The Gaming Den

Personally my favorite part is the bit with their internal reports complaining that D&D was "under monetized".

You can pretty much just read the minds of shallow stupid greedy executives. In between the usual fake work of yet again pretending there is more money to be had in franchising movies and video games they are rather obviously wishing there was just some way somehow that they could basically turn table top D&D into a micro-transactional scam phone game.

Then instead they panic just decided to set fire to the OGL. Again.

I am hoping we can get some High-Level TGD-style analysis on this subject ,as well that Discord didn't eat up all the potential discussion we could've had.

I learned of this news a couple days ago, and I don't really get why they shot themselves in the foot for what is usually lost in rounding errors on their profit reports. I don't imagine many TTRPG companies clock in 50,000/year, which leaves me to believe they wanted the Twitch Money from Critical Role, and similar venues. They want the profits from all the Influencers, Youtubers, and such who've talked about their products.

Apparently a WoTC employee had leaked that Subscribers was a metric the executives cared about, and thus people mass-unsubbed. I wonder if we have an idea of how many subscribers that were paying for a subscription, to give us an idea of the figures 5e was actually raking in? I'm still of the assumption that 5E still less popular than 3.X D&D monetarily, and simply just brought wider exposure to the hobby, rather than actual "Boots on the floor".

Aryxbez wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:09 am

and I don't really get why they shot themselves in the foot for what is usually lost in rounding errors on their profit reports.

I tried to come up with about 5 entertaining comments on this.

But they all basically ended up reading as "Eat the rich".

Aryxbez wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:09 am

I learned of this news a couple days ago, and I don't really get why they shot themselves in the foot for what is usually lost in rounding errors on their profit reports.

Incompetence, mostly. If "some guy on RPGnet who is referenced by some guy on Reddit" is to be believed, the people making the decision are MBA types who weren't paying attention to the 4e debacle so didn't necessarily realise that they were exploding a load bearing pillar and not plugging a leak.

Neo Phonelobster Prime wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:56 am

But they all basically ended up reading as "Eat the rich".

Same.

Omegonthesane wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 4:26 pm

Aryxbez wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:09 am

I learned of this news a couple days ago, and I don't really get why they shot themselves in the foot for what is usually lost in rounding errors on their profit reports.

Incompetence, mostly. If "some guy on RPGnet who is referenced by some guy on Reddit" is to be believed, the people making the decision are MBA types who weren't paying attention to the 4e debacle so didn't necessarily realise that they were exploding a load bearing pillar and not plugging a leak.

This sounds about right to me. Perhaps this might be a good opportunity for other ttrpgs to rise much higher in prominence. wotc getting taken down a peg would be good for everyone. It does seem like the fanbase is in lockstep in disapproving of this maneuver.

See, instead of a new space for a thousand new RPGs to bloom, I'm predicting we just get another half a decade of Pathfinder on the throne, since Paizo have proven before that they can take the top spot and I'm unaware of any changes in management or zeitgeist that would remove their ability to do so like what happened to White Wolf.

But Paizo isn't yet as invested in mistaking the seed corn for competition, give it a decade and maybe they too will be hollowed out and filled with the most incompetent greedy [EDITED]s alive, because welcome to capitalism.

Omegonthesane wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 15, 2023 8:51 am

See, instead of a new space for a thousand new RPGs to bloom, I'm predicting we just get another half a decade of Pathfinder on the throne, since Paizo have proven before that they can take the top spot and I'm unaware of any changes in management or zeitgeist that would remove their ability to do so like what happened to White Wolf.

Having Pathfinder didn't keep Mutants and Masterminds and FATE and so many others to get the spotlight they deserved after WotC's 2010 fiasco, and hopefully, we'll have yet another golden age after this fiasco.

As for the why's? Call it "The Microsoft Business model."

Every 2 editions (of windows or xbones), Microsoft outdoes itself by coming up with their most inanely draconian product yet, and users tell them to fuck right off after reaching their breaking point, forcing them to compromise. Still, executives trust (not quite wrongly) that consumers are idiots with no memory, so they wait some years before trying again.

Dogbert wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 15, 2023 9:39 am

Omegonthesane wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 15, 2023 8:51 am

See, instead of a new space for a thousand new RPGs to bloom, I'm predicting we just get another half a decade of Pathfinder on the throne, since Paizo have proven before that they can take the top spot and I'm unaware of any changes in management or zeitgeist that would remove their ability to do so like what happened to White Wolf.

Having Pathfinder didn't keep Mutants and Masterminds and FATE and so many others to get the spotlight they deserved after WotC's 2010 fiasco, and hopefully, we'll have yet another golden age after this fiasco.

I will concede that much. I guess there being a clear winner doesn't contradict there being more space for the also-rans.

Dogbert wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 15, 2023 9:39 am

As for the why's? Call it "The Microsoft Business model."

Every 2 editions (of windows or xbones), Microsoft outdoes itself by coming up with their most inanely draconian product yet, and users tell them to fuck right off after reaching their breaking point, forcing them to compromise. Still, executives trust (not quite wrongly) that consumers are idiots with no memory, so they wait some years before trying again.

I don't think this contradicts the analysis in which the problem is the executives or shareholders swapping out the managers who were there for 4e and remember why not to attempt it, and replacing them with MBA types who know nothing about anything and have paid serious money to be indoctrinated into incompetence.

For my spot on the sweepstakes I predict there will be no clear successor. Not until WOTC fumbles around in the dark and eventually basically just sorta accidentally waits it out long enough and puts out a metaphorical equivalent of a fake child king.

Pathfinder specifically will not repeat it's feat of snatching the crown. If it was capable of that it wouldn't have fumbled out of its hands after such a clear success last time.

Seriously the company that pretty much attained the incumbent status quo position then produced something that seems to me at least to have lost the market cleanly and totally against the not so raging success that is fifth edition. Those guys? Seems unlikely.

And for commentators I've seen in videos saying "Is this the end of the OSR movement?" sadly no, that kind of idiot wont be dying out (or shutting up) unless they drag us all down with them. And for "will the new king game be OSR?" well, no, and also, THAT'S NOT EVEN A GAME FFS.

Aryxbez wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:09 am

I am hoping we can get some High-Level TGD-style analysis on this subject ,as well that Discord didn't eat up all the potential discussion we could've had.

I learned of this news a couple days ago, and I don't really get why they shot themselves in the foot for what is usually lost in rounding errors on their profit reports. I don't imagine many TTRPG companies clock in 50,000/year, which leaves me to believe they wanted the Twitch Money from Critical Role, and similar venues. They want the profits from all the Influencers, Youtubers, and such who've talked about their products.

Apparently a WoTC employee had leaked that Subscribers was a metric the executives cared about, and thus people mass-unsubbed. I wonder if we have an idea of how many subscribers that were paying for a subscription, to give us an idea of the figures 5e was actually raking in? I'm still of the assumption that 5E still less popular than 3.X D&D monetarily, and simply just brought wider exposure to the hobby, rather than actual "Boots on the floor".

I've got your "high-level" analysis right here. Some executives at Hasbro got an email from the shareholders saying "we need more money for our cocaine parties". Pulling their heads out of a massive, Scarface-level pile of blow, they say "those geeks who play Magic give us money for everything. We need those dweebs who play D&D to give us money for everything, too!" Not being content with merely dominating the market, they want complete and total capitulation. They want to turn you into a big, slutty money machine they can attach money pumps to, sucking the cash right out of your fat, bloated gamer tits. They would love to diddle all the Youtubers and other social media figures to bully them into shilling for the game instead of actually being part of the tabletop community - or just take all their ad revenue money outright. Every cent that goes to Paizo, or to Google, or anyone but Hasbro is a penny taken from their shareholders. And that's wrong.
If the D&D brand wasn't so ingrained into cultural consciousness, Hasbro would have already taken it out back and shot it in the head before throwing it into a grave so the IP can languish for 50 years.

Neo Phonelobster Prime wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:56 am

But they all basically ended up reading as "Eat the rich".

I mean you're not wrong, though.

If you do some digging, the MS Model is much more fitting than it seems at first..
The one who said that the IP is not monetized enough used to work for Microsoft.
Also, i saw a few videos on the tubes that claimed Paizo had threatened lawsuits
and wotc backpedalled hard enough to climb a waterfall, anybody wanna weigh
in on this?

According to all the videos I've seen people posting about this DnD execs started heavily backpedaling after people mass unsubscribed to beyond. Unfortunately they not only have already lost want trust of the community (it seems) but also worded it in a way where they claimed that meant no ill intent (despite clear evidence to the contrary). They also tried to spin the incident into something where both they and the community they just tried to fuck are both "winners" from this. A sentiment that's certainly been memed up in response.

How far have they gone back on their intentions? Well we don't know because we haven't seen the rewrite. Of course there's no reason to trust that they aren't just going to bide their time until all of this somehow blows over. A tactic that was outlined as their true plan after this started kicking off from the beginning.

Personally I doubt they aren't going to do back all the way out. I have a feeling they are going to retest to find kind of compromise rather than give up on this. They already spent money and time on this and these executive types don't strike me as the kind of people to give up on trying to find a way to be scumbags.

Aryxbez wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:09 am

I wonder if we have an idea of how many subscribers that were paying for a subscription, to give us an idea of the figures 5e was actually raking in? I'm still of the assumption that 5E still less popular than 3.X D&D monetarily, and simply just brought wider exposure to the hobby, rather than actual "Boots on the floor".

I'm not sure that 5e at this point is less popular or bringing in less income. It has been around as long as both 3rd editions combined and also has a subscription model that 3.x didn't. As of a couple days ago I read that already 40,000 people cancelled DnD Beyond subscriptions. The only other hard number I've seen is the number of DnD beyond users (around 10 million), and that they paid $146 million to buy DnD Beyond. So it must be fairly profitable and I don't think they were planning to take over 15 years to recoup their investment.

Which is why I think 5e is more popular than 3.x as that's a huge number of people interested enough in 5e to use their service. I imagine subscriber amount is somewhere between 1-10% of that number of users (my expectation would have been closer to 1%, but for them to be interested in making money enough to buy this service I suspect the number is closer to 10%). I would be amazed if the OGL debacle managed to cost them more than 50% of their subscribers, but 40k subscriptions lost comes out to over 1 million dollars lost annually.

erik wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 18, 2023 11:36 pm

but 40k subscriptions lost comes out to over 1 million dollars lost annually.

Not even hundreds of thousands?

Koumei wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 19, 2023 7:22 am

erik wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 18, 2023 11:36 pm

but 40k subscriptions lost comes out to over 1 million dollars lost annually.

Not even hundreds of thousands?

Oh, ho ho. Nothing that audacious! And while 5e is likely more profitable than 3e and 3.5 combined, I wouldn’t dare to think of comparing it to 4e, truly a titanium dragon of editions*.

And btw. Holleee shit balls and fuck rolls, 5e has another source of revenue that 3.x lacked that is like money for nothing. Selling PDFs. Once you recoup the costs of making the document it is just printing money. I assume the physical books were profitable so anything from PDFs is just pure gravy. I saw that they are selling a bundle of their 40 something books for $956. What a bargain. If they found just a bit over 1000 takers then that is a million bucks pure profit.

* this being a classification for the innumerate and of appeal to those with exceedingly few brain cells

Erik...

I mean 5e probably is more profitable then 3e, though I would not be at all surprised to find out that 3e made more revenue. I have no idea what "popular monetarily" means and think it's a phrase that should have never been used.

But 3e did sell pdfs. And unlike 5e, 3e had another source of income that 5e lacks: selling books.

It's so weird for you to start from the assumption that 5e has everything 3e does plus stuff when all 5e books ever written can fit on half a small bookshelf.

Whether it was good or not, the one thing 3e/3.5 did was shit out an endless stream of actual books for sale.

I am definitely assuming 5e has sold a bunch of their core books. Still, I concur that it is probable that 3.x had more revenue… but profit is presumably what the overlords care about. Selling PDFs with about 100% margins beats the piss out of books with 40% margins. Do they give PDFs free with the books? If not (then that’s bullshit, but also) then that’s getting to sell it twice to a bunch of people.

Supposedly outside of 3.x core books which sold amazingly, the other books (of which there were a fuckton), they were not as profitable.

3e may have sold PDFs technically but the practice had not really caught on I don’t think. They were selling but ain’t nobody buyin. To the point that I had forgotten they even sold them.

And in closing,

Not to be that asshole, but did 3e have stuff like Critical Role and Stranger Things boosting its publicity?

No, but 3e had its own D&D movie!


I’m not sure if that helped or hurt.

erik wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 19, 2023 6:33 pm

Selling PDFs with about 100% margins beats the piss out of books with 40% margins.

... no? That's not how numbers do.

Pretty sure the you know, actual price and actual numbers of sales determine where the piss is being beaten. Margins are nice but like all percentages percentage of what? actually matters.

I know it seems like a minor quibble, but no actually that statement you made is nonsense level innumeracy when actually examined.

It's not nonsense, it is just an unsupported conclusion because it is inconclusive without knowing what the total numbers of pdfs/books sold was. So yes, if 3.x has massively more book sales than then 5e's pdf sales then they can make comparatively more profit than pdf sales despite worse margins. Likewise if the pdfs have discounted prices then that would reduce the benefit of printing money via PDF as well.

"Selling PDFs with about 100% margins beats the piss out of books with 40% margins." has the unspoken assumptions that the sales numbers are similar and the prices are similar. So if other aspects are equal then making 1 dollar on every dollar you receive is better than making 40 cents on every dollar you receive.

erik wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:29 am

It's not nonsense, it is just an unsupported conclusion

That's two different things then is it.

the unspoken assumptions that the sales numbers are similar and the prices are similar.

I was originally going to say "the only way that could even make sense was if you assumed..." but thought "better not, that specific assumption is very stupid and attributing it to someone is too insulting."

Oh, no worries! Nothing too insulting for me.