You bringing up something outside of my point repeatedly and saying that I didn't address it because I don't know about it doesn't change the fact that I didn't address it because it wasn't part of the point I was making. (By the way, that's a nifty combination of ad hominem and straw man you've got going there.)
Also, they weren't so much "forced out of their niche by poor planning on the part of others" as they were "forced out of their niche because they were mediocre at their job on a good day and coasted on a brand name borrowed from someone else for so long that they didn't care to learn to do better."
If Dungeon and Dragon had been quality publications brimming with content that was irreplaceable, then they wouldn't have been replaced.
Instead, when they found themselves displaced by their own poor planning, poor judgement, and poor skills, they took the role of the victim and spread the myth of their David and Goliath story. Effective marketing and revisionist history doesn't make their product any better.
See this is what I mean when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Dungeon and Dragon weren't replaced, they ceased publication because they became DDI. Wizards was trying to leverage a version of D&D that would create monthly subscription revenue and moving the magazines to a digital format was that segue. You are literally the first person to complain about the quality of the Paizo run to me. Before they came on board the magazines were absolutely pathetic. They greatly improved the quality and developed a number of things that are considered standard, which such an astute student of game design such as yourself, should be very aware of.
More over that change was not what I was referring to forcing Paizo. Again, I assumed you were aware of the details with you studied background in RPGs, but allow me to inform you the transition of the Dungeon/Dragon publishing license away from Paizo was fairly amicable and had been planned out in such a way to give Paizo time to transition to a monthly adventure publishing schedule. This was actually the first Pathfinder named product. This was something that was discussed half a year ahead of time as I recall talking with people about it at 2006's Winter Fantasy
And actually some of their Adventure Paths are truly awesome and all their products are high quality. So saying they don't produce good products is also just more sour grapes.
I'd say their adventure paths are passable. Perhaps I'm spoiled by years of good GMs, but I have a hard time considering them to be truly good. They're nice enough to make a decent break from writing your own material on occasion, but I wouldn't run them exclusively.
If you would, and you like them, then more power to you, but I feel that the stories are nothing ground breaking or moving, things like the Kingmaker sim-city are interesting concepts but poorly implemented. As usual, it suffers from poor rules design. Poor rules design is just about a hallmark of Paizo, and as rules are one of their products, I'm astounded at how you could refer to them as "high quality." In addition, most of their Paths suffer under their "we wrote such a great setting!" wankery. There are no options to genuinely effect the world, and as written it's literally impossible to effect any real change--the folks in charge are gods, and unchallengable by any rules Paizo has yet to publish. (See pre 4e Forgotten Realms for more of the 'you're the hero... except you're not' sort of storytelling.)
Their minis (licensed to other companies) are nice, but again, made by other people.
Their art is usually great, but while art may make me pick up a book, rules and stories make me buy it. I suppose it's valid to consider the art part of the end product, but like a flashy body kit on a 77 Pinto, it's window dressing on a monstrously flawed core.
Does anyone have figures or estimates on how much WotC makes from D&D licensing for the slot machine games? Seems like slot machine licensing could be... lucrative.
The machines themselves can be expensive--especially with something interesting licensed for them, but I'm uncertain how much the D&D market overlaps with compulsive gamblers, or how much that overlap would be recognized. Considering the high cost of the hardware itself, I wouldn't think the royalties would be all that much, it's not like they're earning a revolving return from the machines themselves.
Even if they were, slot machines are regulated and have to pay back a (relatively) large percentage of their intake back out again. 80% is the minimum in a lot of places, (I think Nevada is lower) but many casinos go higher than that voluntarily--slot machines are a 'gateway,' require relatively little maintenance to maintain (security and manning is low compared to paying a dealer 'round the clock, plus added security and surveillance) and if you've ever been near a casino town you've probably seen places advertising "LOOSEST SLOTS IN TOWN!" It's a draw.
The high payout percentage still works in their favor as that's mostly in jackpots, allowing them to hold and reinvest the money until it's won, but the real money isn't in the slots.
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
I see my use of pronouns was unclear to you. I figured it would be evident that the word "they" referenced the folks at Paizo, since Dungeon and Dragon had not been replaced.
But instead of taking "they" to mean Paizo, which was not only in keeping with the rest of the selection you quoted from but also the only rational and factual choice, you decided that it must be a reference to the magazines which were not replaced because... (I assume) you desperately need me to be ignorant and wrong.
My apologies for not making my subject more clear, I did genuinely believe that you would be capable of understanding it.
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
It must have been the way that Paizo didn't appear anywhere in that paragraph or even that post that threw me.
You have firmly established that you didn't get the point though. No amount of quality would have kept Dungeon or Dragon in print with the strategic business decisions of Wizards/Hasbro at the time. As Paizo was brought in as an outside contractor for periodical publications the transition to digital also ended that business relationship with no regard for the quality of the product they were currently producing.
Your statement is still incorrect and you still don't understand that.
I apologize sir. I was not aware that you possessed the ability to see the world as it would have been had Paizo not been incapable of producing quality content. Surely I am wrong, and had Paizo been creating amazing mechanics and adventures on a regular basis they still would have been given the sack.
Also, this still has nothing to do with the fact that your whole emphatic white-knighting is apropos of nothing I actually said in the original post to which you responded.
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
So, based on my perusal of this thread, I think I have an Idea of what is going wrong with 5th: The developers don't know what they're doing.
Now, I know that sounds glib, but the problem seems to be that the reasoning behind a move to 5th is more based on economic factors then out of a sense of vision as evidenced by the fact that the game has been in open play test for the past 6 months and the developers are asking incessantly "are we doing this right? Is this what you want?"
These are not things the developers should be asking, at least not at this stage of system development. It should be "This is how we are rolling out the system. It will include The class system from #edition, Racial backgrounds based on what we learned form # and * editions and the lore that was established in % edition because that is when the setting was truly established and we want to put that forefront. Questions?"
The high payout percentage still works in their favor as that's mostly in jackpots, allowing them to hold and reinvest the money until it's won, but the real money isn't in the slots.
I'm not really an expert but I have a vague notion from reading up on casinos years ago that the money is actually in the slots. Their payout is often high but the volume is also high because of the number of slot machines and the speed of play when compared to table games.
Also, a lot of the table games also have a high payout, certainly above 80%, craps and blackjack (even without card counting) for a couple. Really the margins at a casino aren't that high, it's the volume that builds all of those palaces.
As for Pazio, maybe we should just drop it as being off topic. This thread is just more fun when it's everyone bagging on D&D #5.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Hrm. Hadn't considered the volume portion. Then again my only real exposure to casinos was when I (exceptionally briefly) dated a casino owner's niece.
As for Paizo, it is marginally off topic.
A lot of WotC's recent moves seem to strongly indicate they spend a lot of time asking WWPD? I think it's almost certainly the wrong question to be asking.
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
I apologize sir. I was not aware that you possessed the ability to see the world as it would have been had Paizo not been incapable of producing quality content. Surely I am wrong, and had Paizo been creating amazing mechanics and adventures on a regular basis they still would have been given the sack.
This and this are clearly a vicious sacking and a virulent declaration of war respectively.
Also, this still has nothing to do with the fact that your whole emphatic white-knighting is apropos of nothing I actually said in the original post to which you responded.
....you don't even read your own posts do you?
This whole tangent started with you posting a numbered list indicating the history of Paizo and you omitted the entire creation of the company (from the existing Wizards magazine staff mostly) and the preexisting relationship with the fan base that actually enabled the successful third party thing. There is some subtlety and nuance to the whole thing that is very relevant to the situation that 5th edition finds itself in.
It's clear you have a very special view of just how Pathfinder got started more based on your current opinion of them than anything else. You're free to have that but for those reading the thread more interested in history than axe grinding I'm providing some context.
Okay, just a little more on the numbers in the slots industry, and how they might impact the D&D brand and strategizing.
IGT, the company that makes the D&D slots games, had about $280MM in profit in 2011, and Hasbro's profit for 2011 was $385MM.
Both of those numbers dwarf even M:tG's revenue for 2011, which Hasbro's annual report puts at around $100MM. Assuming general retail margins, Magic probably made about $8MM in profit for the year. If Magic made that much, how much did D&D as a whole make? Maybe a couple of million, bottom line?
I don't know how successful the D&D slots games are, but it seems instructive that they made two of them. A company that makes slot machines is probably not going to do a sequel unless they like how the first one performed.
Plus, any licensing money is essentially pure profit for Hasbro. The money from deals like that could be a huge boost to D&D's profitability.
So maybe 5e is just an effort to keep the brand "fresh", so they can ask for more in licensing negotiations. Quality being less important than getting something new on the shelves every quarter.
I was talking about Pathfinder as a development/publishing model.
One product. One Specific product. One single, specific product and how that singular thing is developed and marketed and published. You'll notice that I am repeating myself. (again) For your benefit.
I've mentioned this twice now.
Put away your scarecrows, or go play with your straw dollies elsewhere.
EDIT: Also your first example is what happens when you don't meet quality standards in publishing and the company you've been contracting for thinks it can do better with a room full of in-house guys rather than:
+ Keeping you on and renegotiating.
+ Purchasing you outright, which they more than have the capital to do.
+ Headhunting your best contributors by offering them wages better tha what you can... which, once again, they can.
+ Any other thing other than saying 'monkeys at a typewriter probably would do worse than this, but... monkey unemployment is on the rise and we are concerned.'
Your second example is... Paizo. Doing exactly what Paizo does. You can call is dissembling, or not letting good PR get in the way of the truth, or whatever you wish.
You're welcome to persist in thinking I have an axe to grind, the truth is I'm just certain that they're a company of awful people who have done the worst thing potential artists can do: they bought into their own hype. You're free to continue your fanboygasms and let us know how the mean coastal wizards touched them in their nono spot. (and probably you by extension) I won't claim WotC was blameless or handled the situation well, but I will say that there were a lot of angry former fanboys who felt betrayed and needed a New Elitism to latch onto, and a new banner to rally under, and Paizo knowingly and willingly took advantage of that.
Leper on
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
Okay, just a little more on the numbers in the slots industry, and how they might impact the D&D brand and strategizing.
IGT, the company that makes the D&D slots games, had about $280MM in profit in 2011, and Hasbro's profit for 2011 was $385MM.
Both of those numbers dwarf even M:tG's revenue for 2011, which Hasbro's annual report puts at around $100MM. Assuming general retail margins, Magic probably made about $8MM in profit for the year. If Magic made that much, how much did D&D as a whole make? Maybe a couple of million, bottom line?
I don't know how successful the D&D slots games are, but it seems instructive that they made two of them. A company that makes slot machines is probably not going to do a sequel unless they like how the first one performed.
Plus, any licensing money is essentially pure profit for Hasbro. The money from deals like that could be a huge boost to D&D's profitability.
So maybe 5e is just an effort to keep the brand "fresh", so they can ask for more in licensing negotiations. Quality being less important than getting something new on the shelves every quarter.
Dancey's article has some interesting numbers for you:
It's [D&D] really a $25-30 million business, especially since Wizards isn't given credit for the licensing revenue of the D&D computer games.
So I think your whole tangent might be moot. Really depends on how the slots are categorized. Right now is a bad time to measure by profit. This past year I doubt D&D will be in the black at all and that will continue for this next year as well. We've seen practically zero new products so we couldn't spend money on it even if we wanted to. I suppose DDI is bringing in some revenue but aside from that....
Now one thing I have to give Hasbro credit for is being willing to do that. I don't like the direction they're trying to go but that Hasbro corporate is giving them the opportunity is a non-evil corporate overlord move.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
The thing about the 50 mil mark is that WotC's products do not have associated toys. Which, honestly, is probably an oversight on Hasbro's part. D&D has enough name recognition that you could easily get a show and a toy line out of it, but instead of going down this really damned obvious route you instead have them constantly trying to push different tabletop games and miniatures at people to see what sticks.
I really don't know if Hasbro treats D&D and M:tG as separate core brands. Honestly, I'd think they would treat WotC as a whole as a core brand, and work out from there. And honestly, their profile has been shrinking. They lost the Star Wars license a couple years ago. Battleship Galaxies, while branded Hasbro, sold very poorly. 5th is still realistically 6 months away, if not a year (and is going to continue to build up bad blood). Brick and Mortar bookstores are closing (not FLGSs), and they won't sell PDFs.
That's a really, REALLY stacked deck to make 50 mil from.
AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
ooooh, my bad
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Yeah. Hasbro has the toy license, as they have since Hasbro bought Kenner. However, that's just for toys - WotC had the Star Wars license for most of the 2000's, then it either lapsed or wasn't renewed or something 2 years ago.
I doubt Hasbro will lose the Star Wars toy license. Ignoring any rumors about Disney buying out Hasbro, Disney already lets Hasbro make Marvel things due to pre-existing contracts.
I haven't really been keeping up with DDN, but I'm checking out an article on the official website where the art director is talking about the way kobolds have looked in various editions of the game and coming up with ideas for a new design. I found it interesting that WotC would take fan input on new monster designs, but then I saw this:
Now, let me say this before I proceed. I have not seen the final write-up on what the kobold will look like in the next iteration of the game at this point. I know that R&D will have the details fleshed out before we head into the next concept push, so take everything mentioned from this point on as my personal preference.
The art director is saying that someone else is coming up with the new look of kobolds and that, essentially, the ideas he's stating in this article and the feedback the article gets will have no impact on what the kobold actually looks like in DDN.
Gotta hit that content provided numbers or we'll be back to issuing refunds for sucking like they did August of 2011 was it? I know they failed to meet some promised article quota and so gave a refund.
"If you choose a thematic option that the rules make suck because you like the theme, then obviously you said 'I really want my character to suck, that's okay, and I deserve to have a shitty time.'"
If my role play is hindered by rolling to play, then I'd prefer the rolls play right, instead of steam-rolling play-night.
The argument that followed was a ton of fun. /sarcasm
Meanwhile, in another thread three people basically assert that it's impossible to fluff D&D as starting as a demigod at level 1 and growing in power from there because "level 1 means weak and the rules are the world".
I suspect that playing a lot of Exalted damages people's ability to separate rules and setting.
1. Create a version of D&D that embraces the enduring, core elements of the game.
2. Create a set of rules that allows a smooth transition from a simple game to a complex one.
At first blush, these seem like perfectly fine goals. Make a new version that's true to the brand and appeals to a wide market. Cool. But then Mearls starts talking about these things and it sort of breaks down.
His primary points are that D&D has changed a lot over the years, that people who stopped playing a while ago will be confused and frightened by this new creature known as D&D, and that D&D Next should fix all that by being good at everything that every edition was good at while using rules and language that everyone from every edition and also from the future who haven't played an edition yet will recognize and understand.
How will Next accomplish this? Well, first he points out that a lot of people bought the D&D starter sets, then never bought anything else. His answer to this problem is to release a single, stand-alone Dungeons & Dragons product that people can buy once and never have to buy anything else ever again. He points to the past success of selling adventures as one reason why this will work. The other reason is that there will be other products for you to buy if you feel like it.
These products are going to be the fabled modules, but not the adventure kind. These are the rules modules, that somehow add complexity and new options without changing the rules, because the core is going to be unchanged. This lush, robust core is going to be so amazing that no matter how you change the game it's still the same game.
And that's why everyone will want to buy and play 5E:
-It's going to be the best at everything right out of the box.
-You'll buy lots of products because you only have to buy one product.
-You can change the game without changing the game.
Personally I can't wait. I'm going to buy 5E and bring it to my friends, and I'm going to say "Let's play D&D!" and they're going to say "Which edition?" and I'm going to say "Read the rules! Which edition do you see?" and they're going to say "Huh?" and then we'll play Fate Core.
The further into development 5e gets and the more I read from Mearls the more convinced I am that his internal monologue while writing L&L sounds something like "oh god oh god I am definitely going to lose my job oh god oh god"
It just reads so much like someone trying to spin bad news to his boss
If their problem - indeed, if 4th Ed had to be scrapped and a new edition had to be introduced - is that people buy a couple of rulebooks and then don't buy any more products, how, exactly, will putting out one product that people can buy to get Everything They Ever Need(tm) solve that problem?
Unless that one core rulebook will need a credit card swipe before it lets you turn a page. That's fine, then.
Dancey would have explained that fuck yes they want to sell things to us to get our money while making it sound perfectly reasonable. As a business, it is what they do.
Mearls just tried to convince me that they don't really wanna sell nuthing to us if we don't wanna buy it, but if golly gee you wanted to buy something we'll have lots for you to buy....
The funny thing is 3, 3.5, 4, and Essentials (I guess, I was out by then and missed it completely) were all good enough products that most of the people I know who played them never bothered with a single splat book.
Hell you barely even need more than the Players and MM for both 3rd games and you really don't need the MM for 4th, though I remember the DMG being more useful in that gen.
1. Create a version of D&D that embraces the enduring, core elements of the game.
2. Create a set of rules that allows a smooth transition from a simple game to a complex one.
At first blush, these seem like perfectly fine goals. Make a new version that's true to the brand and appeals to a wide market. Cool. But then Mearls starts talking about these things and it sort of breaks down.
His primary points are that D&D has changed a lot over the years, that people who stopped playing a while ago will be confused and frightened by this new creature known as D&D, and that D&D Next should fix all that by being good at everything that every edition was good at while using rules and language that everyone from every edition and also from the future who haven't played an edition yet will recognize and understand.
How will Next accomplish this? Well, first he points out that a lot of people bought the D&D starter sets, then never bought anything else. His answer to this problem is to release a single, stand-alone Dungeons & Dragons product that people can buy once and never have to buy anything else ever again. He points to the past success of selling adventures as one reason why this will work. The other reason is that there will be other products for you to buy if you feel like it.
These products are going to be the fabled modules, but not the adventure kind. These are the rules modules, that somehow add complexity and new options without changing the rules, because the core is going to be unchanged. This lush, robust core is going to be so amazing that no matter how you change the game it's still the same game.
And that's why everyone will want to buy and play 5E:
-It's going to be the best at everything right out of the box.
-You'll buy lots of products because you only have to buy one product.
-You can change the game without changing the game.
Personally I can't wait. I'm going to buy 5E and bring it to my friends, and I'm going to say "Let's play D&D!" and they're going to say "Which edition?" and I'm going to say "Read the rules! Which edition do you see?" and they're going to say "Huh?" and then we'll play Fate Core.
Someone should explain to Mearls that GURPS exists and is not particularly relevant anymore for a very good reason
I have two of the books, they have the "light" rules in them. They make my eyes roll up in my head every time I try and look at them. I just read those books for the Discworld fluff.
Star Wars 2ed, aka the d6 system, is still the best kitchen sink system I've ever seen. Great for anything light on magic, and if you put the time in you can even make it good for settings with magic in them.
This 5th edition talk sounds like they're trying to make a storytellers/D&D nostalgia version of 4th edition but are failing critically. Instead of D&D Next it should be called Ghost of D&D past.
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See this is what I mean when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Dungeon and Dragon weren't replaced, they ceased publication because they became DDI. Wizards was trying to leverage a version of D&D that would create monthly subscription revenue and moving the magazines to a digital format was that segue. You are literally the first person to complain about the quality of the Paizo run to me. Before they came on board the magazines were absolutely pathetic. They greatly improved the quality and developed a number of things that are considered standard, which such an astute student of game design such as yourself, should be very aware of.
More over that change was not what I was referring to forcing Paizo. Again, I assumed you were aware of the details with you studied background in RPGs, but allow me to inform you the transition of the Dungeon/Dragon publishing license away from Paizo was fairly amicable and had been planned out in such a way to give Paizo time to transition to a monthly adventure publishing schedule. This was actually the first Pathfinder named product. This was something that was discussed half a year ahead of time as I recall talking with people about it at 2006's Winter Fantasy
If you would, and you like them, then more power to you, but I feel that the stories are nothing ground breaking or moving, things like the Kingmaker sim-city are interesting concepts but poorly implemented. As usual, it suffers from poor rules design. Poor rules design is just about a hallmark of Paizo, and as rules are one of their products, I'm astounded at how you could refer to them as "high quality." In addition, most of their Paths suffer under their "we wrote such a great setting!" wankery. There are no options to genuinely effect the world, and as written it's literally impossible to effect any real change--the folks in charge are gods, and unchallengable by any rules Paizo has yet to publish. (See pre 4e Forgotten Realms for more of the 'you're the hero... except you're not' sort of storytelling.)
Their minis (licensed to other companies) are nice, but again, made by other people.
Their art is usually great, but while art may make me pick up a book, rules and stories make me buy it. I suppose it's valid to consider the art part of the end product, but like a flashy body kit on a 77 Pinto, it's window dressing on a monstrously flawed core.
More straw manning. I didn't say the magazines were replaced, I said Paizo was replaced.
If you'd like to address what was actually said, I'll be happy to respond.
The machines themselves can be expensive--especially with something interesting licensed for them, but I'm uncertain how much the D&D market overlaps with compulsive gamblers, or how much that overlap would be recognized. Considering the high cost of the hardware itself, I wouldn't think the royalties would be all that much, it's not like they're earning a revolving return from the machines themselves.
Even if they were, slot machines are regulated and have to pay back a (relatively) large percentage of their intake back out again. 80% is the minimum in a lot of places, (I think Nevada is lower) but many casinos go higher than that voluntarily--slot machines are a 'gateway,' require relatively little maintenance to maintain (security and manning is low compared to paying a dealer 'round the clock, plus added security and surveillance) and if you've ever been near a casino town you've probably seen places advertising "LOOSEST SLOTS IN TOWN!" It's a draw.
The high payout percentage still works in their favor as that's mostly in jackpots, allowing them to hold and reinvest the money until it's won, but the real money isn't in the slots.
But instead of taking "they" to mean Paizo, which was not only in keeping with the rest of the selection you quoted from but also the only rational and factual choice, you decided that it must be a reference to the magazines which were not replaced because... (I assume) you desperately need me to be ignorant and wrong.
My apologies for not making my subject more clear, I did genuinely believe that you would be capable of understanding it.
You have firmly established that you didn't get the point though. No amount of quality would have kept Dungeon or Dragon in print with the strategic business decisions of Wizards/Hasbro at the time. As Paizo was brought in as an outside contractor for periodical publications the transition to digital also ended that business relationship with no regard for the quality of the product they were currently producing.
Your statement is still incorrect and you still don't understand that.
Also, this still has nothing to do with the fact that your whole emphatic white-knighting is apropos of nothing I actually said in the original post to which you responded.
Now, I know that sounds glib, but the problem seems to be that the reasoning behind a move to 5th is more based on economic factors then out of a sense of vision as evidenced by the fact that the game has been in open play test for the past 6 months and the developers are asking incessantly "are we doing this right? Is this what you want?"
These are not things the developers should be asking, at least not at this stage of system development. It should be "This is how we are rolling out the system. It will include The class system from #edition, Racial backgrounds based on what we learned form # and * editions and the lore that was established in % edition because that is when the setting was truly established and we want to put that forefront. Questions?"
I'm not really an expert but I have a vague notion from reading up on casinos years ago that the money is actually in the slots. Their payout is often high but the volume is also high because of the number of slot machines and the speed of play when compared to table games.
Also, a lot of the table games also have a high payout, certainly above 80%, craps and blackjack (even without card counting) for a couple. Really the margins at a casino aren't that high, it's the volume that builds all of those palaces.
As for Pazio, maybe we should just drop it as being off topic. This thread is just more fun when it's everyone bagging on D&D #5.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
As for Paizo, it is marginally off topic.
A lot of WotC's recent moves seem to strongly indicate they spend a lot of time asking WWPD? I think it's almost certainly the wrong question to be asking.
This and this are clearly a vicious sacking and a virulent declaration of war respectively.
....you don't even read your own posts do you?
This whole tangent started with you posting a numbered list indicating the history of Paizo and you omitted the entire creation of the company (from the existing Wizards magazine staff mostly) and the preexisting relationship with the fan base that actually enabled the successful third party thing. There is some subtlety and nuance to the whole thing that is very relevant to the situation that 5th edition finds itself in.
It's clear you have a very special view of just how Pathfinder got started more based on your current opinion of them than anything else. You're free to have that but for those reading the thread more interested in history than axe grinding I'm providing some context.
IGT, the company that makes the D&D slots games, had about $280MM in profit in 2011, and Hasbro's profit for 2011 was $385MM.
Both of those numbers dwarf even M:tG's revenue for 2011, which Hasbro's annual report puts at around $100MM. Assuming general retail margins, Magic probably made about $8MM in profit for the year. If Magic made that much, how much did D&D as a whole make? Maybe a couple of million, bottom line?
I don't know how successful the D&D slots games are, but it seems instructive that they made two of them. A company that makes slot machines is probably not going to do a sequel unless they like how the first one performed.
Plus, any licensing money is essentially pure profit for Hasbro. The money from deals like that could be a huge boost to D&D's profitability.
So maybe 5e is just an effort to keep the brand "fresh", so they can ask for more in licensing negotiations. Quality being less important than getting something new on the shelves every quarter.
I was talking about Pathfinder as a development/publishing model.
One product. One Specific product. One single, specific product and how that singular thing is developed and marketed and published. You'll notice that I am repeating myself. (again) For your benefit.
I've mentioned this twice now.
Put away your scarecrows, or go play with your straw dollies elsewhere.
EDIT: Also your first example is what happens when you don't meet quality standards in publishing and the company you've been contracting for thinks it can do better with a room full of in-house guys rather than:
+ Keeping you on and renegotiating.
+ Purchasing you outright, which they more than have the capital to do.
+ Headhunting your best contributors by offering them wages better tha what you can... which, once again, they can.
+ Any other thing other than saying 'monkeys at a typewriter probably would do worse than this, but... monkey unemployment is on the rise and we are concerned.'
Your second example is... Paizo. Doing exactly what Paizo does. You can call is dissembling, or not letting good PR get in the way of the truth, or whatever you wish.
You're welcome to persist in thinking I have an axe to grind, the truth is I'm just certain that they're a company of awful people who have done the worst thing potential artists can do: they bought into their own hype. You're free to continue your fanboygasms and let us know how the mean coastal wizards touched them in their nono spot. (and probably you by extension) I won't claim WotC was blameless or handled the situation well, but I will say that there were a lot of angry former fanboys who felt betrayed and needed a New Elitism to latch onto, and a new banner to rally under, and Paizo knowingly and willingly took advantage of that.
Dancey's article has some interesting numbers for you:
So I think your whole tangent might be moot. Really depends on how the slots are categorized. Right now is a bad time to measure by profit. This past year I doubt D&D will be in the black at all and that will continue for this next year as well. We've seen practically zero new products so we couldn't spend money on it even if we wanted to. I suppose DDI is bringing in some revenue but aside from that....
Now one thing I have to give Hasbro credit for is being willing to do that. I don't like the direction they're trying to go but that Hasbro corporate is giving them the opportunity is a non-evil corporate overlord move.
Now we're just quoting completely irrelevant parts of each others posts.. As no communication is happening I'm out. Happy New Year.
I really don't know if Hasbro treats D&D and M:tG as separate core brands. Honestly, I'd think they would treat WotC as a whole as a core brand, and work out from there. And honestly, their profile has been shrinking. They lost the Star Wars license a couple years ago. Battleship Galaxies, while branded Hasbro, sold very poorly. 5th is still realistically 6 months away, if not a year (and is going to continue to build up bad blood). Brick and Mortar bookstores are closing (not FLGSs), and they won't sell PDFs.
That's a really, REALLY stacked deck to make 50 mil from.
as for D&D vs M:tG, from Mark Rosewater (lead designer of M:tG)'s tumblr
No idea if either of these is exclusive.
I doubt Hasbro will lose the Star Wars toy license. Ignoring any rumors about Disney buying out Hasbro, Disney already lets Hasbro make Marvel things due to pre-existing contracts.
The art director is saying that someone else is coming up with the new look of kobolds and that, essentially, the ideas he's stating in this article and the feedback the article gets will have no impact on what the kobold actually looks like in DDN.
What's the point of this article, then?
Gotta hit that content provided numbers or we'll be back to issuing refunds for sucking like they did August of 2011 was it? I know they failed to meet some promised article quota and so gave a refund.
"If you choose a thematic option that the rules make suck because you like the theme, then obviously you said 'I really want my character to suck, that's okay, and I deserve to have a shitty time.'"
Meanwhile, in another thread three people basically assert that it's impossible to fluff D&D as starting as a demigod at level 1 and growing in power from there because "level 1 means weak and the rules are the world".
I suspect that playing a lot of Exalted damages people's ability to separate rules and setting.
It's about the core goals of 5E, which are:
At first blush, these seem like perfectly fine goals. Make a new version that's true to the brand and appeals to a wide market. Cool. But then Mearls starts talking about these things and it sort of breaks down.
His primary points are that D&D has changed a lot over the years, that people who stopped playing a while ago will be confused and frightened by this new creature known as D&D, and that D&D Next should fix all that by being good at everything that every edition was good at while using rules and language that everyone from every edition and also from the future who haven't played an edition yet will recognize and understand.
How will Next accomplish this? Well, first he points out that a lot of people bought the D&D starter sets, then never bought anything else. His answer to this problem is to release a single, stand-alone Dungeons & Dragons product that people can buy once and never have to buy anything else ever again. He points to the past success of selling adventures as one reason why this will work. The other reason is that there will be other products for you to buy if you feel like it.
These products are going to be the fabled modules, but not the adventure kind. These are the rules modules, that somehow add complexity and new options without changing the rules, because the core is going to be unchanged. This lush, robust core is going to be so amazing that no matter how you change the game it's still the same game.
And that's why everyone will want to buy and play 5E:
-It's going to be the best at everything right out of the box.
-You'll buy lots of products because you only have to buy one product.
-You can change the game without changing the game.
Personally I can't wait. I'm going to buy 5E and bring it to my friends, and I'm going to say "Let's play D&D!" and they're going to say "Which edition?" and I'm going to say "Read the rules! Which edition do you see?" and they're going to say "Huh?" and then we'll play Fate Core.
It just reads so much like someone trying to spin bad news to his boss
Unless that one core rulebook will need a credit card swipe before it lets you turn a page. That's fine, then.
Dancey would have explained that fuck yes they want to sell things to us to get our money while making it sound perfectly reasonable. As a business, it is what they do.
Mearls just tried to convince me that they don't really wanna sell nuthing to us if we don't wanna buy it, but if golly gee you wanted to buy something we'll have lots for you to buy....
Hell you barely even need more than the Players and MM for both 3rd games and you really don't need the MM for 4th, though I remember the DMG being more useful in that gen.
Someone should explain to Mearls that GURPS exists and is not particularly relevant anymore for a very good reason
I have two of the books, they have the "light" rules in them. They make my eyes roll up in my head every time I try and look at them. I just read those books for the Discworld fluff.
This 5th edition talk sounds like they're trying to make a storytellers/D&D nostalgia version of 4th edition but are failing critically. Instead of D&D Next it should be called Ghost of D&D past.
The designers actively embrace balancing the game rules and doing the math.
That's apparently garlic and crosses to the Mearlsian vampire of D&D Next.