D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[FrogReaver]

I knew that would come up. I’d have to go find the thread, unfortunately.

It’s your own fault

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Another example that he uncovered with regard to internal politics was that, right before the 4E Monster Manual went to the printer, someone on the management team (he didn't say who) looked at the book, decided that the monsters' hit points were too low, and raised them all. There was no oversight, no review, no playtesting (in fact, the lack of any sort of organized playtesting for 4E among their fan-base was another point that was brought up), and the result was that a lot of fights against monsters early in 4E's life felt like a slog.

That very much describes my first experience playing 4e - the culminating fight against a black dragon, errr, dragged on and on, past the point of fun. And yet I still ended up running a campaign that lasted until the edition's end.

Hopefully the seminar drops to the Plot Points podcast.

 

[deganawida]

Snarf got it right. The takeaway of that point (as I recall Riggs presenting it) was that the lead-in to Fourth Edition was marked by the Hasbro executives looking at a game that had all the trappings of D&D becoming a global phenomenon with players in the tens of millions, forking over subscription money every month, and they wondered why D&D wasn't doing that. This (along with, if I recall correctly, the idea that WoW was siphoning D&D players, and that was why the 3.5 PHB sales were trailing off) became the impetus for 4E's creation.

They even made a commercial telling people to play elves in D&D! Anyone know where to find it? Anyway, the perception had to be there for that commercial.

 

[FrogReaver]

Snarf got it right. The takeaway of that point (as I recall Riggs presenting it) was that the lead-in to Fourth Edition was marked by the Hasbro executives looking at a game that had all the trappings of D&D becoming a global phenomenon with players in the tens of millions, forking over subscription money every month, and they wondered why D&D wasn't doing that. This (along with, if I recall correctly, the idea that WoW was siphoning D&D players, and that was why the 3.5 PHB sales were trailing off) became the impetus for 4E's creation.

To be fair to WOTC, almost every company in the world wanted to copy WOW’s subscription model. So it wasn’t just a them thing. In fact in some sense WOW paved the way for Netflix, Disney Plus, etc. gave proof that people would be okay paying for a service for things they once ‘owned’ outright.

 

[Reynard]

They even made a commercial telling people to play elves in D&D! Anyone know where to find it? Anyway, the perception had to be there for that commercial.

 

[delericho]

According to a chart he put up, the AD&D 1st Edition Players Handbook sold 1.5 million copies. The AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Handbook (including the revised version, which he says sold almost nothing) sold 1 million copies. The D&D 3.0 Player's Handbook sold just shy of 370,000 copies, while the 3.5 PHB sold a little over 300,000 copies.

Interesting. I had previously heard that the 2nd Ed book sold ~750k copies, 3.0e ~500k, and 3.5e ~300k - so each version sold fewer than its predecessor, but if you count 3.0 and 3.5 as "third edition" then they (just) outsold 2nd Ed.

I think the source for this was Ryan Dancey, or it could be my faulty memory. So don't take it as gospel.

 

[Voadam]

It'd be interesting to see the data on how much subscription money actually came in for the online services. Like when I started playing in the latter days of 4e, pretty much everyone seemed to subscribe and were happy with what they were getting. Like I don't doubt that some people paid once and were done, but I'd want some evidence that there were enough of those people to be a significant problem. I also feel like most of us weren't bothering to buy most of the physical books (personally I only grabbed the Rules Compendium to have an easy reference at the table and just printed out stuff from the online builder otherwise until I started DMing), which makes me wary of reading too much into the sales of the PHB alone. Like it's quite possible that my group was the exception and that the number of people subscribing was negligible, but I'd want to see the data before coming to too firm of a conclusion on how much money 4e was making comparatively to other editions.

I had been happily continuing on with Pathfinder for years into 4e when I joined a group playing 4e and so I bought the Christmas gift two player handbook physical set and started playing. I liked the system a lot but did not have a lot of books, mostly the core three and the second PH. I eventually decided the character builder was a good deal that would only get better over times so I signed up including a year of updates. I was one month in when my group decided everyone else was sick of 4e and wanted to do Pathfinder 1e, and WotC decided to switch from selling me new stuff I would own to a monthly online access only subscription rental model.

So I cancelled, got everything that had been in the offline CB, and ended up paying the first monthly payment only so once and done. So technically I count in that one and done category.

I had planned to keep up the yearly CB stuff and keep adding all the options from new books and dragon and dungeon, but I was not interested in paying monthly for a subscription for temporary access to a game my group was not playing.

 

[Nikosandros]

I knew that would come up. I’d have to go find the thread, unfortunately.

At some point in 2011, we had an estimate on the lower bound of 62,000 subscribers. The number was obtained from looking at the community group. It is a lower bound because you could be a subscriber and not part of the group, but you were removed from the group if you unsubscribed.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

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I remember seeing that on the back of comics. In hindsight, it feels a little mean-spirited. Also, his posture makes my back hurt.

 

[Scribe]

I remember seeing that on the back of comics. In hindsight, it feels a little mean-spirited. Also, his posture makes my back hurt.

Farming rep for hours is meant to hurt. Builds character.