The Gaming Den

PhoneLobster wrote:Damnit, whats with the title? I totally thought someone was starting a betting pool on when WOTC decides to cheese it before the creditors come calling and releases fourth ed.

Well koresh-dammit, I'm game.

The stakes? To be decided.

The game? Pick a date as close as possible to when 4th edition DnD will be released for general sale, without going past the date.


I'll kick things off.
I say November 15th, 2008... in time for christmas sales next year, and with much hype from GenCon of 2008.


[edit:
For ease of checking who done best...

Count Arioch: Dec 25, 2007
Frank: January 2008
WotC: Spring-Summer 2008
Rapanui: Jun 12, 2008
Tzor: Jun 21, 2008
Neek: Aug 14, 2008 (Gencon 2008)
Josephbt: Oct 31, 2008
Clik: Nov 15, 2008
Mr Waesel: February 2009
PhoneLobster: Feb 25, 2009
fbmf & PWW: Aug 13, 2009 (Gencon 2009)
Zherog: Jun 15, 2010

Crissa: June... ???

Gen Con? No, not Gen Con. 4E will be rolled out to a friendly and controlled audience and that means something completely controlled by WOTC. This implies announcement at the D&D experience in February. Assume a one quarter delay between announcement and delivery that would put it in June, ironically just short of that annoying third party nonsense called Gen Con.

So my official date is June 21st 2008. (Summer solstice is so appropriate is it not? The longest day of the year, from here the sun of D&D will get weaker and weaker.)

In my opinion? It gets announced at GenCon 2009 and rolls out June 15th 2010.

It'll be announced Gencon '07 and be out this christmas.

Gencon '08, out Halloween '08

I'm feeling bold. It's the Dorito.

4e will come out when I say it's ready.

Hasbro owns Wizards now, so any big release will be announced a year ahead - And then in stores for Summer and Christmas.

Wal-Mart will get a special distribution and sell it at the price that regular stores are charged just to get it on their shelves.

-Crissa

Announced GENCON 2008 for a GENCON 2009 release.

Game On,
fbmf

Announced April 1st 2008. And no one will see that as innapropriate. It will probably be announced again a month later after some obvious confusion.

Released Febraury 25th 2009. Because that seems appropriately dumb and arbitrary.

OR Wizards D&D releases become even more spotty, crunchy books stop rolling out, rumours of sackings and other shenanigans abound through 2008. Sometime early 2009 Hasbro shuts down the D&D wing of Wizards. Within 6 months to a year Mongoose somehow owns the D&D name and it will be out for Christmass 2010 released by Mongoose publishing.

Yeah thats right. Mongoose.

They only have releases marked to the end of the year, and no 3.5 development cycle past that. So how long can they get by sitting on the released products before they get hungry again?

Also, anyone notice that they don't have any names woking on the late release schedule for 3.5? Dragons of Eberron is written by:

• Keith Baker
• Scott Fitzgerald Gray
• Nicolas Logue
• Amber Scott

Do you notice the imporant thing there? They pulled in the Editor from Complete Arcane, a level designer for Dungeon Magazine, and the chick who writes the Class Act articles to assist Keith Baker in writing the primary sourcebook offering for October. That's... not a single person who counts as a gaming celebrity.

My guess: absolutely everyone of importance has already been set to work. The only release for December is Elder Evils, expect that shit to be "Fourth Edition Compatible" like the Fiend Folio and Savage Species (which means really that it isn't compatible with anything). So the question is: will they get it out by Christmas of this year? I'm guessing that they won't, but only barely.

I predict a release in January of 2008, with preview rules released in Elder Evils and teasers released in the Rules Compendium.

-Username17

I'd rather bet on the degree of suck that will be present in the system, since an answer of "more than is playable" is a safe bet there.

In the light of what Frank said I revise my Mongoose scenario, shift it forward one more year and replace 4th Edition with 5th Edition.

Everyone of importance have been fired or laid off, though.

And Gencon is too late in the year for a release to make the Hasbro execs happy - they need to release at the end of Q2.

-Crissa

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1177568435[/unixtime]]Everyone of importance have been fired or laid off, though.

And Gencon is too late in the year for a release to make the Hasbro execs happy - they need to release at the end of Q2.

I'm not sure that's true. From my understanding (and I'm admittedly a little out of date on this), WotC is the only division of Hasbro that turns a profit 4 quarters a year. I don't think they'd be forced to release 4th ed, if they thought another release day would be better.

For my part, I'm going with release at Gencon 2008. Announce probably January 2008 or so.

Announced february 2008, released a year later.

From my understanding (and I'm admittedly a little out of date on this), WotC is the only division of Hasbro that turns a profit 4 quarters a year. I don't think they'd be forced to release 4th ed, if they thought another release day would be better.

Hasbro Profits are not based on D&D.

WotC is only part of the Games division.


Or to put it another way:

Stock Analysis wrote:The Games segment includes the design, development, marketing of traditional board and card games and puzzles, electronic games, trading card and roleplaying games.
...
Its core brands are PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, TIGER and WIZARDS OF THE COAST.

So seriously, the entire games section is WotC and Milton Bradley, and Tiger, and Parker Brothers. Remember that Parker Brothers is the source of Monopoly, so when they make statements like this:

Hasbro has been helped both with strong performances from their core products, such as Nerf and Monopoly, as well as toys from their licensing deal with Marvel.

They are seriously telling us that a strong performance by its Parker Brothers segment is propelling them forward within their Games division. Which means that D&D doesn't really rate a mention there.

So when WotC announces their 4th edition at GenCon 2007, and gets the DUNGEON and DRAGON licenses in house at the same time they'll be well set up for a Q1 release of 4th edition in 2008. At least, that's the Hasbro spin on it.

-Username17

It may well be true that Wizards profits all year - they never did have the Christmas explosion that the others have. Brands like Playskool and Parker Brothers are expected to sell half of their annual inventory in Q4.

But consistency is not what is wanted in a public company; Pokemon Profits are.

-Crissa

I agree with the fencebuilder.Another interesting
speculation will be if 3.5 goes out with a bang,a really huge
high-quality-no laughing,now-release thatWOTC can
doulble their money on by rereleasing it a year later
4th edition compatible,or will it dribble to a typical
ignoble end?One of the last first edition and second
edition releases(I think) involved Greyhawk.Perhaps
a (illegal?) 3.5 update of Ivid the Undying?Or has that
been done?I haven't looked at the public domain PDF
in a while.

I also agree with The Great Fence Builder on this one as well. GenCon 2009 release date is intuitiviely "feeling" roughly right when it come to timing.

Hasbro execs said they'd release earlier in the year as large buyers like Wal-Mart don't like products being released that late in the year.

That's all, we're looking at a June release.

-Crissa

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1177709107[/unixtime]]Hasbro execs said they'd release earlier in the year as large buyers like Wal-Mart don't like products being released that late in the year.

That's all, we're looking at a June release.

Does Walmart (or any mass buyer this side of bookstore chains) carry DnD products (Not to be snarky, I really have no idea.) ?

Neeek at [unixtime wrote:1177711049[/unixtime]]Does Walmart (or any mass buyer this side of bookstore chains) carry DnD products (Not to be snarky, I really have no idea.) ?

Yes.

But only hardbacks, and only selectively. Wal-Mart only carries it during core releases.

It's one of the reasons hobby stores are having a hard time - their meat gets taken away.

-Crissa

What are we betting, by the way?

Yo momma.

10,000 cp gold dusted to look like gp - all you need to do is scream, "Bree Yark!"