Axman
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This isn't a controversial statement, and
I don't buy that for a second.
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Baldur's Gate 3 Twitter Tease
- Thread starter PeaKr
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This isn't a controversial statement, and
I don't buy that for a second.
Well their own financials are public so you can go check. D&D 5e revenue peaked in 2018 but remains strong, 2018 and 2019 were dominated by their MTG sales but overall their financials are very good. Strongest they have ever been.
Axman
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Hasbro lumps all their games together, from Monopoly to Magic.
Yeah but in interviews their CEO back in 2018 was all about how Twitch and Youtube helped bring D&D into the mainstream and helped create its most profitable year to date, and last year they were talking about how its tie ins with other products had made for yet another most profitable year and its tie in with GTG. Their last report was mostly about how the new MTG Arena has making them huge piles in cash and how instead of canabilizing their MtG card game it stood on its own and how they had seen a 9% increase in card sales since the digital game came out.
Axman
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5E is lagging in books and materials. Yes it's doing well consistently, and it's doing well for its size, but it's small; even with the small number of added materials it's tiny compared to 3E well before 3.5 came out, and 3.5 came out 3 years after 3E did, well more than the difference between 5E's release and today.
The edition needs a boost, D&D video games need a boost, and everyone hopes Baldur's Gate III is that boost, which it's in a position to be.
The last good D&D video game was Neverwinter Nights 2.
They're in a slump.
The edition needs a boost, D&D video games need a boost, and everyone hopes Baldur's Gate III is that boost, which it's in a position to be.
The last good D&D video game was Neverwinter Nights 2.
They're in a slump.
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Not actually, from what I saw. A few months after the release of the PoE 2 patch which added the option for TB combat, the Steam score for PoE 2 hadn't changed by a single % and there were only a few hundred more reviews of the game.
Who knows, maybe we'll get a PoE2 and get both systems as a choice
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 already had the choice by giving an option to enable auto-pause after every combat round. The RTwP in BG was round-based, so it was TB under the hood, but it played out in real-time. PoE's RTwP combat is like that, too, I think.
5E Has as many or more books than any of the other versions. But yes in terms of video games it doesn’t have anything at all.
Axman
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Not even close.
Wizards has published:
PHB, MM, DM Guide
Tyrany of Dragons
Elemental Evil
Rage of Demons
Curse of Strand
Storm Kings Thunder
Tales of the Yawning Portal
Tomb of Annihilation
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Baldurs Gate: Descent into Avernus
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
Mordenkainen’s tome of foe’s
Volo’s Guide
Rise of Tiamat
Sword Coast Adventurers Guide
Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica
Princes of the Apocalypse
Dungeon of the mad mage
Out of the Abyss
And a few others.... not to mention their tie-in’s with Rick and Morty, My Little Pony, Stranger Things, Penny-Arcade, Critical Roll, etc...
Or are you talking story books, not official campaign guides and rule books?
Axman
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Back in the day I had multiple shelves of 2E and 3E books. Rule books, box campaigns, adventure sets, and other game materials. It was all official, and none of it was the fiction. 5E is teensy compared to earlier editions.
At one point in high school I actually did the math and figured out I had over $2000 in books, and that was before 3E was released, and AD&D was before my time. No miniatures, no arts and crafts stuff. Books.
There are...*checks*...23 5E books.
At one point in high school I actually did the math and figured out I had over $2000 in books, and that was before 3E was released, and AD&D was before my time. No miniatures, no arts and crafts stuff. Books.
There are...*checks*...23 5E books.
You seem really desperate to be right about your random proclamation.
Axman
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Weird flex but it's true. D&D used to be a lot bigger.
Are you saying you want BGIII to suck?
Are you saying you want BGIII to suck?
So they are publishing like 4 official books a year and working in conjunction with tieins for more bringing it closer to 6. And then there is the content that they are releasing this weekend at the LVO I would hardly call that a bad release schedule.
Yes if you want to include all those Spell Compendium books, the Class handbooks, Then 2'nd and 3'rd had more pulbilcations but they have instead opted to release that stuff now for free on the website under the Unearthed Arcana content so they are digital compendiums instead.
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Axman
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To their credit the 5E (and 4E) materials are much nicer than 2E and 3E. Things picked up with 3.5.
On the other hand, 2E had a much wider range of materials. I don't think you could make a Dark Sun or a Planescape today if they didn't already exist as settings (should they decide to remake them; I think Planescape is in the works based on the Eberron book). Some of the stuff was pretty bad and stupid, I'll say that for sure.
I also think they're in a position to make a 5.5E PHB. The initial classes' kits and feats are small in number, and not terribly balanced. It would be one thing if they filled it out with splatbooks but they're clearly not going in that direction, focusing on higher quality materials over lots and lots of chintzy books.
I feel like you're measuring success and popularity the wrong way. You're trying to apply 80s and 90s concepts to the internet age. It's the same trap old media often falls into. The Youtube vids for their campaign episodes can draw in millions of views (and those are multi-hour long videos). At one point they had nearly 50k paid subscribers to their Twitch channel. There's also tons of other people streaming campaigns on Twitch and Youtube these days. D&D is incredibly popular these days. The difference between now and back then is that it's not in the news any more because the media has shifted to using video games as the fear mongering scapgoat to terrify dumbass people, so there is nothing artificially boosting sales and popularity.
They just announced recently the Wayfinder's guide to Eberron, I havent read it yet.
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I do miss the days of tabletop gaming = devil worship.
