[5E] Is Mearls planning to snow Hasbro and the fanbase?

[virgil]

is not really correct: the only times that Hasbro has even mentioned the success of WotC at meetings have been in relation to M:tG. As long as MtG keeps raking in money, they don't give much of a shit about how D&D is doing - they're happy enough with just owning the property so it can be leased out for making video games, and that still isn't as good as what the card game gets them.

This is Hasbro. It wasn't until yesterday that they even had a conference for My Little Pony. All others have focused solely on stuff like Transformers toy line, in protest of incredible public demand for questions (including investors). Prioritization is a problem with this company, from what I've noticed.

I know it's been mentioned that even when D&D is doing awesome, it's claim to fame financially is its high return on investment, but can't support an overly large investment.

[Voss]

I don't get it. Haven't the Hasbro execs noticed that a potentially quite profitable property of theirs isn't even releasing products? Has Mearls sucked that much cock that he can just shit all over the game and produce basically no revenue and he still keeps his job? Or are there people out there who really buy his smoke and mirrors light show?

They are releasing products, though. Reprints of 1st and 2nd edition for premium prices (that essentially cost them next to nothing), tile sets (yeah, still), and as always, reprinting shitty novels.

So while they aren't pulling in much, the products they are putting out don't exactly require much of a budget. And the M:tG profits continue to make the division as a whole look shiny enough, especially with another repackage of the computer version due next week, which has the same kind of development cycle as the actual cards: tweak a few things and reuse a lot of assets, and get people to voluntarily replace perfectly good stuff with more of the same.

[Aryxbez]

What I wonder is, if Mearls was ousted from his job now, who would replace him, and what that would mean for D&D going forward? Alternatively, if the entire D&D staff was fired en-masse, especially Mearls, wonder what would happen then?

Lastly,when Mearls causes the fall of D&D, I wonder if it'll create a power vacuum, allowing for new RPG designers to get noticed? Otherwise, I assume just be more of the same with Paizo/Catalyst/White Wolf, giving us the same garbage from a decade ago.

[phlapjackage]

But anyway- that is the tie in. Buy the 'preview adventure and get a free mini. Alternately, buy some drow, mind flayers or a beholder or purple worm. They've apparently had the license for nearly a year, and have produced all of a dozen models or so.

Ah, thanks. That makes it make a little more sense. In a sick, train-crash-watching kind of way, this kinda has me wanting to buy it.

[shadzar]

Lastly, wonder when Mearls causes the fall of D&D,

he already did in 2008. then he was the lead designer and Bill S was the pres of D&D and head of R&D. WotC jsut keeps shoveling out bad RPGs under the name of D&D since they own the logo to it. that is all WotC has ever produced is a logo called D&D and shitty games. this is why the new "Encounters" organized play thing will only include: 3.5, 4th, and Next rules for it. D&D fell when WotC bought it and then abandoned it.

the only thing left is for them to churn out bad games that suck so people have to keep buying an entire new bad game every few years to keep the book sales up so the logo "D&D" can still be used and claim it has market shares while Pathfinder continues to lead the market for TTRPGs and will likely be the last one standing. Standing on the legs WotC gave it when WotC cut those legs out from under D&D.

certain types of games don't evolve because they cant. ie: wargames. you have x miniatures doing x things and to determine what happens you compare some random generated number for luck with some rules numbers and throw in a little player skill. this is how it always has been and always will be and that is why the Warhammers, Battletech, Mage Knight, Clix, etc still use the same formula because it works.

WotC is currently doing with D&D something like trying to get rid of Pepsi, and make every bottle and can be Diet Cherry Caffeine-free Pepsi Max...and that isnt what people want, but WotC cant figure out that one product will NOT suit all people. again look at "Encounters" and remember the idea they want older edition players back, but willing to provide NOTHING ni the way of support of those editions AFTER they just released them all again in new LE formats.

D&D fell in 2000 when it was replaced with "WotC & Dragons" and support for D&D and AD&D ceased as those original and long standing editions (D&D 1974~1999, AD&D 1989~1999) stopped being supported. they think they can beat all those companies you mention with a single product as if all the RPG players want the same thing or even the same cockamamie system for everything.

and Mearls is still working with D&D......

[deaddmwalking]

D&D fell in 2000 when it was replaced with "WotC & Dragons"

*yawn*

I disagree.

[Rawbeard]

Oh my, how daring of you, good sir!

[Aryxbez]

While I'm sure you had good intentions Shadzar, I would appreciate it if ye wouldn't take me out of context for your rants. Given, my bad I suppose to have phrased it that way at the time, all the same, form of disrespect I've absconded from repeating towards you, I expect you to do the same. That said, you ignoring the success of 3rd edition, is but pure ignorance on your part, repeating what everyone else said, is at least fairly informative to those ignorant about Wizards of the Coast (which I am not, save for names I don't bother to remember).

Well hey, if this crash & Burn of D&D happens causing a vacuum, that would give chance for any of you guys and your afamed "Fantasy Heartbreakers" to take notice, or one a select few from the Den concocted.

[shadzar]

you seem to fail to understand cutting a quote isnt removing it from context. you also seem to fail to be able to read. i mention that WotC is thinking it can make something to defeat THOSE OTHER game you mention in your post. now did THOSE OTHER games allow for that many new designers?

No, it did not. THOSE OTHER companies still had the same people that have been around, and the other people that USED TO BE WotC have created multiple other companies:

Monte doing his own thing.
Tweet+ is doing that game

so as i said.. nothing changed since 2000. someone working at one company jsut gets shifted around to another company or like a few, jsut drift away from TTRPGs and into something else.

you like DDMW also fail to udnerstand how WotC fucked up royally naming their product in 2000 after an existing product from '85.

they thought they would be funny and drop the "Basic" and "Advanced" portions, but it only causes more problems. I still stand by there be NO reason i should give Wotc or its players ANY benefit of doubt since as I said they BOTH wish to act as if D&D NEVER existed prior to WotC as is evident by their Encounters nonsense.

Wotc doesnt even have the balls to accept that the thing before 2000 existed and is the ONLY reason they have something to fuck up now and call it DDN.


sadly 30 years later people refuse to learn what (A)D&D means and think it was all just a single game.

see i accept what THEY called 3.x was a popular game, i just dont accept it as D&D well because as i have said NUMEROUS times, it is not. Likewise a game made by Sony using the Aurora Engine would NOT be FF just because they slapped that name on it, it would be a rip-off of NWN. 3.x is a knock-off of AD&D, that is the "engine" it used, NOT D&D.

when WotC admits it fucked up, then things can progress in discussion, but after 13 years, they never will as they keep using "D&D" which is unrelated to D&D like 4th.

DDN... just a WotC version of GURPs.

so it is time the Eloi learns some history of hurries up and gets eaten by the morlocks so the humans can carry on....

[Seerow]

Why does anyone still waste effort responding to shadzar like he's an actual person and not some script designed to spit out incoherent babble that is vaguely pro-AD&D?

[Sigil]

Because, like it or not, he is a real person. He's not even a troll, he believes what he posts.

[Kaelik]

Because, like it or not, he is a real person. He's not even a troll, he believes what he posts.

A troll or script that said things of any value would be worth more than Shadzar. Being a person does not mean you are actually worth anything if you are a stupid person that never says anything worth listening too.

[Drolyt]

More importantly,

potentially quite profitable

is not really correct: the only times that Hasbro has even mentioned the success of WotC at meetings have been in relation to M:tG.

Yeah, looking at the numbers I guess D&D is small change to Hasbro, though I still think the brand would be worth a lot more if it wasn't so mismanaged. I mean, the history of D&D is basically a history of business incompetence and it still produced over a billion dollars in sales of books and equipment according to this 2004 article.

[Lago PARANOIA]

While the sales of, say, the actual Harry Potter literature or Superman comics are peanuts compared to adaptations and licensing I think only a fool would think that the actual literary quality of those properties is irrelevant to the whole merchandising empire.

If Rowlings was going to make a Harry Potter 8 that bombed because of her relentlessly pushing Calvinist-flavored Randroidism and she thought that the Lightning Dick was a wonderful idea for her new main character, I think that it might start driving down profits. Similarly, if HP8 solved the problems people had with the series from book five onwards and took the series in a fresh direction then the property would be a license to print money again. Even if the profit made by selling actual books of HP8 was peanuts compared to HP7 merchandising.

Hasbro should be watching Mike Mearls like a hawk and be demanding 2/month status reports. They're cheating themselves out of billions of dollars by focusing on the tens of millions of dollars in book sales.

[zugschef]

Being a person does not mean you are actually worth anything

wow

[Sigil]

Being a person does not mean you are actually worth anything

wow

No, that shit's true. Being a person only gives you the potential to be worth something. There are plenty of people that have negative worth, if you replaced them with actual nothing, the sum total of things that are of worth would be increased.

[Aryxbez]

you seem to fail to understand cutting a quote isnt removing it from context.

Yet, you did, you responded to it in the sense as if I was asking "When" Mike Mearls was going to destroy D&D. Where instead, ill grammar on my part, mostly just declaring; "after Mearls business is all said in done I wonder..etc." Point is, while true it doesn't have to lose its context, but you've had a habit in the past of taking snippets of people's quotes,MID-SENTENCE, to try and prove them wrong on something that probably wasn't their point at all. So in short, don't involve me in your word game schemes that only hurt discussion.

There are plenty of people that have negative worth, if you replaced them with actual nothing, the sum total of things that are of worth would be increased.

This is true, plenty of people which things would be better without. Though with Shadzar, he's at least decent for giving out Dates and names for D&D history, thought possibly not in this thread, but yeah.

As for Seerow, I would agree, but I only responded to him, so that he would cease involving me in his stupidity.

[Midnight_v]

The mismanagement of D&D is on of the few things that set me in a situation where I find myself constantly agreeing with Lago P, and kaelik.

Its a weird thing. . .

Hasbro should be watching Mike Mearls like a hawk and be demanding 2/month status reports. They're cheating themselves out of billions of dollars by focusing on the tens of millions of dollars in book sales.

Is actually spot on. They have to realize this or they wouldn't do what they do to IP's so much (hold on to them forever). . . So I just wonder what they're putting into it to keep accepting such a small return.

I mean... Seeing pathfinder selling more than D&D has to have rang someone's bell somewhere.

Mearls, might be the grandmaster of flower when it comes to bullshitting but there's now way fail at another system and stay in the game, so we should look forward to 5th edition and the inevitable silence, that is sure to follow.

They just released the capcom arcade "Chronicles of Mystara" and really thats likely the best use of the name right this second. Video games, cartoons, and maybe novels or something.

What has occurred to me reading this and many other boards is... what he's promising a single "D&D ruleset for everytype of game" just isn't possible.

I'm not even sure you can recover such a fractured fan base after all the crap thats been done, but one thing I'm certain DOES NOT WORK is a plan to please "all tastes". Its just... a thing that ends up with no on really happy. . . . "Math that... just works".
Shit is sad man.

[Voss]

I mean... Seeing pathfinder selling more than D&D has to have rang someone's bell somewhere.

There aren't any real indications that it did, to be honest. I don't think hasbro cares much about competition for D&D. For M:tG, yes, but M:tG is still ridiculously profitable, and other than the big Japanese competitors (Pokemon and Yugioh), most CCG endeavors arrive and flame out pretty quickly. But when it comes to D&D, their outlook seems to be as long as X dollars yields profit > X, they don't give two shits.

Now Collins had a panic about D&D being 'marginalized' back during early 4e, but he was being unreasonable and either bullshitting or insane in thinking that a sub 50K property could be pushed up to join Magic as a >100K property with a simple edition change, let alone a controversial one.

Hasbro picked up Wizards for Magic. A design and production budget for other things (like the latest attempt at completely plastic monster/duel/collectible CCG/cartoon/toy line) is fine, but only as long as they don't cause problems. As far as the corporate overlords are concerned, Magic justifies the existence of the WotC division, and their pet projects are only worthwhile if they have a positive balance.


This is actually a benefit in the longterm. Wizards would have a hard time letting D&D go, if it was just up to them. But Hasbro just doesn't care enough to keep it if/when 5e tanks. They'll just sell the whole ball (or just pieces of the ball), fire everyone and call it a day. It doesn't have any analogues among other Wizards or Hasbro properties, and no real reason to keep it around.


Here's an amusing thing:
https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.asp ... c/45370000

An edition-less adventure (not even billed as D&DNext trial shit like that ghostdragon castle or whatever). Just a random adventure/setting book tagged D&D and Forgotten Realms. Apparently they're planning on doing some sort of _new_ disaster bullshit to the FR for 5e [They seem utterly incapable of what psychologists call 'learning behavior']. And apparently bringing Bhaal back, if the skull wheel (his holy symbol, I believe) is any indication.

[Sigil]

There are plenty of people that have negative worth, if you replaced them with actual nothing, the sum total of things that are of worth would be increased.

This is true, plenty of people which things would be better without. Though with Shadzar, he's at least decent for giving out Dates and names for D&D history, thought possibly not in this thread, but yeah.

I didn't mean that Shazar, in particular, had negative worth. Honestly, from what I've seen of him, he seems like a relatively nice guy (if you can even truly glean that from words on the internet). I agree with very little of what he says, and I can't understand why he continues to post in the face of such adversity, but I can't recall a time when he was ever called out for flaming or such other trolling. Even if he did, internet trolling has very little to do with the value of a life.

In all likely hood, I'd bet shadzar is just a guy who loves D&D as much as the rest of us, but has wildly (and stupidly) different opinions about it than most of the people on this forum.

[Wrathzog]

Shadzar's a boss and I'll fight anyone who thinks ill of him.

[Sigil]

Dude.... you're going to be fighting a lot of people. Will you be selling tickets? Is there going to be a tournament bracket?

[Seerow]

Shadzar's a boss and I'll fight anyone who thinks ill of him.

I thought Shadzar was the boss, not you.

[wotmaniac]

Shadzar's a boss

If you mean like this, then sure.

[Drolyt]

Being a person does not mean you are actually worth anything

wow

No, that shit's true. Being a person only gives you the potential to be worth something. There are plenty of people that have negative worth, if you replaced them with actual nothing, the sum total of things that are of worth would be increased.

I disagree with this in the strongest manner possible.