To everyone predicting doom and gloom on D&D because of today's news-
D&D is a much stronger brand than you think.
Remember the end of the 2e days, when the game's creator had been shafted and shown the door by dishonest pricks that then plundered the company, mismanaged it into bankruptcy and sold it to an upstart CCG company?
You know, on the eve of the hobby's greatest resurgence since AD&D?
D&D is always one good edition away from a transition from merely market leader to pure, unadulterated dominance.
3 comments:
Am I missing something? What news are you referring to?
Wizards laid off several folks, including Bill Slaviscek, who was one of their lead designers.
This has led to a bunch of "D&D is doomed" and/or "Hasbro is going to stop making D&D/turn it into a board game" talk.
I agree with your comments. If Roberta Williams couldn't kill D&D, Hasbro certainly can't.
I think D&D 4E didn't sell as well as they hoped. I personally think WotC diluted their own brand with too much product, and not enough product lines (getting rid of the Star Wars license), and Pathfinder definitely took a chunk of their market away from them. Still, if 4E had been a total failure, these layoffs would have happened a while ago.
D&D will be fine. It just won't have as much in-house development as before. Given that freelance is the trend in the RPG business, that's not a huge shock.
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