JediOre wrote:It's the business model that WotC uses that keeps me from becoming interested and returning to official D&D. I hate planned obsolescence.
If a game is "all that" than why re-invent the game after three to five years? In twelve years WotC has produced 3.0, 3.5, and 4th editions. Sales were sluggish and therefore a new edition needed to be created. I'm a college bookstore manager and I see this mentality all the time with college textbook publishers. (Does anyone other than the execs at Pearson or McGraw-Hill Publishing REALLY believe a new edition of a basic math text needs to come out every two years????)
I know what you mean. "Brock Biology of Microorganisms" comes out with a new, slightly different, edition every two years like clockwork. Luckily I get a free copy each time so it allows me to give my old edition away to a lucky student in my first lecture.
JediOre wrote:It irked me when TSR came out with 2nd edition back in '89 (I was unaware of the internal nastiness going on then at TSR) since AD&D along with its supplements, Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures, made the game viable for many years to come.
I wish the folks at WotC the best of luck and hope the can bring some customers back to pen-and-paper RPGs, but I will stick with folks like Mr. Goodman and the Troll Lords.
Give me DCC-RPG and Castles & Crusades!
I'm OK with the pacing of new editions by WotC ('cos I only ever played and purchased 1e AD&D). I think 5e has come out much sooner than they would have liked/planned because it was such a flop relatively speaking. Pathfinder's capturing of a significant proportion of the market must have been quite a slap in the face to them, and not just to the bean-counters at Hasbro. Thus, I can see their reasoning for wanting to draw a line under 4e sooner rather than later. I also wish them luck with 5e.
What I also hope they will finally see is that reprinting 1e, 2e, 3e/3.5e is still a viable proposition. They shouldn't think it will detract from the sales of their latest and greatest edition, because it should be the D&D brand, in all its aspects, that has to make the US$100 million p.a. gold standard. I'm encouraged they may have recognized this with the re-issuing of the 1e AD&D books, but I also suspect this is just a market research exercise to gauge how many of the OSR community there really is (and specifically how many of them who are prepared to spend money). That will inform them on how much to pander to that particular sector with 5e. Then again, when Mike Mearls was asked a DDXP if they were going to re-issue 1e modules, he was leading in saying he was not prepared to answer that at the moment. This suggests to me that they might well re-issue them if the 1e rule books sell well (which they certainly will).
One thing's for certain though. WotC will still salami-slice their products to try and make as much money as possible, and it's that business approach that really gets up my nose.
At the end of the day, I wonder if D&D has actually passed its dominance. With people moving to Pathfinder and further, many will now know first hand that they can get just as good (and I would argue much better) roleplaying experiences from other sources. DCC RPG will be one of those.
, I was thinking.
That's exactly why I didn't take the risk with Pathfinder.