KrakaJak's thread on the consequences to the gaming industry if D&D dies is a question crying out for a poll. So here goes.

And a secondary question - I can't find a decent way to make the poll ask two different questions, so just answer this by replying to the thread: do you think it's even possible for D&D to die?

My answer to the main poll is "It will be incredibly damaging to the industry, and I don't think it will survive", and my answer to the second question is "no".

D&D can't "die" - its not a living organism.

 It might cease publication - but that is extremely unlikely.

 If, for whatever reason, there was a pause in D&D being published  - then gaming industry might have a month or two "stutter" in sales. Sales would pick right up again with the 3 or 4 other publishers who are already doing OGL/D20 compatible supplemts, adventures and games.


 Also - Does HASBRO really want the embarassing headlines and bad press that "killing Dungeons and Dragons would get them?? They have a steady moneymaker IF they know what to do with it. IF they think the current design team is scrwwing up - they could just fire them and recruit other writers in and tell the public : "There will be a few months slowdown oin D&D publishing while we get the new team in place...in the meantime here is a $14.99 version of the basic rules". That at least we keep it going for the short term.



 Why is everyone asking questions like this?

Is a wave of pessimism hitting people at once?


- Ed C.

I think the industry will survive. I'm not sure how really, but it'll be much more than just dented.

I think for D&D to die WoTC has to really do terrible things to it. Or the world has to move on. If it's the latter, then the whole hobby will shrink dramatically as well and the industry may as well not exist. Though someone somewhere will figure out a way to eek out a few bucks from the aging and dying stragglers.

Edit: the chances I give to D&D dying are slim ones.

Quote from: KoltarWhy is everyone asking questions like this?

Is a wave of pessimism hitting people at once?

Personally, I made the poll because I found KrakaJak's question interesting. I'm genuinely interested to find out whether people share his view that, in the grand scheme of things, D&D isn't especially important to the continued survival of the RPG industry.

Part of the reason why I asked the secondary question - is it even possible for D&D to die? - is to see whether people are actually feeling pessimistic about it.

Won't die any time soon- if it did, i think that it kill most of the smaller retailers.

Speaking of all this - my Manager heard some industry gossip related to the very topic.

 In the past 3 or 4 years there was apparenty some book that WotC released that had almost no game content, was supposed to be a D&D hardback, it was mostly setting fiction, the book had very poor sales.

This so ticked off the parent company - HASBRO, that they putright told the WotC folks to NEVER do that again. Something along the lines of they would shut down either WotC or D&D.

 That is a rumor at least - I don't know if its true or not.

Also the rumor is that it was a Forgotten Realms book - I don't know if that part is true or not.

 The "real" fear is that HASBRO stops publishing new D&D stuff and does not let the license go to another publisher....and instead just "sits" on the license.

The scary thing is that has already been happening - just not with RPGs. If I really work at it , I can think of at least  8  to 10 old Avalon Hill or other game titles that HASBRO is just sitting on and has not published a new or current version in more than 3 or 4 years.
 These are mostly Wargames titles of the SPI/old Avalon Hill variety....also a few classic and family games as well.


- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarThe "real" fear is that HASBRO stops publishing new D&D stuff and does not let the license go to another publisher....and instead just "sits" on the license.

I would say this is the only scenario that would effectively kill D&D and I very much doubt that it would happen.  But it is in the realm of possibility.

And I feel like you are missing an option in your poll between 2 and 3, because I think it will be incredibly damaging to the industry but that the industry would survive.

Quote from: KoltarThe "real" fear is that HASBRO stops publishing new D&D stuff and does not let the license go to another publisher....and instead just "sits" on the license.

The scary thing is that has already been happening - just not with RPGs. If I really work at it , I can think of at least  8  to 10 old Avalon Hill or other game titles that HASBRO is just sitting on and has not published a new or current version in more than 3 or 4 years.
 These are mostly Wargames titles of the SPI/old Avalon Hill variety....also a few classic and family games as well.

The questions here are:

- has any game company actually approached Hasbro about licensing those games, as opposed to sitting around waiting for them to put the license up for grabs?

- would Hasbro take the same approach with D&D as it has with these games?

The major reason I can think of for Hasbro to sit on a license is that the licenses would directly compete with current games put out by Hasbro. Old-timers may remember how TSR bought out SPI, got the rights to Dragonquest, fiddled about with it for a while and quietly dropped it - they realised that there was no point in publishing a direct competitor (same type of game, same genre, similar name) with D&D, since the sales of one could only hurt the sales of t'other.

Conversely, there's no compelling reason for Hasbro to sit on D&D. They're not producing any other RPGs, after all. If they give up on D&D, it's because they think RPGs aren't worth the risk, and in that case licensing might make a lot of sense to them - at worst, they end up convincing another company to pay through the nose for the privilege of taking on all the risk, at best they get sweet sweet royalty checks on a product line which would otherwise collect dust. Remember, they did eventually let the Runequest licence go.

Quote from: walkerpI would say this is the only scenario that would effectively kill D&D and I very much doubt that it would happen.  But it is in the realm of possibility.

And I feel like you are missing an option in your poll between 2 and 3, because I think it will be incredibly damaging to the industry but that the industry would survive.

Maybe. I was thinking of the breakdown as being absolutely pessimistic, broadly pessimistic, broadly optimistic, absolutely optimistic and actively praying for the destruction of D&D. If you think that the industry will survive you should probably go for 3.

People still play those Avalon Hill games and hundreds of games like them.

If Hasbro were to shut down D&D, people would still play it. They would still develop material for it, and they would find ways to distribute that material.

There simply be fewer people making a living from it than before. I'm not sure that's bad for the "industry," and I'm sure it would be better for the hobby.
 
In the 20s, everyone had a ukelele. Everyone read music. The music "industry" sold sheet music. The radio proliferated and people heard great new songs and wanted more sheet music, and the industry thrived. Then the phonograph proliferated. People who were not musically gifted could hear music by spending money on records, rather than music, which they couldn't play that well anyway. Now they sell a fraction of the sheet music and ukeleles they used to. But musicians still buy that stuff. The phonograph wrecked any number of ukelele manufacturers, but it didn't kill the music industry.

I'd say that if it's possible for D&D to die, 4e is going to be the biggest test of that, seeing as how it's being designed by much the same sort of people as Melan described in his addition to the Planescape Sucks thread:

Quote9) It mostly seemed to attract people who loved only Planescape, hated A/D&D, and wanted to make the latter conform to the former. The result was just like the sickening back-and-forth we see now about
"I dislike about D&D, and it should conform to my expectations instead."
"But you don't like D&D, look, D&D is the game with levels, classes, hit points and Vancian magic and carnivorous gelatine. You hate all of this stuff. Maybe you should try something else if you plainly dislike it so?"
"No, I like D&D. But isn't it time to ditch archaic stuff like levels, classes, hit points and memorisation? That's just nostalgia and rose coloured glasses. What D&D could use is some good social contract rules, and a stunt/action point system."

The groupmind at ENworld certainly seems to be screeching with delight over it, but as we must ever remind ourselves, internet forums are not real life, nor any meaningful representation of it.  

It remains to be seen how the silent majority of the market will respond to a game that's being designed to cater to a vocal minority, but I can see it going very poorly for them.

If Hasbro dropped D&D its more than likely that they would sit on the licence purely out of fear if nothing else.

Picture the scene; Hasbro exec kills of dnd due to poor sales.  In order to justify killing it off he sells the licence to Pundit.  Pundit relaunches 5th ed dnd and makes a killing.  Now Hasbro exec has to explain why a competitor was allowed to make a killing with what was a Hasbro property.  Loses his job and benefits, his wife kicks him out and he's reduced to begging in the street with a badly written sign that says "will manage corporate division for food".

Or...dnd isn't making them enough money.  So he kills it off.  But he realises that in a few years there'll be some nostalgia attached and they can rerelease it.  This also ties in to his plans to crash all computers and relaunch the fighting fantasy books hes won the rights to in a poker game.

Plus this Pundit guy keeps asking about the licence so it must be worth something right?  Maybe not enough to make it worth Hasbro's while, but what if this Pundit guy knows something they don't...

Quote from: StumpydaveIf Hasbro dropped D&D its more than likely that they would sit on the licence purely out of fear if nothing else.

Picture the scene; Hasbro exec kills of dnd due to poor sales.  In order to justify killing it off he sells the licence to Pundit.  Pundit relaunches 5th ed dnd and makes a killing.  Now Hasbro exec has to explain why a competitor was allowed to make a killing with what was a Hasbro property.  Loses his job and benefits, his wife kicks him out and he's reduced to begging in the street with a badly written sign that says "will manage corporate division for food".

Or...dnd isn't making them enough money.  So he kills it off.  But he realises that in a few years there'll be some nostalgia attached and they can rerelease it.  This also ties in to his plans to crash all computers and relaunch the fighting fantasy books hes won the rights to in a poker game.

Plus this Pundit guy keeps asking about the licence so it must be worth something right?  Maybe not enough to make it worth Hasbro's while, but what if this Pundit guy knows something they don't...

This kind of thing happens in the computer game industry all the gorram time, and is as likely as a sell off, really.

The phenomenon is pretty much the whole reason the abandonware and emulation communities exist.  Eventually enough people got big enough into both that a few companies have started to realize there's money to be made by re-releasing their old games and now for some like Atari and Midway it's one of their biggest sellers, but for a long time it was a big dry spell of company stonewalling, and random lawsuits for daring share a game that no one involved was even making any money off of.

I think that most of the scenarios that would "kill" D&D would kill rest of the industry with it. But I don't think the D&D is in imminent danger for say next decade. Also it would be probably slow death... people will be still playing, the books would be for sell on ebay and so on... that might give industry time to survive the shock...

But if something would kill WotC, deleted all D&D books and kill all players that ever played D&D, I guess there wouldn't be much of the other players or designers left. (Alien invasion scenario. )

A dozen or so OGL games seeking to take D&D's place and ending up balkanising the market. Lower-level stabilisation. Long-term attrition. Hobbyist continue to play for decades, but RPGs become more obscure and eventually so uncommon that organising a group would be too hard for most normal people.