So, in my last post I talked about the sad demise of Gleemax and now I also find out that WotC’s publishing arm is contracting in order to focus on the same two core brands mentioned in Randy Buehler’s Gleemax blog. They issued a release on their site that spelled out the really basic terms of their new direction. You can read the release here at Wizards.com. Highlights include:
Wizards of the Coast today announced the decision to refocus publishing efforts on the company’s two core brands — Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. As part of this strategy, the Discoveries imprint will be discontinued after the end of the 2008 catalog year. Beginning in 2009, any novel or series that does not support these core brands will be removed from the publishing schedule. The 2008 publishing schedule will remain unchanged.
There you have it. First the digital and now the publishing arms of WotC are essentially cutting anything that doesn’t have to do with D&D and Magic: the Gathering. We can only speculate on what this is going to do to ancillary brands…all that crap they have listed on the front page of their website. Dave over at Critical Hits points out some clarifications from Gamer Zero (he’s in our Bloggers vs. Industry fantasy football league!):
- The Wizards of the Coast forums are not going away. Nothing will change with the D&D forum area.
- Staff blogs will continue to exist on our forums in our Staff Blog section.
- This is change is a very vrey [sic] good thing, as it allows us to focus on Magic Online and D&Di, both of which deserve our attention and resources.
Chatty DM makes the good point that this is far better than what WotC has done previously, which is to cover up bad things with more bad things. Or, as the DDI manager did a few weeks ago, essentially blame everyone but his team for the poor performance of their online offerings (or non-offerings in the case of DDI). He’s cautiously hopeful that this actually is a refocusing and that more resources will be put toward WotC’s killer apps rather than scattershooting a bunch of failed initiatives. I would like to see that as well, because D&D could have so many cool applications online. One thought I had earlier was what if they’d come out with a site that tracked your character’s progress through the adventure path? Like, for each encounter what you killed, things you found or figured out, maybe if your character went unconscious or not…then you could compare yourself against other characters of your race/class, or just all characters if you wanted to. That would have given more people an incentive to play through the path as well as come to the site regularly. It’s like the digital version of leveling up. Anyway, I’m not saying that’s the greatest idea in the world, but it’s one little thing that they could have launched 4e with to start getting people to integrate digital and real-world gaming. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this blog and following Gleemax it’s that it takes time to build an online space no matter if you start with zero fans like I did or hundreds of thousands like WotC has. Regardless, if they truly are committing more resources to great brands like D&D and Magic, then I welcome this news with open arms and look forward to the future. If they’re just making excuses and covering up a massive layoff and failure, then I’m disappointed but not all that surprised.
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12:12 am on August 5th, 2008 1
You know what I see happening? Wizards of the Coast is falling apart. Next to fall will be one of these two “Core” Products.
Why?
Not everyone likes 4e, and were I game I don’t see many people playing 4e. So - that means no money for the company.
Then there is M:tG. This game is so competitive it’s only value anymore is gambling through tournament play. I am just certain that someday people are going to look up from their cards and wonder, “What the hell am I spending my money on?”, then leave.
Wizards of the Coast needs to fess up. They are riding on the backs of their consumers. Every game is like a saddle. Strap one on and then you have this BIG company riding you for free ideas so you can buy them! Ween!
12:18 am on August 5th, 2008 2
I think both properties are here to stay. I’m personally still on the fence about 4e, but I don’t see myself playing it in the long run. That said, sales of 4e and Magic are both still reported as growing, so there’s no reason to think that either of them are going to die any time soon. Both games define their genres, and neither has any real competition (sure, there are other successful CCGs, but Magic’s too big, and too good, to be bothered).
9:19 pm on August 6th, 2008 3
Looks like the Trollsmyth agrees with you, anonymous.
3:39 pm on August 10th, 2008 4
Partly agree, yeah. Things were not trending in a good direction, there’s new management, and this management means to shake things up and get metrics moving back in a positive direction.
Unless sales are really, really bad, I don’t agree we’ll see either D&D or Magic get dropped. Both are, currently, a license to print money.
The digital initiative still has to prove itself, however. This new pricing scheme for unfinished D&D Insider is the first test. If a certain mass of subscriptions isn’t met, it will go the way of Gleemax. However, I’ll be shocked if the plug gets pulled before Halloween. After that, if the books aren’t selling, the department will be gutted to a skeleton crew, writing will be farmed out to freelancers, and we may even see the publishing schedule reduced to a book every other month, or even one every three or four months. In the meantime, there will be a strong push to market D&D to computer game and entertainment companies. Only if all of this fails will Hasbro/WotC consider selling D&D, so we’re probably looking at 2010 at the earliest.
And that’s a worst-case scenario. I have no idea how many people are playing 4e, how books beyond the core three are selling, or how many people are loving online Dragon and Dungeon enough to subscribe. It could be that the publication of even a broken, homely 4e has been the shot in the arm D&D and WotC needed, and everything will come up roses. It’s also possible that the new management has creative ideas to turn things around that I haven’t thought of. (Doing stuff like that is why they get paid the big bucks, after all.) Right now, I’m seeing all sorts of bad signs, but all of them are lagging indicators, signs of the health of the company many months ago. Things may have already turned around, but we consumers won’t see that for another few months yet.
- Brian