5.0-My-Goodness

Wizards of the Coast recently announced that they were releasing Dungeons and Dragons 5.0! A year from now. Wow. They want to "gather input from the fans" (like they haven't heard an earful over the last few years already). What I want to know is - how much product do they plan on selling in the next year? You don't see Wizards doing this with Magic: The Gathering. Why? Because they don't want to go an entire year selling no MtG! Get it right the first time and then build on it- You CAN make money that way!

It happens every time a new version of a RPG is announced - the old one becomes almost invisible on a store's shelves. The same thing happens in video games. When the next platform is announced, sales of the current platform dry up completely. The difference, in this case, is that typically the next edition isn't announced a year in advance.

Wizards continues announcing and releasing new products for 4th edition... but I can't imagine that they'll actually sell any of it. I know if I owned a comics/gaming store I sure wouldn't buy any of that dead product for my shelves.

This whole move just smacks of desperation, frankly. I think it's going to backfire on Wizards in a huge way - they just guaranteed flat sales for an entire year. I'd look for D&D to be in new hands within the next fives years. And you know what that means, don't you? A new edition!