Quote from: Exploderwizard;549690All of this comes from the need to generate insane amounts of revenue from what is, despite the big brand name, a niche hobby product.

WOTC helped created the split fanbase and now they are stuck with it.

If 5E becomes the glorious unifying edition of doom and sells in the 3E numbers it still won't be enough to satisfy the profit lust.

Tabletop rpgs are niche hobby products best left to small companies with realistic sales expectations.

The short-sightedness of people regarding D&D is kind of staggering.  They've found this broken, neglected, half- or three-quarters working machine left abandoned in a warehouse in Lake Geneva, WI.  Legends abounded that it would just spew money, and all anyone has managed to do for tons of "fixing" and maintenance is make a few dollars trickle out.

It's not 1979 any more: you cannot buy coke & whores by saying you make role-playing games.  They were only an "industry" for a little more than a decade.  They were a hobby/cottage industry before, and that's back to what they are now.  I have on my desk my boxed set of Twilight:2000.  It sold 97,517 copies way back in 1985.  That was considered, at the time before the game world started expanding with various modules, a middlin' success.

Invent a pen-and-paper RPG today that sells nearly a hundred thousand copies and you'll be considered a massive, landslide success, second only to White Wolf's offerings and D&D.

Times have changed.  Nobody seems to realize this applies as much to the magic D&D money machine as anything else.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;549693Invent a pen-and-paper RPG today that sells nearly a hundred thousand copies and you'll be considered a massive, landslide success, second only to White Wolf's offerings and D&D.

Times have changed.  Nobody seems to realize this applies as much to the magic D&D money machine as anything else.

I don't know what you're talking about.  I am making so much money on my games that I'm posting this response from my computer at my "real" job.  

Quote from: Exploderwizard;549690Tabletop rpgs are niche hobby products best left to small companies with realistic sales expectations.

Yep.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;549690All of this comes from the need to generate insane amounts of revenue from what is, despite the big brand name, a niche hobby product.

This, this, a thousand times this. Hasborg's ownership of the brand is ultimately the biggest hurdle any new versions of the game will face. I think it's simply unlikely that any new edition can capture lightning in a bottle again, particularly with the altered climate created by the OGL, and exacerbated by 4E: D&D for people who never liked D&D.

Quote from: Benoist;549679Can they? That really sounds like Mission: Impossible to me.

I think they could, but it will be a lot of work to undo. It is also important to realise that the 4vengers and fanatical 4E fans are still in a total panic over 5E coming out. It isn't the time to offer them an olive branch while they are still trying to bite WotC's hand in reaction to the panic.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;549690Tabletop rpgs are niche hobby products best left to small companies with realistic sales expectations.

I have to agree here.

Quote from: Bobloblah;549698This, this, a thousand times this. Hasborg's ownership of the brand is ultimately the biggest hurdle any new versions of the game will face.

I think to be fair, Hasbo's position over niche products has vastly changed since the release of 4th edition, we are in a much different economy now.

The fact that the SRD allows people to put out what are essentially D&D clones probably also scares the shit out of them. The typical tactic of 'Resting the Product' makes no fucking sense at all if half a dozen other companies can just churn out legal clones.

Quote from: jeff37923;549700I think they could, but it will be a lot of work to undo. It is also important to realise that the 4vengers and fanatical 4E fans are still in a total panic over 5E coming out. It isn't the time to offer them an olive branch while they are still trying to bite WotC's hand in reaction to the panic.

Let them suffer.

Maybe in five or six years it'll be an appropriate time to quit treating them like second class gamers.  Let's find out then.

Okay, I know, I know.  From a business standpoint that's bad juju.  Just feeling a little Schadenfreude today.

Quote from: jadrax;549703The typical tactic of 'Resting the Product' makes no fucking sense at all if half a dozen other companies can just churn out legal clones.

I hadn't honestly considered that angle, but, to me, that might actually be a good thing. In terms of the overall hobby, I would much rather see some version of D&D in print, even if I can't stand it, as it is one of, if not the, gateway game for the hobby (amazing that this is now debateable).

(I wonder if this thread wouldn't be better served in Pundy's forum, or even Merged with this one. )

Quote from: Sacrosanct;549694I am making so much money on my games that I'm posting this response from my computer at my "real" job.

Y'know, game design is going to be a great 'retirement job' for a lot of gamers.

Provided they can still type and read a monitor.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;549713(I wonder if this thread wouldn't be better served in Pundy's forum, or even Merged with this one. )

Hm nah, I'd leave them separate personally. This thread here for me is really about the "conditions of victory" or lack thereof of 5th ed. If it being "meh" would end up being its undoing in the end.

Quote from: Benoist;549681Could you elaborate? I'm not sure I catch your meaning.

Merely saying that jeff's description was a tad dramatic for pretend elfgames.

Quote from: Dimitrios;549676*Part of it is edition warring, of course, but it's not just that. When Essentials was released I was curious enough to drop by the WotC boards to find out how different it was from vanilla 4e and I was stunned by how much vitriol there was. You'd have thought that the developers had personally come to peoples homes, killed their families and kicked their dogs.

There seems to be a large amount of it surrounding the hobby generally. Maybe thats the constituents or maybe those individuals who accumulate on the internet specifically, but I haven't seen it in real life. Yes I may be no exception but dammit shared narrative is bollocks.

Quote from: The Traveller;549766There seems to be a large amount of it surrounding the hobby generally. Maybe thats the constituents or maybe those individuals who accumulate on the internet specifically, but I haven't seen it in real life. Yes I may be no exception but dammit shared narrative is bollocks.

Fuck yes.