Roll For Combat starts giving context to the Sigil disaster.
TLDR: The Colony Drop is real.
Wizards of the Coast's plan is to go all-in on the D&D-as-Lifestyle-Brand pivot. Actual game product development goes to Magic instead. Beyond is making the money, just not yet enough money- to do that they'd have to shut down all alternatives to Beyond that compete with it (e.g. DriveThru), and then lock in everyone into using Beyond to push product out digitally with a POD option. WOTC could do that, but current management won't; be grateful.
The Endless Product Slop will slow, but not stop. Expect a revival in D&D media instead; there will be more movies, series, comics, books, merch, etc. because WOTC's current management wants far more revenue for D&D than the game itself could ever generate and the attempt to make it so (via incompetence on their part) failed.
What this means for the hobby going forward is that, in an attempt to close off the prospect funnel into their own Walled Garden, they just plain broke it instead.
Remember that, despite all protests to the contrary, WOTC is still the sole party able to draw Normies into the hobby becausse only WOTC gets into Normie faces. Once D&D disappears from Walmart, Target, and other Normie retail outlets you'll see the same that happened when comics retreated to speciality retail: ghettoization, followed by a fall in social status and acceptance.
"But comics-"
No, Normies watch movies and TV shows because those media get into their faces. Comics don't. The fall-off of the MCU, and the failure of DC to copy it, proves that; Normies do not know--or care--about obscure comic stories from the post-ghettoization days, and it takes a massive investment in talent and execution to overcome that. (Don't think so? Go look up how Robert Downey Jr. was regarded before Iron Man, and how Iron Man was regarded before Iron Man; the story of that overcoming of Normie inertia shows what you have to do to overcome that inertia, and Marvel stopped doing that post-Endgame.)
"But that will destroy-"
No, it won't. WOTC is a corporation, and Tabletop doesn't do Line Go Up like other forms of entertainment media. Ergo, Tabletop gets the boot.
"But that means-"
No, it won't. WOTC has no competition within the hobby, and even post-abandonment its supreme Brand Power and Network Effect ensure that this will remain the case. All they need to do is keep Current Edition available to buy indefinitely, which they can do with a skeleton crew, and that position is on lock indefinitely- it's that strong.
Until the rest of the commercial actors get off their asses, recognize the need to get into Normie faces, and market to them directly by going where the Normies are not one of them--not Paizo, not Palladium, not anyone at all--will supplant WOTC in the hobby. They may have to do this as a collaborative effort, but they have to do it or the slow death by attrition is guaranteed.
Or they can just admit that Endless Product Slop is not a viable business model, go non-commercial, and earn their living elsewhere.
"Expect a revival in D&D media instead; there will be more movies, series, comics, books, merch, etc."
ReplyDeleteBut all these have the same caveat as the VTT: They need to stick the landing...
Given they are a converged corp. I'm not holding my breath.
Essentially shuttering the IP at some point is an option.
And while this is 100% true:
"Until the rest of the commercial actors get off their asses, recognize the need to get into Normie faces, and market to them directly by going where the Normies are not one of them--not Paizo, not Palladium, not anyone at all--will supplant WOTC in the hobby."
4e has shown that people will go to a viable alternative. Someone will need to step up. Someone will absolutely attempt to.
The hobby will contract either way. But if WotC continues the own-goals a WoW to their EQ can emerge over time.
In my opinion, this will play out over the next 10-15 years.