

Fourth Fall(after 2008-2015) The vast majority of the bookstores, game stores, comic stores and used bookstores were gone...joining the near endless empty strip malls. The few that were still around were back to the one shelf...maybe...of RPG items, often mixed with the graphic novels and coloring books. Some had a couple, like three, of each 4E book, collecting dust on a shelf. And a Pathfinder book or two, but very little else. And the prices skyrocketed. And no deals to be found anywhere.

Fifth Flat(2015- The now very few stores left might have a 5E book or two, mixed in with the Care Bears coloring adventure book. Maybe. The price is still sky high. And no deals to be found.

aspekt
2015-06-30, 03:00 AM
I do most of my purchasing online. I love a good brick & mortar store, especially used book dealers. However, living an hour+ away from any city large enough to support one I have turned almost exclusively to online purchasing.

There are two other readons, availability and price; which you touched upon.

EggKookoo
2015-06-30, 06:16 AM
The Golden Era(2000-2008) With d20, gaming exploded. Every one of the bookstores, game stores, comic stores and used bookstores had at least two full bookcases of like four or five shelves each full of D&D, D20 and then the other games. Minatures, dice and anything else you wanted were everywhere. Most stores you could order things for pick up. The D&D stuff was horribly over priced, but most of the D20 stuff was not and was quite reasonable. And good stores like Borders sent me an e-mail coupon for 20%-40% off everyweek.

This actually describes a bubble, not a golden era. Much like comic books in the late 80s and early 90s.

Agincourt
2015-06-30, 08:10 AM
This actually describes a bubble, not a golden era. Much like comic books in the late 80s and early 90s.

You'll have to flesh that out a little better. I see no evidence that people were buying RPG books (and dice and miniatures) as collectors items. During Darth Ultron's "Golden Era," it seems that books were ubiquitous because people were buying them to use them.

EggKookoo
2015-06-30, 08:20 AM
You'll have to flesh that out a little better. I see no evidence that people were buying RPG books (and dice and miniatures) as collectors items. During Darth Ultron's "Golden Era," it seems that books were ubiquitous because people were buying them to use them.

Ok, not exactly like the comics bubble. I think I was thinking of what was going on during that time rather than Darth Ultron's actual description, so I apologize for misspeaking. DU didn't describe a bubble, but that time period was very bubble-like.

JAL_1138
2015-06-30, 08:49 AM
Bubble =/= *collector's* bubble. That was a specific bubble.

Bubbles occur when an asset trades markedly higher than its intrinsic value. Arguably, the RPG boom was something of a bubble, as supplements and systems which wouldn't sell previously or subsequently sold for a decent enough price for publishers to keep producing a glut of them.

A more accurate descriptor would be market saturation and subsequent recession, somewhat similar to the Video Game Crash of 1983, though not necessarily due to low-quality products in the same way.

Knaight
2015-06-30, 09:03 AM
Fourth Fall(after 2008-2015) The vast majority of the bookstores, game stores, comic stores and used bookstores were gone...joining the near endless empty strip malls. The few that were still around were back to the one shelf...maybe...of RPG items, often mixed with the graphic novels and coloring books. Some had a couple, like three, of each 4E book, collecting dust on a shelf. And a Pathfinder book or two, but very little else. And the prices skyrocketed. And no deals to be found anywhere.
On the other hand, this is where the .pdf format made it big, a transitional period towards more and more internet shopping, so on and so forth. 4e had some trouble, but outside of it I'd consider it at least as much of a golden age for the hobby as 2000-2008.

Psyren
2015-06-30, 09:05 AM
Or, you know, increase your target demographic.

This. I firmly believe there are tons of folks out there (particularly among the younger generations) who would try tabletop if only they were exposed to it. Digital is the way to reach out to them, and expanding the base will benefit the grognards too.

Agincourt
2015-06-30, 09:07 AM
Bubble =/= *collector's* bubble. That was a specific bubble.

Bubbles occur when an asset trades markedly higher than its intrinsic value. Arguably, the RPG boom was something of a bubble, as supplements and systems which wouldn't sell previously or subsequently sold for a decent enough price for publishers to keep producing a glut of them.

A more accurate descriptor would be market saturation and subsequent recession, somewhat similar to the Video Game Crash of 1983, though not necessarily due to low-quality products in the same way.

I am still not seeing the bubble quality. Go on amazon or ebay and look at the prices for used 3.5 books. Many titles are selling for higher than face value. If you want a book in new condition, you will have to pay quite a bit more than face value.

I disagree that there was a glut of RPG books during the that time period. It seems that demand was higher so publishers were putting more product out there.

The prices WotC charged for hardcover color books with high quality paper-stock were within reason. To the extent there was a "crash" in 2008 can be attributed to either external factors (a world wide recession, disappearance of brick and mortar stores) or a self-inflicted wound by WotC wherein they abandoned 3.5.

The fact that Paizo was able to turn a profit on WotC's abandoned product line suggests, if anything, that market was NOT saturated and still had healthy room for growth.

Brova
2015-06-30, 09:13 AM
Bubbles occur when an asset trades markedly higher than its intrinsic value. Arguably, the RPG boom was something of a bubble, as supplements and systems which wouldn't sell previously or subsequently sold for a decent enough price for publishers to keep producing a glut of them.

I don't really think it was a bubble, so much as 3e being a good product and subsequent products not being as good. 4e was a disaster for the brand, not because there was a bubble, but because it was a bad product.

obryn
2015-06-30, 09:16 AM
This. I firmly believe there are tons of folks out there (particularly among the younger generations) who would try tabletop if only they were exposed to it. Digital is the way to reach out to them, and expanding the base will benefit the grognards too.
The best way I can think of to do this is through finding additional markets, much like White Wolf did in the early 90's. Media properties are spread all over the place, but I think the biggest cross-media behemoths these days - Marvel and Star Wars - could maybe do well with the right push.


I don't really think it was a bubble, so much as 3e being a good product and subsequent products not being as good. 4e was a disaster for the brand, not because there was a bubble, but because it was a bad product.
Er, no... The collapse of nationwide bookstores was not in any way caused by D&D. Borders giving away 20%-40% coupons (which was, I agree, awesome) was really only tenable when money was flying around all over the place. 3.5 was facing seriously declining sales by 2006, which is the main driver for WotC to develop a edition.

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-30, 09:41 AM
I don't really think it was a bubble, so much as 3e being a good product and subsequent products not being as good. 4e was a disaster for the brand, not because there was a bubble, but because it was a bad product.

Can we keep edition wars out of this? 4e was average at worst, and is probably one of the best balanced games I've come across. It just WASN'T 3.5, and slaughtered some of the variation along with the sacred cows. Not even a lot of it, as races gained more significance and every class put a spin on it's role. I really want to play it, but I just don't like running the D&D genre.

JAL_1138
2015-06-30, 09:42 AM
I am still not seeing the bubble quality. Go on amazon or ebay and look at the prices for used 3.5 books. Many titles are selling for higher than face value. If you want a book in new condition, you will have to pay quite a bit more than face value.

I disagree that there was a glut of RPG books during the that time period. It seems that demand was higher so publishers were putting more product out there.

The prices WotC charged for hardcover color books with high quality paper-stock were within reason. To the extent there was a "crash" in 2008 can be attributed to either external factors (a world wide recession, disappearance of brick and mortar stores) or a self-inflicted wound by WotC wherein they abandoned 3.5.

The fact that Paizo was able to turn a profit on WotC's abandoned product line suggests, if anything, that market was NOT saturated and still had healthy room for growth.

Hence "arguably" on the bubble. I don't think it particularly was one either, no more than the video game crash was a bubble. It's stretching the definition. It's not that commodities traded at absurdly high prices, it's that they sold for reasonable prices when they otherwise wouldn't have sold whatsoever. That's a biiig stretch of the definition, but it's arguable.

As for market saturation, which it more closely resembles, a particular product surviving or a single new one coming along does not mean the market wasn't saturated apart from that, if numerous other publishers without the same brand loyalty couldn't sell enough to turn a profit on medium-to-decent-to-good quality products because of the volume of competition. The OGL still exists; it's how Paizo can produce anything using D20--so where are the other D20 publishers who put so many supplements on shelves, and how many other publishers of non-D20 systems vanished around the same time?

Say it's TVs. Company A sells high-end, brand-loyalty TVs for a high but reasonable price for the quality. Other manufacturers make midrange products (or comparable-quality products, but without the brand loyalty or feature packages that allow Company A to charge more and still maintain market share) for lower prices. More and more producers enter the midrange market. At a certain point, if there are enough producers, then even at reasonable prices, an individual producer can't sell enough units to keep going, because other producers are selling enough units to cut into their marketshare in the aggregate without making enough sales themselves individually to stay afloat. The midrange market implodes due to saturation.

Meanwhile, on the high-end market, Company A loses much of its brand loyalty and market share by switching its product design to one that proves popular with some consumers but alienates others, and Company B starts building brand loyalty in a way the rest of the middleshelf market couldn't or didn't, and produces a high-end product that largely copies and incrementally improves (or is claimed to) the popular design and feature package that Company A switched from, swiping the market share and brand loyalty Company A lost. Company A loses sales and market share to the new high-end competitor, B, enough that sales slow and it revamps its design, but not so many that it goes under. Company B is making enough to do fine, although it doesn't have the degree of sales and market share (and the overall market size is reduced) that A did before things went foom. A few of the middleshelf producers also survive by scaling back production and costs to a level commensurate with their now-reduced market share.

Brova
2015-06-30, 09:47 AM
Er, no... The collapse of nationwide bookstores was not in any way caused by D&D. Borders giving away 20%-40% coupons (which was, I agree, awesome) was really only tenable when money was flying around all over the place. 3.5 was facing seriously declining sales by 2006, which is the main driver for WotC to develop a edition.

Oh, I thought we were talking about the D&D brand specifically, not bookstores in general. I can't speak to whether there was a bubble in bookstores.


Can we keep edition wars out of this? 4e was average at worst, and is probably one of the best balanced games I've come across. It just WASN'T 3.5, and slaughtered some of the variation along with the sacred cows. Not even a lot of it, as races gained more significance and every class put a spin on it's role. I really want to play it, but I just don't like running the D&D genre.

I intentionally used the word "product" rather than "game" to avoid that. It's not relevant to this debate whether 4e is good or balanced or fun or whatever. What is relevant is that it failed to maintain market share and failed to compete for the dollars people were spending on entertainment.

obryn
2015-06-30, 09:49 AM
The OGL still exists; it's how Paizo can produce anything using D20--so where are the other D20 publishers who put so many supplements on shelves, and how many other publishers of non-D20 systems vanished around the same time?
The switch to 3.5 basically killed the OGL boom. There are still plenty of products, but vastly fewer of them outside the PDF realm. That's why, after 2003, you saw more companies coming out with OGL variant games that weren't tied to D&D.

GungHo
2015-06-30, 09:49 AM
How is D&D Online doing, anyway?

It's around and getting updated. Cryptic/Arc's biggest focus is still Star Trek Online, as Trekkers/ies and disposable income intersect quite vigorously. Even Champions Online is still around.

EggKookoo
2015-06-30, 10:05 AM
Ow. Sorry. I collapse my bubble comment.

Anonymouswizard
2015-06-30, 10:21 AM
I intentionally used the word "product" rather than "game" to avoid that. It's not relevant to this debate whether 4e is good or balanced or fun or whatever. What is relevant is that it failed to maintain market share and failed to compete for the dollars people were spending on entertainment.

Still arguable, but I get the point better.

Knaight
2015-06-30, 06:05 PM
This. I firmly believe there are tons of folks out there (particularly among the younger generations) who would try tabletop if only they were exposed to it. Digital is the way to reach out to them, and expanding the base will benefit the grognards too.

In my experience, this is absolutely accurate. I've introduced a lot of people to tabletop games, particularly among the younger generations (as in children and teenagers). I'd put the estimate at 30-40 people. Fairly few get deep into the hobby, but plenty of people try it and plenty of people enjoy it, and were the hobby more widespread a lot of them would probably play tabletop RPGs with some frequency. Market saturation is nowhere near maximum levels.

The problem is that D&D is the flagship product, and D&D does a terrible job explaining itself to new players. It mostly spreads from one person who already plays it to new people who are unfamiliar, instead of getting whole groups of newer people. Plenty of other games assume much more familiarity, and in addition to being basically invisible for people not already in the hobby, don't do any job whatsoever of explaining themselves to new players. The growth rate is effectively constrained by the rate at which existing players spread the hobby, minus the rate at which people are dropping out.

mephnick
2015-07-01, 09:41 AM
The problem is that D&D is the flagship product, and D&D does a terrible job explaining itself to new players. It mostly spreads from one person who already plays it to new people who are unfamiliar, instead of getting whole groups of newer people..

Has anyone ever seen like..a D&D commercial? I don't think I've ever seen D&D (or any tabletop game) advertised outside of gaming stores, which even nerds hardly go to anymore. The product will never grow if someone doesn't throw money at it and increase awareness. So many people have looked into the hobby simply because of a couple dumb Community and Big Bang Theory episodes, imagine what a good commercial could do. I've been playing for 15 years, but I would have never been exposed to it outside of "nerds play this" jokes on TV if I hadn't gone to a friend's house once over a decade ago.

EggKookoo
2015-07-01, 10:23 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1wGlOwn1pM

Segev
2015-07-01, 10:35 AM
I stand by my assertion that borrowing the programmatic elements of the "antagonist" role in Fantasy Flight-style games (Arkham Horror, Android) and Avalon Hill's Betrayal and the House on the Hill would be an interesting adaptation of the standard dungeon crawl. Moving away from Hero Quest-style need for a DM-figure playing the antagonist would do a lot to introduce new players to the game without needing that "experienced person."

GungHo
2015-07-01, 11:01 AM
Has anyone ever seen like..a D&D commercial? I don't think I've ever seen D&D (or any tabletop game) advertised outside of gaming stores, which even nerds hardly go to anymore. The product will never grow if someone doesn't throw money at it and increase awareness. So many people have looked into the hobby simply because of a couple dumb Community and Big Bang Theory episodes, imagine what a good commercial could do. I've been playing for 15 years, but I would have never been exposed to it outside of "nerds play this" jokes on TV if I hadn't gone to a friend's house once over a decade ago.
Commercials cost a lot of money. Commercials in prime time cost even more money. Furthermore, commercials are an investment. You spend money on them because you think you're going to make an eventual return. They don't put commercials in prime time for D&D because Hasbro doesn't think they'll make more money than they invest. Even when Hasbro did a lot of toy commercials, they did those during cartoon hours on children's programming... particularly for cartoons that they had a toy line with. G.I. Joe toy commercials paid off because the kids were already watching an extended G.I. Joe commercial.

If there was some sort of role playing game reality show, it might make sense. Same for websites like the Escapist or Youtube when showing D&D content. (e.g. Escapist has/used to have a webcast where porn stars played D&D. I don't actually understand the market intersection there, but I guess there is one.)

EggKookoo
2015-07-01, 11:22 AM
(e.g. Escapist has/used to have a webcast where porn stars played D&D. I don't actually understand the market intersection there, but I guess there is one.)

You don't understand the... what?

You know, I've never seen a TV ad for World of Warcraft, either, but they manage to eke along somehow.

Anonymouswizard
2015-07-01, 11:39 AM
You don't understand the... what?

You know, I've never seen a TV ad for World of Warcraft, either, but they manage to eke along somehow.

...Not even the Mohawk Grenades one?

Yora
2015-07-01, 11:40 AM
Wasn't that just Zak S. and his group? They just play D&D and happen to know each other from their day jobs.

EggKookoo
2015-07-01, 11:55 AM
...Not even the Mohawk Grenades one?

Oh that's right. I forgot about those.

Still, WoW managed to become a runaway hit without any TV ads.

Anxe
2015-07-01, 12:09 PM
Oh that's right. I forgot about those.

Still, WoW managed to become a runaway hit without any TV ads.

They have had TV ads. There were some for Diablo as well. Plenty of other video games have had ad campaigns as well (Halo, Modern Warfare, etc.). I GungHo is right, that it wouldn't pay off for roleplaying games. There's a high opportunity cost to get involved in roleplaying and that cost is usually only gotten over through a friend's recommendation, not ads.

Knaight
2015-07-01, 12:44 PM
With that said, TV advertisements are far from the only type of advertisements, and even in cheaper areas I can't say I've seen much. If the rules were better explained and it was made easier for new people to get into the hobby, and even magazine advertisements in the right magazines were used D&D could probably be a lot bigger than it is. That initial barrier to entry can be lowered, and there are plenty of magazines where an ad might go pretty far, some of which aren't even all that expensive to advertise in.

toapat
2015-07-01, 01:04 PM
How is D&D Online doing, anyway?

Badly. DDO has shifted to an economic model where they have virtually destroyed the playerbase beyond the bare minimum required to fund the next expansion, and its getting very obvious with very few players participating in any form whatsoever, much like Warlords of Draenor pre-Fury of Hellfire. DDO is going to be taken offline in at most 3 years if external forces of Benevolence dont keep it alive

Neverwinter is doing well though, its getting a community going which wasnt the case when i first tried it out


You don't understand the... what?

You know, I've never seen a TV ad for World of Warcraft, either, but they manage to eke along somehow.

Blizzard advertises a bit at the beginning of an expansion to call back the edge subscriptions, but otherwise hasnt commited since WotLK back in 2007, primarily because they learned that advertizing it doesnt matter unless you have some major and notable content coming out.

They did break this though for the Chuck Norris is a Hunter comercial.

WoW exists in culture not as a game, but as a force of nature, it doesnt really need advertising beyond "Hey, new expansion"

Honest Tiefling
2015-07-01, 01:17 PM
e.g. Escapist has/used to have a webcast where porn stars played D&D. I don't actually understand the market intersection there, but I guess there is one.

I tried to watch it, but I couldn't after one of the ladies incorrectly explained a tiefling. Good day, Madam, GOOD DAY.

I wonder how much DnD is resorting to online adverts, given that 4e was pushing those little videos of its products. I vaguely recall some online ads for 4e as well, but maybe I am conflating it with other products that feature dragons. I don't watch much TV, but I would be hard-pressed to think of a good TV show to advertise RPGs on, as opposed to websites where that makes far more sense.

Yora
2015-07-01, 02:23 PM
There is nothing worse in the world of RPG than people with high exposure posting videos on the internet in which they explain lore and rules wrong. :smallamused:
You don't have to know all the little details, but trying to educate the uneducated masses when you don't understand it is hugely annoying to people who do understand it.

Segev
2015-07-01, 02:30 PM
There is nothing worse in the world of RPG than people with high exposure posting videos on the internet in which they explain lore and rules wrong. :smallamused:
You don't have to know all the little details, but trying to educate the uneducated masses when you don't understand it is hugely annoying to people who do understand it.

Yeah, I know. People who think they know everything are really annoying to those of us who do.

GungHo
2015-07-02, 09:38 AM
Honestly, the best D&D commercials I ever saw weren't even D&D commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thMS1-hFHZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mplEt-7HNR8

Incidentally, the USMC has a rather high geek concentration.

Anonymouswizard
2015-07-02, 10:38 AM
Honestly, the best D&D commercials I ever saw weren't even D&D commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thMS1-hFHZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mplEt-7HNR8

:cool:


Incidentally, the USMC has a rather high geek concentration.

I'm not surprised. If you manage to make it into the elite of anything, not only do you have a licence to not care what anybody thinks of you, the dedication required works well for geekiness.

FabulousFizban
2015-07-02, 03:18 PM
5e seems to be the dominate choice among those I know. I have even stopped playing pathfinder, and I have hundreds of dollars worth of books invested in that!

Knaight
2015-07-03, 11:49 AM
:cool:



I'm not surprised. If you manage to make it into the elite of anything, not only do you have a licence to not care what anybody thinks of you, the dedication required works well for geekiness.

D&D is pretty widespread throughout just about every branch of the U.S. military. Available leisure activities are often pretty sharply limited for obvious reasons, there's frequently long stretches of not doing all that much, and that combination works out beautifully for games like D&D.

Kurald Galain
2015-07-05, 10:52 AM
D&D is pretty widespread throughout just about every branch of the U.S. military.

So do they have... edition wars? :smallcool: Yeeeaaah

neonchameleon
2015-07-05, 01:22 PM
Doing well by what standard?

5e has next to nothing for the whales to buy. I have a shelf full of4e books. I have a shelf full of 3.x books. There are what? Three core books, the starter set, and two adventure paths for 5e almost a year after release. And the adventure paths are being subcontracted out rahter than done in house.

This is D&D the mothballs edition.

And 4e didn't make most of its money from sales of books. In November 2013 (the last date we have accurate information for - and 18 months after the final 4e book was published) the DDI subscriptions alone were making WotC $6 million/year - or approximately half Paizo's annual turnover. And most of that pure profit - the overheads were low and the books had already been written. For all the undoubted sales of 5e, I doubt it will make $6 million this year. There simply isn't that much for people to spend money on - once you've bought the three core books you're almost done.

Are unit sales of 5e books good? Yes. Superb. But the sales strategy WotC has shown appears to show that 5e is the mothballs edition. Get as much income out of the core books as possible, then mothball the line.

Kurald Galain
2015-07-05, 01:48 PM
And 4e didn't make most of its money from sales of books. In November 2013 (the last date we have accurate information for - and 18 months after the final 4e book was published) the DDI subscriptions alone were making WotC $6 million/year

This number is only based on speculation of 4E fans in the 4E forum, and has been quite easily disproven several times. Including in the thread where it first surfaced - most of that thread is simply pointing out why the top post is incorrect, but somehow the top post went memetic anyway.

(specifically, the member count of the "DDI" group on the WOTC forums turns out to be completely unrelated to the amount of paying subscribers)

neonchameleon
2015-07-05, 02:12 PM
This number is only based on speculation of 4E fans in the 4E forum, and has been quite easily disproven several times. Including in the thread where it first surfaced - most of that thread is simply pointing out why the top post is incorrect, but somehow the top post went memetic anyway.

(specifically, the member count of the "DDI" group on the WOTC forums turns out to be completely unrelated to the amount of paying subscribers)

Specifically, that "disproof" you claim to have is complete nonsense. It was tested that when someone joined DDI and had a WotC forums account they were added to the group. It was tested that when someone cancelled their account they were automatically removed from the group. Which means that the only idea people providing a supposed disproof were able to come up with was that there were tens of thousands of test accounts artificially inflating the numbers for some nefarious purpose.

Edit: And for the record it started on the RPG.net d20 forum - which tends to be a lot more clued up than the 4e forum here.

Kurald Galain
2015-07-05, 03:46 PM
Specifically, that "disproof" you claim to have is complete nonsense.

Nope, you're missing some facts here. The notion that DDI makes several millions per year is based on two assumptions, i.e. 1. that the member count of some forum group happens to match the amount of DDI members, and 2. that WOTC incurs zero costs for running DDI. The second assumption is just laughable, and the first is easily shown false by the fact that the group has a "join" button. That's right, any forum member can just click on it to be added to the group, regardless of whether he's a DDI member.

And remember, industry insiders suggest that regardless of its revenue, 4E was making little or zero profit. Sources are earlier in this thread, and I note that you've posted zero sources so far.

But hey, it's fun to believe that 4E was the absolute best moneymaker that WOTC ever had, and to pretend they only abandoned it and made a new game for ****s and giggles :smallbiggrin: Whatever floats your boat.

neonchameleon
2015-07-05, 06:35 PM
Nope, you're missing some facts here. The notion that DDI makes several millions per year is based on two assumptions, i.e. 1. that the member count of some forum group happens to match the amount of DDI members, and 2. that WOTC incurs zero costs for running DDI.

No. You're missing things.

1: That the group in question is explicitly the DDI members group and was verified to have new subscribers automatically join it, and to have people whose subscriptions lapsed automatically be removed. Your claim that this is an assumption as opposed to a hypothesis that has been empirically tested as far as is possible is therefore untrue.

2: The assumption that making refers to profit rather than income comes entirely from you. Yes, it's a laughable assumption - and one you have made. If we want profit we're going to have to go far deeper into estimating what proportion of the sticker price of each book goes back to WotC than I really want to - but the overheads of DDI by 2015 were pretty low by comparison. The work had been done, the writing was by volunteers, which meant that the remaining overheads were mostly bandwidth.


and the first is easily shown false by the fact that the group has a "join" button.

As far as I am aware that was the default board layout. The join button only worked if you were on the subset of people who were also permitted to join. This would be the way any competent software company would do it (I appreciate we are talking about gleemax here so I may be wrong). And even if it is possible that people could join (despite the automatic check and removal process) do you really think they did in large numbers.


And remember, industry insiders suggest that regardless of its revenue, 4E was making little or zero profit. Sources are earlier in this thread, and I note that you've posted zero sources so far.

You mean other than the best numbers publically available that I am aware of. Hint: Numbers beat rumours. And the numbers I noticed posted earlier in this thread appear to be based on sales of books - something DDI was competing with.


But hey, it's fun to believe that 4E was the absolute best moneymaker that WOTC ever had, and to pretend they only abandoned it and made a new game for ****s and giggles :smallbiggrin: Whatever floats your boat.

And if I had ever said it was the biggest moneymaker WotC had ever had you might have a point. WotC abandoned 3.0 after 2.5 years and produced an entire new set of corebooks. This is because corebooks make the most money of anything. 4e had a strong corebook rush followed by a lot of people jumping away from a half finished product. And had a pretty damn good tail due to DDI giving a very solid income stream from whales and even dolphins (http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/1537643/what-the-music-business-can-learn-from-the-gaming-and). Some of the 4e marketing was spectacularly stupid - but setting up a digital subscription model was extremely smart.

5e appears to have looked at the figures and said "We make most of our profit from the core three. Let's just skim that money and have other people make a token effort." Which is why I think 2015 is going to be a lean year. Assuming you really like 5e what do you spend money on that makes your game better?

And this is the core problem the 5e sales strategy has. The 4e core books sold like hot cakes. No one disputes this. The 5e core books sold better. Again not in question. Any D&D core books would sell well - there would still have been amazing sales if it had been FATAL between the covers - and 5e is well written and professionally produced. But most people who are going to buy a corebook have already bought one. So now what? Assume you are a millionaire and the world's biggest D&D fan. What have you bought so far this year? I think it's one adventure module?

And this is why I'm predicting 5e isn't going to make that $6 million income per year even this year. Only the whales who also DM are putting any money at all in WotC's coffers. The dolphins bought what would be immediately useful - either the PHB or all three core books. They are done (with 4e some of the dolphins were persuaded to buy DDI subs - which is an impressive revenue stream from a dolphin). The minnows did what the minnows have done every edition since 1974 and bought their own set of dice and some snacks for the table.

Straight question: In 2015, assuming you love 5e what are you actually going to buy for it?

Segev
2015-07-06, 09:31 AM
You know...

Ironically, the best model for "only print the core three, then let others do all the expansion and support" would be either an OGL (as 3.0's massive third party support demonstrated) or by having a non-open license you sell for relatively cheap to a few select companies. ("Relatively cheap" in that it's basically free money for you, since you're not making books at all beyond the core 3 and you want to make sure the third party companies find it an attractive prospect.)

This model outsources the production of "support" books to other companies, freeing you from any need to spend money you don't want to while keeping the game extant.

One or two books a year from your own department to provide any quality controls you feel are necessary would be all you'd need...if that.



Which raises an interesting observation: after 3.5, third party participation in the d20 market dropped off significantly. I personally think it's because so many 3.0 third party products were blindsided by the somewhat sudden release, and saw their expected sales sitting in inventory, so nobody got back in with 3.5. I have no real proof of this, though; I would be interested in other theories or, better still, analysis with some basis in knowledge of facts. Does anybody know why third party participation in the OGL fell off after 3.5?

Flickerdart
2015-07-06, 09:45 AM
The problem with relying on third parties is that quality control becomes impossible (not that WotC's QA was that good to begin with). This could very quickly lead to actual (not just perceived) power creep and fan dissatisfaction. With a first-party set of books, at least there was some understanding that Complete X was better-tested than the homebrew of someone who scraped together enough money to print off bound copies.

Kurald Galain
2015-07-06, 09:45 AM
Which raises an interesting observation: after 3.5, third party participation in the d20 market dropped off significantly. I personally think it's because so many 3.0 third party products were blindsided by the somewhat sudden release, and saw their expected sales sitting in inventory, so nobody got back in with 3.5. I have no real proof of this, though; I would be interested in other theories or, better still, analysis with some basis in knowledge of facts. Does anybody know why third party participation in the OGL fell off after 3.5?

Wellll...

In a well-known PR disaster, after 3.5 WOTC announced that they would have something "similar" to an OGL for 4E, then it turned out that their terms were something like (1) you must stop selling products for any earlier edition of D&D, (2) WOTC gets to use all your D&D-related intellectual property at no cost, and (3) you must destroy all your D&D-related supplies if WOTC asks you to, no reason necessary. No, that's not an exaggeration.

Needless to say, that didn't go over well (and this is one of the reasons Paizo decided to stick with 3E and eventually make PF). After a huge amount of backlash, WOTC eventually rescinded these terms, but by then it was pretty much too late. Whoops.

Segev
2015-07-06, 09:56 AM
Wellll...

In a well-known PR disaster, after 3.5 WOTC announced that they would have something "similar" to an OGL for 4E, then it turned out that their terms were something like (1) you must stop selling products for any earlier edition of D&D, (2) WOTC gets to use all your D&D-related intellectual property at no cost, and (3) you must destroy all your D&D-related supplies if WOTC asks you to, no reason necessary. No, that's not an exaggeration.

Needless to say, that didn't go over well (and this is one of the reasons Paizo decided to stick with 3E and eventually make PF). After a huge amount of backlash, WOTC eventually rescinded these terms, but by then it was pretty much too late. Whoops.

That explains the lack of third-party support for 4e, but not why it dropped off when 3.5 hit the shelves. I'd conservatively venture to estimate that 90% of third party d20 materials are 3.0, with less than 10% being 3.5.

...this is ignoring Pathfinder, of course. It is, in essence, a massive use of OGL for 3.5. But it was, spiritually, a direct response to 4e, not really a "3.5 third party product." It was more, spiritually, "3.5 continued" or "3.75."

GungHo
2015-07-06, 10:39 AM
That explains the lack of third-party support for 4e, but not why it dropped off when 3.5 hit the shelves. I'd conservatively venture to estimate that 90% of third party d20 materials are 3.0, with less than 10% being 3.5.
Given the time-to-market on third party materials, much less time for RoI, I imagine if they believed that something was coming after 3.5, possibly in short order, and they wouldn't want to invest in something on someone else's IP that was going to be done away with before they could make a return. Moreover, the 3.0 business ventures were just that, ventures. No one knew if they could make money on someone else's IP, and while I don't know the survival rate of that market, I do know the survival rate of most business ventures... if someone failed to make a significant return, why would they stay in that market? While this is a hobby for you and me, for the game companies, this is a business. They gotta eat.

Anonymouswizard
2015-07-06, 10:40 AM
The problem with relying on third parties is that quality control becomes impossible (not that WotC's QA was that good to begin with). This could very quickly lead to actual (not just perceived) power creep and fan dissatisfaction. With a first-party set of books, at least there was some understanding that Complete X was better-tested than the homebrew of someone who scraped together enough money to print off bound copies.

The is also the question of whether the people who made the system should be allowed to judge the balance of it, because most of the time people who write a system make it balanced for the intended use and don't realise all the legitimate uses that are overpowered (see 3e's blaster wizards versus control wizards, this was at least partially a consequence of buffing monster HP), to the point I'm annoyed that 5e's public playtest asked 'does this feel like a wizard' instead of 'is there anything about the wizard that was shown to be overpowered or underpowered', even though I never signed up (when I had the ability to run a game the playtest had already ended). I will agree that 5e seems to have had half decent balancing from what I've seen, bar the powerful versatile casters (number one on my list of 'why I don't own 5e', followed closely by 'I can get other games for ONE book').


Wellll...

In a well-known PR disaster, after 3.5 WOTC announced that they would have something "similar" to an OGL for 4E, then it turned out that their terms were something like (1) you must stop selling products for any earlier edition of D&D, (2) WOTC gets to use all your D&D-related intellectual property at no cost, and (3) you must destroy all your D&D-related supplies if WOTC asks you to, no reason necessary. No, that's not an exaggeration.

Well, I didn't know about 3, which seems absurd. Combining that with number 2 (which means WotC could theoretically let all the 3rd party stuff do the design, then steal and release the best stuff in 'official' books) I can see why third party stuff for 4e basically never materialised (although that isn't unusual in the industry, I'm surprised that both Eclipse Phase and Rifts are getting conversions to third party systems to be honest, although that may just be due to being a youngster). I actually totally see the reasoning behind number 1 and think it's a totally fair stipulation, although I personally wouldn't release under a licence that included it. The downside to number 1 is that it'll split the third party community between the two editions, which is semi-likely to happen anyway.

Although this does highlight why I prefer rare incremental editions to what we've seen at WotC. I own the 4e GURPS core but can roughly convert 3e stats with a few minutes of work, which means I have a theoretically giant library of material to use second hand or occasionally with a new pdf (hint SJG, releasing a new edition of Cyberpunk and a Space Opera book with some example techs would get you my money faster than you can say 'is hard to find a physical copy of ultra-tech).


Needless to say, that didn't go over well (and this is one of the reasons Paizo decided to stick with 3E and eventually make PF). After a huge amount of backlash, WOTC eventually rescinded these terms, but by then it was pretty much too late. Whoops.

To be fair, the terms probably sound reasonable from the view of Wizards of the Coast, as it stops them competing with their previous edition (hehe, yeah, that's never going to happen), let's them include the great bits that other developers have made (this is the one that really stings, if anything good I create has the potential for WotC to just steal and say 'it's now 110% official' then why bother), and they can get rid of any objectionable material easily. I think the problem is WotC/Hasbro/whoever wrote the licence didn't think about it from the point of view of the third-party owners and developers, who would probably take one look at that and say 'you know what, maybe we can ask Paizo if we can put the Pathfinder licence on our book/create our own system/get out of the business when we only have this much debt/we will wait until you aren't joking Mr Wizard by the Sea'. I won't be surprised if they have many takers in the early days of a third-party licence for 5e, which is why I suspect this planned monetisation of the homebrew sector is being planned (is it? I don't really follow 5e, so I don't know if they stopped this 'official third party store you can upload to and we'll take a cut' idea). If they can pull it off well, I can see it working out alright for them.

obryn
2015-07-06, 02:20 PM
That explains the lack of third-party support for 4e, but not why it dropped off when 3.5 hit the shelves. I'd conservatively venture to estimate that 90% of third party d20 materials are 3.0, with less than 10% being 3.5.
In the d20 boom days, companies were producing hardbound books left and right. Once 3.5 was announced, all of the extra 3.0 inventory became essentially worthless overnight. People just stopped buying them. (I am sure the fact that most 3.0 releases were basically shovelware helped this along, mind you.)

This is why, post-3.5-announcement, you didn't see too many companies selling hardcopies of 3.5-compatible material. This is when the 3PPs that remained started releasing (or aggressively promoting) their own core games, like Mongoose Conan, Mutants & Masterminds, etc. Or new CCGs, board games, etc. Yes, there were still some, but smarter companies decided that relying on an ever-changing game, owned by someone else, with an uncertain future wasn't exactly a sound business strategy. The 3.5 announcement created a veritable bloodbath.

(If Pathfinder ever comes out with a PF2.0, you can expect to see a similar effect. Only with the rise of self-publishing, PDFs, and DTRPG, it won't be as dire since there won't be stacks of hardbound books laying around.)

Kurald Galain
2015-07-06, 02:39 PM
(If Pathfinder ever comes out with a PF2.0, you can expect to see a similar effect. Only with the rise of self-publishing, PDFs, and DTRPG, it won't be as dire since there won't be stacks of hardbound books laying around.)

This, of course, is why Pathfinder won't come out with a PF2.0. They're not stupid.

EggKookoo
2015-07-06, 03:13 PM
This, of course, is why Pathfinder won't come out with a PF2.0. They're not stupid.

Unless PF2.0 is mostly backward-compatible with PF1.0.

D&D 3.5 was only a problem because it (reportedly) negated a lot of 3.0. If you could easily adapt 3.0 material to 3.5 and vice-versa, people would have been more accepting.

obryn
2015-07-06, 04:00 PM
This, of course, is why Pathfinder won't come out with a PF2.0. They're not stupid.
"Never" is a really long time.


D&D 3.5 was only a problem because it (reportedly) negated a lot of 3.0. If you could easily adapt 3.0 material to 3.5 and vice-versa, people would have been more accepting.
It changed just enough to break full compatibility. Spells ranged from 'mostly unchanged' to 'much different', classes were tweaked just a smidge, and the basic mechanics were adjusted here and there in seemingly-inconsequential ways like monster base sizes.

3.0 material was still mostly workable (think RC -> AD&D conversion), but the playerbase no longer wanted to buy it. Combined with a (well-deserved) 'd20 shovelware' reputation for a lot of this stuff, and the upstart industry was doomed. Only the largest and most diversified companies survived (Mongoose, Malhavoc, Fantasy Flight, Green Ronin, etc.). WotC certainly reinforced this attitude by re-releasing their entire catalog. For example, the softcover player splat line, like Sword & Fist, was heavily revised and re-released as the hardcover Complete Warrior, etc.

e: So 'mostly compatible' is probably not enough. 3.5 was 'mostly compatible' with 3.0, for all the good it did.

Segev
2015-07-06, 04:08 PM
Tangential question: In your opinions, is PF more or less compatible with 3.5 than 3.5 was with 3.0?

EggKookoo
2015-07-06, 04:10 PM
e: So 'mostly compatible' is probably not enough. 3.5 was 'mostly compatible' with 3.0, for all the good it did.

Understood and I agree. Compatibility between 3.0 and 3.5 wasn't the only thing that caused problems. It was a perfect storm of wrong. I'm just saying it's possible that PF2.0 could exist and be well-received by the PF1.0 players.

Kurald Galain
2015-07-06, 04:20 PM
D&D 3.5 was only a problem because it (reportedly) negated a lot of 3.0. If you could easily adapt 3.0 material to 3.5 and vice-versa, people would have been more accepting.
Sounds risky. It would be all-too-easy for people disliking PF, or for rival companies, to give it the reputation of not being backwards compatible, even if it actually is.


Tangential question: In your opinions, is PF more or less compatible with 3.5 than 3.5 was with 3.0?
In my anecdotal experience, people on these forums seem to be more willing to accept 3.5 material in PF, than to accept 3.0 material in 3.5.

EggKookoo
2015-07-06, 04:35 PM
Sounds risky. It would be all-too-easy for people disliking PF, or for rival companies, to give it the reputation of not being backwards compatible, even if it actually is.

Two things they could do to mitigate that. 1: Call it PF1.5 instead of PD2.0 to reinforce the idea that it's still the same basic game, just an upgraded version. 2: Announce it well ahead of time and have comprehensive beta-testing so the PF playerbase has time to assimilate the new stuff without feeling like they need to jump over to it right away.

Psyren
2015-07-06, 04:43 PM
I think "PF 1.5" would be fairly well-received if messaged well. A version of the game with things like Stamina and Skill Unlocks as baseline parts of the system and expanded upon, and with some of the weaker martial feats consolidated.

I would market it less as a new edition and more like a "greatest hits" streamlined version of the game.

Kurald Galain
2015-07-06, 04:58 PM
I would market it less as a new edition and more like a "greatest hits" streamlined version of the game.

Yes, that sounds like it would work.

For example, have the fandom vote on the 10 favorite classes and 100 most popular spells and feats, then compile those in a source book with basic rules included and with the latest errata in place. And call it something like Greatest Crits :smallcool:

Hawkstar
2015-07-07, 08:14 AM
No. You're missing things.

1: That the group in question is explicitly the DDI members group and was verified to have new subscribers automatically join it, and to have people whose subscriptions lapsed automatically be removed. Your claim that this is an assumption as opposed to a hypothesis that has been empirically tested as far as is possible is therefore untrue.

2: The assumption that making refers to profit rather than income comes entirely from you. Yes, it's a laughable assumption - and one you have made. If we want profit we're going to have to go far deeper into estimating what proportion of the sticker price of each book goes back to WotC than I really want to - but the overheads of DDI by 2015 were pretty low by comparison. The work had been done, the writing was by volunteers, which meant that the remaining overheads were mostly bandwidth.



As far as I am aware that was the default board layout. The join button only worked if you were on the subset of people who were also permitted to join. This would be the way any competent software company would do it (I appreciate we are talking about gleemax here so I may be wrong). And even if it is possible that people could join (despite the automatic check and removal process) do you really think they did in large numbers.



You mean other than the best numbers publically available that I am aware of. Hint: Numbers beat rumours. And the numbers I noticed posted earlier in this thread appear to be based on sales of books - something DDI was competing with.



And if I had ever said it was the biggest moneymaker WotC had ever had you might have a point. WotC abandoned 3.0 after 2.5 years and produced an entire new set of corebooks. This is because corebooks make the most money of anything. 4e had a strong corebook rush followed by a lot of people jumping away from a half finished product. And had a pretty damn good tail due to DDI giving a very solid income stream from whales and even dolphins (http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/1537643/what-the-music-business-can-learn-from-the-gaming-and). Some of the 4e marketing was spectacularly stupid - but setting up a digital subscription model was extremely smart.

5e appears to have looked at the figures and said "We make most of our profit from the core three. Let's just skim that money and have other people make a token effort." Which is why I think 2015 is going to be a lean year. Assuming you really like 5e what do you spend money on that makes your game better?

And this is the core problem the 5e sales strategy has. The 4e core books sold like hot cakes. No one disputes this. The 5e core books sold better. Again not in question. Any D&D core books would sell well - there would still have been amazing sales if it had been FATAL between the covers - and 5e is well written and professionally produced. But most people who are going to buy a corebook have already bought one. So now what? Assume you are a millionaire and the world's biggest D&D fan. What have you bought so far this year? I think it's one adventure module?

And this is why I'm predicting 5e isn't going to make that $6 million income per year even this year. Only the whales who also DM are putting any money at all in WotC's coffers. The dolphins bought what would be immediately useful - either the PHB or all three core books. They are done (with 4e some of the dolphins were persuaded to buy DDI subs - which is an impressive revenue stream from a dolphin). The minnows did what the minnows have done every edition since 1974 and bought their own set of dice and some snacks for the table.

Straight question: In 2015, assuming you love 5e what are you actually going to buy for it?
The thing is... there are not enough Whales to justify further sourcebooks. They cost more to write, draw, and edit than they make back on sales - and a bunch of expansion content scares away a bunch of 'dolphins' and... most of the playerbase as well. Most D&D 3.5 players I've actually met outside of this hive of munchkinry and optimization have the opinion of "Core only is best. All the sourcebooks ruined the game through power creep, system bloat, and I really don't want to have to read 5-50 books just to play the damn game". As it is, WotC pretty much cut 5e's development team to a mere skeleton crew that can be funded on what amounts to a shoestring budget, and they have a sparse release schedule to avoid oversaturating the market.

Brova
2015-07-07, 08:38 AM
The thing is... there are not enough Whales to justify further sourcebooks. They cost more to write, draw, and edit than they make back on sales - and a bunch of expansion content scares away a bunch of 'dolphins' and... most of the playerbase as well. Most D&D 3.5 players I've actually met outside of this hive of munchkinry and optimization have the opinion of "Core only is best. All the sourcebooks ruined the game through power creep, system bloat, and I really don't want to have to read 5-50 books just to play the damn game". As it is, WotC pretty much cut 5e's development team to a mere skeleton crew that can be funded on what amounts to a shoestring budget, and they have a sparse release schedule to avoid oversaturating the market.

I'm going to have to disagree rather vehemently with your position. Pathfinder is either the biggest or second biggest RPG in the market right now, and it is noting but system bloat, power creep, and new books "just to play the damn game." Not only can a splatbook based model be successful, it is. The key, IMHO, is the PFSRD. By making (almost?) all the content available legally and for free, the mitigate a huge percentage of the complexity of new books. If I want to play a Magus or a Witch or an Alchemist, I don't have to track down a book, convince my DM to read it, and bring it to the table. I can just email him a link.

It's also pretty ludicrous from a logical perspective to conclude that you could make more money by not offering a product. People bought Complete Champion. Enough people bought it that WotC okay-ed Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage. It seems dubious to me that people wouldn't at least buy Complete Warrior for 5e.

EggKookoo
2015-07-07, 08:55 AM
I see two definite audiences. One group likes lots and lots of options. They don't think of bloat as a bad thing and want lots of it. They tend to think of RPGs as games to be played. The other likes themed concepts. They'd rather have fewer options if that allows those options to make a kind of internal sense. They tend to think of RPGs as exercises in immersion.

I guess it's more accurate to think of those as two ends of a spectrum.

D&D 3.x and Pathfinder (and arguably D&D 4e) seem to be aimed more at the first group, while 5e (so far) seems to be aimed at the second group.

Hawkstar
2015-07-07, 09:01 AM
I'm going to have to disagree rather vehemently with your position. Pathfinder is either the biggest or second biggest RPG in the market right now, and it is noting but system bloat, power creep, and new books "just to play the damn game." Not only can a splatbook based model be successful, it is. The key, IMHO, is the PFSRD. By making (almost?) all the content available legally and for free, the mitigate a huge percentage of the complexity of new books. If I want to play a Magus or a Witch or an Alchemist, I don't have to track down a book, convince my DM to read it, and bring it to the table. I can just email him a link.Pathfinder's profits come from its adventure paths and core rulebooks. There are FAR fewer Pathfinder books outside of adventure paths than there are 3.5 books. Where 3.5 released "Races of Stone, Races of the Wild, Races of Destiny, Races of the Dragon, etc", Pathfinder got the "Advanced Race Guide". Instead of "Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, Complete Adventurer, Complete Divine, Complete Champion, Complete Scoundrel, and Complete Mage", Pathfinder got the "Advanced Class Guide". For every 5 books 3.5 had, Pathfinder has released one, not counting their adventure paths.


It's also pretty ludicrous from a logical perspective to conclude that you could make more money by not offering a product. People bought Complete Champion. Enough people bought it that WotC okay-ed Complete Scoundrel and Complete Mage. It seems dubious to me that people wouldn't at least buy Complete Warrior for 5e.Not ludicrous, unless you live under a rock. If you spend $5 million on developing and marketing a new sourcebook, but it only grosses $4.3 million in sales, you would have been better off not marketing it at all.

D&D 3.5 wasn't particularly profitable, but WotC was, and, prior to 4th Edition D&D, all Hasbro cared about was WotC's profits as a whole. D&D 3.5 was allowed to be the subcompany's money-sink as long as MtG more than picked up the slack for it. What profit 3.5 did make was from sales of the Core Rulebooks, which were spurred on by the release of individually non-profitable splatbooks. (So, the example above, if it costs $5 million to make a new splatbook, and it only sells for $4.3 million, but causes previously-released products to sell another $1.7 million, you get a net of $1 million profit from it).

GWJ_DanyBoy
2015-07-07, 09:01 AM
It's also pretty ludicrous from a logical perspective to conclude that you could make more money by not offering a product.

Not ludicrous at all. Every time you release a product which costs more to produce than it returns, you've lost money. Even if profitable, you might have lost out on additional profit if there was another viable and more profitable way you could have used the original capital. Opportunity costs.

Psyren
2015-07-07, 09:47 AM
Not ludicrous at all. Every time you release a product which costs more to produce than it returns, you've lost money. Even if profitable, you might have lost out on additional profit if there was another viable and more profitable way you could have used the original capital. Opportunity costs.

While it's true that zero is indeed greater than a negative, I think what he's saying is that if you do nothing, your chances of making no profit are 100%, whereas if you do something, you at least have a shot at returns.


I see two definite audiences. One group likes lots and lots of options. They don't think of bloat as a bad thing and want lots of it. They tend to think of RPGs as games to be played. The other likes themed concepts. They'd rather have fewer options if that allows those options to make a kind of internal sense. They tend to think of RPGs as exercises in immersion.

I guess it's more accurate to think of those as two ends of a spectrum.

D&D 3.x and Pathfinder (and arguably D&D 4e) seem to be aimed more at the first group, while 5e (so far) seems to be aimed at the second group.

I don't agree with your dichotomy there - I would argue that more options/rules can enhance immersion. When you devise a strategy and the GM can whip out a chapter that explains how to adjudicate it impartially, it makes the game world feel more real, because the designers took that into account rather than your DM having to come up with a number based on how hard he personally thinks it is. For example, "I'll try to tail him through the crowd" or "I swim down through the current to the treasure chest" or "I kick over the banquet table and hide behind it" or "I take one hand off the ladder to try and catch the falling princess" are all scenarios that 3.5 and PF tell the GM how to handle, so the player feels as though he has a fair shot.

EggKookoo
2015-07-07, 10:13 AM
I don't agree with your dichotomy there - I would argue that more options/rules can enhance immersion. When you devise a strategy and the GM can whip out a chapter that explains how to adjudicate it impartially, it makes the game world feel more real, because the designers took that into account rather than your DM having to come up with a number based on how hard he personally thinks it is. For example, "I'll try to tail him through the crowd" or "I swim down through the current to the treasure chest" or "I kick over the banquet table and hide behind it" or "I take one hand off the ladder to try and catch the falling princess" are all scenarios that 3.5 and PF tell the GM how to handle, so the player feels as though he has a fair shot.

It's funny, my brain works the other way around. I know you can't actually make a rule for everything, so at some point the DM needs to come up with a ruling to handle a certain circumstance. The main difference (in that regard) between 3.x/PF and 5e is that 5e reaches that point a lot sooner.

So for me, I find it more immersive to say "here are some basic rules, and some theory on how to make ad hoc rulings down the line, and let your DM handle the heavy lifting" than it is to have book upon book of minutia that we need to pore over to find the official rule for that esoteric circumstance. With the former, I feel like we can all just get on with the game even if the DM's ruling is a little off. I want to think about the rules as little as possible.

But my point was more about setting and player options. I like my sword & sorcery games to be about swords & sorcery, and my steampunk games to be about steampunk, and my gothic horror games to be about gothic horror. D&D 5e, at this point, feels like it's about a central set of fantasy tropes. I like, for example, that with the new errata they make a point of saying psionics probably don't exist except in edge settings. That allows them to exist but also gives DMs who don't want psionics some ammunition when disallowing them. In a way, it's the opposite of splat.

Flickerdart
2015-07-07, 10:16 AM
While it's true that zero is indeed greater than a negative, I think what he's saying is that if you do nothing, your chances of making no profit are 100%, whereas if you do something, you at least have a shot at returns.
That doesn't really matter, though - unless a company closes the division, they're never doing nothing.

Brova
2015-07-07, 10:33 AM
Pathfinder's profits come from its adventure paths and core rulebooks.

You got anything to back that up?


There are FAR fewer Pathfinder books outside of adventure paths than there are 3.5 books. Where 3.5 released "Races of Stone, Races of the Wild, Races of Destiny, Races of the Dragon, etc", Pathfinder got the "Advanced Race Guide". Instead of "Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane, Complete Adventurer, Complete Divine, Complete Champion, Complete Scoundrel, and Complete Mage", Pathfinder got the "Advanced Class Guide". For every 5 books 3.5 had, Pathfinder has released one, not counting their adventure paths.

Sure, but that's because Pathfinder is selling in a saturated market. They're selling to people who already own Race of Whatever and Complete Something, and they still sell splats.


Not ludicrous, unless you live under a rock. If you spend $5 million on developing and marketing a new sourcebook, but it only grosses $4.3 million in sales, you would have been better off not marketing it at all.

That's true, but you're putting those costs way too high. Also, it seems rather obvious that some splats make money. After all, at least the last four editions of D&D have have had some variation of Complete Warrior, and many have had two (3e: Sword and Fist, Masters of the Wild, 3.5: Complete Warrior, arguably Tome of Battle, 4e: Martial Power, Martial Power 2, PF: Ultimate Combat).


Not ludicrous at all. Every time you release a product which costs more to produce than it returns, you've lost money. Even if profitable, you might have lost out on additional profit if there was another viable and more profitable way you could have used the original capital. Opportunity costs.

I mean, sure. But I'll note that I didn't say profit per se. Splats do make money, and given the number of them produced, I suspect they make a profit. Printing costs are just not all that high, so once you've put together the book your margins are pretty good. Also, the costs are kind of sunk (with the exception of art). As long as you have Mearls working for you, you're paying him just as much if he writes "nothing" as if he writes Complete Warrior.

Twelvetrees
2015-07-07, 10:35 AM
I don't agree with your dichotomy there - I would argue that more options/rules can enhance immersion. When you devise a strategy and the GM can whip out a chapter that explains how to adjudicate it impartially, it makes the game world feel more real, because the designers took that into account rather than your DM having to come up with a number based on how hard he personally thinks it is. For example, "I'll try to tail him through the crowd" or "I swim down through the current to the treasure chest" or "I kick over the banquet table and hide behind it" or "I take one hand off the ladder to try and catch the falling princess" are all scenarios that 3.5 and PF tell the GM how to handle, so the player feels as though he has a fair shot.

While you have a fair point, I'm going to respectfully disagree that more options/rules enhance immersion. When you have a tremendous list of rules and options and it's necessary to look them up when they come up in play, taking that break results in a loss of immersion. It slows the game down when the DM is paging through books or looking online for the exact rules to cover a specific situation. In contrast, 5e allows for a quick decision and for play to continue without having to look up a multitude of rules.

5e's style of play may not be to your taste. That's fine. Would it have been nice to have the option for more detailed rules and options? Yes, but it wasn't included.

Play styles differ. What you and I want out of a game are clearly different things, and that's okay.



Thinking about it now, I don't think it would be that hard to design some homebrew tables with rules for adjudicating similar situations in 5e. Would you be at all interested if I made such a thing?

Alejandro
2015-07-07, 10:46 AM
Agreed on this point.

Another clue is the prevalence of gaming books in public libraries. My local library is very responsive to requests for new titles, and for some years they had over half a dozen 3.5 titles in heavy circulation--the core books, the Monster Manuals, several of the Completes, etc.

When 4E came out they stocked three or four of them (the PHB, Adventurer's Vault, one of the dragon books) but those seem to be sitting forgotten on the shelves these days, essentially untouched.

Pathfinder, on the other hand, is huge in our library system. I have copies of the CRB, APG, Bestiary 1 & 2 checked out right now, and my library also has several copies apiece of the Inner Sea World Guide and GameMastery Guide, plus three copies of Pathfinder Unchained on order.

I have yet to see a single 5E book in any of my local libraries. I don't think anyone's requested them. That to me speaks volumes.

As someone who has managed library ordering, it's more likely that you haven't seen a 5E book because said library bought those 4E books, saw that their circulation was very poor, and chose not to get the next edition of them (5E) based on that; the decisions were probably made by people who haven't played D&D and are not following the genre.

EggKookoo
2015-07-07, 10:58 AM
While you have a fair point, I'm going to respectfully disagree that more options/rules enhance immersion. When you have a tremendous list of rules and options and it's necessary to look them up when they come up in play, taking that break results in a loss of immersion. It slows the game down when the DM is paging through books or looking online for the exact rules to cover a specific situation. In contrast, 5e allows for a quick decision and for play to continue without having to look up a multitude of rules.

Couldn't agree more.


5e's style of play may not be to your taste. That's fine. Would it have been nice to have the option for more detailed rules and options? Yes, but it wasn't included.

Play styles differ. What you and I want out of a game are clearly different things, and that's okay.

Thinking about it now, I don't think it would be that hard to design some homebrew tables with rules for adjudicating similar situations in 5e. Would you be at all interested if I made such a thing?

See, I think 5e did it perfectly. The simplified "rulings not rules" mentality is part of the core, and the DMG gives you a lot to work with if you want to build it out into a more PF-style "a rule for everything" homebrew. It still heavily favors DM fiat but it's probably the best compromise they could come up with.

GWJ_DanyBoy
2015-07-07, 11:34 AM
While it's true that zero is indeed greater than a negative, I think what he's saying is that if you do nothing, your chances of making no profit are 100%, whereas if you do something, you at least have a shot at returns.

And I can't win the lottery if I don't play, but that doesn't make playing the lottery the best course of action.

Brova
2015-07-07, 11:38 AM
And I can't win the lottery if I don't play, but that doesn't make playing the lottery the best course of action.

Actually, given that you are already paying employees to work on your product, it's more like having a lottery ticket and deciding if you scratch it.

GWJ_DanyBoy
2015-07-07, 11:46 AM
Actually, given that you are already paying employees to work on your product, it's more like having a lottery ticket and deciding if you scratch it.

In this metaphor, scratching the ticket would also have additional risks and costs.

Anonymouswizard
2015-07-07, 12:10 PM
Actually, given that you are already paying employees to work on your product, it's more like having a lottery ticket and deciding if you scratch it.

What if I have a lottery ticket, but the only pen I can get to fill it in is £1000? Sure, I could make my money back on the pen, but most likely I'll have made a £1000 loss.

Silly analogy stretching is silly.

Brova
2015-07-07, 12:46 PM
In this metaphor, scratching the ticket would also have additional risks and costs.

Yes, but those costs are not very high. RPG writing is about 7 cents a word (or 7,000 dollars for a 100K word book, about the length of Martial Power). Art is more variable, I've seen numbers around 6,000 dollars for an RPG book, but I don't really know. PF tells me that the price on a PDF is about $10. So you're looking at a break even point of about 1300 books. It actually gets lower if you sell printed books, because you can ask (apparently) $50 a pop, and printing costs don't run much (it looks like $10 at the high end).

A lot of that is somewhat up in the air. Smaller operations can offer 3 cents a word or less, depending on your distribution system (i.e. print on demand) printing costs can go up or down, and art is pretty variable. The fixed costs to release a product like Complete Warrior or Advanced Race Guide are quite likely less than $20,000 dollars - substantially so if you consider in house writers to be a sunk cost. And once you've made that back the marginal cost ranges from tiny for books to nothing for PDFs.

Psyren
2015-07-07, 02:02 PM
That doesn't really matter, though - unless a company closes the division, they're never doing nothing.

If they don't release anything though, they might as well be.

The opportunity cost here is the fixed cost of keeping the staff but not doing anything with them - i.e. their salaries. So long as whatever they produce can cover the variable costs of making it, and even contribute to that fixed cost, then the answer is "make it" even if they lose money overall. In other words, if [Revenue per Unit] * [number of units] > [variable cost per unit] * [number of units], the answer is "make the product" even if they can't cover the fixed cost with it, because they'll be losing the fixed cost anyway until they can get out of the employee contract, and any other fixed costs associated with that division (e.g. the lease on their office.)


While you have a fair point, I'm going to respectfully disagree that more options/rules enhance immersion. When you have a tremendous list of rules and options and it's necessary to look them up when they come up in play, taking that break results in a loss of immersion. It slows the game down when the DM is paging through books or looking online for the exact rules to cover a specific situation. In contrast, 5e allows for a quick decision and for play to continue without having to look up a multitude of rules.

That's true if it's hard/slow to look these things up, but those of us who prefer rules heavy tend to have a good head for this sort of thing :smallsmile: It's also why I think rules-heavy has the most growth potential, because if you can program these rules into an engine of some kind then it will become just as seamless to invoke them on the fly for the folks who prefer rules-light as it is for us. For instance, if I'm playing on a digital tabletop, and my character is dueling a pirate on a catwalk, the following might happen:

- He disarms my rapier with his cutlass
- I quickly grab him to keep him from using his cutlass
- He struggles to get his dagger out to stab me
- I quickly leap with him over the side of the boat and we plunge into the bay
- I'm a better swimmer, so being underwater gives me the edge I need to avoid his blows and knock him out
- I then kick to the surface, spot a rope on the side of our ship, and grab it while he drowns.

I can already locate these very quickly in my head, but having a rules engine that can help any other player be as fast would be pretty cool and broaden the audience for the game.

S_Dalsgaard
2015-07-07, 03:16 PM
If they don't release anything though, they might as well be.

The D&D staff certainly do something with their paid hours, it just might not have anything to do with making splat books. I am sure Mearls and co. have plenty to do with coordinating the different parts of the D&D brand, working with the companies doing the APs, writing UA articles, etc.

Flickerdart
2015-07-07, 03:31 PM
The D&D staff certainly do something with their paid hours, it just might not have anything to do with making splat books. I am sure Mearls and co. have plenty to do with coordinating the different parts of the D&D brand, working with the companies doing the APs, writing UA articles, etc.
Indeed. There's a lot more work going into a product than just the object that lands at the consumer's feet.

Hawkstar
2015-07-07, 04:20 PM
You got anything to back that up? Common Knowledge. Also - they have a splat release schedule similar to D&D 5e: Core rules, a bunch of adventure paths, and then, every few months, they come out with a big expansion to the game (We're waiting for Unearthed Arcana for D&D 5e. How long had Pathfinder been waiting for Pathfinder Unchained before its recent release?)


Sure, but that's because Pathfinder is selling in a saturated market. They're selling to people who already own Race of Whatever and Complete Something, and they still sell splats.While Pathfinder boasts support for 3.5, in practice, that doesn't really happen.


That's true, but you're putting those costs way too high. Also, it seems rather obvious that some splats make money. After all, at least the last four editions of D&D have have had some variation of Complete Warrior, and many have had two (3e: Sword and Fist, Masters of the Wild, 3.5: Complete Warrior, arguably Tome of Battle, 4e: Martial Power, Martial Power 2, PF: Ultimate Combat).I noticed, but that's because my frame of reference for production and development are in automotive and the video game industries. I should have shaved a few zeroes off, but the principal is the same.


I mean, sure. But I'll note that I didn't say profit per se. Splats do make money, and given the number of them produced, I suspect they make a profit. Printing costs are just not all that high, so once you've put together the book your margins are pretty good. Also, the costs are kind of sunk (with the exception of art). As long as you have Mearls working for you, you're paying him just as much if he writes "nothing" as if he writes Complete Warrior.Right now, Mearls is writing Unearthed Arcana. The costs are not 'sunk', because a department of 5 guys is MUCH cheaper than a department of hundreds - but a department of hundreds has much faster turnabout than a department of five. The printing costs are certainly... while not negligible, not contributing to the lack of profit. The part that stops profit is the development costs (Writing, testing, designing, arting, editing). AD&D was profitable for TSR (Until it stopped through splat saturation for all its settings) because they cut out the testing and editing steps under Lorraine Williams, and had cheap art.

neonchameleon
2015-07-08, 04:26 PM
The thing is... there are not enough Whales to justify further sourcebooks.

If this is true for the first time in the history of D&D then I can say without a shadow of a doubt that no it is not selling well.


As it is, WotC pretty much cut 5e's development team to a mere skeleton crew that can be funded on what amounts to a shoestring budget, and they have a sparse release schedule to avoid oversaturating the market.

I'm fairly sure that they are bigger than e.g. Evil Hat and probably about on a par with Onyx Path. Both of whom put out far more stuff.


Pathfinder's profits come from its adventure paths and core rulebooks.

What Pathfinder have done is what made 4e profitable. Running a subscription model. People who subscribe to APs buy far more than they ever use. There's a place for the whales who don't really care about that $10/month. And if they subscribe digitally, costs are minimal.


Play styles differ. What you and I want out of a game are clearly different things, and that's okay.

I'll drink to that.

Mr.Moron
2015-07-08, 04:44 PM
As someone who has managed library ordering, it's more likely that you haven't seen a 5E book because said library bought those 4E books, saw that their circulation was very poor, and chose not to get the next edition of them (5E) based on that; the decisions were probably made by people who haven't played D&D and are not following the genre.

It's also just a single library system, serving a small area it's just not the kind of thing that's a meaningful metric. There is no way to know if it's representative of anything.

It's like going oh look!

http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game-Core-Rulebook/dp/1601251505/

The Pathfinder book has 409 reviews on amazon!

The D&D 5e book has 902!
http://www.amazon.com/Players-Handbook-Dungeons-Dragons-Wizards/dp/0786965606/

Clearly since we can say the two audiences are roughly similarly they probably review purchase at the same rate, meaning we can take number of reviews as an indicator of sales numbers.
Since Amazon is a large international retailer and the largest seller of books we can assume Amazon sales are generally representative of sales as a whole!

Given all that, the fact D&D 5e has more than twice the reviews speaks values to me.

Of course that's all bunk, any number of factors could influence reviews and we have no way of knowing if those have any impact on sales.