Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

[Shrapnel]

We all laugh at Michael Bay; mostly because his movies have shitty plots, worse acting, and substitute explosions for character growth.

But the man is a visionary genius in the fields that do interest him ... you watch Bay for the sweeping, panning, rotating shots.

Too bad that doesn't constitute a movie.

[nockermensch]

We all laugh at Michael Bay; mostly because his movies have shitty plots, worse acting, and substitute explosions for character growth.

But the man is a visionary genius in the fields that do interest him ... you watch Bay for the sweeping, panning, rotating shots.

Too bad that doesn't constitute a movie.

Too bad that the general public doesn't realize this and spends literally billions of dollars watching not-movies every year.

[Stubbazubba]

If they were to make a D&D movie/series in the vein of LotR or GoT with the intent of making tons of money on serials, their options of settings and characters are pretty limited. It would pretty much have to be Drizzt. A movie needs a story brand, and that's their golden goose from the underdark right there. Anyone else would get you blank stares.

I contend that D&D doesn't have great stories to translate into movies and as such it's movie brand power is pretty shitty.

Remember how in 2006 the most well-known Marvel super heroes were Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Rocket Raccoon? Oh, wait, only nerds knew anything about Iron Man and virtually no one had ever heard of Rocket Raccoon. But now Iron Man is on as many if not more T-shirts than Spider-Man, and "I am Groot" is a better-known catchphrase than "Avengers, assemble!" It doesn't take an established brand to establish a brand. It's harder, but if you put the right people to work on it, it's perfectly doable, and has been done many times. My Little Pony was a decades-old toy line that no one thought or cared much about until the right people made something of it.

That being said, I agree that Hasbro is unlikely to put the right people in charge. Mostly because they're looking to farm it out to a big movie studio, and the studio system consistently produces mediocre results.

They could give D&D to the folks behind MLP:FiM, or equivalent talents. They could make a fun cartoon about murder hobos defending the realm against the threat of the week and slowly rising in power. It's not a money shitting factory on its own

Why wouldn't it be? I mean, if it's good, and picked up by Cartoon Network or something, I don't see why it couldn't be a major success. And then add all the merchandising and video game tie-ins.

Give D&D to people not in the WotC culture, don't even make an RPG with it for another few years (again). Make your cartoon and toy line and eventually when ready to aim for a new RPG edition, hire game designers behind their board games or from somewhere else distant in the company and certainly from outside of Seattle.

This I would want very much to see.

[angelfromanotherpin]

There already is a D&D cartoon (well, AD&D). It's Adventure Time. That show is so 1e it makes my teeth hurt.

[Leress]

If one wants a good Dnd cartoon you get Genndy Tartakovsky.

[rasmuswagner]

We all laugh at Michael Bay; mostly because his movies have shitty plots, worse acting, and substitute explosions for character growth.

But the man is a visionary genius in the fields that do interest him ... you watch Bay for the sweeping, panning, rotating shots.

Too bad that doesn't constitute a movie.

Too bad that the general public doesn't realize this and spends literally billions of dollars watching not-movies every year.

Indeed. Some of them may even harbor the delusion that the experience is enjoyable. How dare they. The swine!

[Fwib]

Can 'D&D Movies' be forked off into its own thread? I think there's definite merit in the discussion. 'Eberron the Movie' concepts sound good (optimism optimism)

[Dogbert]

Unless I'm delusional, I'm sure last week someone posted a 2-column report on 5E's decaying popularity on a post, but I can't find the post nor said post's source. Can anyone help me on this one?

[erik]

Mine maybe? You probably had a hard time refinding it since it is spoilered.

[virgil]

I've got some current sales data for this and last month.

If you look at the PHB's sales from last year on that site, it looks like it sold roughly 8k books on Amazon over a five month span in the States. And ~33k all total (Germany really seemed to like it) since its release.

[Kaelik]

Cough Bloodbourne cough Order 1886.

I hope this is a joking reference to silva not knowing what the fuck steampunk is.

I really wish it was, but since maglag reminds me a lot more of silva than of say, you, I'm guessing this is totally fucking serious.

[Dogbert]

It was Erik's actually, but thank you both!

[Shady314]

You put a dude with a sword and a lightning-gun in the front and a chick in corset and brass aviator goggles in the back and a zeppelin above them. Boom, instant cash cow.

Really? "Steampunk" doesn't look like something that is really selling right now.

That was a terrible fucking idea anyways because that isn't Eberron. Eberron isn't steampunk. It has the -punk but no steam elements. Aside from an artist enjoying goggles but that alone doesn't make a setting steampunk. Corsets, guns, fucking Zepellins? Maybe Eberron changed in 4e? I only played it in 3.5. And you're right steampunk isn't hot right now. Superheroes are and Eberron has many pulp qualities that lend itself well to that kind of high octane heroics.

Anyways Eberron would be terribly expensive. They wouldn't use it. We all know it'd be FR. That was the cash cow and it's completely generic insipid medieval fantasy kitchen sink. Easy as hell to make.

If it was a cartoon then maybe.

[Leress]

Judging by the video games settings used I would agree that Forgotten Realms would be the most likely one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Du ... ideo_games

According to this list Forgotten Realms is the most used setting. Eberron only had 2 games. Dragonshard (aka Not War Craft 3) and the Stormreach (aka not World of Warcraft) and even that one had a Forgotten Realm location in it.

That was a terrible fucking idea anyways because that isn't Eberron. Eberron isn't steampunk. It has the -punk but no steam elements. Aside from an artist enjoying goggles but that alone doesn't make a setting steampunk. Corsets, guns, fucking Zepellins? Maybe Eberron changed in 4e? I only played it in 3.5. And you're right steampunk isn't hot right now. Superheroes are and Eberron has many pulp qualities that lend itself well to that kind of high octane heroics.

I like to call it Magitek. 3.5 Eberron had airships, people made pseudo guns with wands (look up Megaman build).

[Stubbazubba]

Steampunk hasn't done well because it's just a wrapping, it's just a look. You need some actually good content, some good substance, to go along with it, in order for it to catch. The steampunk faire we've had so far is just overwhelmingly mediocre. An Eberron movie could do fine if it was done well. Yeah, it's not steampunk, but it draws on some of the same motifs, with steam replaced by magic/elementals. To my knowledge it's not really punk, either, but that's more a question of tone than of aesthetic.

That being said they absolutely won't do an Eberron movie first, if ever. Dungeons & Dragons is culturally understood to be about knights, wizards, dungeons, and dragons, and that's Forgotten Realms more than it is anything else. If you're leveraging the D&D brand name to get interest in your movie, you had better make sure the setting matches your audience's expectations for "Dungeons & Dragons," and that means FR. Not because D&D fans necessarily think that's the case, but because the larger audience whose knowledge of the game comes from the Big Bang Theory or somesuch expects something like FR from D&D, not Eberron or Ravenloft or whatever else.

Assuming you establish a movie brand, there's no reason they couldn't expand a la Marvel into other worlds through other movies or TV shows. Throw in a Planescape movie to make it all a single cinematic universe and you're golden. Again, assuming this isn't run into the ground by the studio system on its first outing. I suppose that's still the default assumption we should be making, though.

[erik]

Damn, Virgil's makes mine rather obsolete. That's precisely the kind of site that I thought whose existence demand should dicate, but my google-fu would not yield it.

That's comically tragic that they're hyping their Amazon sales, and they're that small.



OUCH!


[edit: maybe this thread can get merged with the Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate? I have a desire to cross post but thought that merging is more efficient]

[edit 2: good call on better graphic representation DDM...

I think you're overcalling how much it could be underestimating. They have that disclaimer since the way they figure the numbers is by noting where the sales ranking was and for how long and the comparing to some baselines of what sales are among those rankings. At lower rankings it is a very reliable method, but at the highest rankings there is more volatility. The 5e PHB didn't stay at the highest rankings very long in the grand scheme of things. If it was facing off against Harry Potter or Twilight or something that'd be notable, but it wasn't facing off against a monster blockbuster book back then so I doubt it bucked the averages to oversell greatly from estimates.]

[deaddmwalking]

I was thinking of posting the graph (stacked sales English countries) is the best view. It indicates ~6000/month from August on (some months much lower), but it also indicates that it might seriously underestimate the number of books sold. If the Amazon.Com listing weights are to be considered valid, the number is probably 10-30 times as much. But I would imagine the rank depends on how many other books are selling. It's likely that 'Tuesday' is a much easier day to get a high rank than 'Saturday'. Or vice versa.

In any case, it does reaffirm that Amazon sales rank (for a portion of a day) is probably the worst possible statistic to try to claim 'best selling status'.

[Shady314]

I like to call it Magitek. 3.5 Eberron had airships, people made pseudo guns with wands (look up Megaman build).

Magitek is less of a genre and more a descriptor but I agree. Eberron has magitek though a lot less than I expected from the initial marketing. I ran Eberron so I know all about artificer and wand fun with dual wand wielder and cannith wand adept type stuff. I will check out that specific build later when Im not at work.
The term people seem to have settled on is dungeonpunk.

Yeah, it's not steampunk, but it draws on some of the same motifs, with steam replaced by magic/elementals. To my knowledge it's not really punk, either, but that's more a question of tone than of aesthetic.

You're dangerously close to channeling Silva here. Eberron doesn't look steampunk because of bound elemental airships and galleons. I don't know why you want to agree it isn't steampunk then try and add a buuuuut.
Like Leress said it's magitek.

That being said they absolutely won't do an Eberron movie first, if ever. Dungeons & Dragons is culturally understood to be about knights, wizards, dungeons, and dragons, and that's Forgotten Realms more than it is anything else. If you're leveraging the D&D brand name to get interest in your movie, you had better make sure the setting matches your audience's expectations for "Dungeons & Dragons," and that means FR. Not because D&D fans necessarily think that's the case, but because the larger audience whose knowledge of the game comes from the Big Bang Theory or somesuch expects something like FR from D&D, not Eberron or Ravenloft or whatever else.

I think it would help them immensely to reboot their brand's image. You can have knights , wizards, dungeons and dragons in Eberron or even other settings without making it the same tired drek audiences have already seen. They won't do it but it isn't a bad idea.

[Insomniac]

I've got some current sales data for this and last month.

If you look at the PHB's sales from last year on that site, it looks like it sold roughly 8k books on Amazon over a five month span in the States. And ~33k all total (Germany really seemed to like it) since its release.

Holy fuckaroni. There were less than 2000 Player's Handbook sold in April across Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
Even if their sales were underreported 500 percent, they've sold less than 200,000 copies in the past half a year on Amazon.

[maglag]

There's already been 3 D&D movies with dragons as the enphasis and they all sucked, so I believe they couldn't do worse by trying a new approach, and would probably do better. Thus Eberron, where Dragons are just chilling out in their private resort island and don't care about what's happenning in the rest of the world.

Cough Bloodbourne cough Order 1886.

I hope this is a joking reference to silva not knowing what the fuck steampunk is.

I really wish it was, but since maglag reminds me a lot more of silva than of say, you, I'm guessing this is totally fucking serious.

Clearly I need to put more tanks in Craft (joke). Yes, Bloodbourne isn't Steampunk just like Eberron isn't.

[Chamomile]

Yeah, it's not steampunk, but it draws on some of the same motifs, with steam replaced by magic/elementals. To my knowledge it's not really punk, either, but that's more a question of tone than of aesthetic.

You're dangerously close to channeling Silva here. Eberron doesn't look steampunk because of bound elemental airships and galleons. I don't know why you want to agree it isn't steampunk then try and add a buuuuut.

Because we're talking about demographic appeal and from that perspective anything that appeals to the same demographic as likes steampunk may as well be steampunk.

[tussock]

3D graphs are terrible and you shouldn't use them.

Hmm. PHB, DMG, MM, are selling in approximate ratios of 4:3:2, pretty consistently from the data, which should indicate 2 PHBs and 1.5 DMGs per group, or more.

Pathfinder is holding around 250/month from Amazon, from 300/month before 5e launched, but almost all of their sales are through Paizo.com I'd imagine (for the bonus stuff). Also, either they fail to keep Amazon in stock all the time or the tracking is spotty. It does appear more like out of stock between prints.

Pathfinder launched at around 600/month in late 2009, so if 5e holds well they should run ~5500/month Amazon sales on the core 3 books for 3-4 years, 66000 per year, $2.4 million less costs. Hope they're getting some sales in real bookstores, oh, wait, it's 2015, never mind.



Hmm, Amazon reviews of the 5e book are extremely grognardy. There's a handful of 3e players come back and the rest are from fucking 1st edition. They must all be in their 50's, talk about a dying hobby. Low reviews all love the game but note the book is already falling apart at the seams. For a fucking $50 hardcover. Wizards is apparently comping most of them a new copy, so there goes all the profits.

Huge numbers of "I've still got my 1st edition books and their binding is fine!" Ah well, at least the previous generation of grognards are happy, if not mine. No new players talking at all.

[ishy]

Hope they're getting some sales in real bookstores, oh, wait, it's 2015, never mind.

From the forbes article linked earlier:

Where are you selling most of your product –hobby shops, bookstores or retailers like Amazon?

The ratios remain the same for us –the hobby stores and the book channel both are tremendous for us, and they both do a big chunk of the business. Amazon, I think, has been a much bigger player this launch than before, for obvious reasons. But you’ve also seen the decline of lots of big box stores –Barnes & Noble doesn’t have as many locations as it did at the last launch, there’s not as many big book stores out there. So I think Amazon is definitely seeing a lot of that kind of mass market purchase, but the hobby store still remains the hardcore place, when your fans are going in there weekly playing games and they can get it products a little bit early. We see a pretty even split between the two channels and that’s consistent with our business for years.

I'll admit, I'm sceptical though. It is really weird that the ratios are still the same as 10 years ago, even though Amazon is a much bigger player for obvious reasons.

[Insomniac]

With the decline in not just book store sales, but just the existence of book stores period and the ascendancy of online shopping, I find it difficult to believe the brick and mortar stores have the same chunk of distribution that they had 10 years ago close to the start of 3.5. Something like 1000 bookstores closed just in the period from 2000 to 2007. There's been a revival, at least in the U.S., but numbers are flat or down since 2005. Physical book sales in general are down 10 percent since 2007 and a major book retailer, Borders, its subsidiary Waldenbooks, and Crown Books don't exist anymore.

[virgil]

But as the Forbes article mentioned, game stores remain their major source, and I can believe their presence to still be in the 750+/-250 range that Ryan Dancey cited awhile back. You can easily describe those shops as dying with a 20% reduction in number, and still be in the margin of error.

In one of Ryan's spiels, he described Amazon as equal to 10-20 retail game stores in terms of value (back a decade ago). It seems self-evident that Amazon is a bigger deal now. Even if it's equal to 50 retail stores now, it'd still be less important than the game shop demographic as a whole.